<skill> -f

[Larrath]

Basically, a way for people to botch their skills whenever they need to.  That templar is making your merchant make the most elaborate earring in the world?  Well, oops!

Someone wants you to sneak across somewhere and you want to pretend you can't sneak so you can surprise them later?

Hell, want to speak a language very poorly?  Change language Tatlum -f;say Nope, don't speak Tatlum.  Not me.

Want to spar with someone and look like you're heavily into it?  disarm -f, kick -f, bash -f.

Whenever -f is used, there will be no chance of getting better at the skill, since it's an intentional messup.

Discuss.

[Dracul]

Support.

[Cale_Knight]

I love it.

[RunningMountain]

This idea is awesome.

[joyofdiscord]

Yeah, there've been a lot of suggestions for qays to allow us to fake being bad at whatever thing, and it's a great idea.  The only question is implementation.  A command flag seems like a difficult way to go about it because of the different ways skills work.  Sneak, for example, is a toggle, so using sneak with the flag would have to put you into a brand new coded state, fake-sneaking.  Same with languages.  You're not speaking tatlum, you're speaking faketatlum.  Guard would be similar but perhaps even more complicated (although being able to pretend to guard someone poorly would be a very welcome skill that would open up a lot of possible scenarios).   So, the implementation would have to be specific to every skill, but it would provide a lot of possibilities.

Also, some skills are automatic, like dual wield, shield use, weapon skills, etc.  It would seem odd if you're trashing your Sergeant with your blades but somehow tumble onto your face every time you try a simple bash.

A simple value or a toggle that would affect all your skills checks might be easier, but also raises questions.  What about sirihish, that's a skill.  Most characters wouldn't have a reason to fake not speaking it, but desert elves and other tribals might.  Also, if it just affects skill checks blindly, it could hinder listening as well, and listening to other people's conversations might be the whole reason you want to pretend not to know the language.

Anyway, I think it's a great idea, this is just random musing on what the final form might look like from someone who's never seen the code.

[Revelations]

You could have it so that your skills revert to 0 success, ending up with newbielike results. Kinda like nosave, eh? Except it would be hard singling it down to only one skill...I think.

[Anonymous]

I hate it..... because it wasn't my idea :x but I love it. great idea.

[Bestatte]

I think it would be more akin to combining a skill with nosave. Of course the coders would have to poke around to see the most efficient implementation, but we -do- have the nosave command which forces us to fail climbing and subduing and other assorted things - so maybe a command like - noskill <skill>

Would attach a temporary nosave to a specific skill until you toggle it back (or maybe until you toggle it -or- until your PC is disconnected, whichever comes first)

I dunno - it just really like the idea, as ideas go.

[Rhyden]

Excellent idea.

[WarriorPoet]

Excellent idea.

[EvilRoeSlade]

I don't know how feasible this would be to implement and I really don't care to speculate.  If it can be done, it should be.

I'd go a step further and say that instead of making you automatically fail, it merely makes your skill act as though it was at a much lower level.  Maybe typing in -f would subtract 20 or 30 or 40 or whatever number would significantly detract from your ability to succeed.

Because the way I see it, if you've spent fifty years being a ninja, you're so good that you might end up sneaking around successfully even if you ARE trying to look like a bumbling novice.

[jhunter (not logged in)]

Damned good idea Larrath.

[bloodfromstone]

Wonderful idea. *thumbs up*

[Malifaxis]

I give this the official stamp of "Fucking Bomb Shit"

[sacac]

What malifaxis said.

[cyberpatrol_735]

Put it in, awesome idea.

[Manhattan]

I am in full support of this idea.

Not only would it help people who want to fake and have fun,
it can also be used for roleplaying. Even the best crafters in the world mess up sometimes, but the code sometimes wouldn't allow that. So having -f would keep everything realistic.

[JollyGreenGiant]

Seems like a good idea to me.

[Spoon]

Yeah, I like the idea. You could make it work like nosave, but for more skills than climb, etc.

[Delirium]

And you could take climb OUT of nosave. Please.

[cyberpatrol_735]

Seeing as how it's a skill.. I think that'd be a good idea, that way you can run, but if you get caught you're caught, but it doesn't mean you can't go hopping rooftops until then.

[jhunter]

And you could take climb OUT of nosave. Please.

DITTO!

[Sholdyn]

You could make it so that when you put the -f after the skill it only gives the room echoes and it doesn't hit the lines of code that actually do anything. So you could use something like 'go to' that skip right to the room echoes or just put in a lot of 'if/then' statements and copy/paste the echoes in. Yes, no?

Love this idea, btw.

[Larrath]

You could make it so that when you put the -f after the skill it only gives the room echoes and it doesn't hit the lines of code that actually do anything. So you could use something like 'go to' that skip right to the room echoes or just put in a lot of 'if/then' statements and copy/paste the echoes in. Yes, no?

Love this idea, btw.

No.  It won't look the same if the delays are different or if the crafting object doesn't get ruined.

Thanks.

[FiveDisgruntledMonkeysWit]

Additional generic "I like this idea" comment, Larrath!

[Cenghiz]

>skill -f magick
Your magick skills are now halved.
>skill -f magick
You'll use your magick skills at your best.
>skill -f crafting
Your crafting skills are now halved.
....
Bla bla.. Making every skill changeable would be too hard and, hard to use. To suck up at fighting you'd have to turn off a few skills at once anyway. Making all suck or rock with a trigger wouldn't work, too. You would start blubbering during the guarding mission suddenly. So, the skills are already grouped. The groups can be used.

[Larrath]

Necromancering this thread in hopes it gets implemented.
The original suggestion, not what Cenghiz suggested.

Putting -f on a one-use skill (such as kick or steal) would make it fail automatically or at least make it nearly impossible for it to fail.
Putting -f on a toggle skill (sneak, change language) would make the skill work at 1/3 of the percentage its owner has it in, so 100% sneak would turn to 34%.

With crafting and forage, it will bring automatic failure after a regular time delay.

With the Kill command, the attacker will be fighting at about half their offense, defense and weapon-skills, but also make it much harder for anyone fighting the character to improve in any skills at all while fighting.  This will help strong characters hold back to pretend they suck or simply not kill the recruits.

Using -f will completely skip the skill branching or improvement checks.

Of course, just having this added for any of the above versions at all would absolutely rock.

[Cegar]

Yeah, this really is an incredibly awesome idea.

[Intrepid]

I like this as well.

[Bogre]

I don't know how feasible this would be to implement and I really don't care to speculate.  If it can be done, it should be.

I'd go a step further and say that instead of making you automatically fail, it merely makes your skill act as though it was at a much lower level.  Maybe typing in -f would subtract 20 or 30 or 40 or whatever number would significantly detract from your ability to succeed.

Because the way I see it, if you've spent fifty years being a ninja, you're so good that you might end up sneaking around successfully even if you ARE trying to look like a bumbling novice.

I think if it can be done, to have at least probably two commands:

<skill> -f = Makes you absolutely horrible at it again.

<skill> -h= Makes you at half your current skill.

[Tuannon]

This is not a new idea on some MUDs and I am surprised it doesn't exist on arm, I'm all for it being added.

cybersex -f!

[Bogre]

This is not a new idea on some MUDs and I am surprised it doesn't exist on arm, I'm all for it being added.

cybersex -f!

>(hp/HP)(mm/MM)(ss/SS)
Your skill at sex is already at a horrible level.

:twisted:

[Treestone Capricorn]

I love the idea, but I'm not sure what Larrath is proposing. If I'm correct, you just type

-f

then the next skill you enter is an automatic, or relative fail?

If not, well, I like this idea better. It makes me feel like I'm contributing.

[Briarfox]

I am all for it. Gives me an excuse for failing.  :shock:

[LauraMars]

Larrath for King.

[moab]

Can't we just emote a failure and trust the other guy to play along?
*ponder*

[DesertT]

Thumbs Up!!

I like it.   :lol:

[Larrath]

Can't we just emote a failure and trust the other guy to play along?

First of all, sadly the fact is that this can't always be done.  Second, sometimes when you fail a crafting job you'll be given a different object.

[FightClub]

Maybe if you were to make the command toggled, and incorporated into various skills.

toggle sneak f
(auto fail)
toggle sneak n
(normal)
toggle kick f
(auto fail)
toggle kick n
(normal)

or more simply

toggle sneak
You are now intentionally sneaking badly.
toggle sneak
You now sneak like ninja master!
toggle kick
You now kick like 60 year old man with joint problems.
toggle kick
You now kick like ninja master!

As far as I can see, that'd sum every skill on your list with an easy to use command.  And perhaps, for safety issues have it to where default after logging out.

Thoughts?