Rescue

[Bebop]

I think everyone should have the coded ability to at least attempt to rescue someone.

Doesn't mean you could get to good at it.  But still you should be able to try.

[Marauder Moe]

Have you tried trying?  I think I remember Bynners of mine participating in rescue drills even without the skill, though it was a long time ago and I could be mistaken.

[brytta.leofa]

I would be on board with everybody having the ability to do every mundane skill, but with a horrifically low skill cap.  They wouldn't show up on your skill tree, but you could with effort get them up to "pathetic."

[Bebop]

Don't know if I have tried using rescue without having it.  But my point is.  Is if a half giant merchant tries to shove a dwarf out of the way, or step in his line of combat.  Seems likely he could do that.  Regardless, if you truly want to shove someone out of the way, doesn't seem like it would be to hard to do.

[Marauder Moe]

Well that's not what you were asking for originally.   

[Gimfalisette]

Anyone -can- try to rescue. If you don't have the skill (which comes in a couple of guilds and one or more subguilds, I think), then you won't be able to do it.

This is as it should be. Rescuing folks in combat is a defining skill for fighter types. It doesn't only represent pushing someone out of the way, it represents turning the opponent's attention toward yourself. Other than "hit the enemy and grab the aggro before it can hit your friends," rescue is the only tanking-type skill that fighters have. (Well, guard to some extent as well. But again, defining skill for fighter types.)

[jstorrie]

You have to consider what you'd actually be doing, in game. Yes, you can shove someone out of the way; a simple emote does that. But how are you going to keep their attacker from just continuing to press the attack on them? That's the finesse bit that the rescue skill represents.

[Armaddict]

I'd rather the rescue skill be a toggle.

rescue <so and so>
You start trying to intercept attacks on <so and so>.

Rather than just taking aggro, you're actively defending their person.

[Greve]

.

[Rindan]

I tend to agree that anyone should be able to learn pretty much all mundane skills.  Just crank the skill progression WAY down, and cap it off at a moderate level. 

I think skinning as a warrior is a perfect example of how all skills should be.  I had a warrior.  He killed a lot of animals and skinned them over the course of years.  Was he ever awesome at skinning things?  No.  Would you ever want my warrior to skin something instead of a ranger?  Hell no.  That said, he could pull the pelt off of a lot of animals with a moderate chance of success and could usually scrape off a little meat.  He was a very inefficient hunter, but he wasn't utterly worthless.  I think most skills should be like that.  They advance slow, cap out at a functional but less than god-like level, but your character doesn't appear to have a sever learning disability when it comes to picking up new skills.

[psionic fungus]

I personally think that the skill system should be classless entirely.  But we're not going to get that...

Given the large skill-spread that Two Half-Classes plus Two Specializations is likely to give characters I think it is unlikely that they would further expand characters abilities to include most mundane skills, even at rudimentary levels.

I really don't know how I feel about it.  If everyone gets "scan" that "scan" should only be effective against the level of "hide" that everyone also gets.  Anyone who specializes in "hide" should require a specialist in "scan" to find them, etc...

The problem I have is this... If I can hide... Why can't I get better at it?  If I stop doing whatever else I was doing, and devote myself to hiding, why can't I then master it?  Why is there an arbitrary cap?  "Soft" caps could make this more appealing, but I really don't think it fits with the model the staff is using...

I dunno.   

[IntuitiveApathy]

I personally think that the skill system should be classless entirely.  But we're not going to get that...

Given the large skill-spread that Two Half-Classes plus Two Specializations is likely to give characters I think it is unlikely that they would further expand characters abilities to include most mundane skills, even at rudimentary levels.

I really don't know how I feel about it.  If everyone gets "scan" that "scan" should only be effective against the level of "hide" that everyone also gets.  Anyone who specializes in "hide" should require a specialist in "scan" to find them, etc...

The problem I have is this... If I can hide... Why can't I get better at it?  If I stop doing whatever else I was doing, and devote myself to hiding, why can't I then master it?  Why is there an arbitrary cap?  "Soft" caps could make this more appealing, but I really don't think it fits with the model the staff is using...

I dunno.   

I just have to say that I'm a fan of slow progressing soft-capped freely available mundane skills too.  Assuming you mean each skillcap balanced off in a total cap pool that is.  It'd be even nicer if all skills were soft-capped, just that the class/specialization you picked enabled you to learn certain skills faster (or have a higher cap in class category x, etc).

[Rindan]

Soft cap general refers to having a sliding scale of difficulty in learning.  The better you get, the harder it gets to learn more.  The idea is to make it theoretically possible to raise a skill, but in practicality you will eventually hit a point where you can't raise the skill in any noticeable way.  So, a warrior who uses sneak in a soft cap system might get good enough to sneak up to 10% in a month.  In 6 months, he might be able to sneak past someone 20%.  In 20 months, he might be at 30% of the time.  While he is still making progress, at a 0.5% improvement per month, it isn't going to be noticeable.  Further, he would never be able to sneak past a person with good scan though. 

Obviously, you can toy with how harsh the soft cap is so that it is easier or harder.  I personally like the idea.  It always bothered me how if you join a militaristic clan with a non-warrior there will always be some skills you simply can not do.  I think it is silly that a warrior that spends all his time in the desert can never pick up tracking enough to spot Silt Horror tracks. 

I personally am a big fan of softcaps.  You are still king in your class, but now characters are not so one dimensional in how they approach problems.  Your merchant can, god forbid, hide if he is scared.  Your warrior can then scan and look for the hiding merchant.  Sure, the warrior will miss the master thief in the room, and the merchant will be spotted instantly by a master ranger, but for the merchant and warrior they now have more options as to how to approach things.

[Synthesis]

You can always ask the staff to give you a particular skill, if you think the IC actions of your character warrant the skill being added.  I mean...what's so difficult/daunting about that?  The worst they can do is deny you.  It's not that big a deal.

[IntuitiveApathy]

Soft cap general refers to having a sliding scale of difficulty in learning.  The better you get, the harder it gets to learn more.  The idea is to make it theoretically possible to raise a skill, but in practicality you will eventually hit a point where you can't raise the skill in any noticeable way.  So, a warrior who uses sneak in a soft cap system might get good enough to sneak up to 10% in a month.  In 6 months, he might be able to sneak past someone 20%.  In 20 months, he might be at 30% of the time.  While he is still making progress, at a 0.5% improvement per month, it isn't going to be noticeable.  Further, he would never be able to sneak past a person with good scan though. 

Obviously, you can toy with how harsh the soft cap is so that it is easier or harder.  I personally like the idea.  It always bothered me how if you join a militaristic clan with a non-warrior there will always be some skills you simply can not do.  I think it is silly that a warrior that spends all his time in the desert can never pick up tracking enough to spot Silt Horror tracks. 

I personally am a big fan of softcaps.  You are still king in your class, but now characters are not so one dimensional in how they approach problems.  Your merchant can, god forbid, hide if he is scared.  Your warrior can then scan and look for the hiding merchant.  Sure, the warrior will miss the master thief in the room, and the merchant will be spotted instantly by a master ranger, but for the merchant and warrior they now have more options as to how to approach things.

Oh, this sounds great too.

[Rindan]

You can always ask the staff to give you a particular skill, if you think the IC actions of your character warrant the skill being added.  I mean...what's so difficult/daunting about that?  The worst they can do is deny you.  It's not that big a deal.

Why make it so that the staff need to manually load up skills for you?  Further, if you are going to go down that rout, why not just make it so that joining certain clans just slap skills onto your list?  I mean hell, everyone who joins the Byn or militia should be able to learn something of how to guard, rescue, and parry.  Manually loading up skills is not the answer.  People won't do it because they don't want to steal time for the staff to get a low capped out guard added to their pick pocket who is going to die in two days.  Further, that isn't what the staff should be doing.  The staff should only be manually giving people skills when something unusual happens.  A bugler joining the Byn is not an unusual event demanding staff intervention.  It is an utterly common even that should be handled by code.

Look, we make the current class system work, but when it comes to the new game, I think it should be more flexible.  Your merchant should actually be able to hide when something bad  happens.  He might be spotted by the first person to bother looking, but he should be able to hide.  Your bugler classed militiaman should be able to learn guard.  He might never be good, but he should stand a vague chance of shoving his body in-between bad things and other people.  Your warrior working as a Kuraci outrider should be able to pick up enough tracking to be able to spot a silt horror track and maybe even very slowly follow recent humanoid tracks.

So yes, lets just carry on as we always have, but I truly hope that in the new game classes are not straight jackets.

[amish overlord]

Don't see how hard it is to just throw yourself in front of someone, now to throw yourself in front of someone and not get seriously maimed would take some skill.

Amish Overlord 

[Qzzrbl]

I'd rather the rescue skill be a toggle.

rescue <so and so>
You start trying to intercept attacks on <so and so>.

Rather than just taking aggro, you're actively defending their person.

You mean the 'guard' skill?

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Whether you do or do not have the skill, you can rescue someone via the rescue command. It will just be ... well, harder. You can also do any of the other combative skills without the skill in question. It will just be ... harder.

[Greve]

I have absolutely never managed to succesfully use any skill that my PC doesn't have, apart from climb and skinning. It's possible to attempt, yes, but it's either plain impossible to do it right, or the chance is so small that it isn't worth the effort in any way.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I have absolutely never managed to succesfully use any skill that my PC doesn't have, apart from climb and skinning. It's possible to attempt, yes, but it's either plain impossible to do it right, or the chance is so small that it isn't worth the effort in any way.

Bolded for the truth.

[Lenny Poppo]

rescue doesn't work good even when you have the skill, until you practice it like crazy

try it without the skill and you have probably 1 in a thousand chance or something

[X-D]

rescue doesn't work good even when you have the skill, until you practice it like crazy

That is OH so wrong.

[Hot_Dancer]

I've had a reliable rescue skill on most of my characters who had it without excessive practice. I agree that certain potentially crippling skills to live without such as scan or climb (maybe not rescue) were universal and able to be learned like ride.

[RoannTantreal]

You can always ask the staff to give you a particular skill, if you think the IC actions of your character warrant the skill being added.  I mean...what's so difficult/daunting about that?  The worst they can do is deny you.  It's not that big a deal.

Why make it so that the staff need to manually load up skills for you?  Further, if you are going to go down that rout, why not just make it so that joining certain clans just slap skills onto your list?  I mean hell, everyone who joins the Byn or militia should be able to learn something of how to guard, rescue, and parry.  Manually loading up skills is not the answer.  People won't do it because they don't want to steal time for the staff to get a low capped out guard added to their pick pocket who is going to die in two days.  Further, that isn't what the staff should be doing.  The staff should only be manually giving people skills when something unusual happens.  A bugler joining the Byn is not an unusual event demanding staff intervention.  It is an utterly common even that should be handled by code.

Look, we make the current class system work, but when it comes to the new game, I think it should be more flexible.  Your merchant should actually be able to hide when something bad  happens.  He might be spotted by the first person to bother looking, but he should be able to hide.  Your bugler classed militiaman should be able to learn guard.  He might never be good, but he should stand a vague chance of shoving his body in-between bad things and other people.  Your warrior working as a Kuraci outrider should be able to pick up enough tracking to be able to spot a silt horror track and maybe even very slowly follow recent humanoid tracks.

So yes, lets just carry on as we always have, but I truly hope that in the new game classes are not straight jackets.

The catch with that is, how do you regulate adding skills automatically when a person joins a group, if a lot of groups aren't coded?

Say I'm playing a thief type, and I form a band of burglars to go rip off some noble's apartment?

Well, the warrior type in the group who we use for "gentle coercion" might definately pick up some skills of the trade hes working in.

But if its not a coded group, how can he be automatically gifted with those abilites like sneak and hide and such?

Or even outside of groupings entirely:

Say a poor gemmer from Allanak rides with a hunting party out into the desert, the hunters turn out to hate Magickers, and mug him and leave him for dead.

He comes to, and spends many days-weeks-months in game surviving on his last leg in the desert, managing to find just enough food and water to survive, either through running into friendly tribes(haha), or cactus, or whatever.

Shouldn't the poor gemmer come back with some knowledge of tracking, hunting, skinning, foraging, etc?

(not to mention a vendetta)

Characters should definately all have the ability to develop any skill, their class should just define what skills they are predisposed to learning, or what skills they have a natural affinity for.

Then again, I'm a newbie, so take my word as you will.

[Synthesis]

I'll say it again:  request that the skill(s) be added.

I doubt very many characters actually live long enough or do diverse enough things for staff-administrated skill-adding to be a problem.

If you have a character concept that you -know- will use skills beyond the norm for the available classes, special app it.  Yes, it takes a little patience, but they're generally fairly lenient (these days, at least).

The fact that you have to put a lot of thought into a special application and the fact that the expected turnaround is so slow serves very well to keep the number of such applications low. (I've written up maybe 4 special apps in all my many years of playing.)  It also keeps the min/maxers, powergamers, twinks, newbs, and griefers from becoming sneaking, hiding, backstabbing warriors who can also poison their weapons, pick locks, toss fireballs, and craft silk dresses in their free time.

Yes, it's a little frustrating, but it works well enough.  As far as staff hassle, there is already a staff member assigned for special applications and things of that nature, so I don't see how it increases the workload.  If anything, increasing the number of special requests will simply make -players- wait longer for resolution.