Changes to the skill cap making it more rp/player friendly

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Pendar
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Changes to the skill cap making it more rp/player friendly

Post by Pendar »

A while ago there was a thread what is wrong with Illarion were I boldly stated very little was wrong with the game. I still maintain my point of view that we have a larger more versatile client a growing number of players again and the game is going from strength to strength.
How ever I assume the point of that thread was to find realistic problems with the game and get ideas on how best they can be addressed so I have found a problem one I think is pretty large. That stated I will attempt to firstly explain the problem and offer some solutions. The biggest problem the game currently faces is the skill cap system it is a great idea and step in the right direction how ever I do not believe it has had the desired affect.
The idea I believe was to move the focus away from skilling up and back to the heart of this game role-play how ever what has occurred is that players who are skilled focused still focus on skills and those focused on role-play still focus on rping.
I believe the game will always work that way as it is not a purely graphical chat client as such there will always be skills and as such there must always be away to obtain them and to stop the game being filled of masters the gaining of skills must always be challenging. Often insanely so as the lengths and efforts people will put into skill gain is at times remarkable.
The affects of the current skill cap are as follows.
1. Players reach there skill cap in a chosen activity and logg out returning an hour later to train again. In turn in a month or so we are going to have certain grand masters who have not for me as a role-player but the “effort” in to be part of the games fabric.
2. Players cap and logg on to another character, which means we have some people playing master smiths, great warriors and soon mages all on one account. I know certain Po’s achieved this on the old map but there time spent in game was massive and far exceeds the time required now.
3. Players who can perhaps only dedicate a few hours a day to the game or perhaps not even play daily are at a greater disadvantage than ever. On the old map you could logg on 4 times a week rp your guts out with people 3 times and the fourth time when the game was quiet go and slay beasts or craft for a mind numbing 45 minutes and raise X skill.

I am personally blessed with potentially 6 hours a day to play this game how ever I am painfully aware many people are not in that position I truly feel for them that the client now rewards available time above anything else. Available time you don’t even have to spend in game instead you can logg in and out building skills with out much inter character interaction. I am aware any online game always favors players with time to dedicate to it and we will never escape that in fact perhaps important that players with master skill can be online often or have been playing for months. The problem I see at the moment is if you have 8 hours online you can raise skills 4 times at least spending just over an hour in game.

The solution is far from simple however the skill cap which remains a great idea has to some degree back fired. I have given this a lot of thought and numerous solutions spring to mind.

Idea 1
Remove all messages pertaining to skills, remove the little blue skills colors instead just having a skill appear when you earn it and the book of knowledge to gauge progress. Let our characters work and fight as they see fit unaware of if they are gaining skill or not. Randomize the skill cap and length it takes to wear off and let’s all just play doing as characters would in a true role-play setting.
It would encourage time spent in game it would stop people working the system to maximum skill gain. It may not be popular but it may work?

Idea 2
Lets move with realism and a more level playing field setting the skill cap to a maximum gain of 3 levels a day I believe that would work out to 21 points but of course have no real idea. That’s X amount per 24 hours this means those skill orientated players can come on skill up and logg out for all I care  but it would also enable players with less time to spend in game to keep pace. As such people with 9-5 jobs could skill as fast as younger players on school holidays. It would at least put an end to the skill race people only appearing to skill up. End result is at least when a character hits master you know they have been in game a fair amount of time and have not simply had more hours per day. Perhaps these levels could be stackable up to 3 days so if you miss a day you can come on and learn 6 or not.

Idea 3
Keep skill cap as is but the time only runs out if you are ingame the end result being basically forcing people to rp and spend time on the client not working skills. I don’t mind this again at least your master has spent his hours, it does not help X with limited time daily but online rpgs are always biased to time. It would also cause people to play one character for a decent time not switching between 3 and skilling them up.
In a way this may be the most eloquent solution causing an increased player count a more constant population of characters and rewarding the players who make the game alive.

Idea 4
Learning points per hour in game which you can then spend on a specific skill causing your skill gain in that chosen field to triple. Again I don’t mind this reward player for rping and make skills easy. Yes there will be those who try and logg on and minimize the client or go and watch television. They will eventually be caught out by a GM I would hope and regardless I refuse to make the game a police mechanism for elements none of us want here any way.
Because lets face it skills are boring to get on any game illarion is not designed to be engaging in that way and clicking the same block for 40 minutes is no fun for any one.

I could spew out more I am sure and perhaps feed back to this will lead me to a really good one. Maybe you disagree entirely and that’s fair enough I might be a minority but please if you are going to post on this add something, share your opinions. This is not about pging or how people play the game. I would rather this didn’t get so long and full of BS no one can read it by page 8.
This put the usual silliness aside and work towards a better system to make our wonderful game even greater or keep it the same and put my and other peoples mind to rest that things are not right at the moment
My thanks for reading this far
I trust this constitutes a real proposal
Brian
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Post by falco1029 »

choise 1 gets my vote.
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Moirear Sian
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Re: Changes to the skill cap making it more rp/player friend

Post by Moirear Sian »

Pendar wrote:Idea 1
Remove all messages pertaining to skills, remove the little blue skills colors instead just having a skill appear when you earn it and the book of knowledge to gauge progress. Let our characters work and fight as they see fit unaware of if they are gaining skill or not. Randomize the skill cap and length it takes to wear off and let’s all just play doing as characters would in a true role-play setting.
It would encourage time spent in game it would stop people working the system to maximum skill gain. It may not be popular but it may work?
I wouldn't mind this method. Irl, the only way to know when I'm taxing my limits in physical training, for example, is when the body is trying to end it pre-emptively from over-exhaustion. Or when reading too much, eyes start getting weary, etc. But in Illarion, there is no drawback to training too much. When you reach a skill cap, and you know you have, you could in theory continue training in a chosen skill without any drawbacks other than that you are not gaining in skill (oh no—can you sense my terror?). So, why even notify about reaching the skill cap? Because the player may want to plan appropriately and focus the character on gaining in a fight skill rather than a craft skill? This is silly. As a hardcore RPer, I must say, a carpenter who goes fighting for kicks and reaches his cap by raising fighting skills, and then goes to carpenter, knowing that he's not gaining any skill now for carpentering, is silly, some might say, because it's not what the player wants. But if the player was sticking true to the role of a peaceful carpenter, why did they go fighting in the first place? In short, I think it's silly to actually know when you reach your cap. Caps are normally invisible to players in other games, and such was never detrimental to roleplaying.
Pendar wrote:Idea 2
Lets move with realism and a more level playing field setting the skill cap to a maximum gain of 3 levels a day I believe that would work out to 21 points but of course have no real idea. That’s X amount per 24 hours this means those skill orientated players can come on skill up and logg out for all I care  but it would also enable players with less time to spend in game to keep pace. As such people with 9-5 jobs could skill as fast as younger players on school holidays. It would at least put an end to the skill race people only appearing to skill up. End result is at least when a character hits master you know they have been in game a fair amount of time and have not simply had more hours per day. Perhaps these levels could be stackable up to 3 days so if you miss a day you can come on and learn 6 or not.
I don't understand the "levels" or what system you mean. I don't understand ratings of how skills work. In short, as a player of this game, I don't know jack about its mechanics, because I'm both here for the meat of it (the roleplaying), and because I am too lazy to monitor and observe these things.
If what you mean is extending the skill cap to a longer amount of time (I once suggested one week or one month), while also raising its height and increasing the speed of the gain, I do wholeheartedly agree with this idea. I'd see it as a reward to people who spend 90% of their game time RPing and not doing the things that skill them up.
Pendar wrote:Idea 3
Keep skill cap as is but the time only runs out if you are ingame the end result being basically forcing people to rp and spend time on the client not working skills. I don’t mind this again at least your master has spent his hours, it does not help X with limited time daily but online rpgs are always biased to time. It would also cause people to play one character for a decent time not switching between 3 and skilling them up.
In a way this may be the most eloquent solution causing an increased player count a more constant population of characters and rewarding the players who make the game alive.
No objections here, I would not mind this. From what I know alot of people make a sport of skilling up, logging out, logging back in later, and continuing the skilling-up. What a stupid way to play this game, imho. I could not do such a thing, I'd have to ram matchsticks in between my eyelids to keep up at playing this game like that.
Pendar wrote:Idea 4
Learning points per hour in game which you can then spend on a specific skill causing your skill gain in that chosen field to triple. Again I don’t mind this reward player for rping and make skills easy. Yes there will be those who try and logg on and minimize the client or go and watch television. They will eventually be caught out by a GM I would hope and regardless I refuse to make the game a police mechanism for elements none of us want here any way.
Because lets face it skills are boring to get on any game illarion is not designed to be engaging in that way and clicking the same block for 40 minutes is no fun for any one.
I don't like this method, because it puts in too much interaction between the player and their character's skill setup. I like the general approach of Illarion's that basically says: 'You are what you do.' The skills are a sum of action in the character's in-game past, and skills are gained purely from doing whatever must be done. This inspired me to an Idea 5, however.

--

Idea 5:
All skills of certain "trees" (combat, craft, magic, bardic, thieving, etc.) pool together respectively into a total each. The total counts against the individual rate of learning within that same tree. Someone who diversifies too much within a skill tree will slow down their skill gains, someone who specializes will see their skill gains progress faster. This would require some deeper restructuring, I assume, but it would be necessity that the skill cap is then based on respective actions that cause skill gain, rather than on the effective points gained in a skill.
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Estralis Seborian
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Post by Estralis Seborian »

OK, I will dare to give out some details about the system: With every action, you create "Mental capacity points". Those points decrease with time, if you are on and also if you are off (a bit slower, though). If you reach a certain level of MC-points, your char does not learn anymore.

We can tweak this: Maximum level of MC-points, level of no more learning, increase rate per action, decrease rate per time. Those factors were tweaked more than once, and I think we have good values right now.

I do not understand your main point; a player with not much time has the chance to raise his skills without shift clicking like hell and "powerclickers" do get nothing out of it. Maybe you mean that this system discourages players to stay on, but hey, no one hinders the player to continue clicking if it fits the role or he / she needs raw materials.

Idea 1 is a thing to talk about; however, removing the messages would lead to a bad state (can't tell you the details, sorry).

Idea 2 has nothing to do with Illarion ;-)

Idea 3 would discourage players, believe me. Skillgrowth would be zero for most chars.

Ideas 4&5 are completely new systems. martin will kill you ;-)
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Post by Turonga Mudwater »

I dont mind it too much how it is, although option 5 is particularly appealing. All of my characters specialize because no one in real life has 6 different jobs (as many characters curently do) infact in the old client Turonga got lumberjacking skill and I was actually pretty upset, prior to i had Gemcutting and Mining that was it, that is/was all she was good at. I think that would help the problem of characters being totally independant and knowing every skill, because in my eyes thats a bigger probelm than this PGing stuff.

You talked about a character going past the skill cap....I do it all the time. Lets look at it this way, I dont care about skill gaining, Turonga thinks shes the best miner there is as it stands, she enjoys mining, why not continue mining after the skill cap? I RP exhaustion and physical tiredness, infact once I basically collapsed in the shop from sheer exhaustion. The skill cap doesn't deter me from continuing with that activity, I think the message should just be removed.
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Post by Moirear Sian »

Estralis Seborian wrote:I do not understand your main point; a player with not much time has the chance to raise his skills without shift clicking like hell and "powerclickers" do get nothing out of it. Maybe you mean that this system discourages players to stay on, but hey, no one hinders the player to continue clicking if it fits the role or he / she needs raw materials.
Maybe you do not understand because you are not playing yourself.

If you are so involved in roleplaying, it's sometimes nearly impossible to gain any skill at all (and I'm not talking about campfire nonsense, I'm talking about interaction, the meat of this game, pure and simple). While the people maximizing their in-game time in respect to skill gaining progress much faster, in fact in an obscene rate when compared.
Estralis Seborian wrote:We can tweak this: Maximum level of MC-points, level of no more learning, increase rate per action, decrease rate per time. Those factors were tweaked more than once, and I think we have good values right now.
I disagree with them being too good right now, I firmly believe the cap should be tweaked to the point where those people who play less during the timeframe of a week have at least a little bit of the chance to keep up at a rate where they at least follow back in behind those who have more time they can put into playing.
Aristeaus addressed this point way before the wipe, and many other players feel the same way about it; as such I have trouble comprehending why the game was tweaked to reward the lunch-time players who sport their maximum possible skill gain in any given time within 24 hours.

Example: You have one player who can play three times a day, one hour each. You have another player who can play three hours in a row, but only on the weekend. The way it is now, the latter will never be able to compete with the former. Skill-wise.
What Pendar was addressing (I think), was that someone who sports the maximized skill gains possible, does not even have to integrate themselves within the game's interaction, but will still be far ahead of those who spend their time with what is meant to be done in this RPG.
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Post by Estralis Seborian »

Well, I see that point now; a player who plays 3 hours in a row gains less skill than one who plays 3x1 hour, right. With our current system, there is nothing to avoid that and -honestly- I do not see the big problem that requires a brand new system. Such a system would count the online hours and limit skillgrowth by them. We had a discussion about such a system in the team and it was declined for two reasons: a) it would need a lot of work to code it b) it has does not affect short term skill growth, just long term skillgrowth. The intention of the current system is to let powerclicking become senseless, not to control or even out skillgrowth among all players.

There will always be a way to gain more skill than everybody else. Currently, it is being online long and often & working just a reasonable amount.

Edit: And I do play this game, quite alot. I see many things that do not work properly by staying in touch with the game and I myself proposed the last "player friendly" tweaking of the MCS.
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Post by Moirear Sian »

Regardless of the intention, it is backfiring just like the 10x10 seemed to have backfired and demotivated alot of oldtimers from playing, because quite frankly, try RPing alot and gaining within the 10x10 system: You will feel like you're breaking your back holding up a 1-ton-safe on your foot and pulling off a handstand at the same time, while discussing nuclear physics.

I don't know about Pendar's intentions, but mine personally on this topic are this: I have yet to have complained about the MCS (is this the term for the skill cap systems?) because I couldn't tell anything significant about it only a few days or weeks after the wipe. A danger I see in this system though, is that it is adversely rewarding anybody who spends little to no time in interaction, but maximizes their skill-gain to the point where they undoubtedly aim for being the best fighter, smith, whatever. I am not directly complaining about the system, but about the effects it seems to be taking on the game. I assure you, in a few months, alot more people will be complaining about this when "nobodies" of the game world are suddenly taking control of things because their skills allow them to.

Because now it's not senseless clicking, it's senseless logging.
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Post by Gro'bul »

I think it would just create a new challenge for the pg'er to collect and analyze different data, which is impossible to completely get rid of. I hope, biases to known craftsman inhibits these people from selling their product in public. This way, they would have to rp and gain reputation and respectability in order to make use of their skills.
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Post by Fooser »

Numbers #1 and #2 are more frustrating.
4 and 5 are interesting, but we don't want Martin killing anyone.
and #3 is hurting those who don't have 6 hours (6? damn :wink: ) even more, which you described earlier in your post.
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Post by Berengar »

1. Players reach there skill cap in a chosen activity and logg out returning an hour later to train again. In turn in a month or so we are going to have certain grand masters who have not for me as a role-player but the “effort” in to be part of the games fabric.
I don't think that's a problem, because even after about 5 hours break the "you can't concentrate..." message appears after killing 2 trolls :wink: , so the MC-point recovery is alright in my view.
You have one player who can play three times a day, one hour each. You have another player who can play three hours in a row, but only on the weekend. The way it is now, the latter will never be able to compete with the former. Skill-wise.
I do agree in this point. Maybe the MC-point amount and their recovery could be changed from recovering daily to recovering every 3-7 days. Example: If there are 100 MC points now there would be 300. If you don't log in for 24 hours 100 points again, if you don't log in for 3 days 300 points again. Just an idea...

One final thing: I don't think that we do have such a huge powergaming problem. As Pendar once wrote it seems to be a "strom in a teacup". The only problem I see are the "master of everything- chars". In my view it is not powergaming if 2 town guards fight each other (if they dont exagerate it, and thats not possible because of the skill cap), not even if they do that regulary. They are guards! :D However, I do consider it as powergaming if a guard keeps smithing all day long.
Maybe the skill cap could be extended, so if your fighting stats go up, the crafting stats go down (to a certain level). This wouldn't be a class system which we dont want :D , you could still play a fighter/smith char, but you just could not master both. There are already limits for fighter/mage or fighter/druid chars due to the stats so why don't extend it...
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Post by Konstantin K »

Estralis Seborian wrote: There will always be a way to gain more skill than everybody else. Currently, it is being online long and often & working just a reasonable amount.
From this post I understand that having more skill than others is not a big deal of a problem.
But in this case - why were my skills reset based on them being higher than everybody else's?
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Post by Aristeaus »

I agree with this point, as a full time worker and someone who has obligations in my out of work hours the evenings I do spend in Illarion are consumed with intense roleplay. And the times which the roleplay opportunity is not present I log off, where as before if the roleplay opportunity was not present I would stay online awaiting for the chance of roleplay coming forth, and whilst I waited I would work upon my skills, be it mining or training to fight.

Currently there is no point, where once was the feeling of achievement when training there is now the knowledge that for the hours which I have to play, Being bunched together as they are, leave me no opportunity to gain skill.

This creates a larger problem, as in my eyes this is a view taken by many players. Whereas in the past when the roleplay wasn’t there and players could work on their characters, they were ONLINE. Even if they were not roleplaying but skilling as you call it. And when people are online more people come online. And this in itself creates the opportunity for the roleplay. Whereas now when there are not people present chars just log of as there is no gain in staying online and talking to yourself.

In my opinion the skill cap as it is causes a majoy hinderance for the game. Not all steps forward are the right steps.

i apologise if this has allready been written, as i have not time to read the previous posts
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Post by Cassandra Fjurin »

Konstantin K wrote:
Estralis Seborian wrote: There will always be a way to gain more skill than everybody else. Currently, it is being online long and often & working just a reasonable amount.
From this post I understand that having more skill than others is not a big deal of a problem.
But in this case - why were my skills reset based on them being higher than everybody else's?
Have you EVER tried, finding the problem on your side of the pc? Have you ever EVER tried following the rules? Why can 95% of the people accept it when they have done something wrong, but you dont? Get rid of you paranoia, the world and especially the GM's are not hunting you. Its yourselfs fault if you got banned or your skills get reduced, not the fault of the gms.
Have you ever asked yourself why your chares are identified as a char of you, so easily? ;)
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Post by Moirear Sian »

There was no other explanation for the skill cut other than "your skills were over the double of the skills of other people."

Regardless of the person, pretty weak excuse. Ban followed after it for different reasons, as such I'd like to reprimand the GMs to be a bit more honest and not transport their fake opinions on powergaming over to such judgment calls upon players.

In short, on the outside some other people besides me will surely see a "witch hunt" in this behaviour for a powergaming "rule" that should be obsolete by now, considering that Estralis more or less said that the game encourages "powergaming" now and that that is fine and dandy.

PS: If you had actually contributed something to the subject of this topic, I'd probably react differently, but "Wie man in den Wald ruft, schallt es wieder zurück," eh?
To be quite blunt, there are quite a bunch of players at the time being who are pretty pissed off to see the rules on powergaming were expanded on the main website, but the game is actually encouraging to powergame while nobody notices.
In short, get your act straight... sooner or later some bunches of people might follow Martin's advice to find other games when they're not comfy with Illarion.

/Edit: And I forgot to add, it is not *me* who is quitting the community any time soon, this is just something that singing birds chirp down from trees to me./
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Estralis Seborian
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Post by Estralis Seborian »

considering that Estralis more or less said that the game encourages "powergaming" now and that that is fine and dandy.
Never said so. Illarion does not promote powergaming. It's your favourite topic, eh? The PG-rule was not expanded. Which rules did your read? We just changed the examples.

Now, the topic is the MC-System. We have it and it is a great improvement IMHO. In the old days, the one who clicked most became grandmaster in no time while the true roleplayers never reached anything. Then, there was this period of major mistakes (spring / summer 2003) what spoiled a lot of fun for me and others.

Online time pays out. Logging in pays out. Senseless clicking on the same old stone billions of times does not pay out. Fighting hordes of monsters for hours does not pay out. I still do not see the major flaw of this system. Sure, we can tweak it here and there, but after I gave out the details (martin will kill me ;-) ), I did not read a proposal concerning this.
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Post by Moirear Sian »

a) I already proposed what's there needs to be tweaked, but if you neglect my and other people's proposals just because they weren't repeated after your input, that's not really my problem. I'm not here to spam, they are there, I've suggested them longer ago, I've suggested them again on this thread, I was even quoted by Berengar on the issue (see above.) Furthermore, I do not know the exact details of how the MCS works, but my suggestion of expanding the timeframe it works with still stands (and this is repeating myself for about the 6th or 7th time.)

b) Of course PG is my favourite topic, I won't let loose until you people finally break down over it and realize that this is one of the few things in which I am right, and you are wrong. ;) The idea behind it, fine, the execution, miserable. Find a clear line to draw between PG and non-PG, then we can discuss it like grown-ups, as it seems to me sometimes like anything I've ever written upon the subject was categorically ignored. As to what rules I read, they are on the front page! "No lurking around monster spawns", tsk, alright, so fighters will not fight anymore, that is, if you don't happen to like the players behind the fighters, because I sure as heck know that you "see all" and let alot of people do exactly what's forbidden. I do not see all but I do see some things.

c)
Estralis Seborian wrote:Online time pays out. Logging in pays out.
Sure sure, you may calmly belittle me now. We'll speak about this again in a few months, when we've seen that logging out pays off now too, if this does not take some more tweaking. Need any more details on the tweaking? They're all above, all you need is read, and as you're the masters and designers, it's up to you how exactly you tweak it, anyway.
Here, for the sake of completeness, I'll repeat myself again:
You have one player who can play three times a day, one hour each. You have another player who can play three hours in a row, but only on the weekend. The way it is now, the latter will never be able to compete with the former. Skill-wise.
That's what you need to balance out sooner or later. Oh, and I dare say Arist's post hit many nails on the heads.

Thanks for reading.
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Aragon
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Post by Aragon »

Moirear Sian wrote:
You have one player who can play three times a day, one hour each. You have another player who can play three hours in a row, but only on the weekend. The way it is now, the latter will never be able to compete with the former. Skill-wise.
That's what you need to balance out sooner or later. Oh, and I dare say Arist's post hit many nails on the heads.
Thanks for reading.
If I understand your example right, the first one plays 3x1x7=21 hours in a week, the second 3x1x1=3 hours in a week.

Would you call it fair, when the second one has the same skills than the first one?
If a factor of 7x more online time doesn't make some difference in the skills of both (and you recommand to solve this by tweaking the MCS), the growth of skills in the whole will be more than slow ... as to say there won't be really any success in skills.
Slowing it to such a rate of progress will be much more frustrating for players.
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Post by Llama »

If a person is online for more of the time.. he should be able to grow skills faster... if he wishes to play instead of doing something else, let him/her...

However i agree that there should be a limit to how many skill, but loggin out shouldn't do any difference....

The tiredness is a good idea, [better idea, make tiredness heal faster if you sit down and drink and eat, this will encourage people to go to taverns and socialise]
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Post by Konstantin K »

Cassandra Fjurin wrote: Its yourselfs fault if you got banned or your skills get reduced, not the fault of the gms.
Cass. I am not asking why I was banned. I know that I was banned because I was obviously asking for it. I cannot have this game take any more of my time, thats is why it's better to be banned. I was banned for being rude to GMs. Still, an unexplained skill cut - that's what made me snap at you, people. Well, and your God-like attitude.

But I do want to know why my skills were cut.
Skill cut started everything.
I got twice better than everyone else, because I picked on hard monsters from day one of my training.
My skills were reduced with that explanation.
Now I just want to bring it up and receive my answer.

The ban is a separate issue, which I am not discussing. I don't want to be unbanned.
But if the skills were not reduced, I'd never go rude on the GMs.
Have you ever asked yourself why your chares are identified as a char of you, so easily? ;)
Eeeeh.... DUUUH.

1. Every character of mine has initials K. K.
2. IP address.
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Estralis Seborian
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Post by Estralis Seborian »

This is what we can tweak:

Maximum level of MC-points: Up or down?
Level of no more learning: Up or down?
Increase rate per action (fighting/crafting): Up or down?
Decrease rate per time: Up or down?
Frequency of decreasing: Up or down?
Ratio of the decrease rates online/offline: Up or down?

I read it all, believe me. I just have problems to "translate". I read that Berengar proposed to change the frequency of decrease to 1/some days. That would mean, one can raise his skills twice in a week, not more. So, logging in twice a week would be the way for maximum skill growth.

I see Aristeaus' point; the current system discourages those who play their role even if there is no one around. Would removing the messages help? Would it help that you just have to rest some minutes after the cap was reached?

Concerning fighting: The MC-points created by fighting actions are less than those created by crafting. That means, one can gain more fighting skills than crafting skill in the same time. However, fighting actions are much faster than crafting actions, thus, one gets the feeling that fighting skills are harder to get. Wrong ;-)

When I play, I barely get the messages if I am just crafting; sometimes, after many dozends of actions, maybe. I assume the true problem is fighting, no? How does that sound: We decrease the learning chance AND the MC-points created by fighting. That would mean, one has to kill more monsters to get the same skill, but does not get the message so soon. It would be a step back, though.

Just to quote something:
9. Powergaming
...
Examples are to train with other characters without a roleplay background or always hanging around spawn points.
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Cliu Beothach
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Post by Cliu Beothach »

I cannot have this game take any more of my time, thats is why it's better to be banned.
But...you are still hung up on it.
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Konstantin K
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Post by Konstantin K »

No, Cliu. I just want my answer.

If it's okay to grow skills at any pace I can, why was I cut for growing them faster than others. As soon as I get the answer from the GMs, I will shut up.
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Misjbar
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Post by Misjbar »

which I am right, and you are wrong.
Sian, from page two. This is the main mistake anyone who discusses something makes. They think they are right, and the other is not. You cannot know, until you have completed the discussion. This kind of attitude creates an enviroment, where no one will be "right" and it will just be bickering. From what I can tell, both sides are mostly bickering, while not looking AT ALL at eachother's proposals. But, that is just my view, correct me if I am wrong.
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Moirear Sian
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Post by Moirear Sian »

@Misjbar: You missed the ';)' after that statement when you quoted it, or you didn't even ponder its meaning.

@Estralis: I just got back and it's late here, I'll go over it tomorrow, but for now, thanks for all the detailed info.
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Gro'bul
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Post by Gro'bul »

I don't understand the difference between the two messages you get while you are performing an action that could possibly gain skill and you are at the cap. The second comes after the first, but if you aren't gaining any skill whats the point of the second message, just an extra reminder or a penalty or something? Just because you can't learn anymore doesn't mean your character is unable to logically keep killing/making/doing something because he wants the result for a reason other than skill.
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Pendar
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Post by Pendar »

Estralis,
Thank you for your time in looking at the proposal and doing what you can to shed light on my misunderstandings, developers feelings and your own.
I do find it strange that the staff as a whole is satisfied with people training 20 minutes, moving to another character training 20 minutes and logging out for a few hours and repeating the process. How ever if that is the case then so be it, all I can say is that it certainly happens and often. I have even done it myself. Simply as now if the RP in game is dull and I am at my skill cap I am not motivated to remain in game. How ever if I players dont stay in game it is really hard for the rp to pick up.

In the long term skill gain non of this is going to matter as judging by the speed skills raise in 3 months one is going to be pretty good any way. Much like the old server, were it took me 3 months to create a semi decent warrior.
How ever the current system really does little to address power gaming but as stated does favor players with more time to pop in and out of game.
I would love to see a system that enables players who maybe only have 9 hours a week to spend in game not get left behind entirely. As on the old server they could have spent 3 hours skilling up straight. As such closing the gap, some what. More than ever constant time to logg in will gain you skills.
I would also like to see a system that rewards being in game and not working skills, as surely if we want illarion to be a true role-playing game the system should encourage players to do that.
I see Aristeaus' point; the current system discourages those who play their role even if there is no one around. Would removing the messages help? Would it help that you just have to rest some minutes after the cap was reached?
My worry has never been power gaming unless it is so extreme as to be ridiculous. Often I am more concerned what people do with skills, sure if a smith masters up and for no rp reason gives all his armor away ruining the market...that’s no fun or pking I dont care if you are grand master or novice your skill is not the problem your actions are.

So what about once you reach the cap, it takes up to 3-5 hours to go away if you are not in game.How ever in game it can take 40-90 minutes?
That offers even skill orientated players a reason to stay in game and RP.

Also how does this work, I am mining I hit my cap. I continue mining for raw materials, is my cap going down already or do my MC points start recovering only when my character is not performing an action?

Any way many thanks
Brian
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Moirear Sian
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Post by Moirear Sian »

Estralis Seborian wrote:Maximum level of MC-points: Up or down?
Up.
Estralis Seborian wrote:Level of no more learning: Up or down?
Up.
Estralis Seborian wrote:Increase rate per action (fighting/crafting): Up or down?
If you mean rate of skill gain: Up,
If you mean rate of MC points: No change.
Estralis Seborian wrote:Decrease rate per time: Up or down?
Needs clarification on what you mean with this
Estralis Seborian wrote:Frequency of decreasing: Up or down?
Needs clarification on what you mean with this
Estralis Seborian wrote:Ratio of the decrease rates online/offline: Up or down?
No change.
Estralis Seborian wrote:I read it all, believe me. I just have problems to "translate". I read that Berengar proposed to change the frequency of decrease to 1/some days. That would mean, one can raise his skills twice in a week, not more. So, logging in twice a week would be the way for maximum skill growth.
Not if you don't powergame.
Estralis Seborian wrote:I see Aristeaus' point; the current system discourages those who play their role even if there is no one around. Would removing the messages help?
Removing the messages, I don't know. You wrote it "would lead to a bad state", but also that you can't say why. Personally I'd like to know why, or we can't discuss this properly.
Estralis Seborian wrote:When I play, I barely get the messages if I am just crafting; sometimes, after many dozends of actions, maybe. I assume the true problem is fighting, no?
No, as I said, if in a few months "nobodies" start taking over important sectors of the game just because of their skills and without RP—Gro'bul wrote the utopic vision of the more integer characters turning to other integer ones instead—the "nobodies" can still form parties, and they'll still have the higher skills, which will undeniably make people turn to them. Sorry, but Murphy's law is undeniable, it will strike again, whether you like it or not. When there are just so many active players at the game, the aforementioned utopic vision will not occur.
This does not concern only fighting skills, this concerns all skills, be it anything that has to do with spellcasting, fighting, or any craft. Of course, if you want exactly those lunchtime-players to be dominating the game sooner or later, this is all hot air and there's nothing wrong with how it is right now. Then I can say: "Great work! Have a good time," and leave quietly.
Estralis Seborian wrote:How does that sound: We decrease the learning chance AND the MC-points created by fighting. That would mean, one has to kill more monsters to get the same skill, but does not get the message so soon. It would be a step back, though.
I do not like this.
9. Powergaming
...
Examples are to train with other characters without a roleplay background or always hanging around spawn points.
Those words you stressed with italics like that are not stressed like that on the frontpage.
"At the moment, I do not feel like hunting monsters, hell, why should I gain skill when I never know when I'm powergaming or not? Chatting and RPing is more fun anyway because it's the meat of this game, and I don't want to break any rules. Then again, I could just go play other games, too, because an RP-chatroom in IRC is just about as fun as going to go play 'cowboys and indians' with some kiddies."
—Point understood, or do I need to elaborate more?
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Aragon
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Post by Aragon »

Gro'bul wrote:I don't understand the difference between the two messages you get while you are performing an action that could possibly gain skill and you are at the cap.
As far as I know, the first message indicates, that the learning success is less, than before the message. The second indicates, that you can't learn anything from now on, until your MCS-points get down.
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Estralis Seborian
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Post by Estralis Seborian »

So what about once you reach the cap, it takes up to 3-5 hours to go away if you are not in game.How ever in game it can take 40-90 minutes?
That offers even skill orientated players a reason to stay in game and RP.
Pardon me, but this exactly what we have now. The current numbers are in the same order of magnitude as your proposal.
Sian wrote: Maximum level of MC-points: Up
Level of no more learning: Up
Increase rate per action (fighting/crafting): No change.
Decrease rate per time: Needs clarification on what you mean with this
Frequency of decreasing: Needs clarification on what you mean with this
Ratio of the decrease rates online/offline: No change.
With decrease rate and frequency I mean this: Every X seconds(minutes, hours) the MC-points decrease Y points. Example: Someone has 100 MC-points, when the frequency is 1/60s and the rate is 5, the MC-points would decrease once in a minute by 5 points. :arrow: after 20 minutes of resting, there would be no more MC-points (this is not the current state!).

Now, to your proposal: Sounds good for me, however, I'd like to explain what this would cause:

Maximum level of MC-points: Up :arrow: One would have to rest longer to get rid of the MC-points. It is possible that it takes serveral hours before the points are totally gone. On the other hand, one could learn more in a row.

Level of no more learning: Up :arrow: No change is the distance to the maximum level of MC-points remains the same. If not, the time to recover would decrease / increase.

Are those the changes the ones you intend? If yes, I guess we could do this. However, I assume that the learning speed will be decreased to balance it out. Currently, one learns quite fast.l
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