"Late in their career" and days played

[racingspider]

Hi! I have a question about what constitutes "late" and even "middle" of a character's guild. My current character is my loooooongest living (by time invested - and days played) by a longshot... twice that of any other of my previous characters (who, through my own inner curriosity lends to an early demise).
Anyway, I was curious as what would be considered, newbie, green, trained, veteran, master...

This is assuming actually investing a fairly good portion of time into their trade - burglars burgling, rangers ranging, warriors... uh warrioring... etc.

Of course, its an abstract question, but would prove helpful I think, to my understanding of the character.

[Gimfalisette]

In my experience, for my mundane characters:

0 to 10 days played = newbie, teh suck, youngling, totally green
10 to 20 days played = journeyman, pretty well-trained in core abilities
20 to 50 days played = mastery of some core abilities
50+ = mastery of many core abilities and some extra stuff too

However, I'm somewhat of a slow skiller compared to many, due to heavy concentration on social RP, plots, and leadership in clans rather than on skill-building. (Logging in and not working on coded skills at all is not unusual for me in the least.)

Edited to add: I'd also say that my characters tend to live much longer than the average. In 8 characters my average lifespan is 3.6 real months and about 28 days played, with a range of 2 weeks to 10 months, and 4 days to 80+ days played. So don't necessarily take my experience as typical.

[Qzzrbl]

Gimf's example seems to match up pretty well with what I've experienced.

Give or take a day or three.

[racingspider]

Holy newbie batman, I thought 5 days played was... more than bottom of the rung. lol.

[tortall]

Holy newbie batman, I thought 5 days played was... more than bottom of the rung. lol.

I had 6 playing days on my current character after a rl week. No WAY was she much improved from her starting status. :-D

[Voular]

It also depends on guild and natural aptness of your character. Some can go with heavy "training" for 30 playdays and still be considered not very good at their trade, while other characters (with different guilds and statistics) will rock the boat after 15 days.. And so on.

I don't think that time invested or played, lived or such really always reflects the raw skill and power of a character. There are many many ways to go about things, even for a warrior who can't really warrior - I guess he'll have to figure out an indirect warrior method. And those that do, will be conisdered masters at an earlier stage in their character life than others.

It's what I've witnessed.

[Clearsighted]

5-6 days played is perfectly respectable.

Unless you're playing a very social PC, and aren't just idling for long periods of time, 5-6 RL days worth of logged playing time can easily see you at a very respectable skill level without undue focus on skill notching. Are you a Bynner who is expected to spar most every morning, and have you been going to those sessions? Are you a hunter who likewise can realistically make one hunting trip most IC days and have been doing so? Are you a magicker who sits in their temple playing with themselves for five or six RL days worth of playing time?

If so, you can consider yourself perfectly seasoned by this point in your career.

Just be careful. Once you acquire any sort of authority or responsibility, your happy hunting days are over.

[racingspider]

5-6 days played is perfectly respectable.

Unless you're playing a very social PC, and aren't just idling for long periods of time, 5-6 RL days worth of logged playing time can easily see you at a very respectable skill level without undue focus on skill notching. Are you a Bynner who is expected to spar most every morning, and have you been going to those sessions? Are you a hunter who likewise can realistically make one hunting trip most IC days and have been doing so? Are you a magicker who sits in their temple playing with themselves for five or six RL days worth of playing time?

If so, you can consider yourself perfectly seasoned by this point in your career.

Just be careful. Once you acquire any sort of authority or responsibility, your happy hunting days are over.

Ok, that's insightful and helpful too. I've been liking this character because of the political stuff and guild stuff they have been able to get into. I've kept quite active, but also RPing too.

[FantasyWriter]

In my experience, for my mundane characters:

0 to 10 5 days played = newbie, teh suck, youngling, totally green
5 to 10 days played = novice; reasonably trained in most core skills, MAYBE working on a few new ones
10 to 20 days played = journeyman, pretty well-trained in core abilities
20 to 50 days played = mastery of some core abilities
50+ = mastery of many core abilities and some extra stuff too

[Tisiphone]

Though as has been noted, if you're playing a leader character -at least double- the figures given.

[Pale Horse]

Though as has been noted, if you're playing a leader character -at least double- the figures given.

Or a confirmed social character.

[Lakota]

Holy newbie batman, I thought 5 days played was... more than bottom of the rung. lol.

I had 6 playing days on my current character after a rl week. No WAY was she much improved from her starting status. :-D

Jesus. Did you sleep much, or work at a job? I've never heard of someone going on a binge like that.

[Ammut]

Holy newbie batman, I thought 5 days played was... more than bottom of the rung. lol.

I had 6 playing days on my current character after a rl week. No WAY was she much improved from her starting status. :-D

[musashi]

Yeah ... seriously that's ... wow, get help 

[flurry]

Holy newbie batman, I thought 5 days played was... more than bottom of the rung. lol.

I had 6 playing days on my current character after a rl week. No WAY was she much improved from her starting status. :-D

And on the seventh day, tortall rested.

Gimf's breakdown seems pretty reasonable.  Of course it depends entirely on the character.

[AmandaGreathouse]

That's true, 6 days played is -way- improved from when you first start. But the scale of early and late in a career, I would think would be highly dependent on how fast said character catches on to things, how much time they spend working, and the ratio of that to how much time they spend relaxing. When I play a clanned character, it, truthfully, usually takes me much longer for my skills to increase in general. That's in large part to the types of roles I've had in clans, like having a ranger that won't spar with a dummy, but will go out and actually hunt. But with indie characters, they tend to be more conscious of their lack of a safety net, so they'll do things like making extra coin to keep the rent paid in -way- advance, hoarding foodstuffs, and hoarding their materials if they're crafter-types. Too much can happen when you can't depend on anyone for help, so you have to plan in advance. Meh, then again, the longest-lasting character I've had was, I think, about 26 days played.

[Tisiphone]

Gimf's levels are for overall, complete character development, as well. You can get very, very good in a single skill in a number of days.

[brytta.leofa]

I think I've gleaned from the GDB that you can fairly easily saturate your learning capability whilst binge-playing: a given amount of practice will gain your character more spread over several days than crammed into one.

Which makes sense.

[Rairen]

I reject the notion that having more than twenty days played makes you l33t.









... I'm such a slacker.

[Boggis]

I think I'd go along with Gimf's numbers. For magickers divide by 3.

[Malken]

I branch within hours of gameplay if I have decent wisdom.

Whatever, I do what I want. Y'all don't know me. I do what I want.

*snaps his fingers sassily and walks out of the thread*

[Mekeda]

I deleted a post from this topic that was, to be honest, blatantly rude and insulting. Moral judgements on other peoples RP are fine and good, just keep it to yourself. This is not a combat oriented game. There are no skill levels. Blasting someone for their method of RP is childish and in bad form.

Mekeda

[fourTwenty]

I branch within hours of gameplay if I have decent wisdom.

Whatever, I do what I want. Y'all don't know me. I do what I want.

*snaps his fingers sassily and walks out of the thread*

I just died
[/derail]

Gims numbers pretty much fit. A little slower if your like me and have odd playtimes. Sometimes I get burnt out on the solo and kinda idle. STFU You know you do it to.

[jstorrie]

This depends on your class, your race, your stats, your play style, and your environment. Days played isn't really a useful metric; I'd instead 'rank' class progression based on what you can accomplish. If you can defeat monster X, for example, you're becoming an experienced warrior. If you can get away with crime Y, you're becoming an experienced shady. Etc.

[AmandaGreathouse]

This depends on your class, your race, your stats, your play style, and your environment. Days played isn't really a useful metric; I'd instead 'rank' class progression based on what you can accomplish. If you can defeat monster X, for example, you're becoming an experienced warrior. If you can get away with crime Y, you're becoming an experienced shady. Etc.

That's a really good point. I've had some characters that could go up against <animal> right out of the box and whoop it's ass, other characters, same race and guild, different stats, got whooped by it even after several days played, and way worse than the other did at only a few hours played. But once you get to that second or third rung of what's out there, it's kinda a universal indicator. IMO.

[SMuz]

Yup, my character looks like one of those quick learners. It's difficult to tell, though. You actually have to DO the thing to know if you could do it and well... doing crime Y or fighting monster X could very well kill you

[Fathi]

Stats are the big determining factor in this.

I speak from experience when I say that if you have low strength, being a "50 day warrior" doesn't mean much, even if you spar every day you log on.

Unless you're fighting squishy northlands animals or unarmoured people.

Sure, you can probably parry, block, disarm, and bash like a pro... but you will still have significant difficulty killing a scrab.

[Shiroi Tsuki]

Wisdom is one of those stats that's a big determining factor in how much you've learned after so many days played, too.  I've heard people say that it doesn't matter that much, but I have definitely noticed a big, big difference in how fast my character gets better at X between poor wisdom and average, and between average and amazingly godly.

Days played is more of a general guideline than an indicator, but it seems to be the best one that we have since it's easily found and in general seems to be a moderate measure of what the typical character may have learned by that point.

[Furious George]

Days played indicates one and only one thing, how much time you've put into your character.  I'm not going to buy into the theory that 30+ days makes you skilled, because you might simply not be concerned about your skills.  I think it gives new players a false sense of hope or security to put that sort of qualifier that time=skill.

Anything in advance of 20 days means you've likely figured out your niche for survival and time consumption, nothing more and nothing less.

I know of one character in my playing career that utilized nothing other than communication skills and emotes for one RL year, because his/her situation didn't warrant worrying about or using his/her skills.

I also know of someone who is notorious for being able to roleplay the hell out of a character and get them to "buff" standards a significantly low amount of time.

If someone tells me they had a 50 day warrior, I'm not so much curious how much shit they could kick, in so much what sort of tales they can tell.

My opinion.

[jstorrie]

Stats are the big determining factor in this.

Paradoxically, if your stats are too high they might also end up forcing you to take longer to progress. If you end up with a very high stat roll (or have a lot of racial bonuses), your natural talent at something may make it so that it's very rare for you to fail at it–and if you don't make mistakes, you don't improve. You end up with someone who can do skill X very well simply from 'brute force', but, because they never had to really work on it, never learned it with any finesse. You'll almost always succeed at the basic use of the skill, but you won't branch it, and you won't get any of the neat little bonuses that typically come from 'mastering' a skill.

This is generally more of a problem for indies and small groups. Big clans, like the Byn, typically are better able to find ways to challenge the extra-talented. Indies end up having to take on very challenging tasks indeed, and it often kills them. But your mileage may vary; maybe your large clan can't challenge you at all, and you wander off for some personal development. The trials and tribulations of the high-statted!

Anyway, while this seems counterintuitive, I don't think it requires any kind of fix. I know many real-life examples of people who were too naturally talented at something to start, and then never learned to really work hard or study at it.

[FantasyWriter]

Stats are the big determining factor in this.

Paradoxically, if your stats are too high they might also end up forcing you to take longer to progress. If you end up with a very high stat roll (or have a lot of racial bonuses), your natural talent at something may make it so that it's very rare for you to fail at it–and if you don't make mistakes, you don't improve. You end up with someone who can do skill X very well simply from 'brute force', but, because they never had to really work on it, never learned it with any finesse. You'll almost always succeed at the basic use of the skill, but you won't branch it, and you won't get any of the neat little bonuses that typically come from 'mastering' a skill.

This is generally more of a problem for indies and small groups. Big clans, like the Byn, typically are better able to find ways to challenge the extra-talented. Indies end up having to take on very challenging tasks indeed, and it often kills them. But your mileage may vary; maybe your large clan can't challenge you at all, and you wander off for some personal development. The trials and tribulations of the high-statted!

Anyway, while this seems counterintuitive, I don't think it requires any kind of fix. I know many real-life examples of people who were too naturally talented at something to start, and then never learned to really work hard or study at it.

Hehe, yeah I had a dwarf once (my favorite PC ever) who had GREAT stats other than wisdom. After 15 day of relatively heavy combat, he still wasn't much better than he was in the beginning.

[Riev]

Going off JStorrie and FW:

My current character has poor wisdom, and is a warrior (That isn't too IC, back off IC-police) so as far as skills are concerned, I don't think I'm going to branch anything until like 15-20days played. At least not with how much practice he currently gets in as well. HOWEVER, I feel that his base offense and defense will go up higher -because- he doesn't get his skills up quickly, so by the time things start branching, he'll be significantly better off than if he had exceptional wisdom.

Though, my strength is also terribly bad, so killing anyone or anything without the hand of Tek intervening may be a chore.

[Malken]

Going off JStorrie and FW:

My current character has poor wisdom, and is a warrior (That isn't too IC, back off IC-police) so as far as skills are concerned, I don't think I'm going to branch anything until like 15-20days played. At least not with how much practice he currently gets in as well. HOWEVER, I feel that his base offense and defense will go up higher -because- he doesn't get his skills up quickly, so by the time things start branching, he'll be significantly better off than if he had exceptional wisdom.

Though, my strength is also terribly bad, so killing anyone or anything without the hand of Tek intervening may be a chore.

Apparently your warrior should never have been a warrior in life, there's your problem right there.

May I recommend the crippled retard class? 

[Riev]

May I recommend the crippled retard class? 

You know what? I don't have the karma for that, otherwise I would have taken it. It would have apparently fit the stats a bit more.

Do you think its worth begging for a stat increase? Or just wait for birthdays? I know of someone whose character, right now, has the same other two stats as I do, but strength and wisdom are much much higher. I don't want exceptional, just more... fitting.

To go hand in hand with the thread contents, if I were "late in my career", sure, I could probably kill a merchant or something, but anyone with half my skill would hold their own and probably beat me, just because I cant hit hard.

[jstorrie]

Low wisdom is not, in my experience, a serious detriment if you're playing a 'melee' class–it doesn't hamper you much to only be able to learn a few things a day if you could only spar a few times a day, anyway.

Warriors just tend to branch late because the skills they have can be difficult to practice. 'Rescue drills' take multiple PCs; sparring is less helpful if you don't have someone of similar prowess to spar with; clanned characters may find it difficult to find opportunities to test skills like guard or bandage, etc. Some classes just branch earlier than others because of how their 'skill trees' were designed.

Branching isn't the bees' knees, anyway. I can't think of many 'branched skills' that are exponentially better than your starting skills–they tend to just be variations on what you could already do. You'll probably have less fun if you pay too much attention to the minutiae of stats and skill-branches, so why not just play as you like and let the branches fall where they may?

[Riev]

Eh, I'm less concerned about the skills received from branching, as I am knowing that I'm to a point with the previous skill that I can say I'm actually "good" at it.

Combat is one of those things hard to gauge. You can kick the shit out of any runner in the Byn, and still go outside and die to a scrab.

[fourTwenty]

I know of someone whose character, right now, has the same other two stats as I do, but strength and wisdom are much much higher.

Is it just me or is this the type of thing you shouldn't know?


Going to what jstorrie said:
That makes perfect sense, you see it a lot with wrestlers. They use power and sized to absolutely dominate all the way up to maybe their last two years of college. Then they meet people who actually -know- how to wrestle and get stomped.

[Mood]

I had 6 playing days on my current character after a rl week.

What the fuck.

[jstorrie]

For more related and totally interesting psychobabble, see this Mefi thread discussing Dweck's growth/static mindset theories.

[jcljules]

I had 6 playing days on my current character after a rl week.

What the fuck.

I hope this is some sort of terrible mistake... 

[Kryos]

To answer the OP question.  Remember that there are a WIDE VARIETY OF FACTORS in the answer.  Days played alone IS INSUFFICIENT.  What you did, and many other relevant things come into play here.  I'm not willing to discuss such things on the GDB, as that's bad, but I caution, advise, plead with you to take a deeper look then just "days played."  If you want to talk on aim or the like about it, cool.

[fourTwenty]

I had 6 playing days on my current character after a rl week.

I want you in my clan.

I'm not willing to discuss such things on the GDB, as that's bad, but I caution, advise, plead with you to take a deeper look then just "days played."  If you want to talk on aim or the like about it, cool.

Is it just me? Really? Dude, if it's something you shouldn't post on the GDB it's something you shouldn't relay on AIM. WTF?

[Simple]

Some people idle in work and the like....so, days played is kinda inconsistent

[Riev]

I really don't believe it was a rule, but a guideline. If you're a code-based character, and you've been working on coded skills pretty consistently (read: Not spamming, but within reason) then after 10 days you are probably going to be breaking the line of "absolute n00b".

Because, Ginka knows just how hard it is to branch. I would like to spend all my time sparring and getting skills up, but at my rate, I'm going to be the only warrior in the game who has 20 days played, no branches, and couldn't kill a newbie merchant. But damned if people don't fall in absolute love with my charm.

Because I'm a bad bad bad bad boy.

[tortall]

I had 6 playing days on my current character after a rl week.

What the fuck.

I hope this is some sort of terrible mistake... 

HA! Woops! I mean two rl weeks... ~halo~

Still want me 420?

[fourTwenty]

I had 6 playing days on my current character after a rl week.

What the fuck.

I hope this is some sort of terrible mistake... 

HA! Woops! I mean two rl weeks... ~halo~

Still want me 420?

WTF, I'm easy. I'll still take you anway.