Re: Weapon skills improvement

[Sunburned]

A simple question.

Do the way weapon skills improve need to be altered, in your opinion?  

Let's not get the thread locked by talking about code mechanics.  At all.

PS - Nyr, I don't think you need to have explicit knowledge of the code to have an opinion on this.

[Nyr]

PS - Nyr, I don't think you need to have explicit knowledge of the code to have an opinion on this.

uh...thank you for letting me know?

[Sunburned]

 

[RogueGunslinger]

Changed how? Made easier? Harder? Different method of training?

I'd never thought of them as being different or special compared to any other skills.

[Kastion]

seems ok to me. I like them to be hard to get so that if you ever do get strong you get to enjoy knowing that you are one of the few total badasses. =P

[Spoon]

They are super grindy. I see good and bad in this.

[Majikal]

Your warrior/ranger can go from fighting Gurth to Raptor to Gith all in the small range of an apprentice weapon skill, of course you have other skills raising too. I like the way it is because once you reach advanced, master, branched weapon skills etc then you are one of the few and it is readily apparent that you're a badarse.

I'm also of the mind that if you made weapon skills change like other skills then you'd have a lot of warriors that get bored at having nothing to improve.

[Majikal]

They are super grindy. I see good and bad in this.

If the grind of this game went away.. I would lose a lot of love for it. It's nicely balanced.

[titansfan]

Stay the same. The grind is what makes training them fun to do.

[Is Friday]

As a player who has fairly limited time to play now compared to what I used to play, I can see both sides of the preference. Personally: I don't have 480 hours (20d playing time) to log into a character in order to consider my character "not kill-able by lame stuff". Understanding, of course, that you're essentially only protecting yourself in that light from the non-poisoning and non-super NPCs. Is that an acceptable amount of time investment to play a combat PC? Maybe to some people who don't have a whole lot of commitments or like to spend obscene amounts of time at the computer.

I get it. I used to play a lot. Now when I do get the chance to play it's usually in a binge so that I can get some decent survivability before I get back to low playtimes. But that's certainly not why I enjoy the game.

I do enjoy some aspects of training, but I'll be honest... the only reason I train skills is so that I can play a character that accurately reflects my vision of them. I'm not training my guys to be absolute bad asses. I'm just training them to be decent hunters, fighters, survivors. You can't do that with piss-poor self-defense skills.

Now, you can certainly play a lot of other roles... but we're talking about weapon skills--the notoriously slowest-to-improve skills.

I don't personally think encouraging people to be mindless drones with their warrior/rangers/assassins is a good thing. You're saying, as admins, that in order to be decent at <thing> you need to grind the fuck out of it. That's not encouraging roleplay-oriented tasks, that's giving people hurdles to jump that have nothing to do with their roles. Sure, there's players like me that can separate the two and understand that "it is what it is" and that these hurdles are in place so that people don't run around abusing them. But for the most part you've got dumbasses running around thinking that it's okay to act like dumbasses because that's what got their character powerful.

/my 2 sids.

[Delirium]

^ that.

[jstorrie]

I don't mind that high-level combat skills require so much grinding given that, as mentioned above, low-level combat skills are sufficient for most non-pvp play in Armageddon. High-level combat skills, which can cause a real ruckus in the hands of an aggressive PC-killer, are almost as fearsome (and rare) as sorcery, and that's sweet. If anything, I wish that all skills had such a range of skill level to them.

[Sunburned]

I don't mind that high-level combat skills require so much grinding given that, as mentioned above, low-level combat skills are sufficient for most non-pvp play in Armageddon. High-level combat skills, which can cause a real ruckus in the hands of an aggressive PC-killer, are almost as fearsome (and rare) as sorcery, and that's sweet. If anything, I wish that all skills had such a range of skill level to them.

It would be nice if this were true.

[Nyr]

You're saying, as admins, that in order to be decent at <thing> you need to grind the fuck out of it.

You can say that about everything in this game.  In order to be good at <thing>, you can probably grind like crazy.  However, we usually notice, we usually note it, and we usually make notorious abusers of things aware of it so that they know to improve.  There's a line that staff tends to walk with regard to abuse--some things we police, some things we prevent.  If we prevent something from being done, it doesn't mean we think all players suck at it, abuse it, or exploit it.  If we police something, it doesn't mean that we give carte blanche to such activities for those that haven't been caught yet.

You can also use CGP to pay for some skill boosts to weapons skills if they are important to your character concept...even if you have no karma, you can special app it.

[Yam]

I kinda think one problem, especially with weapons skills, is that there's a huge rift of improvement between military clans and independent characters who have some OOC knowledge.

You should improve more in clans with a lot of combat training than you do spending your days fighting hawks with daggers. Or at least at the same speed. With the way certain things work, it's a lot more difficult for warriors to improve weapon skills in sparring than hunting even relatively non-dangerous creatures.

I think players can help with that problem by using the teach command more, but I also think the way weapon skills increase should be looked at and possibly modified to make more sense.

[Is Friday]

You can also use CGP to pay for some skill boosts to weapons skills if they are important to your character concept...even if you have no karma, you can special app it.

I'm a big fan of this option for my above-mentioned reservations about grinding. Thanks staff!

[Hot_Dancer]

I enjoy warrior PC play most at roughly the 4-12ish day mark.

At this range I can typically provide adequate defense versus common threats in the Known for my less  melee talented
companions. Combat is still dangerous, still get wounded, still have a solid of variety of RP to encounter. Other Mundanes
will still pick toe to toe fights with me. Lots of excellent opportunities for RP.

I don't mess with the big stuff in game unless a character/story event requires it. Even if I'm more or less running around with
an AI/AI steel wielding 100d warrior freak. I've had a number of strong combat PC's. Only 1 has seen battle with a bahamet
and it was in a group of about 12 Blackmoon with multiple muls and an HG or two. I've never faced off with a Mek. Once the
fabled defense/parry nerf hit the game I pretty much left all the remotely terrible/gigantus stuff alone.

Once I get past 15 and 20 days of play, my combat PC's tend to have to do things that are borderline OOC to me to find a
physical challenge (not really my play style). By reputation, my character will likely not be challenged to a straight fight but be
instakilled by magick/poison/range because of his perceived/likely real threat level. Because of his skill level, if it happens to be
too far ahead  of the party of PC's I'm around the staff will have a more difficult time challenging/threatening/scaring us/getting
our brainz because of wide discrepency in character skill and still creating an event that the whole group can participate in.

I think I'm trying to say that combat-skill advancement is fine and if you're playing a combat pc (warrior classed) you can pretty
much jump into the game and the fights pretty quickly.

[brytta.leofa]

With CGP in place, I don't think I have any complaints at all.  (Yes, thanks, you guys, so much.)

But if you were gonna do something to reduce the grindiness of the game, I would consider this approach:
(1) Increase, slightly, the speed at which the slowest-training skills improve.
(2) Limit the amount of improvement per RL day to about what you can get in three hours of play.

[Synthesis]

The way base offense works with the two-handed skill and the advanced weapon skills needs to be looked at, too.

Basically, by the time you branch an advanced weapon skill, your hit success rate is so high at the lower end of the skill spectrum that it's impossible to actually improve the skill without resorting to somewhat questionable tactics.  To the unwary, this might seem like an academic point (i.e. if you're hitting everything already, why do you need to improve the skill?), but skill level affects other, important things...and it's the deficiencies in those other important things that make the advanced weapon skills too much of a bother to train at all.

It is annoying that weapon skills go up so slowly, but I'm pretty sure this is one of the areas where the wisdom stat matters.

[TheBadSeed]

I'm a huge fan of the CGP being able to be allotted to weapons skills. It does take some of the grinding aspect away, especially if you have a background that says you've been hunting/fighting for years. Not everyone wants to join the game as a fifteen year old kid with no clue what he/she is doing skill wise.

On a side note, one of the most bothersome changes I've seen since I came back to Arm is the fact that you can see your level of mastery in your skills. Yes I know it can be toggled off, but it does seem to shift the focus to the grindy skill raising, rather than the roleplay. Not sure if I'd want it changed back, but it has definitely changed the feel of the game for me, at least.

[Qzzrbl]

I kinda think one problem, especially with weapons skills, is that there's a huge rift of improvement between military clans and independent characters who have some OOC knowledge.

You should improve more in clans with a lot of combat training than you do spending your days fighting hawks with daggers. Or at least at the same speed. With the way certain things work, it's a lot more difficult for warriors to improve weapon skills in sparring than hunting even relatively non-dangerous creatures.

I think players can help with that problem by using the teach command more, but I also think the way weapon skills increase should be looked at and possibly modified to make more sense.

This I agree with.

Alot.

Wish I could say more.

[Spoon]

It is annoying that weapon skills go up so slowly, but I'm pretty sure this is one of the areas where the wisdom stat matters.

I'm thinking it doesn't help much if you fail only once in a blue moon?

Overall, I think change is tricky. It sits well with the game at the moment. I don't see why parried attacks count as 'successful' attacks, but then I think it would mess everything up if lots of people started learning from parrying.

Maybe we just need critical fails to happen a tiny be more often. A tiny, tiny bit more often, just so that people who don't miss shit might be able to increase their skill over a long period of time without chasing kankflies in the dark (sitting down).

[Dan]

Concerning the advanced weapons skills, well, I have not seen them used at all since they were implemented. I don't know of any PCs that have branched a basic weapons skill, quite possibly I just never ran into these people. It is kind of disconcerting that whatever initial play style you pick you will more than likely be stuck with, due to becoming too badass to ever gain any actual skill in any of the other abilities since you will not fail against 99% of the people/stuff that is out there.

Maybe I have just not seen it, or it is as rare as it as supposed to be.

[Romy]

Maybe weapon skills are not weighed heavily enough when fighting?

What I mean is, could it be made so that if you aren't good at a weapon skill you miss more easily, even IF your offense is pretty high?

[jstorrie]

Concerning the advanced weapons skills, well, I have not seen them used at all since they were implemented.

I have seen as many PCs with these skills as I have seen PC sorcerors, basically. I think it's kind of rad that there's that level of potential power for a PC to get in-game through sheer FIGHT.

[Synthesis]

I branched 4 of the 5 advanced skills with an old PC, but that was before Morgenes fixed the ride code such that it no longer gave a large penalty to offense while mounted.  He actually changed the code right when I was in the middle of skilling up the last primary skill, and after the code change I couldn't get fails anymore and had to abandon the effort.  Even with the skills I had branched, I couldn't advance the obligatory two-handed weapon skills at all, because a) I rarely missed, even at baseline level and b) it seems like useful weapons for 2 of the 3 single-hand advanced skills don't actually exist (and I was in Salarr at the time, so believe me, I asked).

And as Yam mentioned previously, practically none of this was done while sparring clanmates, because mundane humanoid PCs just can't achieve the kind of defense that is required to max a weapon skill, especially if you're using two-handed.

[Bacon]

I think the other weapon skills shouldn't branch. I think they should just be included in the list to begin with so people can have more variety in weapon use for characters. It would also make it so if you wanted to use that sort of weapon, that's what you can use and train with. The way it works currently, I never bother with using those branched weapons because my character already has a style by then and they're too hard to train. Branching them isn't something I work toward or even look forward to. As someone else mentioned other combat skills don't become reliable at all unless your weapon skill is up there as well making those branched ones nearly useless branching so late on anyway.

I think they could improve slightly faster as well. It seems really odd that things I would consider "more advanced" combat skills can be mastered before a weapon skill can even be bumped up from apprentice to journeyman and then they don't really act as if "master" level because some of them are dependant upon your weapon skill. The skill bump option will help with this but grinding isn't entertainment to me, it's something I have to do to get to a certain point where it is in line with what my character should be able to do at that point of their lives.

[AmandaGreathouse]

I can't begin to fathom how long it must take. Then again, I can't stand combat. It takes way too much effort to be decently good at it, imo. Then again, I don't enjoy playing warriors. I played one, once. She lasted about 12 hours. And with my rangers, I tend to go melee, rather than ranged, so it's probably not surprising that I wind up at oh, about 30 days played, with one, who dies to a carru. Of course. Weapons skills being so slow to get to a point where you can do interesting stuff with them (my opinion, of course), is a lot of the reason I tend to play magickers and merchants, or grebbing rangers who run from like everything. I tried. My god, I tried. There's got to be something I'm doing wrong about it, because I have no problem with noncombat skills. Perhaps it's not for everyone, but if it were changed, I might be more interested in trying.

[brytta.leofa]

I know, I'm being That Guy,  but...

Skill Weapons    (Combat)

Weapon skills represent specialised knowledge in the use of a particular class of weapons. All weapons fall into one of four general categories: bludgeoning, chopping, piercing, and slashing. Stabbing weapons are merely a subset of piercing ones.

If one possesses, for example, the 'chopping weapons' skill, then one's usage of an axe is improved both in ability to land blows and to parry those of others, the degree of improvement depending on one's level of accomplishment in that skill.

Each category of weapon has its own characteristics, which should become evident as your character becomes more familiar with its usage.

See also:

    combat, defense, offense, skill_parry

...the things in this thread that are nowhere mentioned in that helpfile should probably not be in this thread.

[Nyr]

I can't begin to fathom how long it must take. Then again, I can't stand combat. It takes way too much effort to be decently good at it, imo. Then again, I don't enjoy playing warriors. I played one, once. She lasted about 12 hours. And with my rangers, I tend to go melee, rather than ranged, so it's probably not surprising that I wind up at oh, about 30 days played, with one, who dies to a carru. Of course. Weapons skills being so slow to get to a point where you can do interesting stuff with them (my opinion, of course), is a lot of the reason I tend to play magickers and merchants, or grebbing rangers who run from like everything. I tried. My god, I tried. There's got to be something I'm doing wrong about it, because I have no problem with noncombat skills.  Perhaps it's not for everyone, but if it were changed, I might be more interested in trying.

If you don't like combat, you don't like playing warriors, you play rangers like warriors, and you've only played one warrior for a few hours..maybe that's the problem?  You haven't experienced the guild or given it a fair shake.  No, it is not for everyone.  Everyone has a niche that they enjoy, and while it is good to break out of the box, most tend to return to the things that appeal to them.  However, if you haven't given it a shot and don't really do combat anyway, why would you be interested in trying it if minute changes were made?

[AmandaGreathouse]

I don't enjoy it because it is so time consuming (time vs reward ratio), and that alone makes the rest of it like... meh. Then again, I like being able to do other stuff and warriors seem very focused on just combat. I was speaking as someone who enjoys playing rangers, who might enjoy playing rangers who were more inclined to actually be 'hunters' of some sort, if the change was made. As it is, a carru taking out a 30ish days played ranger, who trains regularly and has good wisdom, was enough to put me off it. That's a lot of my life to put in to be taken out on a supposed hunter by something which is... from what I understand, not typically so difficult for people in a comparable position. Eh. I was merely offering my thoughts on the thread and proposals made, with a bit of anecdotal info to give people maybe an idea where I'm coming from to have those positions.

[Delirium]

Rangers are very good hunters... you just have to play them like a hunter.

To each their own though. Crafting bores me out of my skull, I find it nearly impossible to focus on the game.

[Synthesis]

I don't enjoy it because it is so time consuming (time vs reward ratio), and that alone makes the rest of it like... meh. Then again, I like being able to do other stuff and warriors seem very focused on just combat. I was speaking as someone who enjoys playing rangers, who might enjoy playing rangers who were more inclined to actually be 'hunters' of some sort, if the change was made. As it is, a carru taking out a 30ish days played ranger, who trains regularly and has good wisdom, was enough to put me off it. That's a lot of my life to put in to be taken out on a supposed hunter by something which is... from what I understand, not typically so difficult for people in a comparable position. Eh. I was merely offering my thoughts on the thread and proposals made, with a bit of anecdotal info to give people maybe an idea where I'm coming from to have those positions.

Meh, if you can't hunt carru solo with an 8-10 day ranger, you're doing it wrong somehow, or your stats are terrible (possibly doesn't apply to elves).  This isn't to say that you'll be 100% successful and emerge unscathed every time, but by 10 days, you should be able to maul the majority of them up pretty well without even resorting to archery.

Of course, this is assuming you've actually been hunting for that 8-10 days, not sitting around at the bar or mudsexing.

[Sunburned]

If you don't like combat, you don't like playing warriors, you play rangers like warriors, and you've only played one warrior for a few hours..maybe that's the problem?  You haven't experienced the guild or given it a fair shake.  No, it is not for everyone.  Everyone has a niche that they enjoy, and while it is good to break out of the box, most tend to return to the things that appeal to them.  However, if you haven't given it a shot and don't really do combat anyway, why would you be interested in trying it if minute changes were made?

I'm a chronic warrior-player who would  be more interested in playing my favorite guild again if alterations were made to how weapon skills improve.  Not that code changes should/or ever be done to cater to an individual.

I've played one warrior (40+ days) that, prior to certain code changes, managed to get an advanced weapon skill to a skilled level.  This is back when it was easier.  It was so goddamn grindy, so ridicolously hard, and twinkish for that matter, I will never make that effort again.  Yet, for some people, that advanced weapon skill is a golden-ring that needs to be constantly sought after, and regardless of the faults of the player, it seems detrimental to have a large, untapped quantity of coded proficiency that is only rewarded to players that are willing to take extreme, twinky measures.

In my ideal Arm, weapon skills -still- take a ridiculously long time to improve, but warriors who actually remain within realistic limits of their roles (ie, don't go hunting with the sole OOC intention of improving a specific skill) could still improve them through long-term dedicated play, regardless of whether they're in the city or wilderness.    

[Nyr]

I was speaking as someone who enjoys playing rangers, who might enjoy playing rangers who were more inclined to actually be 'hunters' of some sort, if the change was made.

A ranger's strong point is "pew pew pew" with arrows, not "smack smack smack" in melee combat.  Sneaking, hiding, hunting, and shooting have nothing to do with weapons skills.  I'd suggest reading over the helpfiles for rangers, it really helps get more into the mindset of their strengths, weaknesses, and overall playstyle.

[Down Under]

If you don't like combat, you don't like playing warriors, you play rangers like warriors, and you've only played one warrior for a few hours..maybe that's the problem?  You haven't experienced the guild or given it a fair shake.  No, it is not for everyone.  Everyone has a niche that they enjoy, and while it is good to break out of the box, most tend to return to the things that appeal to them.  However, if you haven't given it a shot and don't really do combat anyway, why would you be interested in trying it if minute changes were made?

I'm a chronic warrior-player who would  be more interested in playing my favorite guild again if alterations were made to how weapon skills improve.  Not that code changes should/or ever be done to cater to an individual.

I've played one warrior (40+ days) that, prior to certain code changes, managed to get an advanced weapon skill to a skilled level.  This is back when it was easier.  It was so goddamn grindy, so ridicolously hard, and twinkish for that matter, I will never make that effort again.  Yet, for some people, that advanced weapon skill is a golden-ring that needs to be constantly sought after, and regardless of the faults of the player, it seems detrimental to have a large, untapped quantity of coded proficiency that is only rewarded to players that are willing to take extreme, twinky measures.

In my ideal Arm, weapon skills -still- take a ridiculously long time to improve, but warriors who actually remain within realistic limits of their roles (ie, don't go hunting with the sole OOC intention of improving a specific skill) could still improve them through long-term dedicated play, regardless of whether they're in the city or wilderness.    

I guess I hadn't really thought about this until Sunburned brought it up, and Synthesis RE: advanced weapon skills.

It is pretty unfortunate that by the time a Warrior branches any advanced weapons skills, their base offense is SO good that it's almost impossible to skill up the advanced weapons skill unless you are doing massively twinky stuff to your character that is clearly OOC.

It sounds stupid, but the only thing I can think of is 'nosave training' that allows for more misses, softer blows, and the opportunity for advanced PC's to tone it down a notch and try to actually train instead of just beat ass on anyone that steps into a training ring with them.

Beyond that, it's silly that Warriors have to seek out almost instant death in order to get fails on weapon skills.

I do agree with Jim that it's cool that advanced weapon Warriors are about as rare as Defilers, but the system is actually more grindy than any Magicker system. Not sure what the fix would be, but the problem is definitely there.

[Synthesis]

You don't have to seek out instant death to train up a weapon skill.  However, if 3 or 4 particular creatures were removed from the game, it would be very difficult to get a weapon skill beyond advanced.  It does get somewhat ridiculous fighting/hunting/killing those things over and over and over, especially since they have relatively little economic value.

The simple solution is just to put something like a 5-10% random failure baseline, no matter what the skill level differential is between the attacker and the defender.  So no matter how skilled you are, you'll still get a failure every once in a while.  To a) aid clanfolk and b) prevent it from being an offense nerf, you could apply this random failure baseline only when using items intended to be sparring weapons.  (You could also significantly increase the failure rate, if you limited it to sparring weapons.)

On the other hand, you could leave everything the same, and re-code the way weapon skills increase, removing them from the failure-based system and changing it to a use-based system (i.e. every time you use it, it improves a little bit, regardless of whether you fail or not).  They improve so slowly anyway, I don't see how that would be much of a problem, beyond the coding aspect.

[AmandaGreathouse]

I was speaking as someone who enjoys playing rangers, who might enjoy playing rangers who were more inclined to actually be 'hunters' of some sort, if the change was made.

A ranger's strong point is "pew pew pew" with arrows, not "smack smack smack" in melee combat.  Sneaking, hiding, hunting, and shooting have nothing to do with weapons skills.  I'd suggest reading over the helpfiles for rangers, it really helps get more into the mindset of their strengths, weaknesses, and overall playstyle.

I'm thinking of the utility skill of rangers, that's the appeal more so than the combat. Yes, the combat -can- be done. If it improved a little more easily, it would be appealing. But the cost of arrows makes it really impractical, imo, when the salary of the average clanned pc is somewhere around 150 sid/rl week, and the cost of arrows would afford 3-6 of them at that rate, for the cheaper ones I've seen. Spears and other thrown type things aren't so bad, but slings are godawful (personal opinion, again), so I wind up going with melee more by default. I mean, it's hard to launch a couple small to a half a large worth of arrows at something for a piece of meat and maybe a few sid for the skin, and feel like you're being realistic in the framework of the world (economywise, which I admit is skewed). It is the fact that warriors are nearly -all- combat that makes them unappealing. I really like the idea that was posted elsewhere of merging warrior and ranger, but that's not something to get into here, I suppose. I understand the difference in a warrior and a ranger.

Edit to add: Just caught Synthesis' post because chrome shutdown on me. While I don't like the idea of the sparring weapons being given a higher failure rate, I do like the idea of having the skills slowly improve with use regardless of failure. That seems like a realistic and not drastically different way of handling things which could/might improve them if implemented.

[Synthesis]

Slings don't suck, unless you suck at using them.

[Nyr]

I was speaking as someone who enjoys playing rangers, who might enjoy playing rangers who were more inclined to actually be 'hunters' of some sort, if the change was made.

A ranger's strong point is "pew pew pew" with arrows, not "smack smack smack" in melee combat.  Sneaking, hiding, hunting, and shooting have nothing to do with weapons skills.  I'd suggest reading over the helpfiles for rangers, it really helps get more into the mindset of their strengths, weaknesses, and overall playstyle.

I'm thinking of the utility skill of rangers, that's the appeal more so than the combat. Yes, the combat -can- be done. If it improved a little more easily, it would be appealing. But the cost of arrows makes it really impractical, imo, when the salary of the average clanned pc is somewhere around 150 sid/rl week, and the cost of arrows would afford 3-6 of them at that rate, for the cheaper ones I've seen. Spears and other thrown type things aren't so bad, but slings are godawful (personal opinion, again), so I wind up going with melee more by default. I mean, it's hard to launch a couple small to a half a large worth of arrows at something for a piece of meat and maybe a few sid for the skin, and feel like you're being realistic in the framework of the world (economywise, which I admit is skewed). It is the fact that warriors are nearly -all- combat that makes them unappealing. I really like the idea that was posted elsewhere of merging warrior and ranger, but that's not something to get into here, I suppose. I understand the difference in a warrior and a ranger.

Help ranger = rangers are far poorer at combat than warriors; increasing (or decreasing) the rate at which weapon skills improve would not affect rangers as they are not intended to be combat powerhouses (and as previously mentioned by both you and me, their other skills are what they are intended to be used for and are in fact their strengths).  It would only affect them if they were being played as melee combatants, which isn't their strong suit anyway, so it wouldn't have more than a minute effect.  The average clanned (and unclanned) PC can get ahold of arrows (and 'sid) easier than you might think, but even so, archery is a powerful skill and the cost of supplies comes into play for purposes of balance.

But back to the main point in response to your concern, I do not think that altering weapons skills in any way (greatly or minutely) will affect your play of rangers.  If you are playing them like warriors when the helpfile and the guild disagree with that, you are going to be constantly disappointed unless you like a major challenge.  If you want a ranger that can fight like a warrior, use one of the extended subguilds.

[AmandaGreathouse]

It's not about my play of rangers. It's about weapon skills and whether or not I like the idea of the change proposed (my posting is), I do like the idea of a change. Yes, I like a major challenge. That's why I love playing magickers or horribly disturbed characters. I might well play one with one of the extended subguilds at some point. But regarding the proposal, I still think it would be a positive thing. Completely outside my play of rangers, or lack thereof, or my dislike of warriors. My limited use of them is far from all encompassing, I admit, but when I do use them... I would like the idea of the change that was brought up.

[Yam]

On the other hand, you could leave everything the same, and re-code the way weapon skills increase, removing them from the failure-based system and changing it to a use-based system (i.e. every time you use it, it improves a little bit, regardless of whether you fail or not).  They improve so slowly anyway, I don't see how that would be much of a problem, beyond the coding aspect.

This would fix the problems I have with the way I see and am pretty sure the system of weapon skill improvement works. Weapon skills would be improvable by all long lived, dedicated warriors and not just those who have accrued some obscure and, in my opinion, unrealistic game knowledge.

[Spoon]

I'd much rather go for the increased chance of failure than 'use-based' skill increases. It's works well now because there's a point where you have to fight things that are a 'challenge'. Problem is, 'challenge' doesn't mean challenge. In Arm, you learn more trying to hit a mouse that fighting off a dragon.

As for increased failure rate, it can be tiny, but just so there is some chance. I'm thinking a level where it would only really affect PCs that have been around a great deal of time, just to give them some chance of improving over a long period.

[titansfan]

I like synthesis' idea of use based learning...if any change were to be made imo that fits best with the rate of increase.

[catchall]

I'd much rather go for the increased chance of failure than 'use-based' skill increases. It's works well now because there's a point where you have to fight things that are a 'challenge'. Problem is, 'challenge' doesn't mean challenge. In Arm, you learn more trying to hit a mouse that fighting off a dragon.

As for increased failure rate, it can be tiny, but just so there is some chance. I'm thinking a level where it would only really affect PCs that have been around a great deal of time, just to give them some chance of improving over a long period.

The problem is that simply establishing a fixed minimum miss rate doesn't change anything substantial. You'll still learn more fighting the mouse. This will always be the case as long as a "learn by failure" system is in use.  "Learn by failure" is a fairly straightforward and simple way to make challenging tasks more useful for skill improvement, as they should be, and are in real life.  Though this is a commonplace and generally effective system, at it's core it's something of a kludge.  In real life, you don't get better at something by screwing up. You get better by succeeding at tasks that are just at the boundary of your ability and correcting past mistakes.  

That is, in real life, failing at something and getting better at something are two independent consequences of engaging in challenging tasks.  A learn by failure skill system in a computer game simulates that effect by having skill failure mediate between a challenging task and skill gain. This has an appealing self-balancing mechanism built in, where no one can get better at a skill after a point where they are always successful.  It's also easier from a code perspective to look at one binary data point (success or failure) rather than design a complicated improvement algorithm that calculates the difficulty of the task and weighs your skill roll and current skill level in order to determine if improvement is in order, which would be more "realistic" but much more complicated to code and balance, with little pizzazz visible from player-side. After all, if it were well-implemented, it would feel like the current system most of the time (the current system is perfectly adequate most of the time), and this is a roleplaying game, not a machine model of learning. Too much detail is undesireable.  In the marginal cases discussed in this thread, though, the unrealistic elements in the system compound to a point where a playability problem is experienced by some of the players here.

However practical learn-by-failure may be, it's important to remember that it is a conflation. Learning and failure aren't the same thing, and as long as they are treated the same or close to the same by the game, we will see unrealistic methods of advancement, where the best way to advance a skill is generally to do something FAR too hard for your current aptitude (which in real life would be of virtually no benefit), and/or orchestrate circumstances that are conducive to failing at the skill (but which realistically speaking, are not conducive to learning the fundamentals of the skill). I'm being intentionally vague about the ways someone might go about this and the unrealistic nature of these tasks, for obvious reasons.

So, simply adding a base chance of failure is, in effect, a kludge that attempts to mitigate some marginal shortcomings of a game mechanic--learn by failure--that is already a bit kludgy.   (You could argue that a base failure chance is reasonable in and of itself, and I'd be inclined to agree, but as a solution for the present issue, it's less than a band-aid, since it doesn't even begin to address unrealistic advancement methods being more effective than realistic ones.)  I don't have a solution of my own, but I just hope that learn-only-by-failure is not retained as a fundamental part of the skill system in Arm 2.  Armageddon's skill system is too sophisticated and the interactions between skills too subtle and complex for a simple learn-by-failure system to suffice, as witnessed by the issues reported here. Learn-by-failure is best suited to simple skill systems with few interactions between skills.

[Sunburned]

The problem is that simply establishing a fixed minimum miss rate doesn't change anything substantial. You'll still learn more fighting the mouse. This will always be the case as long as a "learn by failure" system is in use.  "Learn by failure" is a fairly straightforward and simple way to make challenging tasks more useful for skill improvement, as they should be, and are in real life.  Though this is a commonplace and generally effective system, at it's core it's something of a kludge.  In real life, you don't get better at something by screwing up. You get better by succeeding at tasks that are just at the boundary of your ability and correcting past mistakes.  

That is, in real life, failing at something and getting better at something are two independent consequences of engaging in challenging tasks.  A learn by failure skill system in a computer game simulates that effect by having skill failure mediate between a challenging task and skill gain. This has an appealing self-balancing mechanism built in, where no one can get better at a skill after a point where they are always successful.  It's also easier from a code perspective to look at one binary data point (success or failure) rather than design a complicated improvement algorithm that calculates the difficulty of the task and weighs your skill roll and current skill level in order to determine if improvement is in order, which would be more "realistic" but much more complicated to code and balance, with little pizzazz visible from player-side. After all, if it were well-implemented, it would feel like the current system most of the time (the current system is perfectly adequate most of the time), and this is a roleplaying game, not a machine model of learning. Too much detail is undesireable.  In the marginal cases discussed in this thread, though, the unrealistic elements in the system compound to a point where a playability problem is experienced by some of the players here.

However practical learn-by-failure may be, it's important to remember that it is a conflation. Learning and failure aren't the same thing, and as long as they are treated the same or close to the same by the game, we will see unrealistic methods of advancement, where the best way to advance a skill is generally to do something FAR too hard for your current aptitude (which in real life would be of virtually no benefit), and/or orchestrate circumstances that are conducive to failing at the skill (but which realistically speaking, are not conducive to learning the fundamentals of the skill). I'm being intentionally vague about the ways someone might go about this and the unrealistic nature of these tasks, for obvious reasons.

So, simply adding a base chance of failure is, in effect, a kludge that attempts to mitigate some marginal shortcomings of a game mechanic--learn by failure--that is already a bit kludgy.   (You could argue that a base failure chance is reasonable in and of itself, and I'd be inclined to agree, but as a solution for the present issue, it's less than a band-aid, since it doesn't even begin to address unrealistic advancement methods being more effective than realistic ones.)  I don't have a solution of my own, but I just hope that learn-only-by-failure is not retained as a fundamental part of the skill system in Arm 2.  Armageddon's skill system is too sophisticated and the interactions between skills too subtle and complex for a simple learn-by-failure system to suffice, as witnessed by the issues reported here. Learn-by-failure is best suited to simple skill systems with few interactions between skills.

I think you're vastly overcomplicating the problem.  Its clear, from the variety of progression rates and modes of failure by which skills improve, that staff have many means by which to alter what, at face value, seems like a simple, ham-fisted method of progression.  I'm confident there's an elegant code solution, if the staff wanted to implement it.

[Bacon]

I like synthesis' idea of use based learning...if any change were to be made imo that fits best with the rate of increase.

I do too. Perhaps learn from both failures and successes. You'd just learn a bit more from a failure each time vs. what you would learn from each success.

[roughneck]

I like that it's very, very difficult to reach the ceiling with weapon skills and base offense/defense.  I think it reflects the fact that nobody knows -everything- about -anything-.

If a change was made to make weapon skills easier to train or simply or changed to simply require 'putting time in', then it becomes a stat battle when people face off, because they all trained to roughly the same level.

The current system doesn't make perfect sense, realistically, but at least it makes training the skills very difficult.  There should always be room for improvement, that is more realistic than a system that allows you to improve unreasonably fast.  It also makes perfect sense to improve at a slower rate at high levels.

Besides, I feel like the difficulty to train and effectiveness of weapon skill is being misrepresented here.  It's not supremely difficult to reach journeyman level with a weapon skill, at which level a PC is very competent.  Even with a weapon skill at the apprentice level, coupled with journeyman dual-wield or two-handed, a ranger is effective enough in combat, prior to acquiring the defensive skills that class branches to.

Either way, if a change was made, there would be a percentage of players that figured out how to maximize their skilling more efficiently than others and this discussion would pop up again.

[titansfan]

I don't think it would make it easier by any drastic amount...I just feel it would allow advanced players to still advance their skills without running into boredom due to you being too badass with your skills and never learning anything you don't even know anything about.

[Sunburned]

I like that it's very, very difficult to reach the ceiling with weapon skills and base offense/defense.  I think it reflects the fact that nobody knows -everything- about -anything-.

If a change was made to make weapon skills easier to train or simply or changed to simply require 'putting time in', then it becomes a stat battle when people face off, because they all trained to roughly the same level.

The current system doesn't make perfect sense, realistically, but at least it makes training the skills very difficult.  There should always be room for improvement, that is more realistic than a system that allows you to improve unreasonably fast.  It also makes perfect sense to improve at a slower rate at high levels.

Besides, I feel like the difficulty to train and effectiveness of weapon skill is being misrepresented here.  It's not supremely difficult to reach journeyman level with a weapon skill, at which level a PC is very competent.  Even with a weapon skill at the apprentice level, coupled with journeyman dual-wield or two-handed, a ranger is effective enough in combat, prior to acquiring the defensive skills that class branches to.

Either way, if a change was made, there would be a percentage of players that figured out how to maximize their skilling more efficiently than others and this discussion would pop up again.

For warriors, its not just very, very difficult to reach the skill ceiling for a weapon skill... for most - that choose to stay within the realistic constraints of their roles - its impossible (with the exception of a few roles where warriors are under-represented).

Your argument that it would become a "stat battle" doesn't seem valid to me, because it assumes that 1) all players who play warriors are capable of running a long-lived warrior, 2) weapon skills are the most critical skill in determining a warrior's success, and 3) there is no strategy in melee combat.  All of these assumptions are, in my humble opinion, false.  

I believe its valid to say that this has less impact on rangers - if the code was changed, it would be more to the benefit of warriors, because their particularly narrow skill tree is balanced in consideration of their higher potential with weapon skills... but currently, for most warrior players, the level of expertise which grants highest returns is unattainable, no matter if they're 20 days played or 200 days played... or it is only attainable to players who are expert twinks.

[Kismetic]

I hope you guys don't make it easier to raise weapon skills arbitrarily, because once you've mastered everything, weapon skills pretty much keep you going (in a goal-based sense of playing, which I will admit, I do).

However, you do reach a point where you can only skill fail on things that are absurdly dangerous.  Spoon's idea of a TINY twink to critical fail is cool.

[Hot_Dancer]

Cool thread. I wish I could change my vote to yes.

I had a 100dish warrior go without ever branching his primary weapon skill despite regular skill usage.

[Kismetic]

I should probably clarify, though, that my goal may not be to branch (though branching is fun), but perhaps, do X, which requires skill Y

[Sunburned]

I hope you guys don't make it easier to raise weapon skills arbitrarily, because once you've mastered everything, weapon skills pretty much keep you going (in a goal-based sense of playing, which I will admit, I do).

However, you do reach a point where you can only skill fail on things that are absurdly dangerous.  Spoon's idea of a TINY twink to critical fail is cool.

For me, Its not about making it easier.  Its about making it even possible to improve a weapon skill past JM or Advanced.  If the code was changed, but it required 50 days of playtime to max out a weapon skill, I'd still be happy with the change.

[brytta.leofa]

The fact that you can now throw 2 CGP onto a weapon skill (but not onto base offense) might make things a little more tractable.

[Kismetic]

Believe me, I feel your pain.  It already sucks enough that for karma, a random newblet PC can twink off/def and have what another person slaved for months over, but it's not like CGP is cheap.  Where I think the problem lies though, is you can reach a point where you say "Okay, screw it, I'll just be proficient with these other weapons," only to find you can hardly miss with a novice weapon skill.

All I will say, without revealing IC info, it is possible to fail, just difficult and dangerous.

Don't take away my Hardcore setting pretty please?  

edit @ brytta:  It kinda bugs me you can raise a weapon skill over apprentice.  But then, getting to apprentice isn't all that hard, so I guess it's gotta be worth something.

[Bacon]

I hope you guys don't make it easier to raise weapon skills arbitrarily, because once you've mastered everything, weapon skills pretty much keep you going (in a goal-based sense of playing, which I will admit, I do).

However, you do reach a point where you can only skill fail on things that are absurdly dangerous.  Spoon's idea of a TINY twink to critical fail is cool.

For me, Its not about making it easier.  Its about making it even possible to improve a weapon skill past JM or Advanced.  If the code was changed, but it required 50 days of playtime to max out a weapon skill, I'd still be happy with the change.

I think 40-50 days of play should be more than enough to max out any character without having to grind like mad. That really isn't possible right now without a lot of grinding and even then it's not really possible with weapon skills. I'm talking in 40-50 days, a warrior pc should be able to have their primary weapon skill mastered and well on their way to a second one whether or not that is one of the starters or the ones they branched. Pretty much every other guild can have their primary skills mastered by 40 days if not less for some. Not so for weapon skills.

[Sunburned]

Believe me, I feel your pain.  It already sucks enough that for karma, a random newblet PC can twink off/def and have what another person slaved for months over, but it's not like CGP is cheap.  Where I think the problem lies though, is you can reach a point where you say "Okay, screw it, I'll just be proficient with these other weapons," only to find you can hardly miss with a novice weapon skill.

All I will say, without revealing IC info, it is possible to fail, just difficult and dangerous.

Don't take away my Hardcore setting pretty please?  

edit @ brytta:  It kinda bugs me you can raise a weapon skill over apprentice.  But then, getting to apprentice isn't all that hard, so I guess it's gotta be worth something.

I think you're cherishing your meta-gaming knowledge more than the hardship of earning an advanced weapon skill.

Either way, when the ability to progress with a weapon skill is relegated to combat with a handful of mobs, its not all inclusive or balanced - militia characters and other roles which demand play within specific regions of the world are at a much greater disadvantage to advance those skills than others in more favorable locations/clans.

[Sunburned]

I hope you guys don't make it easier to raise weapon skills arbitrarily, because once you've mastered everything, weapon skills pretty much keep you going (in a goal-based sense of playing, which I will admit, I do).

However, you do reach a point where you can only skill fail on things that are absurdly dangerous.  Spoon's idea of a TINY twink to critical fail is cool.

For me, Its not about making it easier.  Its about making it even possible to improve a weapon skill past JM or Advanced.  If the code was changed, but it required 50 days of playtime to max out a weapon skill, I'd still be happy with the change.

I think 40-50 days of play should be more than enough to max out any character without having to grind like mad. That really isn't possible right now without a lot of grinding and even then it's not really possible with weapon skills. I'm talking in 40-50 days, a warrior pc should be able to have their primary weapon skill mastered and well on their way to a second one whether or not that is one of the starters or the ones they branched. Pretty much every other guild can have their primary skills mastered by 40 days if not less for some. Not so for weapon skills.

Agreed.

[Flawed]

I am a bit confused.

Are we talking about weapon skill improvement, or weapon skill improvement for WARRIORS? I suppose it is more important for warriors due to branching more weapon skills.

Not sure how it would impact upon the rangers. But since the throw/archery change, personally, I feel assassin pc is slightly more dependent on the combat skills. I do not feel it made as much a difference in combat as others made it out to be? Weapon skill at advanced level and weapon skill at maxed master level seems so similar that I noticed almost no real difference on two different types of weapon skill category, if there is any at all. Perhaps it is more important for warriors because their skill caps are higher?

Pssst, it is hard enough to pk a warrior already. Why make it any easier for warrior to train up. Weapon skills don't help assassins too much. We can max our weapon skills fine! Of course, it helps that there isn't nearly as many weapon skills to max...

[Yam]

Warriors are really the only ones that run into the weapon skill not increasing problem because the other classes don't get the chance to get weapon skills that high, and don't have other things going for their class that makes it impossible to get weapon skill failures.

[Sunburned]

I am a bit confused.

Are we talking about weapon skill improvement, or weapon skill improvement for WARRIORS? I suppose it is more important for warriors due to branching more weapon skills.

Not sure how it would impact upon the rangers. But since the throw/archery change, personally, I feel assassin pc is slightly more dependent on the combat skills. I do not feel it made as much a difference in combat as others made it out to be? Weapon skill at advanced level and weapon skill at maxed master level seems so similar that I noticed almost no real difference on two different types of weapon skill category, if there is any at all. Perhaps it is more important for warriors because their skill caps are higher?

Pssst, it is hard enough to pk a warrior already. Why make it any easier for warrior to train up. Weapon skills don't help assassins too much. We can max our weapon skills fine! Of course, it helps that there isn't nearly as many weapon skills to max...

Bolded the insightful part.

But again, for me, this isn't about making it EASIER for warriors to train weapon skills - its about making it POSSIBLE.  

And I think you underestimate the importance of weapon skills for assassins.

[Flawed]

I only ever bother to skill up with assassins. So I do not know how it reflects on rangers or warriors combat.

While weapon skills are important, after you toss in the complexity that is ginka, it simply pales in importance. I will take def/off over weapon skill any day of the week.

Sure I think I might have noticed a slight difference between journeyman weapon skill level and master weapon skill level. But it could well just be the increase in def/off.

It takes 30-40 playing days to max up one weapon skill, and then another 30-40 playing days to begin and finish trainning up a second weapon skill. Not neglecting rp.

It is possible to train up the weapon skills right now, just super difficult for warriors to get in the last 10 ranks of a weapon skill?

I guess I'd be all for easier weapon skill trainning if I actually play warriors. Since I do not, and it is possible to raise weapon skills, I am all for no.

While other combat classes are getting nerfed (hey, in my humble opinion, it's a nerf), warriors shouldn't get things easy either!

[Karieith]

I don't know enough about the trickity tricks (in fact I do not know them at all) involved in getting epic offense/defense and amazing weapon skills. But, I think it would be nice if you learned a bit from succeeding, as was suggested, and if training with your fellow clannies provided you an option towards mastery. I understand that clannie training is safer, so maybe it should take longer, but it shouldn't be impossible. :/

[Lizzie]

I don't know enough about the trickity tricks (in fact I do not know them at all) involved in getting epic offense/defense and amazing weapon skills. But, I think it would be nice if you learned a bit from succeeding, as was suggested, and if training with your fellow clannies provided you an option towards mastery. I understand that clannie training is safer, so maybe it should take longer, but it shouldn't be impossible. :/

Clannie training with sparring weapons shouldn't give you mastery over anything at all. Pretending to try to kill someone, and intentionally using weapons that are designed to -not- kill someone..in a supervised controlled environment, does not make you an expert at anything -except- at how to spar. Sparring is not a coded skill. Using a blunted dagger doesn't give you mastery over pierced weapons because - you're not really using a pierced weapon. Using a light-weight club doesn't give you mastery over smashing someone's skull in, because - it's not heavy enough. Likewise, shooting arrows at an archery dummy should not teach you how to master shooting at a moving target while you're standing knee-deep in grass and ritikki shit. It can teach you how to hold the bow, how to pull an arrow, the basic techniques of aiming..and that's pretty much it.

As someone who plays a lot of rangers, and rarely skills up with any kind of speed, I'll say that weapon skills move just about how I feel they should. Granted, I'd LOVE it if I could get my weapons skills to budge just a little faster. But it doesn't break me that they're pokey to go up. As Nyr said, the expertise of a ranger does not lie in weapons skills. It lies in archery, and in stealth/perception/riding.
Archery is expensive to start out with but if you get good enough, you can handle pretty much anything with just a couple of arrows.
And when you're that good, then anything that takes more than just a couple of arrows, SHOULD take more than just a couple of arrows.


Edited to add: if you're in a coded clan and hired because you can/want to use a bow, then you should be talking to your clan boss ICly about them paying for your arrows or providing someone to make them for you.

[Is Friday]

As a martial arts instructor and student of martial arts for several years I'm going to strongly disagree with your assessment of sparring being ineffective for taking someone to mastery. Stupidly getting yourself injured by engaging in life-or-death fights is going to kill your skill progression long before you get anything useful of it, but hey, it's a game.

[Karieith]

As a martial arts instructor and student of martial arts for several years I'm going to strongly disagree with your assessment of sparring being ineffective for taking someone to mastery. Stupidly getting yourself injured by engaging in life-or-death fights is going to kill your skill progression long before you get anything useful of it, but hey, it's a game.

[Malken]

Clannie training with sparring weapons shouldn't give you mastery over anything at all. Pretending to try to kill someone, and intentionally using weapons that are designed to -not- kill someone..in a supervised controlled environment, does not make you an expert at anything -except- at how to spar.

Are you saying that Spartacus lied to me? 

[Riev]

Having played other classes than Warrior, I still feel there is some issue with HOW the skillups go. Strictly speaking, the issue lies in the offense, and defense, of PCs as a whole.

If you're in a clan with someone, there are a lot of factors to decide if they are a "suitable" training partner for your weapon skills. When I played Creek, I did a LOT of not even "maybe" twinky stuff, I  twinked VERY hard, and it took me about 60d to finally branch a weapon skill. (with poor/BA wisdom)

His offense ended up being so high, that he rarely missed on anything. ANYTHING. So while he could raise the defense of his clannies, his other skills were sort of stagnated. Its a very frustrating position.




That said, I agree that PCs with branched weapon skills are like sorcerors, and it shows the PC has taken the time (usually) to build a character as well as a guild. Very rarely do I see a PC with an advanced weapon skill, that I think RPs or emotes like a 5yr old.