My main issue with the skill degradation is that it feels unfair. 1. The game doesn't tell me where it's gonna hit and it shouldn't require me to remember something like that. At least give me an indicator which skill(s) I didn't train for the longest time to give me a chance to counter the effect. 2. Since classes and training have (pseudo)random variants (which is a good thing btw), there's no sure way to counter the effect of skill degradation even if I did knew which skill to train. That makes it objectively unfair in my book.
IMHO that's really what it boils down to. It's perfectly fine to make something (somewhat) challenging, but even with random aspects the player should stay in control or rather NOT feel like it's out of their control.
Hmmm, that's always a point of discussion. Even though I completely agree with your general point, I do have a counter argument/question. Isn't the initial degradation of a skill a warning enough? You are only losing 1 point of a stat max. With an average daily gain of 3 and a maximum of 7 stat points, that's almost as close to a warning as it gets without it being just a normal slap on the wrist.
Honestly, I personally don't like the warning signs hanging over my head all the time, so that's why I opted not to have anything like that here. Almost constantly forcing me to split attention. The penalty is minuscule if you just forgot about the stat and was planning to keep it up. I would completely agree with you if the degradation was something like 10% or even 5% of your current stats, but you are never losing more than 2% of you stats (usually closer to 1%), and you can replenish that almost instantly if you are ever planning to.
You may have a different view on it, because you know the mechanics and can say that's how it objectively works. Players have to make assumptions based on the effects, so until they have figured out the mechanics (if ever) their reaction is more emotional than rational. First time I encountered skill degradation I already knew it might take multiple days to increase a skill and I couldn't tell what the actual degradation value was, because I didn't remember what the previous skill value was. At that point I may or may not have succumbed to the temptation to look at the source code. ;)
Now obviously(?) I'm not saying I've got it all figured out. That people might consider an indicator "threatening" is a valid point and something that didn't occur to me, so there's that. I'm just offering my perspective, but at the same time I encourage you to keep making the game you want. I'd rather have a game with a couple things I'd consider flaws than a game with all the edges filed off.