Skill books. :)

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1d20
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Skill books. :)

Post by 1d20 »

Maybe this can evolve into something. It'd also help the non-PGers not be completely sucky or reach particular goals.

How about books that enhance your skills by teaching you techniques/tactics/whatever. They'd be magically transformed so that once you've done reading them, they vanish.

They'd raise something like current level/15 + quality of the book?

Books would thus have different levels.. such as beginner, intermediary, advanced, expert, etc.. each level would cost more and more expensive. (15 silvers, 20, 25, 30, 35..)

It's just a little raw suggestions, we can evolve from here?
Last edited by 1d20 on Wed Sep 30, 2009 12:46 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Kenneth Ladrus
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Post by Kenneth Ladrus »

Good idea, but wouldn't it be better, if the books were dropped randomly by monsters or if you maybe examine old bookshelves in ruins?

If you bought them, they would not be "special" anymore I think :P
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Post by 1d20 »

Kenneth Ladrus wrote:Good idea, but wouldn't it be better, if the books were dropped randomly by monsters or if you maybe examine old bookshelves in ruins?

If you bought them, they would not be "special" anymore I think :P
Sure, I guess.

Just throwing a suggestion out there really.

.. although the point would be to help people who don't have the patience to PG much to be able to get SOME skills.. to find books, you'd have to PG on monsters.. and if you a find a book, wouldn't you use it on yourself then instead of selling it?
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Llama
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Post by Llama »

Actually, there are plans to make certain quest NPCs give you some skill if you perform a few tasks for them. - and depending on the amount of skill you have already.

Does that help?
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Post by DemaraSilberherz »

Again same story... just the fighters should get the books ... ... so a cook would never be able to become one..
So that amounts to, that everyone has to become a fighter to get the best stuff.!!!!!!
And by the way if someone dont`t have the patience for learning the skills, then go and search another game!
Such games you can find enough in the net.......

I really dont have so much time, I like to have for Illarion,
but I dont care if I`m getting fast to my skill or slowly... ...!!!!!!
The game become stale if you get to fast the skill you like.... thats why so much leaving... I should be more difficult ,not easier......
(and I know everyone will hate me for saying that....)
I dont think thats the reason the game was created for.... ....(powergaming... :-( )
I`m playing quite a long time, and yes some chars are after some month better than me.... so what....

and saying" I just wanna help the non-PGers is silly, if such books would exist, everyone would like to use it......
just getting more easy for powergamers...

sorry my opinion is that they are more important things you could think of...... ;-)
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nmaguire
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Post by nmaguire »

The easier it is for powergames, the less powergaming is done, not more. If skill takes ages to get then people will be powergaming loads.
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Post by DemaraSilberherz »

come on you can become almost everything you want in some weeks....
you wanna become a fighter ...train every day... and I bet in less a month you`re one of the best....
and that takes long....hmmm?? :shock:
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Thrym
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Re: Skill books. :)

Post by Thrym »

MoonDust wrote: How about books that enhance your skills by learning you techniques/tactics/whatever.
Maybe we should "learn" you how to speak first. :lol:

But this does sound like a good idea. It's similar to books in ES4 (don't know about the older games). You can read *certain* books which will advance a skill one level, but will not advance it any further after that. There may be three different thieving books, all of which will increase your lockpicking by one level, but they are in various unknown places and will only work once.
1d20
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Re: Skill books. :)

Post by 1d20 »

Thrym wrote:
MoonDust wrote: How about books that enhance your skills by learning you techniques/tactics/whatever.
Maybe we should "learn" you how to speak first. :lol:
Thanks for being a douchebag and sorry if your great supreme English isn't everyone's native language.
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Post by 1d20 »

DemaraSilberherz wrote:come on you can become almost everything you want in some weeks....
you wanna become a fighter ...train every day... and I bet in less a month you`re one of the best....
and that takes long....hmmm?? :shock:
Some of us have to get off the computer sometimes you know..
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Vern Kron
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Post by Vern Kron »

Personally, I am against crafting getting books. There would be very little difference then, and crafters would nearly instantly going to the top, with little difference in skill. I can -read- about how to make paper roses every day, for two hours every day, and not manage to get it ever. The same is true with this.
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Olaf Tingvatn
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Post by Olaf Tingvatn »

i dont think this will be a good idea..skillbooks..what is this? Oblivion? :P

you sound more like you want to make it easier to become good at something. you gotta work for it just like the rest of us. AND another argument, would you rather have every character in the library reading books all day? or actually out and about Role Playing and powergaming?

As for the monsters drop books thing, i would rather have them drops coins, weapons and armors.
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Kranek
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Post by Kranek »

SOlution:
Every time you login your char gets a random check, just like daily-condition. If you are lucky:
"When you woke up, you see a small book near ya. YOu pick it up."
Tada: Magic learning book ;)
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Cassandra Fjurin
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Post by Cassandra Fjurin »

DemaraSilberherz wrote:come on you can become almost everything you want in some weeks....
you wanna become a fighter ...train every day... and I bet in less a month you`re one of the best....
and that takes long....hmmm?? :shock:
I think we should reduce the learning rate. :twisted: :twisted:
I don't think that the time you need is a problem in Illarion. I think the larger problem is: You can master all your skills in a, more or less, short amount of time. The most players don't want to play a roll if theirs skills are less than perfect. So they train, and train and train. And after they know: "Now I am one of the best", they start to play. We don't have much common characters which have moderate skills. In most cases the skills are very high (I want to have the best character) or very low (I don't have the time or i dont feel like training much often).
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Post by Retlak »

I actually agree with Cassandra, but however then you would need a skill wipe and that will set everyone off on a shouting spree.

-Matt
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Post by Mr. Cromwell »

That's nothing which can be solved by a skill wipe, namely because the problem stems from player attitudes and not from the mechanism of gaining skill itself. What I mean is, that other players simply will not take a weak (non-high skilled) character seriously. This is particularly true in fighting, from my experience. As people don't particularly enjoy being snubbed and treated as irrelevancies by the people with high-skill chars, they consequently train to reach a level where they can do stuff and can be a (potential) threat, which causes a change in behaviour of other players.

Eg. When players know that their characters can whoop someone's ass at leisure, the beaviour of their characters reflects that, even if the character could not have any idea about the other's skills or abilities. In a nutshell, if you don't have the skills to be taken seriously, there are times when you won't be taken seriously. Period.

How deleting skills would influence or help is something that I find curious suggestion, since the Matt's of the game would have a fully PG'd character in less than three weeks after such a wipe, whereas normal players would not have such skills in months or years. Skill wipe will simply create the same situation all over again.

This is how I'd explain it, anyhow.
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Post by 1d20 »

Why do you assume that players are being affected by other players' characters' skills?

Isn't normal even for characters not to take another character that hasn't trained in the past and can't fight seriously?

I'm not sure why that's bad behavior from the players.
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Post by Mr. Cromwell »

Heh, I am not actually referring to a "Dantagon is a shitty fighter, even Cromwell beat him in a duel"-situation.

Rather to "that character is a character mine has never seen or heard about before, so he probably is new and I consequently don't have to take him seriously", which happens. The line I am trying to draw here is that while in Illa everyone basically comes on the island without skills and with two left hands (stupid), that's in my eyes player knowledge and not character knowledge, since there's no reason for characters (most of whom have some background etc themselves) to assume such stupidity. As you then dismiss the person because of his low fighting skills...

Well, lets just say that the attitude you expressed actually reflects the "problem" perfectly. If the char can be beaten, there's no reason to take him seriously, thus everyone who wants to be taken seriously will skill up to the 70-90 range and then start playing the game for real. :)
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Post by 1d20 »

Ooh, now I get what you mean.

I was trying to say that if a character walks up to my character and threatens to beat him up, if my character hasn't seen him in combat or hasn't heard of him being an able fighter, he definitely won't take him seriously at all..

But I agree with the fact that newbies or skilless people shouldn't be ignored or not roleplayed with, I haven't seen anyone do that yet though.
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Post by Cassandra Fjurin »

So now the large question: how can we solve this? A skillcap where you have a global amount of skillpoints. If you hit this cap, another "long not used" skill, will decrease if you wan't to increase another one (this is the ultima online principe). So you can't be master in all skills. Maybe there are other good ideas around.
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Post by Estralis Seborian »

Skill books? I prefer skill increase as quest reward. I don't see much benefit in an item. By the way, a book that increases a skill upon reading it is a "two liner", but how to get these books needs elaboration.

On skillgain in general, I am still convinced that online time should be the main influence on skillgain. If you do few actions per online time, you gain much skill for each action, if you do many actions per online time, you gain little skill for each action. In the end, you can do whatever fits your character, work your ass off or do casual playing, you get roughly the same amount of skill. Together with some boundary conditions, such as idle detection and a robust control circuit, we have a maybe lame, but very fair and relaxing skill system.

But I repeat myself, all is written down somewhere else. I also did a computer simulation with many parameters and styles of playing and I could make skillgain independent from style of playing. Fun for all - who plays Illarion most, gets most skill no matter how often you craft the very same lame handle - as long as you don't AFK.

I dislike an UO like skillcap and prefer a maximum of liberty to shape any character I want to play. I want to be able to play a jack of all trades and not care about how many times I can click before I have to idle an hour again.
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Cassandra Fjurin
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Post by Cassandra Fjurin »

@Estralis

I don't like this. It's somethink like: "I wan't the same skill for doing nothing else than talking, as someone who spent hours and hours of training"

We aren't a P&P RPG. Where we can decide what is good rp and what not. An online detection is also unfair. What is for people who haven't enough time of beeing online? People which use their time for going online, do training one hour and logging off? Maybe on the weekends they can spend more time for playing their role. We do so much to decrease powergaming but we forget that a job costs in RL 1/3 of a day. In medival ages it was more than that. But if someone IG lets his char work for hours all cry "Powergaming!". Sometimes i think its the envy because the other char is better than mine.
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Estralis Seborian
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Post by Estralis Seborian »

I should have added: If you do no actions, you gain no skill. In the essays I wrote, I also stated that one needs to spend at least 1% of his online time for actions (the needed action points!) to have any benefit, so no skill for talking. But a variable skillgain for individual actions, depending on the style of playing. Basically what you added in the 1st and last revision of the MC-system, no strict cap but a decrease in skillgain with increasing MC points.

Note that all what I have in mind is basically nothing else but a modification of the MC-system; with the only (huge) difference that the MC points don't go down linearly but app. exponentially and you always stay in the "variable" range of skillgain.

Currently, you have to adapt your style of playing to the skill system. Hit the cap? Idle an hour or log off. Cap is down? Work! Any minute online is lost for skillgain if your MC points are zero. And; how comes you can increase your fighting skills in no time but have to spend ages of senseless handle carving to make your first staff?

The question is: Who you want to reward? The one who knows all the tricks and rapes his char to play like the skill system demands or the one who plays this game most?

But the topic is skill books. Here they are:

Code: Select all

function UseItem(User,SourceItem,TargetItem,Counter,Param)
    User:increaseSkill(5,"pwnage",10);
    User:inform("OMG U PWN! +10 PWNAGE!!!111");
end
Replace the text with something fitting ;-).
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Post by 1d20 »

I had like 4 NPCs made before my PC needed a format and I lost everything on it.. I even think I sent them to you Estralis, but they were never used?

Do players-made NPCs still matter anyways? I'll make some that give skill if you'll REALLY use them..
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Post by Aust »

I agree with Cromwell, but I think you misunderstood Matt, Crommy. He was not in favour of the wipe, he was in favour of a reduced learning rate, but he realised that such a change would require a wipe, because people would complain about the chars maxed at the old learning rate. However, such a wipe would piss people off, so in the end he was not in favour of the reduced rate after all:P

Oh well, jokes aside, I like, and have always liked, Cassandra's UO based suggestion. The cap could vary for each char depending on the char's intelligence?

I also like Estralis' ingame time based suggestion, which can easily be comined with Cassandra's. This would ensure that really old chars do not become gods, so that it is possible for new chars to achieve status.
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Cassandra Fjurin
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Post by Cassandra Fjurin »

I wipe won't solve anything. It makes the problem (we don't have chars with moderate skills) larger. The players who train often (i don't like the word powergaming anymore) have their skills back in a few weeks/months. The other player have low skills for a long time again. Currently we have some older players who has increased the skills in more than a year and played the RP very well. So we lost this players as "moderate" chars.

To the UO Idea: I planned this before the Mental Capacity system. But many GM's think that it will kill the fun if you can loose skills during learning another skill. Currently we decided that we won't change the learning system until its discused internal, or maybe with the players.
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Post by AlexRose »

I've always said a wipe is a crap idea. It favours new players who powergame a lot. Exactly the opposite of what illarion is about. So the older players who don't like skilling up who've skilled up over the course of a long period of time are screwed whereas anyone who recently came to illa from runescape is now one of the strongest people ingame.
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Post by Keikan Hiru »

I actually like the idea of skill manuals very much.
Everything that allows me to take a short cut from the grind is a very welcome addition when you know that the time you can spend ingame is horribly limited, or saves me from crafting the 100th short handle, while hoping the god of random number generators looks down on me with favour and increases my minor skill.

If its made with a reasonable stepping and clear limits, which Estralis version (which I know isn't serious at all) lacks of, I think they would make a wonderful (trade-)good in game.

They could enter the game as drops, as quests rewards for static quests (one time quests of course, no npc-farming) or as a fairly limited stock of certain NPCs.

These kind of books would need a certain stepping, each higher tier would be more sparse then the predecessor.
Something like:
Amateure guide of [Skill], raising your skill by 3 levels until you hit level 20.
Advanced guide of [Skill], raising your skill by 2 levels until you hit level 40.
Expert guide of [Skill], raising your skill by 1 level until you hit level 60.

As Estralis already pointed out, its trivial to script these items, the question is if you want such things in game or not.
So, yeah, something like that I would like a lot.
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Post by Juliana D'cheyne »

Agreeing that a char wipe would be the ultimate frustration for older players not only skill-wise but the history of the char would be gone completely...... and getting back to the original proposal:
Everything that allows me to take a short cut from the grind is a very welcome addition
Those that don't seem to care about skilling when they join the game appear to stay due to the roleplay. Those that connect skilling with their roleplay i.e. who their char actually is such as a fair smith able to earn money and sell his wares get frustrated....some quitting the game entirely. Ideas that would help this IMO sound good.
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Cassandra Fjurin
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Post by Cassandra Fjurin »

I am against each static skillgain without the chance to fail for each skill higher than 30.
To read a book, don't guarantees to learn something.
And back to the current skillgain: it isn't to slow and it's not random. Each unsuccesful try increases the chances for the next try as long as the chance to success is 100%
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