Am I wrong to expect...

[Cerelum]

... that if my character has tried to ride a mount through a whole fricking city, about 7 or 8 times, that he should stop getting the:

You're retarded mount doesn't move

message?

I mean, I have the skill, but I still can't follow someone because of that message and it doesn't seem to have gotten any better then say the last 20 hours I've been doing it..

This is another reason why 90 percent of my characters are rangers...

J-Rod

[Yam]

Yes.

[FuSoYa]

Yes, you are wrong to expect that.  Training ride sucks I know.  But it gets better.

Brandon

[Cerelum]

I'm serious though, I've practiced ride for nearly a real life day.  However many days or weeks that is in game.

I hate ride...

J-Rod

[RogueGunslinger]

Your wisdom stat must be; Extremely Fucking Poor, then. Cause it only took me about two days to get ride decent. And that was playing maybe eight hours in game. And not all of it spend on riding around. I think Ride is one of the easiest skill to learn...

[Cerelum]

Ohhh, that makes a little bit of sense, cause my character isn't the wisest.

FUCK!

I think I would die if I ever rolled up a character WITHOUT a poor or worse stat.

J-Rod is irritated.

[RogueGunslinger]

While we are on the subject, I got a sweet stat roll on my last char, then I re-rolled and it got better. How pimp is that...

[Cerelum]

While we are on the subject, I got a sweet stat roll on my last char, then I re-rolled and it got better. How pimp is that...

I hate you...

J-Rod

[Malken]

I've been saying for a while now that we should just get rid of the low starting riding skill for new characters, it's just a pain in the ass more than anything else, keeps them from jumping right into the fun most of the time, and anyway, most players just ride around in a circle for ten hours straight until they get decent enough to start following the group.

[a strange shadow]

Spamming ride won't get it better faster.

Practice a little every morning/afternoon/evening and spend the rest of the day doing whatever your character normally does.

[Gimfalisette]

What the shadow above me said.

[Cerelum]

I blame the fact that my wisdom = "a slope headed retard"

"Some people call it a Kaiser Blade, I call it a Slingblade, but I can't get this fucking creature to go where I want him to."

J-Rod

[rishenko]

I blame the fact that my wisdom = "a slope headed retard"

"Some people call it a Kaiser Blade, I call it a Slingblade, but I can't get this fucking creature to go where I want him to."

J-Rod

Patience.  If you go for a long lived char, all things will become easier for them with time.

[psionic fungus]

I want to throw down my approval for a strange shadow's suggestion. 

The learning code is at least somewhat realistic.  You can only learn so much so often.  There is no point in frustrating yourself trying to ride a mount around (or do any other training) for hour after hour.  The 90 (RL) minute day is a perfect marker for when you can once again successfully train a skill.  There is literally no point in pushing things unrealistically. Make a schedule and incorporate ride practice into it. Take a ride around the block and then do whatever else you have planned for the day, as was suggested.  It works.

If you like numbers think about it this way: if you start with a skill of 5% and gain only 1% every 90 minutes, after a day of play-time you will have 21% in the skill.  From my understanding, this is roughly 33 - 50% of what is possible for a non-ranger to obtain. That said, these numbers are working with minimums... You should be a flawless rider by 2 - 3 days playing time, slope-headed retard or not.  Just get into a good routine and stick to it.

Compelling?

[Folker]

While all the skillspamming is indeed disheartening, I do concur that having new players start up with poor riding skills is pretty annoying. It simply prevents gameplay for a character untill he gets enough riding done.

Ironically enough, I had a character who did not use that many skills in his lifetime end up with a desperate need to ditch the city FAST. Only to remember "Oh yeah, I cant ride for shit".

[Aruven]

Well - first of all, I know it's rough, but roleplay through it instead of spamming ride every now and then. Try to find a mentor - It won't take you to long, but like all skills, it takes patience.

And it will vary depending on your wisdom.

[Rarsh]

The question seems to be, 'How much potential RP and enjoyment do we gain from the skill starting so low, and how much do we lose?'

If, say, the ride skill was doubled for new characters, how much fun would be drained out of the world? How much RP would we miss? Or how much -more- fun would we have, and how much -more- RP would we find?

And as for practicing regularly, for briefer amounts of time ... maybe I'm doing something wrong, but that's just ungodly expensive. At least for newer characters, I'd think. Who are, um, the ones who need the practice.

[brytta.leofa]

Ironically enough, I had a character who did not use that many skills in his lifetime end up with a desperate need to ditch the city FAST. Only to remember

Arguably, that's a feature that we should keep. ;-) Though I, too, find newbie-ride a bit frustrating.

[Malken]

Rarsh is saying what I meant by my previous post. I didn't need to know how to properly train 'ride', I already know how to do so, thank you very much. My point was, what does it bring to the game that you are an awful rider for just a few days and that it's a pain in the ass for you AND your clanmates if you go along with them right at the start of your characters?

Is it really useful to the game that you are told to ride your kank in circle for a few hours while everyone else is going out on a patrol, or to hunt, and that you are left behind often at first? What is the advantage over someone that can ride perfectly well and someone who just stalls every few rooms or so? It doesn't last nearly long enough for you to tell me that it is useful to raiders and such.

And the ten hours a day thing was sarcastic, but again, I agree with Rarsh, if you aren't in a clan and need to train up your riding skill as an independant, with a new character, if you are the type of player who must log in and out often during the day, that 20 'sids a pop fee is a huge drain on your starting coins.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

If your clanmates want you to be able to ride, they will teach you.

The lack of use of the teaching code is ... somewhat annoying. I use teach fairly often, particularly with new characters, because I feel that teaching is the act of imparting a tactic of the skill, rather than some obscure learning. This is enforced by the fact that you can not teach someone up to your level.

[Malken]

If your clanmates want you to be able to ride, they will teach you.

We can argue all afternoon long, I'm game. I don't know of many clanmates who would want you to NOT be able to ride. It doesn't matter, a ranger who can ride perfectly well that teaches a new character to ride, that character is still going to be stalling his mount like crazy. What the ranger did, though, is save the poor new character maybe a tiny amount of time before he can ride well enough, himself. You know that.

My previous character was a ranger class in a military clan and I had maybe 30+ days played on him, I trained many recruits how to ride via the 'teach' command, they were still stuck going in a circle for days around a tiny area while we would all go outside on patrol.

[X-D]

Ride IG is backwards.

IRL a total newbie can learn to ride in less then an hour.

Couple hours if they are learning to set up the  saddle/bit/sturrips etc properly.

It takes huge amounts of practice to become expert and do all the nifty tricks you see in westerns and such.

IG its the other way around, it takes forever to get to being able to ride and is easy to become a master.

Personally I think that  being able to learn to ride without getting the refuse to move message should be moved WAY down the scale. This would mean it would be harder to become a master and be much more realistic and fun for players.

[jstorrie]

>tell sergeant Please for the love of Tek give me a riding lesson man

Your sergeant instructs you in the skill of 'ride.'

SOLUTION.

[Cerelum]

I had a long lived Ranger who was branched, tough and could survive most critters...

I started using Teach to teach people archery, parry and the like and got yelled at by a staff member for it.

I hope that it has been loosened in the year or so since then, but they used to want you to emote a book sized amount before you could type teach whatever dude

J-Rod

[X-D]

Not long ago I had a ranger with completly maxed ride skill.
He was rather old.
Get a newbie warrior in the clan, RP out a nice 15 min ride lesson, teach.
next day IG, rinse repeat
newbie warrior practices on own between each teach
Another day IG, rinse, repeat
Newbie warrior still cannot ride without fail
Also I'me pretty sure they got at least 4 other teaches from 2 other very advanced PCs

SO

>tell sergeant Please for the love of Tek give me a riding lesson man

Your sergeant instructs you in the skill of 'ride.'

No SOLUTION

[Malken]

>tell sergeant Please for the love of Tek give me a riding lesson man

Your sergeant instructs you in the skill of 'ride.'

SOLUTION.

Were you trying to be clever? helpful? amusing? Total failure.

[Spud]

If its that important for your character to be able to ride from day 1 and you know the guild you've chosen starts with a low skill level, why not special app? Rangers ride around all the time, they're rangers. It's expected they can ride when you start them. Warriors are supposed to be people that have some knowledge of fighting. They aren't desert guides riding all over the place. They can learn to ride better, but they're mainly fighters. If your warrior would already have a knowledge of riding, special app.

[Lizzie]

Some true stories:

Once upon a time, I had a ranger. She could ride from the get-go, no failure at all, and she was riding with both hands holding weapons within my first RL month of playing her.

When my ranger became clanned, and got her first promotion, she made it her business to teach EVERYONE how to ride. Because *I* couldn't understand why everyone thought it was such a hard thing to do - because this was only my 2nd character ever and my first never left the city. So I was spoiled. And I hated having to wait while our clan was on patrol, for some guy with noob ride. It was just annoying, wasted time, and I just wanted to get from point A to point B without a lot of standing there waiting for the noob-ride guy to catch up. So I used the teach command on everyone in my clan who couldn't ride. When my ranger became a Sergeant, her -first- chore for every recruit was "get a mount and learn to ride." I didn't care if they had to ditch sparring. I wanted them riding without me having to stare at the computer screen more than 5 seconds between movements. Because I'm impatient like that.

It ended up being a pretty sweet idea too, because I RPed lessons, used the teach command, and gave new recruits something to -do- when they weren't busy sparring and needed something to occupy themselves with. I didn't have a recruit in my unit, for the year I was doing this, who couldn't ride within a few RL days.

The only problem with this, is if the guy with noob ride isn't in a clan. Who's going to teach that independent warrior/hunter how to ride? Who is there to use the "teach" command on him? And who's going to cover his stable fees because it's unrealistic to keep his mount out and himself logged in for 4 RL days straight just because he hasn't found the Kadian agent who does the hiring and he needs to learn how to ride? It's pretty expensive buying a mount, and in some cases you might be stuck with picking *either* a mount *or* "starting gear" to go out and be a non-ranger hunter. You can't afford both, but you can't afford stable fees while you're learning to ride. I don't know what the solution is to that but I can empathize with people who feel it is overly difficult.

[a strange shadow]

Maybe non-clanned non-rangers shouldn't be expecting to (easily) make their primary living outside the walls?

Revolutionary idea, I know.

[rishenko]

The only problem with this, is if the guy with noob ride isn't in a clan. Who's going to teach that independent warrior/hunter how to ride? Who is there to use the "teach" command on him? And who's going to cover his stable fees because it's unrealistic to keep his mount out and himself logged in for 4 RL days straight just because he hasn't found the Kadian agent who does the hiring and he needs to learn how to ride? It's pretty expensive buying a mount, and in some cases you might be stuck with picking *either* a mount *or* "starting gear" to go out and be a non-ranger hunter. You can't afford both, but you can't afford stable fees while you're learning to ride. I don't know what the solution is to that but I can empathize with people who feel it is overly difficult.

No desire to be a jackass here, but it really isn't that bad as an independent.  Sure, it takes several hours IG, but as everybody has said, it comes to you, you get over it (as you do with the problems of all starting skills) and you move on.  If you setup a system at the start with your character, you should have no problems riding during the morning and then filling your afternoon time with either solo rp, crafting, tavern sitting or what have you.  This is especially true if you start in Tuluk or Allanak where you have plenty of other people to interact with.

You start small, you grow.  Just have patience, think of your character in the long term and don't expect your new character to instantly become badass.

[Zalanthan]

Not long ago I had a ranger with completly maxed ride skill.
He was rather old.
Get a newbie warrior in the clan, RP out a nice 15 min ride lesson, teach.
next day IG, rinse repeat
newbie warrior practices on own between each teach
Another day IG, rinse, repeat
Newbie warrior still cannot ride without fail
Also I'me pretty sure they got at least 4 other teaches from 2 other very advanced PCs

This sounds like your recruit prioritized wisdom last and you're upset he's not learning fast enough.  If people want to learn ride faster then simply make smarter (weaker) characters.

[Sanvean]

We're discussing raising the starting skill on the staff board. More when there's something definite.

I hope that it has been loosened in the year or so since then, but they used to want you to emote a book sized amount before you could type teach whatever dude

No, we still ask that you roleplay things out.  This is the nature of the mud --  it is a roleplay required mud. There are many fine muds that do not require roleplay, but alas, Armageddon is not one of them. 

[X-D]

Maybe they did, who cares, its not the point anyway.

The point being that the solution presented by another poster is not a solution.


Now. I do have to say, that though I think that ride is backwards IG as I stated before.

You can negate that with at least 2 subguilds, maybe more. At least 1 states it in the help files(and its a great sub too).

Course, you really want a lesson in patience with ride, make a HG warrior with below ave wis and no subguild to improve ride.

Man, I had one, 10 days played, rode TONS, still could not ride without fail, I even asked staff on that. Answer, you a HG, what do you expect...Heh.

EDIT

Hey Sanvean, is it possible to just lower the point in which you are good at ride instead of raising the starting skill?

I mean, some other things come with very high skill level and I see no reason to make that easier to get.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Hmm. I was pretty sure the teach skill helped plenty. That said, I bow to the knowledge of other players who I respect enough to do so for.

[Cerelum]

No, we still ask that you roleplay things out.  This is the nature of the mud --  it is a roleplay required mud. There are many fine muds that do not require roleplay, but alas, Armageddon is not one of them. 

Yes, but roleplaying out training shouldn't take an hour in rl worth of emotes is all I'm saying.  I don't know who chided me because it came from the A staff sends you blah.

But basically I was emoting something like this.

say (holding out ~bandage in his hands) You have to make sure to keep the bandage clean and away from dirt and other things that could irritate the wound.

say (wrapping ~bandage around his leg) You make sure you wrap it so it doesn't bunch, then tie it on the opposite side of the wound.  Tie it with enough tightness to allow two fingers to go under near between the skin and bandage.

say (pulling out another bandage and wadding it into a ball) Then if that doesn't stop the bleeding, make a wad of cloth like so, then take another bandage and place the wad on the top of the bandage, above the site of the injury, then wrap and tie it there, with the knot on top of the wound, this causes compression.

Emote nods his head towards ~dude and unties the bandages, stowing them away.

teach dude bandage

A staff sends you:

More roleplay is required for this

Something along those lines, what's wrong with what I just did?

J-Rod

[Qzzrbl]

Well - first of all, I know it's rough, but roleplay through it instead of spamming ride every now and then. Try to find a mentor - It won't take you to long, but like all skills, it takes patience.

And it will vary depending on your wisdom.

I actually think it's kinda fun rp-ing being a poor rider trying to follow a group....

I remember one time, I had character who had learned how to ride from someone, and at first thought pushing the erdlu's head forward would make it go forward....

[Spud]

say (holding out ~bandage in his hands) You have to make sure to keep the bandage clean and away from dirt and other things that could irritate the wound.

say (wrapping ~bandage around his leg) You make sure you wrap it so it doesn't bunch, then tie it on the opposite side of the wound.  Tie it with enough tightness to allow two fingers to go under near between the skin and bandage.

say (pulling out another bandage and wadding it into a ball) Then if that doesn't stop the bleeding, make a wad of cloth like so, then take another bandage and place the wad on the top of the bandage, above the site of the injury, then wrap and tie it there, with the knot on top of the wound, this causes compression.

Emote nods his head towards ~dude and unties the bandages, stowing them away.

teach dude bandage

So you told someone what to do, and tied a bandage around your leg. I wouldn't say the basic idea of bandaging is difficult..but its quite different from actually seeing it be done on someone that is bleeding. I think someone above me said this game is an RP mud, so I'd guess you need to RP more.

[Fathi]

Not long ago I had a ranger with completly maxed ride skill.
He was rather old.
Get a newbie warrior in the clan, RP out a nice 15 min ride lesson, teach.
next day IG, rinse repeat
newbie warrior practices on own between each teach
Another day IG, rinse, repeat
Newbie warrior still cannot ride without fail
Also I'me pretty sure they got at least 4 other teaches from 2 other very advanced PCs

This sounds like your recruit prioritized wisdom last and you're upset he's not learning fast enough.  If people want to learn ride faster then simply make smarter (weaker) characters.

I've had two characters in leadership positions that frequently interacted with complete newbies or characters new to using their coded skills. One was a warrior who'd been around for quite a while, the other a ranger who'd undoubtedly maxed ride in all her playtime. I made it a point to teach every new character who had any trouble with riding and actually held scheduled group riding lessons with one.

In all that teaching I did, I can't remember a single person that it really seemed to have helped with at all. I know I don't see the code and the hard numbers, and I don't think one teach should bring you from 0 ride to being able to ride without any fails at all... but three riding lessons over the course of three or four OOC days and I saw little to no improvement gained from it.

I really doubt it's just a wisdom thing, as between those two characters I dealt with literally dozens of characters. They couldn't -all- have had crappy wisdom.

I like X-D's suggestion. Don't make people start with higher riding skill, but rather adjust the skill so that you stop failing earlier on.

[Synthesis]

Ride is so easy to raise that it has -never- been a problem for any of my characters, not even the half-giants.  I really don't understand how people are having such a horrible time with it.

I mean, I could understand how it would be a nuisance if you bothered to fuss and emote over -every- failure, but I got over that -long- ago.  Just spam your direction command until you move, and get on with it.

[Mood]

Ride is so easy to raise that it has -never- been a problem for any of my characters, not even the half-giants.  I really don't understand how people are having such a horrible time with it.

I mean, I could understand how it would be a nuisance if you bothered to fuss and emote over -every- failure, but I got over that -long- ago.  Just spam your direction command until you move, and get on with it.

The problem is that spamming ride up and down a road every now and again every few OOC days isn't fun, and prevents folks from participating a lot of the time. Forcing a newbie to do such a mind-numbingly boring activity before he can, say, go on a Byn contract, really serves little purpose, in my mind.

[psionic fungus]

So you told someone what to do, and tied a bandage around your leg. I wouldn't say the basic idea of bandaging is difficult..but its quite different from actually seeing it be done on someone that is bleeding. I think someone above me said this game is an RP mud, so I'd guess you need to RP more.

I find this to be fairly insulting.  Is telling someone what to do while demonstrating it not role-playing? i certainly learned my first aid through lecture and demonstration.  I got certified and I never practiced on anyone other than another non-injured student.  You seem to imply that you should only be able to teach (or learn) when utilizing the actual skill (on a bleeding target).  To me, that isn't role-playing any more than giving a demonstrative lecture.

I have seen teach used after the -briefest- of explanations, like this:

Code Select Expand


>say Well, all you have to do is hold the reins right, and tug on the direction you want to travel.

>teach man ride


All I can say is that it's role-playing too.  It's not trying very hard... But I don't see much of a problem with it.

Teach just isn't that powerful of a command.

[Malken]

I think that what Cerelum did was perfectly fine, and I'm often the same way, when I teach someone.

I would like to know why the Staff member who sent him that more roleplay was required tells us why he/she thinks it wasn't enough, please.

[staggerlee]

I think that what Cerelum did was perfectly fine, and I'm often the same way, when I teach someone.

I would like to know why the Staff member who sent him that more roleplay was required tells us why he/she thinks it wasn't enough, please.

In the words of Admiral Akbar: It's a trap!

You're getting a second hand report of something that happened in the game, through the perspective of one person that was involved, looking back on the incident in question.  You're not going to get a complete, or even adequate picture of the situation here. So it's impossible to judge whether the situation he drew up is, or is not, Staff encouraged use of the Teach command.

That's the kind of question that needs to be mailed to the mud account, to give the staff member in question the chance to respond as they see fit.  Calling them out on a public forum is kind of like trying to pick a fight in the school yard, and it's definitely not going to generate intelligent discussion.

[Cerelum]

I'm not calling out anyone on staff, I don't even know, nor care who sent that staff send.

My point of it is that I (and from appearances a lot of others) feel that my emotes, says and such were definately adequate in that situation.

This staff send happened at least a year ago as well, I'm not pulling it out to say that the staff member sucked or was unfair, but I'm just saying it cause that's why I haven't touched the teach command in at least a year, cause of fear of my emotes, says and such not being enough for the staff who might be watching me.

J-Rod

[Sanvean]

We do ask that you roleplay out teaching.

The "it has to be a book length" thing is a straw man, in my opinion, because I don't see staff members correcting people unless there's a significant amount of spamming without roleplay going on. Perhaps the staff member missed some of the associated roleplay due to a bad link or too much monitor spam. Perhaps the incident is being misremembered or exaggerated. Perhaps it happened on a different mud.  Perhaps it was a brand new staff member who didn't know better yet. Perhaps Martian mindworms caused some sort of consensual hallucination and actually the incident didn't happen.  I'm not seeing a pinfo note about it anywhere, which is odd, since we do ask staff members to make a note in pinfos whenever we comment someone.

Therefore, I'm going to assume that the universe burped momentarily and move on to talk about play here and now in the game. So here's an official staff position.

1. Roleplaying teaching can be a lot of fun, and I've certainly seen people do marvelous jobs with it. That's awesome, highly encouraged, and behavior that enhances roleplay for you, the person you're teaching, and any witnesses.
2. Using the teach command without roleplaying it out is a bad habit, and a persistent pattern of it will lead to negative comments. The first time we assume that the player doesn't know better and try to give them feedback as to how to play it out.
3. If you get a comment and aren't sure that the staff member understood all the details, feel free to drop them an e-mail and clear things up. Please remember to cc mud@armageddon.org on e-mails to individual staff members.