Skill toggles

[Coat of Arms]

I think it'd be convenient if certain skills could be toggled off. Much like the nosave options we already have for certain mechanics, it should be possible for your character to choose not to parry, not to revere disarms, to turn off your passive watch skill, and other skills where it makes sense that you can decide not to "do your best". It can apply to most passive skills that function without a typed input.

I also considered the idea of a command that intentionally (and temporarily) lowers any skill. "lower sneak 50" would lower your sneak skill by 50% of its current level. I'm not sure if this would cause any problems or open a window for abuse, so this portion of my proposal is still on the drawing board.

For obvious reasons, a lowered or toggled-off skill won't increase. Likewise, a skill that increases based on the failure of another skill won't increase if the related skill is toggled off. You won't increase your defense skill if you decide not to try to parry blows, even if that means you're getting hit more often. Your lowered sneak skill won't increase because you don't get any better if you don't actually try.


Why do I suggest this?

First of all, it has always bothered me how you can't fake being bad at a skill. Not in a way that will convince the players behind the characters you're trying to fool, at least, and that's usually necessary to get away with anything unlegit in this game. It should be possible to not do your best at certain skills.

Second, sometimes your character will find a reason not to do certain things. If you're the 80 day warrior who leads the Byn, sparring with new recruits can be an actual danger because you might unintentionally obliterate them faster than you can type 'disengage'. It would be convenient (and feasible) to be able to take it easy on the new guy. Also, sometimes you might not want to reverse disarms, deflect arrows with a shield, see hidden emotes and other things that skills allow (and currently force) you to do.

Finally, intentionally failing a skill can be great for roleplayed scenes. Even if your character doesn't want to botch that crafting attempt, it might be more realistic if your character is furious, nervous, isn't concentrating, or whatever other things the code currently doesn't care about.

[Marauder Moe]

Interesting idea, though I'm not sure it's quite that easy to intentionally be bad at some things.  Especially fighting, where much of what you learn becomes almost reflex.

Perhaps there should be a chance, maybe 10%, that you accidentally perform at your full skill level?

Also I should suggest that there should be no, or at least severely reduced, chance of skill improvement when you're not using a skill at full potential.

[Coat of Arms]

Perhaps there should be a chance, maybe 10%, that you accidentally perform at your full skill level?

Sure, why not. As long as it's possible to attempt to not do your best at any given skill.

Also I should suggest that there should be no, or at least severely reduced, chance of skill improvement when you're not using a skill at full potential.

That's included in my post.

[Cale_Knight]

Perhaps there should be a chance, maybe 10%, that you accidentally perform at your full skill level?

Have you ever been involved in any kind of martial arts, wrestling, or anything else of that sort? If you have you've probably sparred with someone far more skilled than you - and they were probably very unlikely to accidentally roundhouse you in the head at full strength.

The better you are at something, the more control you have over it and the less likely you would be to accidentally perform at full 100%.

[Lizzie]

I like the idea, if I'm summing it up right:

You can toggle off or down a skill.

While the skill is toggled off or down, there is no usual "skill increase for failure."

[Shiroi Tsuki]

I'm also liking the idea.  So far, everything Cale Knight has said has been true, and I'm actually in an instance where I wish there was something like this because it would make total IC sense!

I can think of a lot of instances where you'd want to be worse at a skill than you actually are due to RP.

[Coat of Arms]

I like the idea, if I'm summing it up right:

You can toggle off or down a skill.

While the skill is toggled off or down, there is no usual "skill increase for failure."

That's exactly it.

[Marauder Moe]

Perhaps there should be a chance, maybe 10%, that you accidentally perform at your full skill level?

Have you ever been involved in any kind of martial arts, wrestling, or anything else of that sort? If you have you've probably sparred with someone far more skilled than you - and they were probably very unlikely to accidentally roundhouse you in the head at full strength.

The better you are at something, the more control you have over it and the less likely you would be to accidentally perform at full 100%.

Alright, a fair point.  I suppose there's no good reason that you would fail at using a skill at 0%.  Still, is it just as easy to roundhouse at, say, 50% proficiency?  Or consciously parry at 50% of your full potential?

I suggest this mostly because faking being a newb at something shouldn't be a 100% fool-proof toggle.  An alternative solution would be having the watch skill give you a chance at detecting if someone is purposefully being bad at a skill, but I think that favors the watcher too much.  If you see someone faking a failure then you immediately suspect they're trying to deceive you.  With a 10% failure-to-fail you'd have to make that determination over a longer period of observation.

[Mood]

Perhaps there should be a chance, maybe 10%, that you accidentally perform at your full skill level?

Have you ever been involved in any kind of martial arts, wrestling, or anything else of that sort? If you have you've probably sparred with someone far more skilled than you - and they were probably very unlikely to accidentally roundhouse you in the head at full strength.

The better you are at something, the more control you have over it and the less likely you would be to accidentally perform at full 100%.

Alright, a fair point.  I suppose there's no good reason that you would fail at using a skill at 0%.  Still, is it just as easy to roundhouse at, say, 50% proficiency?  Or consciously parry at 50% of your full potential?

I suggest this mostly because faking being a newb at something shouldn't be a 100% fool-proof toggle.  An alternative solution would be having the watch skill give you a chance at detecting if someone is purposefully being bad at a skill, but I think that favors the watcher too much.  If you see someone faking a failure then you immediately suspect they're trying to deceive you.  With a 10% failure-to-fail you'd have to make that determination over a longer period of observation.

To notice that one is faking their skill level, I think you should have to have knowledge in whatever skill they are faking.

[Cale_Knight]

Actually, I think it would be relatively easy to tell if someone is trying to FAKE their skill level. There absolutely are certain things that just become reflexive over time.

Something like this would be more useful for demonstrative and instructional purposes and less for trying to pretend to be a newb.

It also depends on the skill -  it would be far easier to pretend to be bad at sneaking than it would be to pretend that you can't parry for crap. Forcing yourself to take a punch to the face when every fiber in your being is screaming "STOP THAT FIST!" is pretty rough, but moving a bit more slowly for the sake of teaching or just being plain lazy is something different.

[Xio]

Well I was at this martial arts thing the other day and they were doing all these demonstrations. One of the guys for one of the lower level demonstrations didn't show up so one of the higher level guys took his place.
Black belt v Brown belt in this case. The black belt fought basically enough on the same level as the brown belt, using the same moves with the same force things like that. In the end the brown belt won and it didn't look at all like the black belt threw in the match.

Later on it was the same black belt from before against another black belt. With the stuff he did in this match he made it look like he could've destroyed that brown belt in three seconds flat. He won this match by the way.

My point is, with fighting its both skill and reflex, and when fighting someone less skilled than you its more of a mind-over-matter type thing to control yourself more precisely, which irl, often can make you better at fighting. And that it isn't always possible to tell if someone is faking if they know what they are doing.

I'm not saying you should be able to get better with the skill toggled off/down, but maybe make the toggling off/down its own skill in a way such that as you get better in a skill you get better at toggling it off/down and also if you toggle it off/down you can get better at toggling it off/down but not at the same rate as you would by getting better at the skill at large also there would be a cap for doing it via the second method.

If you toggle something off, then try to use it, I think everyone should be able to tell you are faking. It'd be the equivalent of toggling parry off and getting into a fight. You would, imo, not even make the -slightest- attempt to parry any blow coming your way.

Of course this could be a real pain to code, I don't know.

[slipshod]

There are ways to throw your skills now by doing things like getting drunk, over-encumbering yourself, using a weapon you aren't skilled in, using the weapon in your off hand, or using no weapon at all.

I know this isn't exactly what you're proposing, but it is a way around the issue.

[Xio]

There are ways to throw your skills now by doing things like getting drunk, over-encumbering yourself, using a weapon you aren't skilled in, using the weapon in your off hand, or using no weapon at all.

I know this isn't exactly what you're proposing, but it is a way around the issue.

The problem with using a weapon you aren't skilled with, or in your off hand, or no weapon at all is that after a while you end up getting skilled like that as well.

I know I had a char that was sparring a superior simply because there was no one else around for him to practice with. His superior had sparred with entry-level members such as my char multiple times before and each of with each of those methods basically demolished my char. In the end it comes to the more skilled person just disengaged.

There isn't much of a problem with this, but I don't think CoA is proposing skill toggling for just fighting uses. There are times in RP you may want to be codedly bad at a skill. Such as being frustrated degrading how well you can perform, an annoyance in your ear/mind or simply to divert attention and suspicion away from yourself.

[spawnloser]

Yeah, it's not your skill being reflect in you holding back, it's your lack of skill causing you to actually be 'the suck' (tm).  Additionally, as Xio said, your skill will go up.