Public Explanation of MC

[Pugnacious]

I believe this is needed. I met a very nice newer player that had no idea why he couldn't learn anymore. I tried to explain it to him, but I wasnt even sure how it exactly works. It came down to, dont learn anything, but stay active IG, somehow. talk to others wasnt much of an option since we were the only players IG. Walk around, but dont do anything. For hours. I said 3 to 1. 3 hours doing nothing for each you want to do anything. Maybe that is optimistic, but works for me. For my old characters, it is easy, they are maxed, cant learn anything. But for a new character, everything they touch is a learning moment. Some clarity and certainly adjustment is needed.

[Nitram]

That is the nice thing about the MC system. It throttles the learning speed but it does never stops learning.
The total amount of skill points you gain over a specific time frame never changes.

It does not matter if you spend 2 hours skilling or 1.5 hours wandering around and 0.5 hours skilling. The total amount of skill you gain is the same. Obviously the amount of items you produce and the amount of resources you require is higher in the first case. But in matters of pure skill gain it is the same.

So the MC basically boosts your skill gain, in case you did nothing skill related for some time. That is all it does.

So the skill gaining is not balanced by the amount of actions you need to do in order to get your skill up to 100. But by the time you need to spend training the specific skill. The amount of actions varies by the amount of "free time" your character gets.

Nitram

[Pugnacious]

Nice. But to a new player that needs to learn everything, and a real new player that doesnt know all that. An explanation in the tutorial or somewhere in the beginning of the game, should be given. Otherwise someone could spend a day, powergaming a certain skill, then find out they cant learn anything anymore, and not know why. The next thing to do is quit. Maybe they might stay, if they knew why. It is still a stupid system.

[Estralis Seborian]

Hello and thanks for the input!

As this is the proposal board, we should derive a concrete proposal what to change and how to change it. We already have an explanation of MC in the FAQ section of the homepage. If it needs rewording, please say so! In addition to that, I think we should add the following:

• An additional sentence in the tutorial that mass production is not necessary to advance in a skill
• A hint of the day with similar content
• A reminder when you get your first swirly
• A reference to the FAQ in a hint of the day and during the tutorial

I'll create a corresponding Mantis ticket.

All in all, it is like Nitram describes. You never stop learning. If you do many actions over time, the system compensates the amount of skill you learn by each action to guarantee that over time, everyone learns the same. It is not necessary to rest if you don't want to unless you have limited materials.

It's a little sad that you consider the system to be "stupid". Actually, I think it is a pretty sophisticated system that uses simple yet effective principles. One can argue if it is a little too sophisticated as people continue to struggle understanding it. One can dispute the intention to scale everyone's skillgain by time spend in the game - but it was and is my impression that this is wanted by many players of our target audience. The skill system is one aspect that makes Illarion stand out. I don't know a single game that does a similar scaling for the benefit of those who don't want to click like a jackhammer in a roleplaying game to get to a decent skill level. I fully acknowledge that some would like to have a skill system that orients on the number of actions done rather than on time.

Estralis

[Ilmarinen]

Just my two pennies.

As a person that has been gaming since the BBS days of yore (My old fave was one called Equinox), this system does seem very effective, unique and sophisticated. It adds an element of fairness to a game that caters to both casual and power gamers.

However, I can see where Pug is coming from...
This sophistication and uniqueness of this system can easily cause confusion especially for people that come from other games as it is not something they are likely to have encountered before and that is both a positive and a negative.

It shows that Illarion aren't "just another indie game" and that they are willing to innovate and dream.
However, it also means that documentation is critical as it is not "expected behaviour" so will cause a lot of confusion.

Basically the ideal scenario would be to explain everything but if you don't have the time or staff to do that straight away then you would want to look at the bigger games such as WoW, Diablo, Guild Wars, Runescape, Neverwinter, D&D etc...

If you have something that ISN'T in those games (such as the MC system) then you would want to make sure THAT is documented at least so as not to confuse people.

[Mephistopheles]

Why not give a message when a player reaches a certain mc threshold? ie. 'Your mind is foggy, you seem to struggle to learn much more today."

[Nitram]

Because there is no such threshold.

[Ilmarinen]

I think Meph means is there a point where the server slows down the learning rate to a substantial degree that could trigger an emote.
In a numbers game this might be something like

50/1000 Stage one
100/1000 Stage two
150/1000 Stage three
...
...
800/1000 Stage X (the point where it reeaaallllyyy slows down) - Server recommends that you go socialise/slow down

It may not be as simple as that but i think that's what he is getting at...

[Evie]

I had a character with 9 million mc.. at that point I was maybe learning but it was not noticeable in any measures it was frustrating and me as a seasoned player was ready to delete the character out of that frustration. If it had not been for a gm at that time telling me their MC, and me trying to 'cool it down ' for a week then trying again. I would have blamed it on the character set up or system faults. We may never stop learning but at some point learning is so painfully slow that it is a player frustration. Trying to play a new loner hunter character, my character type in this example, will always result in these spikes. Every act to get food or hunter for the hunter character is going to raise MC. And new characters do not have the resources to buy their food before that idea is tossed in.

I know the goal of Illarion is not to focus on learning or worrying over mc, but the fact is as a player it gets very frustrating if you see no results and have no idea why. I can only imagine how this bothers new players. My tentative suggestion is at the 7 million mc mark, a player should get the inform like "You have been learning many new things, perhaps its time to take a walk and make new friends and relax."

My Ideal proposal would be a "mental Health" zen like npc.. that gives out messages to players based on MC..
The reading would be
0-4 Million mc "Your mind is fresh and awake to learning new things."
4-7million mc "Your mind has processed many things lately and you should consider relaxing"
over 7 million mc "Your mind is a whirlwind of new information. Deciphering anything new will take time."

Fee schedule for this "Mystic" npc would b similar to the trainer schedule. It would start out reasonable low like 50 silver, then grow over time capping at about 5 gold or so. This allows players to self diagnosis there characters in an rp setting, but also provides a new money sink to the game.

[Pugnacious]

Tomorrow, Galmair has an arms training day. If my MC is low, I can profit from it, but if it is high, it becomes a waste of time, other than the social part of it. Being able to learn, when I have the time and when opportunities prevail is important. Having to do nothing or next to nothing , to be ready for an event sucks. I play often, but just logging on to reduce my count sucks. For those that want balance. I can just play 30 minutes a week and learn as much as you, I dont care about that. If you want to learn, log in. If I spend the time, I should see the reward. And if you dont, well you were not IG. I was IG, I deserve the reward. This game suffers from a lack of players. reward those that put in the time. Not those that just drop in for 30 minutes a week.

[Estralis Seborian]

Dear all,

in fact, I need to correct Nitram's statement slightly: There is a threshold on the lower boundary of reason. If you do absolutely nothing over a very, very long time, the skill you can learn by one action is capped. This avoids that you get e.g. 10 level ups by one action at once. It is a theoretical threshold and I doubt it was ever reached by many players.

We clearly need to improve the "documentation" of this unique system. I've proposed a client sided display, called "Orb of Activity". It is not a bar and does not rely on some auto emotes. A bar would always send the message that it should be "full" or "empty", what is absolutely not the case if you review what the system is supposed to do: To decouple player behaviour and skillgain.

The basic idea is to have a nice orb being displayed in the client that changes its colour. When you are at average mental capacity, its colour is green. If you are at low MC points (=much skill per action), it changes gradually to blue (=bored). If you are at high MC points (=less skill per action), it changes to yellow (=strained). In colours, we go from #0000FF over #00FF00 to # FFFF00 (replace FF with CC for "nicer" colours). This sends the message that average MC points are "green", to be understood as "normal".

The problem about the proposed messages is summarised best in this sentence: "Server recommends that you go socialise/slow down.". This is not what the game should do because it ultimately undermines the whole purpose of the system. You can play in whatever way you like and have the same skill after the same (overall) time. It might be frustrating to learn little by each action; but this only happens if you did many actions that gave you tons of skill. There is no need to rest, you won't get skill any faster! The resting time could also be spent skilling. I realise this is still not understood.

I suspect some still think that you "lose a constant amount of MC points per time by resting". That is not the case. You always "lose" MC points, no matter if you do actions or not. The amount is a percentage of your current points. So if you have many (=worked a lot), you lose many over time. If you have few (=lazy), you lose fewer and fewer over time. If you play in an almost constant profile, your learning speed will also stay constant. And this overall learning speed is independent from your "MC level". So you can skill-rest-skill-rest or skill constantly - same skill after the same time, your choice! I know it feels different, but your behaviour has no influence on what overall skill you can get in a given time. For a short term observation (e.g. two hours of gameplay, then quit the game for good) it might feel different, this is acknowledged. It is also acknowledged that gathering processes (e.g. mining) might raise your MC to a level where you feel the urge to rest before you do final crafting (e.g. smithing). It is commonly neglected that the mining skill is raised as players deem the smithing skill to be what the actually want to raise. Even if Illarion has no class system, from this, it can be derived that specialising on a limited number of skills is beneficial. I know we have few players in the game to specialise in e.g. the role of a shearer, but still, it is not necessary to train five fighting skills at the same time and not getting anywhere.

As final remark, if you consider skilling to be too slow in general, then that's a different subject. We held polls in the team twice by now and both times, we got the result that the current skilling is speed is just fine.

Estralis

[Jupiter]

I think your orb idea would solve many problems.

[Ilmarinen]

Hi Estralis,

That comment about "server recommends..." wasn't meant to be taken literally. It was meant to merely show that a significant point has passed and could be reflected somewhere to show that.

It could be achieved with any other of the ideas here such as your orb turning red.

Sorry if there was any confusion

[Azure Lynch]

I don't know if this helps or if I'm way off point. But when I started I got farming to level to by gathering lots of fruit. I noticed I didn't gain any more from picking fruit but I did by actually farming. After awhile I notice it was slowing down on how fast I was learning. Well some one told me to emote or since I reached level 10 I could gather fruit an action that no longer raised my skill but it did lower my mc. So from what was explained to me was there are certain actions that will cap at level ten and those actions can be used to lower mc. I'm not sure what all of them are. But it has helped me lower my mc when I needed it lowered.

[Nitram]

There is a maximum skill you can gain from each specific action. Picking fruit will only raise your skill level to a specified point. After that you don't learn anything from those actions any more. I can't tell you if those actions that do not give you any skill any more count as skill related action for your MC. Estralis knows that.

The next major update of the crafting system will display if the item you want to craft can still be used to learn something.

Nitram

[Estralis Seborian]

Only actions that potentially raise a skill are counted. Other actions (crafting items you mastered long ago, talking, walking,...) have no effect on MC whatsoever. So it is not correct that such actions lower your MC, sorry. I've heard this strange rumour several times now. Only time reduces MC points, nothing else. You don't need to do any senseless actions to lower MC. The only thing we have is an AFK detection, so if you are AFK for a while (no input to the client), your MC freezes as if you were offline. So you need to stay active.

But again, there is no need to lower your MC. You can as well spend the time doing whatever you like. There is no "better pattern" that makes you learn more than somebody else. You might want to avoid training skills you do not need. So if you want to become a master carpenter, you should carve. And not cut trees or fight. Another strange recommendation I heard was: "First master your mining skill so you can reduce your MC while mining to learn blacksmithing faster.". People seem to forget that it takes the same time to master blacksmithing as to master mining...

[Annabeth]

Other actions (crafting items you mastered long ago, talking, walking,...) have no effect on MC whatsoever. So it is not correct that such actions lower your MC, sorry. I've heard this strange rumour several times now. Only time reduces MC points, nothing else. You don't need to do any senseless actions to lower MC. The only thing we have is an AFK detection, so if you are AFK for a while (no input to the client), your MC freezes as if you were offline. So you need to stay active.

That misconception is most likely due to people saying that you should do those actions to lower MC. Performing actions that do not increase your MC will keep you active when there is no roleplay around, meaning you are less likely to go afk if you have something like that to busy yourself with. It's pretty much the means people use when they have time to play the game but no one are around and their MC is high (as people do not want to "waste" a lot of expensive crafting mats to level with high MC).

So while the action itself does not lower MC, it does have the effect of keeping you away from the AFK detection. Otherwise characters, mine for example, would probably just sit around on a bench waiting for people to log on, though in the current situation I would just forget to send signals to the server that I'm not AFK so that's not really an option if I want to be "efficient" with my MC AKA not be counted as AFK when Im actually "playing" during the dead hours.

[Kamilar]

I think a display of the MC would go a long way to making Illarion more playable. Adding the MC display as a money sink is not a concept I endorse though. Characters should have some awareness of their own level of concentration and players should be privy to that.

Another strange recommendation I heard was: "First master your mining skill so you can reduce your MC while mining to learn blacksmithing faster.". People seem to forget that it takes the same time to master blacksmithing as to master mining...

Actually when you play around with the MC system, this recommendation makes a lot of sense. To master blacksmithing will take a lot of mining resources. To efficiently learn blacksmithing you need two things: lots of resources and MC in a reasonable range. Starting out the mastery of blacksmithing by first mastering mining provides a player with both of these. First there is a large stockpile of resources and later there is the ability to remain online and active therefore lowering MC while further gathering resources for blacksmithing without adding anything to the MC. Yes, you could learn both skills simultaneously and theoretically in the same amount of time as it takes to learn them individually but it would suck. There has to be some consideration for the fun of the player and I think that's missing from the concept of the MC system and every official explanation of it that I've read.

While it may be possible to continue learning with a sky high MC level, it's not even a little bit enjoyable. It's more enjoyable to hide somewhere safe and eat a cherry every few minutes while actually being engaged in a more interesting task behind the screen. Adding transparency to the MC system with a display would hopefully reduce that kind of play.

[Mr.Oldie]

To master blacksmithing will take a lot of mining resources. To efficiently learn blacksmithing you need two things: lots of resources and MC in a reasonable range. Starting out the mastery of blacksmithing by first mastering mining provides a player with both of these. First there is a large stockpile of resources and later there is the ability to remain online and active therefore lowering MC while further gathering resources for blacksmithing without adding anything to the MC. Yes, you could learn both skills simultaneously and theoretically in the same amount of time as it takes to learn them individually but it would suck.

When there is a system, people will try to beat that system always. This above is just one of the many ways in which they try to. Adding a display to it wont change it much other than people doing the same thing but with more precision :p. the sentiment will be " ill mine for 1 more hour because thats what my MC display tells me." The intended fun wont be there still.. The fun is supposed to be Roleplaying for that amount of time; but here the proposed fun is for while beating a system. Though not completely against the idea, i would say if we do that it would beat the purpose of having the MC in the first place.

[Kamilar]

When there is a system, people will try to beat that system always.

I don't see the player behavior as trying to "beat" the system. I think players have taken the system they've been given and are trying to play within it. The MC system is intrinsically unfun and that's its biggest flaw. It was created to lessen the divide between gamers and roleplayers but the unintended side effect is that it makes playing Illarion tedious.

The fun is supposed to be Roleplaying for that amount of time; but here the proposed fun is for while beating a system.

This us vs. them, gamers vs. roleplayers argument has been going on since I first joined Illarion and probably long before that. It's a tired old argument that people should ignore the developed game and instead spend all their time roleplaying. Obviously Illarion is at least half gaming or we'd have ditched the game engine altogether in favor of highly developed chats and forums and we'd all simply invent and roleplay skills that our characters did nothing to earn. Half the players want to spend their time gaming and half want to roleplay. Roleplaying is also multiplayer dependent. As an example, yesterday when I got the thought to see what was happening in Illarion, there were no players on the server. I'm all for finding the balance between gaming and roleplay but I say an empty server really speaks for itself.

[Nitram]

When reading all this I have one simple question:

Does skilling simply feel too slow? Because increasing the general skilling speed is not that much of a problem.
We had a initial discussion about the all in all speed of skilling that basically says how long a player would have to play to max out a single skill. We set a specific time for that and maybe it just takes too long.

If it is "just" that we can speed it up and see if it feels better.

Is it that?

Nitram

[Tyan Masines]

I wish I could give a simple answer to that, Nitram, but I'm afraid it's gonna be 'it depends' again.


Does skilling feel alright for fighting? Yes.

Does skilling feel too slow for crafting? Imho Yes.



It is due to the fact that fighting skills scale, whereas crafting skills have very specific milestones. Or exemplary speaking: The gap between slashing weapons 95 and 100 has only minor effects on a player's game. Whereas being a level 95 smith is practically useless. In crafting, for the most part it is 100 or nothing.

[Alrik]

I think the issue is: In most cases you don`t just skill one skill, sooner or later a character will learn some more skills.

For example:

Let`s say I want to skill carpentry. That would be through crafting boards or other things. Skill Carpentry will be rise. If the material you need is depleted, you leave the carpentry and get more materials. If you don`t want or could buy them, you have to get it yourself. Also you will grab a hatchet and cut some trees. This will raise your woodcutting skill. Through carpentry and woodcutting your character became hungry - lets say your character picks some apples from a tree - which raises your farming skill, even if you smoke some fish this will raise your cooking skill just to get some simple food. But to
come to an end, lets say this character has finally some logs to continue with his carpentry training and is not hungry anymore. On the way back to town, the character is atacked by a wolf - if you don`t want geat eaten, you fight back and raise some combat skills (and even if you don`t attack, the chance to raise an armor skill is there).

So.... Even if you just want to raise one skill at one time which might not need so much time, you often have the chance to learn more than you actually want or just because you have to (materials, need to eat, self defending against npc-monsters...). And this slows you down. Might no problem for older characters which will have all they need on a proper level, and some things raise one skill just until a level (picking fruits), but others do (woodcutting). In my point of view this could lead to "Skilling needs years....."

[Nitram]

So the issue is not the skilling but the useless items one produced at crafting levels < 100?

[Tyan Masines]

So the issue is not the skilling but the useless items one produced at crafting levels < 100?

That is an issue, but not necessarily a skilling / MC issue. And I believe the crafting system is reworked to cover this currently? I did not want to go off-topic with this note, but explain why slowing down or fastening the general skilling speed would not tackle this specific issue. Like I said, getting a character to be a decent / good fighter is pretty easy and satisfying already, while getting a crafter up to 100 is a pain.


Conclusion: The skilling speed is fine as it is. Some skilltrees are full of redundancies, though, thus making it seem like progress is worthless and slow. (Or literally making progress worthless.)

[Estralis Seborian]

If players draw their fun out of beating a system, we implemented the ultimate fun killer with the MC system .

Please do note that the MC system does not determine how much time (resting, working, combination of both) you need to invest to master a skill. The whole purpose and idea behind the system is summarised as followed:

In classic Illarion, you needed a fixed amount of actions to master a skill. It was up to you in how much time you did those actions. So one could master a skill faster than someone else, depending on clicking activity.
In current Illarion, you need a fixed amount of time to master a skill. It is up to you how many actions you do in total. So one can master a skill in the same time as everyone else, independent from clicking activity.

I am fully aware that with few players around, it is complicated to focus on a low number of skills. But I think for all who want to to "beat the system", that's their opportunity to do it - by interaction with other players.

[Azure Lynch]

Now that I understand how the mc actually works. Im cool with it. The speed in crafting is slow but that don't bother me. Honestly. The problem I see is people want to skill on skill at a time. Azure as a carpenter is moving slow but that's my issue. But when I was working to get azure to level 50 in carpentry. I hired an assistant. They would cut my trees and pick my fruit. The payment was food. Ah I miss my Helga. But that helped do two things. Roleplay and game. Now I know there are times when you can't find someone to do that for you. Well remember this once you get to 10 on farming pick fruit no longer affects your mc. But it is an action that can lower. From what I understand from the mc system. Is that staying online doing non skilling actions will lower mc. So since picking fruit threshold is 10 on farming it becomes a non skilling action so will lower mc. So then you raise carpentry an woodcutting easier. So yes you might have to double skill but put a request for an assistant and see who replies. There might be somebody that wants to raise a certain skill that will get you your resources. There are ways around the system with out trying to beat the system. To me I see the mc as a system of hey you powergamed enough get your arse out there and rp. Just me and again I could be way off

[Kamilar]

Keeping the MC at a reasonable level is a whole skill set unto itself.