The woes of the aging gamer

[Taven]

It would be nice if certain things could be automated when your character is offline, but this is stuff that's only going to be in 2.Arm, if at all.

Initially when I read this I was skeptical, and had a reaction much like Potaje did (basically OMFG WHY WORST IDEA EVER), but I'd only skimmed the first time I read it. Skimming further, I saw the post about it being premature to judge before any skill caps were set and how it wasn't good to dismiss things out of hand. That was pretty late last night, but I decided to take a fresh look this morning. Reading the entire post through, I think that this is something I could by in to, with some limitations. I think that Synth makes a good argument about how it couldn't really be abused, because you'd have to wait 6-12 months for it to get anywhere, and really, who would want to do that?

I was thinking something similar to Synth's suggestion, but with a caveat; I don't think there should be any item/money gain, and I think that the skill gain should be about 1/8 the rate it could be if you were logged in and actively training everything. That way people who want to spend most of their time socializing can still practice in their off time (when logged out), though if they're logged in 8 hours a day not training, their skills aren't going to be going up much, since they're not logged out. It would balance fairly well I think.

This would also be nice for hard-to-train skills such as backstab. ICly, it'd represent virtual practice and learn-by-observation, and OOCly, it'd encourage longevity and patience.

I agree with the no money thing for the reasons that you said, but I don't like the training up rare skills like backstab thing. That's something that I think you should do ICly, because you need to find an IC solution. I think there should only be certain skills that are trainable when you're logged out.

Yeah why I suggested before that you be able to buy higher mundane skills with karma and not just mages and races. Who wants to go through the grind?

Another good idea... maybe a little bit of each of these ideas would bring the proper balance.

I'm against this, unless someone can show a comprehensive plan about it that I can buy in to. I like that everyone starts at the same point, even if there is a lot of work to raise skills. If someone could make a convincing argument for it, maybe, but my initial reaction is just that I don't like it.

Two problems with your train of thought, here: [Synth says reasons for providing money when logged off]

I still don't like it. I think that you should either play regularly to have an apartment, so that you're actually using it, or that you should rent with someone who can cover the rent for you. Even if you provided more apartments, if you get paid when logged out and autopay rent when logged out, you could have people who played once renting an apartment indefinitely. I guess a solution would be to have a minimum log in amount for those privileges, but I don't see imms giving us more apartments anytime soon... I'm just not a fan of this part of it.

Neither does it solve the "you're broke as a joke despite having played this character for 2-3 RL months...meanwhile the dude you saw in the Hall of Kings when you were picking scars is funding his own upstart merchant house."

Well, yes, but on the other hand... The dude you saw in the Hall of Kings has been devoting a lot of hard work and effort to get that. I'm all for balance so that players who don't play aren't at such a disadvantage, but the general fear over a proposal like yours is just that: That someone who has been around playing intensively for 2-3 RL months will now be equal to the guy who never logged in. Now, you aren't purposing that (you are advocating for a more balanced approach), but that's what players like Potaje are worried about.

What I like about this, as opposed to setting up offline training, is that it does require consistent play.  If you're not logged in AT ALL, exposed to other players and the environment, and actually using your skills (at least a little bit), you will not improve.  Yet it can be tuned such that even a little bit of usage will keep you even with your fellow players in the skillin'-up arms race.

My mind shut down when I tried to read your numbers. However, I like the idea of rewarding someone who logs in consistently, over someone who never logs in at all. My one thing is that I still think that people who are logged in longer and have to go through the tediousness of sparring practice should still get to advance faster.

TL;DR: Set up daily and weekly caps for skill gain to limit the hardcore players.  (That's not an original idea.)  Make your first few practice attempts of the day or week worth more than your later ones.

I don't think it's a bad idea to limit the hardcore players, if the cap was set relatively high. For people that play a ton during the day, more then even your average dedicated armer could play, I think it's reasonable. I'd be opposed to something that set the cap too low, however.

I don't want it to be harder, per se; I want it to be very nearly the same difficulty for "average" and "hardcore" players, with "casual" players skilling up at a slower but still respectable rate.  Whether that means that your skills would increase slower or that everybody else's would increase faster...would depend on how things were set.

I like this.

Seems like such a system would discourage the hardcore players to maintain there high play-times, which in a leadership role is always nice to have.

I'm a pretty hardcore player (I play way, way too much at times), and I can say that I wouldn't find it discouraging at all, as long as it's balanced. People also still gain more by logging in and spending time actually doing stuff, and it's only for super extreme skill use that the hardcore player cap would come into effect.

I figure a good way to do it would to gradually increase how much skill your allowed to improve the longer you haven't been logged on. Maybe this could be coupled with gaining just a bit of skill while logged off, too?

Say you log on every day for a week. Your max gain is determined by wisdom, so you have decent wisdom, like 20. That means you can improve your skill every two hours (i am spitballing i do not know how code works). Now, your skill timer gradually gets smaller and smaller the less you log in. Say you don't log in for a week. Your skill timer gets reset to skill gain every thirty minutes or every ten minutes, to where you eventually get back to what would be an average. Gain skill and the skill timer gets slightly longer until it equalizes with your wisdom as normal.

I don't like this. I like the idea of reward for players who can't log in as much but want to, who devote consistent time to the game when they can. This, however, seems to favor the idea of never logging on and then logging on once to make it up all at once. That's probably not your intention, but it seems to be the effect.

Restricting it to only after you join an organization is a bad idea on four points:
1. Joining a clan is a little difficult in the first place, if you don't play a lot, or you're off peak.
2. Clans have recruiting limits, and it would suck to have a clan populated by people who only play once a week, who joined only so they could get access to the script (although this is really the same problem as the apartments problem that I addressed earlier...i.e. the solution is to increase hiring caps, but I digress).
3. Clan-based PCs aren't the only ones who use skills, so there really doesn't seem to be a good reason to restrict skillgain to clan-based PCs.
4. Being in a clan sucks if you're hardly ever around, or if you're around only off-peak.

I think that these are good points, particularly about the hiring caps, and I don't think the proposal, if implemented, should be limited to clan roles. However, I think that it might be reasonable for independents to have a slightly lower skill gain. Why? Because in a clan, there is more safety like Potaje mentioned and there's more reason to want to keep your skills higher (you need to be competitive with your fellow clan mates, so that if you can make an RPT, you're somewhat competent). I'm not arguing for a huge difference between clan vs. not clan, but I do think that there should be a little bit of a bump in favor of clans.

From what I can understand, you're saying ...  as a low-time player, you want your skills to progress at nearly the same rate as someone with high playing times, and yet ...  if a person with high playing times decides they don't want to spend their time logged in the game doing the mundane skill practice, they would make less progress than the player with little to no playing times?

How does that make any sense at all?

This is the thought process you're encouraging.  "I don't want to spend all my time training skills anymore than Joe Realguy, so I think I'll stop playing so much so that I'm not penalized."

I think that this is a valid concern. Especially if you're in a clan, and there's nobody to spar with. Then, someone who logged in with infrequent playtimes will actually surpass you. I think that you can still do solo RP and submit logs for a skill bump (you can't do it for a stat bump anymore, but I think you can for a skill bump), but very few people want to solo RP that much to make the logs. Maybe the gain for someone not logging in as much should be less... Or should there be a better way for players who are logged in regularly to avoid getting penalized for when people aren't logged in with their clans? You could definitely argue that a player who is active is losing out when others aren't logged in, because they can only spar with a dummy.

While these role examples might be classified (and dismissed) by some as "flavor roles", I disagree. I think opening roles like these would round out the playerbase and bring more of the current casual players that are avoiding making a commitment, into the game. I also think better ideas for such roles could be made up by the staff and other players with time.

I like this idea, and also, what's wrong with flavor roles anyway? I like the idea of flavor roles.

This looks really good on the surface and may work.  The cons outweigh it:

• We still would want reports on what these people did during the week.  Even if done bi-weekly, these people are casual gamers, are they not?  Taking 15-30 extra minutes of one's time to toss in a request may be a pain in the ass.
• What if the player suddenly becomes more active?  Time frees up due to unfortunate RL events or sudden addiction to Armageddon, and they start clocking in regular noble/templar/GMH family hours.  We now have an extra noble/templar/whatever that we weren't expecting to be this active.  Doing nothing means that we have a top-heavy section of the game, so staff would ahev to intervene and determine what to do here.  This places an additional burden that we don't currently expect to have with existing sponsored roles.  Admittedly, these problems happen in reverse for sponsored roles, but we expect that.
• Policing these players.  They are playing new roles, they will need to be watched, and they will need to be watched carefully.  They may not be doing much (that would make it easier) but it is still something to consider.
• At least some of the mentioned roles have little to no documentation or existing expectations from staff.  The answer is to write it, but it is another consideration.

These are reasonable points and that makes me sad. 

[Synthesis]

The system that brytta.leofa and I sketched out doesn't penalize you for playing, so long as you are actually practicing your skills.  We both have it set up that you get more skillgains for actually playing, up until the point you reach a weekly maximum.  The -best- a low-playtime player could do is to get equal skillgain, and only at the weekly maximum.

However, if you are logging in a LOT, and only practicing your skills very little, yes, a low-playtime player might be getting more skillgain than you.  But, I maintain that this makes sense:  during their time logged off, presumably they are doing virtual activities that would result in increasing skill and knowledge.  If you are logging in frequently, but aren't doing anything that improves your skills, there's no reason to presume that your character would be doing anything different while offline.

In other words, the only people who would be gaining skills slowly are the people who already are:  aides who don't use anything but contact and barrier, unmanifested magickers who haven't yet begun casting, sneakies in combat clans who aren't using their stealth skills, etc.  So the system doesn't change much in that regard.

[Taven]

I know my post is TL;DR length, and that you are in part answering other players, but I do support your idea overall. This would just the one part that I think was a valid concern:

From what I can understand, you're saying ...  as a low-time player, you want your skills to progress at nearly the same rate as someone with high playing times, and yet ...  if a person with high playing times decides they don't want to spend their time logged in the game doing the mundane skill practice, they would make less progress than the player with little to no playing times?

How does that make any sense at all?

This is the thought process you're encouraging.  "I don't want to spend all my time training skills anymore than Joe Realguy, so I think I'll stop playing so much so that I'm not penalized."

I think that this is a valid concern. Especially if you're in a clan, and there's nobody to spar with. Then, someone who logged in with infrequent playtimes will actually surpass you. I think that you can still do solo RP and submit logs for a skill bump (you can't do it for a stat bump anymore, but I think you can for a skill bump), but very few people want to solo RP that much to make the logs. Maybe the gain for someone not logging in as much should be less... Or should there be a better way for players who are logged in regularly to avoid getting penalized for when people aren't logged in with their clans? You could definitely argue that a player who is active is losing out when others aren't logged in, because they can only spar with a dummy.

I think that something could be changed to fix that, however.

[Synthesis]

If you're in a situation where you're in a clan with a schedule, you log in frequently, but nobody is around...yeah, that is actually a situation where the proposed system would out-benefit you.

But there are two different ideas in play here (with regard to skillgain), and it would probably be better not to confuse them:

1) What I originally proposed:  setting "default activities" that cover what you'd be doing offline and

2) What brytta proposed, and I modified a little: Modifying the in-game skillgain number-crunching in such a way that casual gamers stay competitive.

Neither of these is really designed to cover the case where you join a clan, but can't get skillgain because other players aren't around.  The fact that it improves the situation for casual gamers isn't a detriment to low-population-clanned-hardcore-gamers...it just doesn't improve the situation for those guys, which isn't a problem for the system, because it's not one of the problems it's intended to address.

I could propose a few solutions for that problem, but it would start to get into feature-creeping the ideas that are currently in play on the thread.  Start another thread for this one?

[Kismetic]

I think Nyr addressed the OP's concerns thoroughly, but in relation to the derail, I'll propose a system.  I'll use Ranger as an example:

Ranger

Core skills - archery, ride, hunt, skinning
Support skills - forage, bandage, listen, scan

Core skills progress at a rate that it would take half of a RL year to reach half-mastery, where automatic gain is capped.  Support skills progress at a rate that it would take a full RL year to reach half-mastery.  Everyone receives the same benefit of this "push," but is factored into a maximum gain that reflects those actively training skills would progress at twice the rate of someone who is completely inactive (and active skilltrain is not limited to any particular skillset).

This allows casual players to interact competently (and, I suppose, competitively) with the gameworld, and in affect, penalizes no one.

Edited to add, this gain is largely nominal, and a courtesy.  It doesn't take long to train skills if you are diligent, and know what you're doing.  If the casual player wanted to "twink" their skills, they would remain competitive in all aspects but PK, really (base O/D should not get a steady raise, for instance).

[Synthesis]

I think Nyr addressed the OP's concerns thoroughly, but in relation to the derail, I'll propose a system.  I'll use Ranger as an example:

Ranger

Core skills - archery, ride, hunt, skinning
Support skills - forage, bandage, listen, scan

Core skills progress at a rate that it would take half of a RL year to reach half-mastery, where automatic gain is capped.  Support skills progress at a rate that it would take a full RL year to reach half-mastery.  Everyone receives the same benefit of this "push," but is factored into a maximum gain that reflects those actively training skills would progress at twice the rate of someone who is completely inactive (and active skilltrain is not limited to any particular skillset).

This allows casual players to interact competently (and, I suppose, competitively) with the gameworld, and in affect, penalizes no one.

Edited to add, this gain is largely nominal, and a courtesy.  It doesn't take long to train skills if you are diligent, and know what you're doing.  If the casual player wanted to "twink" their skills, they would remain competitive in all aspects but PK, really (base O/D should not get a steady raise, for instance).

Those rates are laughably low, FYI.

[BleakOne]

I think Nyr addressed the OP's concerns thoroughly, but in relation to the derail, I'll propose a system.  I'll use Ranger as an example:

Ranger

Core skills - archery, ride, hunt, skinning
Support skills - forage, bandage, listen, scan

Core skills progress at a rate that it would take half of a RL year to reach half-mastery, where automatic gain is capped.  Support skills progress at a rate that it would take a full RL year to reach half-mastery.  Everyone receives the same benefit of this "push," but is factored into a maximum gain that reflects those actively training skills would progress at twice the rate of someone who is completely inactive (and active skilltrain is not limited to any particular skillset).

This allows casual players to interact competently (and, I suppose, competitively) with the gameworld, and in affect, penalizes no one.

Edited to add, this gain is largely nominal, and a courtesy.  It doesn't take long to train skills if you are diligent, and know what you're doing.  If the casual player wanted to "twink" their skills, they would remain competitive in all aspects but PK, really (base O/D should not get a steady raise, for instance).

Those rates are laughably low, FYI.

Well, wouldn't want them to be too quick. Any more than maybe 50% of normal would be too much, imho.

[Kismetic]

As I said, they are nominal, and reflect "casual" training.  The rates aren't the meat of the suggestion, however.

[Synthesis]

I think Nyr addressed the OP's concerns thoroughly, but in relation to the derail, I'll propose a system.  I'll use Ranger as an example:

Ranger

Core skills - archery, ride, hunt, skinning
Support skills - forage, bandage, listen, scan

Core skills progress at a rate that it would take half of a RL year to reach half-mastery, where automatic gain is capped.  Support skills progress at a rate that it would take a full RL year to reach half-mastery.  Everyone receives the same benefit of this "push," but is factored into a maximum gain that reflects those actively training skills would progress at twice the rate of someone who is completely inactive (and active skilltrain is not limited to any particular skillset).

This allows casual players to interact competently (and, I suppose, competitively) with the gameworld, and in affect, penalizes no one.

Edited to add, this gain is largely nominal, and a courtesy.  It doesn't take long to train skills if you are diligent, and know what you're doing.  If the casual player wanted to "twink" their skills, they would remain competitive in all aspects but PK, really (base O/D should not get a steady raise, for instance).

Those rates are laughably low, FYI.

Well, wouldn't want them to be too quick. Any more than maybe 50% of normal would be too much, imho.

"Normal" for some non-weapon skills is maybe 2-3 weeks from novice to master, if you actually use the skill regularly.  Just about -any- non-weapon skill can go from novice to master in 1-1.5 months.  Weapon skills typically take much longer, unless you have very good wisdom.

Even at the slow rate on weapon skills, in about 6 months on a warrior, I had mastered every basic weapon skill, and was probably one of the most hardass pterodactyls in the Known World.  A month in the wastes with a ranger, and you can basically shoot kryl out of the sky blindfolded and mass-murder tembo with one hand tied behind your back while doing cartwheels atop your inix.

[Kismetic]

Surely you understand that you're "racing to the finish line" so to speak.  And now that you point this out, I wonder why you even want such a system in place, if you're a pterodactyl mastercrafter?

[BleakOne]

How could mastering every weapon skill in six months be considered 'slow'? That sounds more like above-average at least.

I don't think people should get anywhere close to that level of coded skill without the time being put in. Gaining up to reasonable 'I can solo a scrab or two' level is fine, though, and makes sense to me.

[flurry]

"Normal" for some non-weapon skills is maybe 2-3 weeks from novice to master, if you actually use the skill regularly.  Just about -any- non-weapon skill can go from novice to master in 1-1.5 months.  Weapon skills typically take much longer, unless you have very good wisdom.

Even at the slow rate on weapon skills, in about 6 months on a warrior, I had mastered every basic weapon skill, and was probably one of the most hardass pterodactyls in the Known World.  A month in the wastes with a ranger, and you can basically shoot kryl out of the sky blindfolded and mass-murder tembo with one hand tied behind your back while doing cartwheels atop your inix.

I don't doubt that this is true, but I don't think this is in any way typical, or even close to it. Particularly the part about rangers, although I realize you're exaggerating.

[Synthesis]

"Normal" for some non-weapon skills is maybe 2-3 weeks from novice to master, if you actually use the skill regularly.  Just about -any- non-weapon skill can go from novice to master in 1-1.5 months.  Weapon skills typically take much longer, unless you have very good wisdom.

Even at the slow rate on weapon skills, in about 6 months on a warrior, I had mastered every basic weapon skill, and was probably one of the most hardass pterodactyls in the Known World.  A month in the wastes with a ranger, and you can basically shoot kryl out of the sky blindfolded and mass-murder tembo with one hand tied behind your back while doing cartwheels atop your inix.

I don't doubt that this is true, but I don't think this is in any way typical, or even close to it.

Yeah, I'm just saying...a hardcore player can have -that- much of an advantage over someone who doesn't regularly log in.

If we went the "1-year to half-mastery" route, over the course of a year, the difference between a casual gamer and a hardcore gamer will be the difference between Sujaal and a freshly-minted Byn Trooper.  That's the situation people are complaining about...it's not an improvement in any way shape or form, because you can already reach half-mastery in a real-life year if you even think hard about using a skill.

I think the -cap- should probably be overall at high journeyman for most everything, because that's about the level where skills start becoming usable (weapon skills could probably be capped at apprentice-ish...but I'd rather not go through every skill and propose a point).  However, I think 2 months is about the time people start getting frustrated at being useless.

Instead of speculating about it, it's probably easier for the Imms to just take a look at PC stat sheets, see what the skill levels are for characters at particular "real life time" ages, correlate that with days' played, calculate the MeanSkillgainPerUnitTime for the average player, then adjust the system to correspond to a certain fraction of that (maximum) for a casual player.

Again, speculating about what is or isn't overpowered isn't a helpful debate, because we aren't sharing datasets, here.  Personally, I don't even know what the bitch-end of the shitty skillset vs. time curve looks like, because I haven't been skillgain-challenged for many years.  It's not a problem for me, because I don't mind chilling and grinding with the few hours I have to play, and I think I have the basic fundamentals of the skillgain system figured out, such that the grind isn't, really.

But, you know, I can step out of my context as an experienced, knowledgeable, and achievement-oriented player, and empathize with the poor cat who likes playing mercenary types, but doesn't necessarily enjoy or even know how to skill up in a time-efficient manner, and is thus stuck being the eternal red-shirt or victim for the rest of y'all's adventures.

[Kismetic]

How could mastering every weapon skill in six months be considered 'slow'? That sounds more like above-average at least.

I don't think people should get anywhere close to that level of coded skill without the time being put in. Gaining up to reasonable 'I can solo a scrab or two' level is fine, though, and makes sense to me.

He's very likely talking about playing an elf.  That, or he's an enormous twink.  

[Kismetic]

Also, @ Synthesis:

The whole half year for core skills wasn't really the point, it could be 3 months and be as valid.  What I was getting at is, a guild's core and support skills could get a slow bump over time.  I don't think it should raise above journeyman, because, as you said, if it's not a weapon skill, it's already pretty easy to get a lift.  And if everyone receives this bonus, then you're just putting the game out of whack entirely.

[Synthesis]

How could mastering every weapon skill in six months be considered 'slow'? That sounds more like above-average at least.

I don't think people should get anywhere close to that level of coded skill without the time being put in. Gaining up to reasonable 'I can solo a scrab or two' level is fine, though, and makes sense to me.

He's very likely talking about playing an elf.  That, or he's an enormous twink.  

You would all be utterly embarrassed by what I managed to do in 48 hours logged with a poor-wisdom dwarf, but that's neither here nor there.

[Kismetic]

How could mastering every weapon skill in six months be considered 'slow'? That sounds more like above-average at least.

I don't think people should get anywhere close to that level of coded skill without the time being put in. Gaining up to reasonable 'I can solo a scrab or two' level is fine, though, and makes sense to me.

He's very likely talking about playing an elf.  That, or he's an enormous twink.  

You would all be utterly embarrassed by what I managed to do in 48 hours logged with a poor-wisdom dwarf, but that's neither here nor there.

Embarrassed, or disappointed? 

[Synthesis]

Also, @ Synthesis:

The whole half year for core skills wasn't really the point, it could be 3 months and be as valid.  What I was getting at is, a guild's core and support skills could get a slow bump over time.  I don't think it should raise above journeyman, because, as you said, if it's not a weapon skill, it's already pretty easy to get a lift.  And if everyone receives this bonus, then you're just putting the game out of whack entirely.

Well, yeah, that's a simple-not-elegant solution.

The elegant solution is to allow you, the player, to pick what your character is really doing virtually, and have only skills related to those activities go up.  Thus, if you're technically a ranger, but you've been hired as an aide in the Atrium, you'd specify "Aide-Southron" in the list, and your 'scan,' 'listen,' and 'alcohol tolerance' skills would go up, instead of ride, skinning, and archery.

And again, with the caps, really, I'm -done- talking about where the fucking caps would be, because even when I say something in the most generic, non-specific terms possible, someone objects that it would be "too X or Y," without any relevant data or proposed constraints.

If you can imagine the possibility that it could be balanced and helpful, that's all that matters.  The coders and the dudes with the actual data can hash out what is or isn't over-powered.

[Kismetic]

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea.  The only caveat I have is that it benefits everyone the same.  Really, if I thought I'd gain more by logging in a quarter of the time (taking out all of the coded interactions with other players, and the subsequent loss of interest in the game that goes with playing less) merely to socialize, I would, and I think my clan would lose out.

Does this make sense?

[BleakOne]

Also, I'd support a greater level of skill gain for people who log in for short times (more than 10 minutes, though) regularly during a RL week. Since that does count, in my mind, as putting the time in.

[Spoon]

How could mastering every weapon skill in six months be considered 'slow'? That sounds more like above-average at least.

It's ludicrous. I doubt this was put into practice after players were actually able to view their skills and know they actually were at 'master' level.

[Malifaxis]

Huh.  This discussion is still going on.

I'd like to direct you all towards Reiloth's signature.

[Marauder Moe]

Thread still going on and now with in-depth analysis of coded skill-gain mechanics.



But yeah, what Mal said.

Code-wise, we'll never have casual players being "competitive" with hard-core players.  Any system where that's truly so would be tantamount to punishing people for actually playing the game.

[Kalai]

Huh.  This discussion is still going on.

I'd like to direct you all towards Reiloth's signature.

You know I had to spend like two minutes actually looking for Reiloth's signature there. I was surprised, not used to having to search for it.

There are people who play off-peak / whenever you may be able to log on. You may have to widen your social net a bit to catch them, since they might be undesirables, playing in another city-state, or simply mildly reclusive. I'd recommend looking into eccentric dwarven focuses ... because when you need a character to fit your unique dilemma ... well, dwarf can cut it, somehow.  

Or better yet play one of those elves who 'lead shiftless lives with no ties of loyalty at all' and reap the benefits of actually being able to maintain a level of anonymity.

[Nyr]

This thread was derailed without even a token attempt to address the OP's concerns, even after the OP stated that the coded discussion was unrelated.  Due to the lack of regard for following forum rules, I don't think it's worth splitting the thread or reviewing any other ideas touted.

DustMight, hopefully there's some suggestions here you can glean; if you'd like more space to vent, feel free to make a new thread.