Buying skill points from NPCs

[Estralis Seborian]

From another topic:

So, slightly off-topic, but as far as in game money sinks to offset the flood of coins from the NPCs having an unlimited ability to purchase all the junk laying around...

What about paying for skillpoints? The first points would be relatively inexpensive and then increase incrementally with the degree of difficulty. This would put a drain on the economy and remove the need to powergame skills leaving more time for roleplay.

An addition from my side: How about temporary skill boosts (buffs) for money instead / in addition to permanent increases in skill?

[LifeWonder]

I like the idea of buying skills permanently.

Skill 1 = 1 silver
Skill 2 = 2 silvers
Skill 3 = 4 silvers
Skill 4 = 8 silvers.
Skill 5 = 16 silvers.
Skill 6 = 32 silvers.
Etc..

Okay, that might end up being a little overpriced, but that can be adjusted.

[Djironnyma]

If it would possible to buying skill, that will have only three effects:

• lot more powergaming
• a bigger difference of skills from powergamers and roleplayers
• more money IG, i dont think that anyone will take the mony he have for skills, they will only make more mony to buy these skills

A better suggestion would be skillpoints for newbie quests, but that only for newbies....

[Azuros]

Instead of just for newbies, why not instead limit how much skill can be gained this way? For example, a player has zero carpentry, so he can raise that, but his woodcutting is 30 (or whatever number), so he can't spend money for skills anymore.

Then again, this doesn't remove the problem that it is usually the higher skilled/more experienced characters who have the large sums of coins.

[Valione]

Buying 'skills' from npcs?

WOw.... I think your all getting a bit carried away here.

I can see this game slowly turning into some kind of RS, why does everyone think that things will just fall into their laps? Sounds lazy to me.

Most of these proposals aren't adding to the game, sounds like a bunch of new players trying to change the game completely.

If you want to make a drastic change like that, why don't you just make another island like noobtopia, but call it skilltopia and have a bunch of 'masters' of everything like in WOW and have people who want to spend all the money on skills go there, and train under 'master x' who will give them quests etc that will increase the skills for cash...

Pff buying skills, yea cause 'thats' realistic and good rp.

[Lillian]

An addition from my side: How about temporary skill boosts (buffs) for money instead / in addition to permanent increases in skill?

Skill 1 = 1 silver
Skill 2 = 2 silvers
Skill 3 = 4 silvers
Skill 4 = 8 silvers.
Skill 5 = 16 silvers.
Skill 6 = 32 silvers.
Etc..

Why not combine both?

Lets say you can buy a skill for a limited time maybe 1 or 2 RL days but with each time you use this service you have to pay more.
Therefor you can boost your skill but that doesn't give a huge advantage compared to the characters with less money because it is limited to a specific time and the side effect is that more money will be spend ingame (well hopefully).

Ps.

Pff buying skills, yea cause 'thats' realistic and good rp.

Not everything has to be realistic, since it is a fantasy rpg.

[Misjbar]

Buying 'skills' from npcs?

WOw.... I think your all getting a bit carried away here.

I can see this game slowly turning into some kind of RS, why does everyone think that things will just fall into their laps? Sounds lazy to me.

Most of these proposals aren't adding to the game, sounds like a bunch of new players trying to change the game completely.

If you want to make a drastic change like that, why don't you just make another island like noobtopia, but call it skilltopia and have a bunch of 'masters' of everything like in WOW and have people who want to spend all the money on skills go there, and train under 'master x' who will give them quests etc that will increase the skills for cash...

Pff buying skills, yea cause 'thats' realistic and good rp.

Don't you just hate it when people criticize without supplying proper arguments or suggestions? What is it exactly that you dislike about this suggestion (the "BAD RP" argument has gotten a little worn down) and what exactly do you suggest as a good moneysink?

[Keikan Hiru]

Thanks Valione for your impressive insight into this matter and your great contribution on the topic. I am was not aware how 'noobish' I was until I recived your words of wisdom.

One has to decide how much of a burden gameplay has to be to the player.
Mindless grinds for skills is clearly no real RP (whatever it means to the individual) either.

Over the course of time I have spend in the game and even more on the forums, I have often stumbled across sentances like:
"I skill my character up before I really start roleplaying with him."
or more recently:
"After I hit the skill/learn-cap I have time to roleplay."

Provided that there is a huge influx of money into the game, either from NPCs with unlimted money, unbalanced treasure hunting, over-drops or whatever, any moneysink is worth thinking about.

If on the plus side, I am relieved from monotonous grinds for skills (which is much more RS-like), by spending money to some NPC and gain much more time to do different things, its a win-win for all.

It is very easy to create a NPC that only teaches a skill up to a specific level, or checks if there are other conditions that disalow training for money.
Everybody is able to write up such a NPC within 5 minutes by using the awesome SimpleNPC language the Developers prodived to the community.
(Yes, this is a hint that more people should take a look at it.)

[Valione]

Thanks Valione for your impressive insight into this matter and your great contribution on the topic. I am was not aware how 'noobish' I was until I recived your words of wisdom.

Thanks, it's always good to get the ball 'rolling'. I try.

Anyway, I did contribute, gave my opinion about it, and suggested a solution.

why don't you just make another island like noobtopia, but call it skilltopia and have a bunch of 'masters' of everything like in WOW and have people who want to spend all the money on skills go there, and train under 'master x' who will give them quests etc that will increase the skills for cash.

[Misjbar]

why don't you just make another island like noobtopia, but call it skilltopia and have a bunch of 'masters' of everything like in WOW and have people who want to spend all the money on skills go there, and train under 'master x' who will give them quests etc that will increase the skills for cash.

Ah my bad, I thought this was just a joking suggestion. Especially considering you first torpedo the first idea based on "Bad rp", then introduce this (something which is worse story-wise).

[Keikan Hiru]

Going back to topic:

This is one of the NPCs I have written in a coffee break.
Its far from being tested and was just a test for me, if its feasible to do such an NPC in one of the older versions of the SimpleNPC language.
The current version might make a script like this much more elegant and polished then this crude example.

In short this NPC looks for your current skill in distance and tells you how much money you need to give him so he raises your skill to 30.
This can of course be also done in steps, but I was lazy and wanted this to happen in one go.

I have shortened it, so you don't need to read through his chit-chat abilities and the whole list of keywords that came into my mind back then.

Be still warned of incoming wall-of-text:

Code: Select all

-- NPC Info
name=Varron Torsee
race=human
-- probably some forrest area / add somewhere
position=
direction=south
sex=male

-- general info
-- propose of NPC
-- this NPC teaches PCs some distance skill up to level 30
-- each skill level will cost 2 silver
[...]
-- training
-- english
"share experience", queststatus >= 2    -> "I cannot teach you any more."
"train", english, queststatus >= 2      -> "I cannot teach you any more."

"share experience", skill(distance)=29  -> "It seems I cannot really teach you much more, but I can sill give your technique some finishing touches. If you give me 2 silver coins and we'd be even. Deal?", state = 29, queststatus = 1
"share experience", skill(distance)=28  -> "It seems I cannot really teach you much more, but I can sill give your technique some finishing touches. If you give me 4 silver coins and we'd be even. Deal?", state = 28, queststatus = 1
[...]
"share experience", skill(distance)<=20 -> "Oh you've still got a lot to learn left. If you give me 20 silver coins, we'll start training at once. Deal?", state = 19, queststatus = 1

-- german
[the very same, just in german]
-- confirmation
-- english
"deal", state = 29, money > 200  -> "#me starts to show some tricks of how to use a bow properly. 'This is it.', he says later, 'Now you know everything I can teach you.'", skill(fighting, distance)+1, money - 200, state = 0, queststatus = 2
"deal", state = 28, money > 400  -> "#me starts to show some tricks of how to use a bow properly. 'This is it.', he says later, 'Now you know everything I can teach you.'", skill(fighting, distance)+2, money - 400, state = 0, queststatus = 2
[...]
-- this should be the fallback when the money is missing:
"deal", state >= 20              -> "You are supposed to pay me in advance. Maybe you come back to me when you have the money?", state = 0
[...]
"no", state >= 20               -> "Its your decission. I'll be arround here for a while longer if you change your mind.", state = 0

-- german
[the same, just german gribberish]
-- bye bye
"Farewell"                     -> "Farewell.", state = 0
[...]

Simple, eh?

[Olive]

i think a good measure for the maximum you could 'buy' would be your intelligence rating

int 10 mean syou can buy 10 int 18 means 18 etc

or perhaps the average of your int and will

[AlexRose]

So some orc fighters won't be able to buy points above 2 levels of skill.

Great idea there, Olive.

[Nitram]

The general idea is good Olive. But I think it would be in general better to focus on different attributes for different skills.

Maybe even on different attributes for the same skill at different teachers.

Nitram

[Llama]

Here's the problem with the general idea.

I'm a fighter, and I kill things and get items which I sell for money, I also gain skill.

I use the money to gain more skill, so I'm earing skill from 2 different sources.

This means that if I'm not the kind of person who spends all day collecting money/skilling, I'll end up with MUCH less skill than anyone else.

[Pellandria]

You will just be able to "buy" skill if you have not yet hit the skillcap, means you will not be able to skill more in the same time, you jsut spend a little money and get less money but more time to do other things.

[Boindil]

Why not make it possible to give the ability to chars so they can teach other chars, like it is in the magicsystem?

So chars with a certain skill, lets say 75% can buy a rune or whatever from a npc to teach. With this rune they can teach other chars a little bit in the skill they own the rune. But they'll lose own skillpoints when do so.

It does not have to be a rune, may it can be called "Master Certificate"!
The item could be a book or a pell.
Possibly new static tools could be implented so teachers can only "work" in certain room or at certain spots.

I'm not sure but I think I read something like this before and i would like it this way, so less npc work is needed.

[Azuros]

Why not make it possible to give the ability to chars so they can teach other chars, like it is in the magicsystem?

So chars with a certain skill, lets say 75% can buy a rune or whatever from a npc to teach. With this rune they can teach other chars a little bit in the skill they own the rune. But they'll lose own skillpoints when do so.

It does not have to be a rune, may it can be called "Master Certificate"!
The item could be a book or a pell.
Possibly new static tools could be implented so teachers can only "work" in certain room or at certain spots.

I'm not sure but I think I read something like this before and i would like it this way, so less npc work is needed.

The thing is, this idea is so that we can drain some of the large sums of money currently held by players, the primary purpose is not to make skill gaining easier.

[Q-wert]

I thinkt giving those an advantage who powergame endlessly and ignore any skillcap for getting money and who can spend that for endless skills in crafts or fighting is not quite... fair, compared to those who just want to roleplay someone with acceptable skills and need to do the same now, too.

Also I don´t know much about who is helding that lots of money, but I assume that theese persons are "skilling" and "moneying" quite a bit.
Why should those who already powergame that what is most profitable by the systhem and not do something unique or just doing more roleplay than skilling be advantaged?

But as my english is quite horrible, I just sighn what Dji said:

If it would possible to buying skill, that will have only three effects:

• lot more powergaming
• a bigger difference of skills from powergamers and roleplayers
• more money IG, i dont think that anyone will take the mony he have for skills, they will only make more mony to buy these skills

A better suggestion would be skillpoints for newbie quests, but that only for newbies....

[Skaalib Drurr]

----edited out--

[Pellandria]

If it would possible to buying skill, that will have only three effects:

• lot more powergaming
• a bigger difference of skills from powergamers and roleplayers
• more money IG, i dont think that anyone will take the mony he have for skills, they will only make more mony to buy these skills

Uhm sorry to say that but wrong...wrong..and wrong yet again.

1. "More" powergaming: I don't think there is any possibility to powergame after one reaches his or her skillcap, thus noone would waste ressources on trying, means everyone who buys a skillpoint will have a huge skillcap, so he needs to stay ig for quiete a while, thus eliminating a surplus on money and at the same time it means less powergaming, as noone powergames, if he hasn't some kind of advantage from it.

2.Bigger difference powergamer and rp'er: again it would be the opposit from it, now people could gain skill while they are rp'ing, means all those who worry about their chars are not what they should be skillwise can now buy a few skillpoints having nothing to worry as they play on.
So it leaves more time actually rp'ing instead of standing around hammering down on the mouse button.
Now you only need to add something like "you need to stay ig for another xyz hours untill the cap will be set free and you are able to learn something at all, will complettly diminish any powergaming uses from it, I somehow doubt that powergamers would even use such system at all, because its against their "nature", they will loose money and they have nothing to do, standing around in some cave saying nothing for hours will be punished anyway so everybody wins.

3.More money ig: how can a system, that actually looks like a good moneydrain, result in a surplus of money?
Those who powergame for money will have this money anyway and if the prices are reasonable even the players, who normally stick to rp instead of working, will be able to afford buying a few skillpoints and thus eliminating more ig money.

[Q-wert]

Again sorry for the shortness and bad english in my post..

I do not quite agree to what Pellandria did wrote.

If I play a roleplay based char, do well written campfire rp 80% of my time and slay monsters for getting the dammn skill I need the rest, i simply won´t have the money for buying myself any skill if the purpose of that system would be to take the money from those uber-powergamers with more than 5 gold in their chests or do smithing for getting money 80% of their time.

or shorter: If that systhem is for taking money away from powergamers, roleplayers won´t be able to use it, unless they start powergaming, too.

Addition: A systhem for buying skills would also drive more people to those crafts that are currently best for making money. Playing a tailor now, for example would be nonsense when smithing brings me more money and faster skillups with that.

[Pellandria]

Yeah but your mainpoint is that powergamers would have any advantage from it, which is wrong, as it would disabble their powergaming and taking money away, as I said the hybrid form, which most of the chars seem to be, meaning some work but also rp, could very well afford it, while powergamer, who could afford it, would be forced to stay ig and do soemthing else except skilling all day.

~~~~

Um es nochmal auf deutsch zu machen, die Preise müssten natürlich nicht so hoch sein, das man nur mit 3 Gold einen SKillpunkt kauft, also so das auch die Mischform von Rp und Arbeitschar sich das ganze leisten können, da jedoch die powergamer am Ende gezwungen werden mehr zu machen, als nur den ganzen Tag zu skillen, würden sie vielleicht das System sowieso nicht nutzen.

[Q-wert]

Fine, now take me as example.

I did "skill" by slaying monsters about 50 minutes today until I did reach the skillcap.
Money in that time: 160 coppers
found weapons and broken ones were equal.

If I would want to rp instead of powergaming, what i do want, how much would I have to pay that my char could affort that?

50 coppers? 100?

And do you think that this would be good for taking money out of the game?
I do not.

[Mr. Cromwell]

1.) You can make great deal of money by roleplaying. Buy low, sell high. Needs a lot of activity and connections, but it's doable.

2.) The more uses money has, the more valuable it becomes (eg. money can actually be spent on something instead of making piles).

3.) The system itself needs to be balanced in a manner so that it does not produce: 3a) Masters-of-Everything, 3b) Skilled people too quickly and 3c) Skills solely through paying (I think there needs to be training involved at some point, to prevent master smiths all becoming master fighters as well).

I like the idea, bascially.

[Q-wert]

*sigh* One last try.

Lets assume I would play a realistic fantasy-medival-warrior.
If I do realistic rp (as I just try to with my actual char):
-I can not read and write
-I can not count up to more than 20 without doing mistakes

The same would be for the bigger part of the population, related to the background of Illarion.

--> no trading rp for making money
Just those minority of nobles and persons with a sholarbackground would be able to do that.

Some activities bring more money than others. If I want to play something that does not bring much money, but I do want my char to do that craft/fightinstyle for the sake of rp I am even more disatvantaged than now.

A char with the right skill at the right craft can make much more than 5 silvers before reaching the skillcap. Lets say we have that proposes systhem to take money out of the game and want that 5 Silvers for reaching the skillcap immediatly so that one can rp. My fighter would have to reach his powergameborder more than 3 times or turn to the actual best moneysource, what is not always capeable with the concept of a char.
A char based onto the best moneysource from ooc-information could make 2,5 silvers, or even more, in the half of his skillcap time and buy the rest and would be possible to rp.

And finally: A char that has lots of money from powergaming before would be able to enjoy rp-ing and gaining skills like hell while newbies and former rp-chars need to powergame to get skills.

[Taeryon Silverlight]

*sigh* One last try.

Lets assume I would play a realistic fantasy-medival-warrior.
If I do realistic rp (as I just try to with my actual char):
-I can not read and write
-I can not count up to more than 20 without doing mistakes
--> no trading rp for making money
Just those minority of nobles and persons with a sholarbackground would be able to do that.

Some activities bring more money than others. If I want to play something that does not bring much money, but I do want my char to do that craft/fightinstyle for the sake of rp I am even more disatvantaged than now.

A char with the right skill at the right craft can make much more than 5 silvers before reaching the skillcap. Lets say we have that proposes systhem to take money out of the game and want that 5 Silvers for reaching the skillcap immediatly so that one can rp. My fighter would have to reach his powergameborder more than 3 times or turn to the actual best moneysource, what is not always capeable with the concept of a char.
A char based onto the best moneysource from ooc-information could make 2,5 silvers, or even more, in the half of his skillcap time and buy the rest and would be possible to rp.

And finally: A char that has lots of money from powergaming before would be able to enjoy rp-ing and gaining skills like hell while newbies and former rp-chars need to powergame to get skills.

To RP a warrior that is taken serious you'll always have to pg a bit.

If you have a char that was a warrior before he came to Gobaith you'll most likely even have to skill up to a certain point before starting to rp.

[Q-wert]

That is not what i want to say... I tried to show that the persons who try to focus on roleplay have even more disatvantages than they already have, if such a systhem would be taken into the game.

But as it seems that the bigger part of the playerbase does want that, I shut my mouth.

[Sundo Raca]

I dislike the idea.

As far as i can see this will simply uneven things even more between the powergamers and non-powergamers (apart from a few characters like the governor of trollsbane who would have unlimited money anyway).

Dont get me wrong, i agree there needs to be more uses for money, but im strongly against this.

I like the idea of a gypsy character, who sells a 'random' item for say 20 silver. This item can be absolutely anything.

[Pellandria]

A system like this would need balalncing indeed, but I think the idea that stands behind it would greatly improve to close the gap between those who waste hours upon hours on skilling. and rp'ers.

But lets get back to qwert.
Saying that they would have a disadvantage is, what I like to call it a "Milchmädchenrechnung", if you don't skill anyway you won't use the system, thus your char will have a disadvantage to beginn with, if the system is included or not.

Now getting back on people who work and rp, basicly if you want to stick to your rp, having a "dumb" char doesn't mean he can't be smart, hell people always improvised things in life, even while they might not normally considered wise in any way, if your char is a figther, than you can simply sell entrails and leather, just look at the trading boards, someone actually sold leather for 8 coppers a piece, 8(!) thats more than double the normal price and you want to tell me that your char is not "smart" enough to do things like this?

Btw. you could also just try to be a guard or a merc, this way you can get money trougth rp just as easy.

I still have to see the "will make non powergamer less useless" argument having any proove, untill now people just "think" it might happen, yet they don't explain it, sure it needs balancing and some regulations, so noone can be teached everything, maybe even including a certaint skillcheck, if someone pulls the old "jack of all trades" and raised all his skills to a certaint point, he will not be able to train at a npc at all, the same goes for weapon or craft training that won't get as much money as others do, those will be cheaper than smithing for example, it needs balancing yes, but its not a bad idea to beginn with.