Skill grinding

[valeria]

As long as someone is playing a believable character, why should I care whether their ultimate goal is to branch winemaking, or magic missile, or whatever?  It makes sense for a militant character to spar, or a tailor to practice making clothes, or someone who relies on their magick for survival to make sure their spells work right.  I don't see a lot of really obvious skill grinding going on.  And I've played at games where people grind skills.

I feel that putting in a lot of coded limitations, etc, is really counter productive in the end.  The people who are going to try to min/max the system are going to, anyway, regardless of what coded barriers you put in place--and based on the number of people who hate the thought of people min/maxing the system, I think there's a higher perception that they're out there than there is a percentage of people who really do.  But that's beside the point.  They're going to keep doing it, and it's just going to generate frustration on the part of people who DON'T.

Why did I leave SoI?  Because of the crafting timer.  Straight up.  Nothing says 'we don't trust our players to play responsibly' like coded measures put into place to keep a small minority from acting like idiots, but which in turn keep the vast majority from enjoying their play time.

[Jenred]

I for one, find the skill system a hindrance to different types of Role-Playing.

I have posted this elsewhere in the past, in length - Not everyone enjoys playing a novice. It does not fit their real-life personality, and it shows in the playing of their characters. Some people excel at playing an expert, a master, or someone in charge. Others thrive at the novice, and understand very well the nuances of playing someone learning (I don't know any players outside the GDB, so I don't have enough information to really make sociological assumptions) - but I'd wager that they are attached to real-life factors.

So, to some players the learning curve is a hindrance that negatively impacts their playing. They are just basically idling by waiting for the chance where they know how to play. And other players its the opposite. They stall out at higher skill-levels and tend to be alot less interesting then their "learning" character.

Alot of games have implemented systems to avoid the "grind" for players that have proven in the past that they are capable and will not abuse "skilled" characters. And this is not necessarily a bad thing. Almost like sponsored roles, but on a more stream-lined system.

[janeshephard]

I have posted this elsewhere in the past, in length - Not everyone enjoys playing a novice. It does not fit their real-life personality, and it shows in the playing of their characters. Some people excel at playing an expert, a master, or someone in charge. Others thrive at the novice, and understand very well the nuances of playing someone learning (I don't know any players outside the GDB, so I don't have enough information to really make sociological assumptions) - but I'd wager that they are attached to real-life factors.

While I agree a karma setup where you can start off with someone more experienced would be nice, they do have sponsored roles and such.

Batmud has a system (and it's not an RPI btw) which allows you to reincarnate. You lose something like 10-25% of experience, depending on how its done, and then spend it on a new race/background/guilds setup. Something like this for Arma would be nice. That excellent warrior you lost can come back in another form, let's say another guild entirely, with their experience minus a percent transferred over equally into new skills.

Let's say you can reincarnate only twice in a row. So you have a long lived warrior, he dies, you roll a merchant who doesn't suck at merchanting. He dies. Then you reroll an assassin and now you have something like 30% added to all your skills from the get go. After that you're back to novice and can't reincarnate.

Upside of this: player retention increases. After that long lived excellent warrior the player isn't completely demoralized. They can jump back in and not feel like a novice again (because some players don't like playing novices). You no longer have the pressure to grind your first 5 days of play away hoping to become a competent Zalanthian.

Downside of this: everyone rolls merchant, powergames the crafting so they can reroll warrior after they suicide and start with decent skills. My own opinion is that the player base won't do this. It's too much work even for the rabid power gamer. Instead reincarnating will be a pleasant thing that makes perm death have less of an impact.

Don't include this option for non mundane guilds. Magickers should start off weak and quietly practice somewhere until they can hold their own. I agree with this. I just don't agree with making it harder for them to practice. You'll just see more grinding from them.

[jstorrie]

This is the true problem that needs to be solved and it can only be solved by each of us focusing on our own play, letting the staff deal with any problems, and having the attitude of: "To each his/her own."

qfft

[Saellyn]

I know it's late, but I think staff know when people are RPing a -lot- and then maybe skillgrinding on their off time.

I'm guilty of skillgrinding, but if somebody shows up while I'm skillgrinding, believe me, the emotes and tells and stuff -will- start coming out, unless they blow right by me. So it's really not a matter of "do you solo-RP" to me, since I'm horrible at it, so much as "Do you avoid ignoring people when they come upon you doing your thing?"

[musashi]

I know it's late, but I think staff know when people are RPing a -lot- and then maybe skillgrinding on their off time.

I'm guilty of skillgrinding, but if somebody shows up while I'm skillgrinding, believe me, the emotes and tells and stuff -will- start coming out, unless they blow right by me. So it's really not a matter of "do you solo-RP" to me, since I'm horrible at it, so much as "Do you avoid ignoring people when they come upon you doing your thing?"

Add onto that: Do you keep your training to realistic levels? Even if something is your job, like foraging ... sure you migh wake up in the morning and do it until dusk but ... all through the night? Without pause? For days on end? Until hunger and thrist force you to take a break? I would think that would drivemost people insane. Take a break at night and go have a drink in a tavern or something. As long as you're mixing it up a little there isn't really a problem as far as I'd be concened, and staff have echoed those sentiments before.

[Mudder]

I have to agree with eveything Synthesis is saying.

Magickers were set up to branch their first tier spells super fast. I verified this once years ago by emailing Halaster
because I too thought it was fast. In the email he told me its set up that way so dont sweat it.

If you know how the code/fails work and pair that with his wisdom I do not care what you are playing you can get
damn near any class skills up fast. Is that twinking? I do not think so.

Often times with magickers, Ive noticed that everytime for several tries in a row I get a fail (and thats not spam casting, thts gettig a fail and quitting the said spell and doing it again at a later time) Can you blame the player for that?
Nope, just good luck I guess.

[Mudder]

I do know this twinking/magicker/new ideas for karma threads is starting to get old.
I took a little over a year break from Arm and the boards and even then there
was a thread detailing with this popping up every other month, more often
than not, by the same damn people over and over.

Topics like these that drive the GDB into the ground is why about three years ago I quit even payin
attentioin to the GDB.

Editted to add: And when these same people whom bring up these worn out topics again
alway have the same people who agree with them and usually they dont even had anything
new to the threads that they have not already said a million times in all these
other threads.. Seriously, these topics are washed
up, give them a break.

[RogueGunslinger]

Topics like these that drive the GDB into the ground is why about three years ago I quit even payin
attentioin to the GDB.

Don't be offended, I'm not specifically targeting you, Mudder. But what's up with all the bellyaching lately about "threads" or "topics" that "ruin the GDB and my life and make me hate Arm because we've already discussed them before..."

I realize it's just another phase, like this "I don usually agree with gimf" bullshit, but it's getting kind of tiring. Stop being so dramatic. If you don't like a thread, ignore it. If you do like a thread reply to it. For everything in between? We don't care how emotional you get when threads like this start popping up. So yeah, we know that you think we're ruining the game, but there actually are hot topics that -do- need to be discussed ad nauseum, and do have multiple sides that needs to be expressed. And guess what. Just because 10 ninnies discussed it two months ago, doesn't mean that there isn't anything relative to discuss right now, or anyone new who wants a shot.

P.S. People like to argue.

[jhunter]

Uh...aren't you actually doing that very thing with the above post? *scratches his head*

[RogueGunslinger]

 I'm trying to tell all the complainers to stop complaining about other players when they're trying to help the game. So yeah, kinda. I just think that complaining about people/thread who have a genuine interest in the bettering of the game is counterproductive.

Every thread discussing how we can make the game better is a good thing.

[Mudder]

I never once said it ruined the game, and I do not care if you were singling me out or not, I'm
not going to get butt hurt. I said the GDB, not the game.

I only mentioned that because there is hardly anything different said in these threads.
Anywho, I have said all I needed to on this 'skill grinding'.

[Saellyn]

I find it very disheartening when people start talking about what is possible with magick, and hinting at how it is possible to do x or y.  There are a lot of nuances to it.  It is impossible to tell who knows what nuance.  You, with hundreds of hours behind a list of magickers, may not know all of them.  So lets not hint at those nuances, by explaining how quickly we can do x or y, or that someone else misunderstands because of z.

Coded power can't be looked at in isolation.  Isolation being a key difference in power between mundane and magicker, along with the routinely paraded litany of others.

With magic it's possible to MAKE YOUR BRAINZ ESPLODEY!!!!!!!!!!!OMG!!!

It's also possible to get muffins if you beg really hard.

Uh, now, back to - NO I don't sit out in the wastes or run around day and night doing the same thing over and over, I haul my butt back to the Gaj so I don't get eaten by an army of Halflings that are just LOOKING to pick my bones clean xD

And usually I end up staying in the Gaj for a few IG days chatting it up with people and driving them absolutely crazy with my impersonation of the Zalanthean Jimmy Carter.


DISCLAIMER noteverythinginthispostistruehtereisnozalantheanjimmycarterthankyou ..... Or is there?

[Testing]

First off I should just state that I think the only way to approach any situation in Arm is to immediately take the actions of another player in the kindest possible way. Assume that they're doing an awesome job rather than assuming that you're the only one who is and they all suck.

I think the possibility of grinding comes along as part of the game. I think that it's easy to get a little too wrapped up in the "purity" of the RP and lose sight of the fact that there's still a game here, and the best friggin' game ever I might add. The RP together with the game and its mechanics makes this awesome.

So, I would actually observe that I think the skills go pretty slowly. I've had characters who lived a year or better and, because of the nature of the character, they never branched a single skill. They were rich, powerful, wielded a measure of influence, and if someone attacked them they would have died like dogs immediately. If you're an ungemmed mage those skills could take a very, very long time to develop.

I think -that's- the real source of consternation for a lot of people, that they're playing these characters for a long friggin' time and then some guy with his newish character who has done virtually nothing but train could (and maybe did) kick their head in. To ME that goes to the richness, and even to some extent the accuracy, of life in Zlanthas. There's someone better out there. You can never be so powerful that you shouldn't worry. Some duties take you away from training, giving room for others to get better than you, etc.

So, in summary, I've never considered training to be bad RP, but I've only just created my first character who does it. Zalanthas is a dangerous world and people are therefore additionally motivated to train. Maybe in the end it's a question of whether you play Arm for the RP alone or play it for the whole game experience.

[ianmartin]

Did I forget something or wasn't it written that spam skilling up is not an effective method to raise skills?

[spawnloser]

Spam-training is NOT an effective way to raise skills.  However, clever use of training can indeed result in a character becoming better-skilled than another in short order, though.

[Saellyn]

Remember, next time you decide to spam-train out in the wilds...

There's always a bigger Gith.

[Kalai]

More or less spamming forage appeared to increase my skill at at least some kind of rate. But I have no idea how it'd compare to 'clever' training

[Saellyn]

Well, "clever" training means you do your time, then you wait a little while. Then you do some more time, then you wait a while, and in between you take about two or three IG days to hang out in hotspots and roleplay with people so the Imms don't spank you for being a twinking spam-skilling lamer who's going to amass ten times the wealth of Tektolnes and pay it all to a Templar for getting dust on that shiny new glove of his.

[Spider]

I'm thinking you should edit that^^ a bit...

And, sitting in hot spots and chatting up other PC's for several IG days != Roleplay.  Well at least, not necessarily. I'm sure some roles might call for that on occasion.

[Kalai]

aye, my main difficulty with an accelerated timeframe: wait, we've been having this conversation for two days?

Other than that, I like Zalanthan time.

[evil_erdlu]

So let people spam skills.. So what? We all know there are coded safeties to prevent skill grinding. If it bothers you, you can report to the staff. If it harms you, you can report to the staff.

I just applied for a new character - not a mage this time, an unfamiliar guild altogether - and currently I'm reading and rereading the description of the guild to figure out which skills I'm going to receive, which of them will of logical and/or necessary for my character and how I will improve them to reasonable levels. Because with my all warriors/mages I don't want to be a 10-day-old character, meet people, get involved in plots then die to a scrab/gortok etc. With my all merchants I would hate to limit my plot options because of money. With all my sneakies I would hate to feel unsafe to wander into less lawful areas with the character who's a part of a smuggling circle, information-scavenger for two groups also a funky hairdresser.

If this was a MUSH, a storyteller would have a look at your char info and die roll and tell you: "Yeah, he throws a punch, you catch the fist and break his bones within your own hand." but in a MUSH there would possibly 5 players and three storytellers . Here we require code support hence; skills. So people will train. Some will overdo it for stupidity. Some will believe 'pattern a' is a better way to gain skills so they'll do it that way. Some will not bother with training. Some will believe ignoring skills is the one true path to RP. Me? Unless I play a noble, I'll grind my skills at regular intervals dutifully. Even as a noble I may make a hobby of being a decent cook.

[Your babbling improved]
Whoa! See? For that reason this post was needlessly long.

[Riev]

I think Erdlu sums up most of my feelings on the subject, but I would also like to say that people who do nothing but fight in the mornings, then rest in a barracks with someone all night and not speak or emote a thing, only to fight and spar in the morning again really make me angry.

Though, that may be because I used to want to do that until I found the glory of Relationships and affecting other players of the game positively.

[jhunter]

I think Erdlu sums up most of my feelings on the subject, but I would also like to say that people who do nothing but fight in the mornings, then rest in a barracks with someone all night and not speak or emote a thing, only to fight and spar in the morning again really make me angry.

Though, that may be because I used to want to do that until I found the glory of Relationships and affecting other players of the game positively.

Rather than getting angry about it, I just go to interact with other people as my pc would and don't waste my time on them. They're the ones missing out, I figure I'll just laugh at them OOCly and continue playing my character. What does bother me is when I don't have enough time to devote to playing the game and I have to make antisocial characters in order to get a little taste of Arm when I have a bit of time but I know that -I'm- missing out on the best part of the game.

[Saellyn]

I'm thinking you should edit that^^ a bit...

And, sitting in hot spots and chatting up other PC's for several IG days != Roleplay.  Well at least, not necessarily. I'm sure some roles might call for that on occasion.

I'm saying go to a hotspot. Like the Gaj. And hang out and RP. Time passes so fast in Zalanthas I have no trouble passing one or two, sometimes three days off RPing wth a guy.

And if you find you hit it off with that dude? Bring him somewhere and do something. Kill that floating Mek that stole your muffin, -EAT- said muffin, who knows? But sitting in the hot spots chatting PC's up is -definitely- RP, man. It's just balancing that out with "Blargh ,tired!"