New Skills code

[KankWhisperer]

Quite a few surprises for me.

[BlackMagic0]

Yup, apparently not completely a joke.  Novice - Apprentice - Journeyman - Advanced - Master?  Not bad.  I don't feel strongly about this change for or against, so nothing much else to add.

Yeah, that's kinda how I feel about it. No big deal either way. It's interesting but pretty much confirms what I would have guessed about my approximate skill levels in comparision to each other. I don't really see any negatives coming about from this but about the only use I can see is for merchants and the rp of their crafts.

I am kind of here. I mean I've played long enough I can guess who my skills range at, and the levels are WIDE enough to be rather vague. Not bluntly shooting into your face. This won't stop people from trying skill max, when we didn't have these levels it did not. Though will help with some roleplay things. -Shrugs-

ONLY thing I do not want to see. Is off/def scores. That would be a slippery slope down hill, going all wrong.
Changed my mind after letting the thought settle in my noggin. Same way, same vague-ness, off/def add, nothing more. Wouldn't be end the world.

[Synthesis]

I'm curious as to why people think adding base O/D would be such a bad idea.

[BlackMagic0]

I'm curious as to why people think adding base O/D would be such a bad idea.

Eh. On second thought. If was added like this. Don't see how it would be a bad idea.  Only if was added in detail.
I mean it doesn't take much to figure out your off/def if you've played for a while.

So only new players would make use of it.

[Synthesis]

Whee, I just saw a skill go from X to Y.

That was fun.

[hyzhenhok]

Basically I was stunned by this change, but I guess knowing the staff policy on not revealing anything that isn't complete I shouldn't be surprised that it came out of the blue.

After I got over my confusion, I realized it really is realistic to have some idea how good you are at something. You already know what your stats are, and you already know what skills you do and do not have. This functionality makes sense.

[Gobbleneck]

Novice - Apprentice - Journeyman - Advanced - Master?  Not bad.

I'm PKin' the first fool that uses these words in-game, though.  As in:

Code Select Expand

The tall, muscular man says, in sirihish,
  "I'm advanced at peircing weapons but only journeyman at disarm."

But it's a toothsome change, otherwise.

Code Select Expand

The tall, muscular man says, in sirihish,
  "Sure, I'll hold him boss.  I'm apprentice at subdue!"

The tall, muscular man attempts to grab you but you wrestle away.

Ahaha.  I can't wait to see people referring to their skill levels IG.

[jhunter]

I'm curious as to why people think adding base O/D would be such a bad idea.

I don't honestly see any problem now that I think about it either. Really, it would help for creating your own emotes that fall within some sort of guidlines as far as rping combat stuff. With vague skill levels there could be approximate suggestions for skill levels in each skill as far as emoting specific things for each.
Journeyman defense, :deflects the blade barely to avoid the strike. Master defense: deflects the blade deftly to the side, lunging in to counter.

Something like that...maybe explained better than I can but...

[RogueGunslinger]

Whats the difference between of/def and skills anyway? Other than the excuriatingly long time it takes to raise them, of course.

[KankWhisperer]

I don't think I like it for one reason.
When you fight people you have no basis for reference other than them.
You beat them and you think "You know what? I -am- a badass!"
Now you have some completely unbiased magickal reference of how good you are.
I think it places more of a burden on the players to have to look at the list and
pretend you don't know how good you really are.

[musashi]

Whats the difference between of/def and skills anyway? Other than the excuriatingly long time it takes to raise them, of course.

Probably nothing staff would be happy with us discussing on the GDB 

[jalden]

After I got over my confusion, I realized it really is realistic to have some idea how good you are at something. You already know what your stats are, and you already know what skills you do and do not have. This functionality makes sense.

Sigh. Yeah. It is realistic to know where your skills are at, but I've always felt like I had a pretty accurate impression of this based on my characters performance. Even if I don't like this particular change, I think these types of changes are moving in the right direction. That is, putting more trust in the players and giving players more information to aide in realistic roleplay. 

[Chettaman]

I don't think I like it for one reason.
When you fight people you have no basis for reference other than them.
You beat them and you think "You know what? I -am- a badass!"
Now you have some completely unbiased magickal reference of how good you are.
I think it places more of a burden on the players to have to look at the list and
pretend you don't know how good you really are.

True. Maybe if the combat skills were left out of the loop, hm?

[Sephiroto]

I don't think I like it for one reason.
When you fight people you have no basis for reference other than them.
You beat them and you think "You know what? I -am- a badass!"
Now you have some completely unbiased magickal reference of how good you are.
I think it places more of a burden on the players to have to look at the list and
pretend you don't know how good you really are.

The point:  If you don't like seeing the values then you can go "brief skills".

In this game skills have been the only deciding bits of code that we HAVEN'T had values for since skill values were originally removed.  Is it such a bad thing when we can adquately gauge where our characters are?  Its not like you can see the skills of OTHER PC's until you actually confront them anyway.  So what are you worried about?  I think the major positive of this change is that we can make better decisions about how wreckless we pursue challenges.  Let's face it, fighting a mekillot, five tarantula, or silt horror to judge if you are a badass isn't a very realistic behavior.

In the real world I might feel like a badass (no matter how good I am) if I beat someone at a game of chess, basketball, or even a game of Halo.  But since there are plenty of other people other than ourselves by which we can grade our ability to perform I know that there are still many people better than me.  In the same light, there are plenty of NPC's and VNPC's with virtual reputations in Zalanthas by which your PC's could compare our PC's.

Another thing to consider: Will a master of slashing and parry always beat someone with inferior skills?  The answer is no.  What determines success in a competition is so much more than the numerical or gradiant values of a couple skills.  There are also stats, conditions, OTHER SKILLS, luck, and STRAGEGY that all factor in to the victory or defeat.

[Incognito]

For everyone who doesn't like this addition - there is the "brief skills" option as Seph mentioned.

For those who want to use this as markers to flesh out their characters' skills - this is a welcome addition.

[Spoon]

This is actually pretty great for 'teach' roleplay, as now you have an indication of the kind of knowledge your PC may possess.

[KankWhisperer]

The point:  If you don't like seeing the values then you can go "brief skills".

In this game skills have been the only deciding bits of code that we HAVEN'T had values for since skill values were originally removed.  Is it such a bad thing when we can adquately gauge where our characters are?  Its not like you can see the skills of OTHER PC's until you actually confront them anyway.  So what are you worried about?  I think the major positive of this change is that we can make better decisions about how wreckless we pursue challenges.  Let's face it, fighting a mekillot, five tarantula, or silt horror to judge if you are a badass isn't a very realistic behavior.

In the real world I might feel like a badass (no matter how good I am) if I beat someone at a game of chess, basketball, or even a game of Halo.  But since there are plenty of other people other than ourselves by which we can grade our ability to perform I know that there are still many people better than me.  In the same light, there are plenty of NPC's and VNPC's with virtual reputations in Zalanthas by which your PC's could compare our PC's.

Another thing to consider: Will a master of slashing and parry always beat someone with inferior skills?  The answer is no.  What determines success in a competition is so much more than the numerical or gradiant values of a couple skills.  There are also stats, conditions, OTHER SKILLS, luck, and STRAGEGY that all factor in to the victory or defeat.

The point is you may -think- you are a bad ass because you never lose to people who are inferior to you that you interact with. It's the big fish in a little pond syndrome. It happens to professional fighters all the time. They think they are at the next level but they aren't. You would -think- they could tell how good of a fighter they are.  Now you can look at your skills and say oh no, still journeyman, I am not going out to fight anything really dangerous even though I feel invincible. Typically someone thinks they are better than they are because they don't have a completely infallible unbiased reference.

Crafting skills make more sense to me. Just my opinion. My skin doesn't hold water yours does etc.

Hearing about someone's reputation? Reputation would be completely slanted based on social status and OTHER FACTORS. That would give you an incorrect estimation of your skills.

[Nyr]

You still only have a vague idea of where your skills are at, as you would in real life as a professional fighter or in learning a language.

[AmandaGreathouse]

I like it. As with about 90% of the code changes, I let out a huge fangirl scream when I got to see it IG.

[RogueGunslinger]

As long as the length of time it takes to skill up from novice to apprentice is the same as journeyman to master.

[Spoon]

I'm not sure how that would work with the way most skills go up. I'm assuming they are at even 20% intervals, but it would take much longer to reach higher skill levels as you will be far less likely to fail.

[BlackMagic0]

As long as the length of time it takes to skill up from novice to apprentice is the same as journeyman to master.

Novice to apprentice is 1 up, Journeyman to master is 2 up. HOW in the hell would it take the same time?

Novice - Apprentice - Journeyman - Advanced - Master ?

[IAmJacksOpinion]

I'm PKin' the first fool that uses these words in-game, though.  As in:
Code:

The tall, muscular man says, in sirihish,
  "I'm advanced at peircing weapons but only journeyman at disarm."

Blah. I was going to make this comment. Dick.

Seriously though, I find myself watching this a lot. But, like everyone said, it's not like I couldn't guestimate anyways. (Though, there was one rather interesting surprise for me (though it explained something that happened IG once.)

I'm curious, does this carry over to teh foul magick sp3llz as well?

Also, as far as revealing base O/D, there's only one reason -I- can think of to show that.  I started a thread half a year ago or so asking about branching parry off of more than just one skill, and from the answers I got, I think showing O/D would alleviate possible pesky emails. (I was told that if other related combat skills were high enough, you could put in a request for parry on certain classes.)  I'd post a link, but I don't have time.

Cool add all and all.

Oh, one more thing. I think a toggle would be handier than "skill brief". *shrug* Just a thought, but no big.

[spawnloser]

Spells do NOT get these descriptors.  (I feel fairly certain that this isn't sensitive information.)

[RogueGunslinger]

As long as the length of time it takes to skill up from novice to apprentice is the same as journeyman to master.

Novice to apprentice is 1 up, Journeyman to master is 2 up. HOW in the hell would it take the same time?

Novice - Apprentice - Journeyman - Advanced - Master ?

I'm pretty sure you got my point.