Spamcasting!

[Synthesis]

You don't need to spam skills to skill up.

I don't know how many times I've had to say it, but people just don't get the memo.

Trust me, I was pretty damn good at skilling up in my day, and spamming is just not necessary.  It's actually counterproductive if using the skill incurs risk or expense.

Yes, some of the combat skills progress really slowly, but they seem to progress in exactly the same manner (i.e. spamming is neither necessary nor helpful).

My rule of thumb was always "if it fails, stop and go do something else for a while."  It works.  Really well.

[th3kaiser]

Wait, you mean you're not good at skilling up anymore? You've changed, man.

[Asmoth]

You don't need to spam skills to skill up.

I don't know how many times I've had to say it, but people just don't get the memo.

Trust me, I was pretty damn good at skilling up in my day, and spamming is just not necessary.  It's actually counterproductive if using the skill incurs risk or expense.

Yes, some of the combat skills progress really slowly, but they seem to progress in exactly the same manner (i.e. spamming is neither necessary nor helpful).

My rule of thumb was always "if it fails, stop and go do something else for a while."  It works.  Really well.

Then what do you consider a failure in power level leveling? Anything that doesn't bump you from Yuqa to Kral?

Or is it supposed to be a failure when that happens?

[Lizzie]

No Synthesis, you don't "have to" spamcast to skill up.

But you do have to cast until you fail to branch. If you want to branch sooner rather than later, then you have to cast more often than less often. Casting over and over again in the same "session" for the purpose of attempting to fail (and therefore raise your "branch-points") is called spamcasting.

[Asmoth]

No Synthesis, you don't "have to" spamcast to skill up.

But you do have to cast until you fail to branch. If you want to branch sooner rather than later, then you have to cast more often than less often. Casting over and over again in the same "session" for the purpose of attempting to fail (and therefore raise your "branch-points") is called spamcasting.

This doesn't codedly work, unless they are casting at super weak power.

[aeglaeca]

I don't have the impression from the help file that you automatically skill up when you fail, but that there's a chance to skill up upon failure. So casting until you fail a few times seems within reason of the documentation (and also rather tedious).

I'm still on my first character but after seven RL months of play I haven't gotten all my guild skills up to journeyman or even apprentice, so as far as skilling up goes I can understand why players feel the need to twink, especially those who spent karma to play their PCs.

[Asmoth]

I don't have the impression from the help file that you automatically skill up when you fail, but that there's a chance to skill up upon failure. So casting until you fail a few times seems within reason of the documentation (and also rather tedious).

I'm still on my first character but after seven RL months of play I haven't gotten all my guild skills up to journeyman or even apprentice, so as far as skilling up goes I can understand why players feel the need to twink, especially those who spent karma to play their PCs.

Some skills will get raised stupid fast because of player time versus character time.

Like almost every character I have ends up with badass foraging from salting and general grebbing (ranger finding food and water. Stone worker finding stones etc) and I wouldn't consider that twonking at all because I need food and water and I need Sid to get better gear and/or buy spice.

But someone who sneaks everywhere or hides in every room they go into is a twink unless they are an elf or rinther because they are sneaky dirty fucks (it's a joke)

[aeglaeca]

My PC also has a lot of playtime. She just doesn't fail very much. She's very much playable, I'm just saying I completely understand why people would think they need to spamcast (or spam anything) to skill up.

[RogueGunslinger]

Follow a daily schedule for training, much like clans have, and you'll be progressing about as fast possible. Obviously this is going to be different based on wisdom, but it's a good general rule.

If you did this every day and logged in for 24 hours straight you'd be very surprised how much your character will have progressed. No spamming involved whatsoever. The problem of twinking generally comes in when players can't find an easy, realistic ways to train.

[wizturbo]

If you want to play a powerful magicker, the absolute best way to practice your skills is to actually use them in IC situations whenever possible. 

It's more fun, tends to advance skills plenty fast, but most importantly you actually get to experience how some of these spells work.  You think you know how they work, but you don't get a feel for all of their little clever idiosyncrasies without actually trying them in real situations.

[Synthesis]

I don't have the impression from the help file that you automatically skill up when you fail, but that there's a chance to skill up upon failure. So casting until you fail a few times seems within reason of the documentation (and also rather tedious).

I'm still on my first character but after seven RL months of play I haven't gotten all my guild skills up to journeyman or even apprentice, so as far as skilling up goes I can understand why players feel the need to twink, especially those who spent karma to play their PCs.

There's a long-running debate over whether your wisdom score affects a variable "chance to skill-up on failure," whether it affects "amount skilled-up on failure," whether it affects cool-down time, or some combination of the above.  Everyone has their guesses...hypothesis testing is very difficult though, because of the lack of a proper control group.

No Synthesis, you don't "have to" spamcast to skill up.

But you do have to cast until you fail to branch. If you want to branch sooner rather than later, then you have to cast more often than less often. Casting over and over again in the same "session" for the purpose of attempting to fail (and therefore raise your "branch-points") is called spamcasting.

Work smarter, not harder, I always say.

[Malken]

Get drunk (both in game and in real life) and put lots of heavy rocks in your backpack (both in game and in real life) before you cast to improve your chances of failing and also wondering what you're doing with your life.

[Inks]

It's fine. Even max karma players spamcast. Just have a social life outside the temple / lair of doom. Wanting to get better a mage is the same as wanting to get better as any class. Just don't do shit like sleep to regain mp faster between casts and think about what you are doing and who you want to kill/ kank/ both while you grow in power.

Your Pc isn't your skills, if you don't have connections/ friends as a powerful pc your skills / stats won't help you much.


In the end just be realistic as a living person in Zalanthas.

[Synthesis]

Get drunk (both in game and in real life) and put lots of heavy rocks in your backpack (both in game and in real life) before you cast to improve your chances of failing and also wondering what you're doing with your life.

About the only time you absolutely -need- to resort to shenanigans like that is when you're trying to master a mandatory two-handed branched weapon skill on a warrior.  As far as I can tell, nothing else in the skill-related code is so reliable as a warrior's primary hand attack.  I'm sure the staff are aware of it, and I'd be pretty disappointed if they fussed at anyone for training in that way, when it's essentially forced by the code.  It's pretty evil to hand someone a branched weapon skill, and also say, "you'll never master it, and if you try, we'll give you bad account notes."

[Nyr]

Prepare for disappointment.

[BadSkeelz]

It's a good thing that the branched weapon skills are mostly pretty silly. Knives, pikes, and tridents? Really? At least polearms are impressive, even if plenty already exist as chopping or bludgeoning weapons.

Thanks for the thread, OP. I was starting to fear magickers again, but now I can just go right back to resenting and hating them.

[Synthesis]

Prepare for disappointment.

Well, you could be a smartass and leave your honeypot there, or you could have someone look into fixing the problem.

[Nyr]

I mentioned it last month.  If you do the stupid stuff Malken mentioned, you will be asked not to do it.  You do not get a free pass if you believe that there is literally no other way to get your skills increased.

[wizturbo]

Also, maybe mastering some of these advanced weapons is something the staff don't want?  It's perhaps not the best implementation, to have a carrot out there that people want to reach out for but cannot grasp, but the end result may be a net positive for the game.  In my limited experience, some very advanced warriors are so ridiculously overpowered that having this soft cap on their development seems like a great idea to me.  

[Miko]

Some suggestions:

- Treat training spells like clans treat training skills. Clans set time for sparring and time for other things as a way to structure the day for PCs. So set a time for yourself too. For example, high sun for a Krathi or at night for a Drovian. Take a day off under certain conditions, like if you're a Whiran and the winds are low.

- Emote/think/feel the process of practicing being under the effect of a spell, if you're casting a spell on yourself.

- Don't worry too much about "spamcasting" unless you're doing it to the exclusion of other things a person would reasonably do and doing it for more than 10-20 minutes or so. If you're roleplaying your character, you're not spamcasting.

Very helpful post that I think some version of would look great in a helpfile. This question will inevitably come up again and again.

[Synthesis]

I mentioned it last month.  If you do the stupid stuff Malken mentioned, you will be asked not to do it.  You do not get a free pass if you believe that there is literally no other way to get your skills increased.

Eh, well.  To be clear:  I've never done anything that extreme.  I have gone out and done things that really were quite stupid in the grand scheme of things, but could at least be vaguely justified as being in-character.  I'm sure anyone watching knew what the game was.  I think the game is a little silly, though.

Also, maybe mastering some of these advanced weapons is something the staff don't want?  It's perhaps not the best implementation, to have a carrot out there that people want to reach out for but cannot grasp, but the end result may be a net positive for the game.  In my limited experience, some very advanced warriors are so ridiculously overpowered that having this soft cap on their development seems like a great idea to me.   

The problem is that there are some very large perks to having a weapon skill mastered.  Not just "to the point where you no longer miss," but actually mastered as a code percentage.

If you can't master it, you're nerfing yourself quite badly, and while the branched weapons do have some little code perks, they don't come anywhere near to compensating for what you lose by walking around at (apprentice).  It's like...what the hell would be the point of branching "cure light wounds" from "cure serious wounds?"  The only reason anyone even bothers carrying around these weapons is a) they don't realize they're nerfing themselves, b) they don't have any weapon skills in the first place, so a pike is just as good as a spear, c) they're showing off that they branched but really have no intention of ever using that glaive in a fight, or d) they're one of the rare few who intently focused on mastering the branched skill and trained in -just- the right way over 25-30 days' played, and actually have it mastered.

Anyway, the point is:  you only need to do dumb shit to master your skills if you want to master a warrior's branched weapon skill.  The trick is to find a "dumb shit" niche that is plausibly justifiable ICly.  Any other skill or spell in the game can be pretty easily trained without doing silly things, especially spamming, which is what this thread was about.

[wizturbo]

....while the branched weapons do have some little code perks

A bit of a derailment, but as far as I understand it the benefit from these are far past little code perks. 

From the helpfile:  "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."

If you don't know how to use a pike, your defense against it is going to be hampered.  That's not a little thing, that's huge.

[Synthesis]

....while the branched weapons do have some little code perks

A bit of a derailment, but as far as I understand it the benefit from these are far past little code perks.  

From the helpfile:  "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."

If you don't know how to use a pike, your defense against it is going to be hampered.  That's not a little thing, that's huge.

You're woefully misinterpreting that sentence, dude.

It means "If you are good with an axe, you will be better at parrying incoming blows with the axe, that you're using."

The implication is "if you suck with a pike, you will suck at parrying with a pike."

[wizturbo]

Ah, well, if your interpretation is accurate then I stand corrected.  I was always under the impression that not knowing how to use an axe means you're going to be more vulnerable to axe wielders, so there was an incentive to being well rounded.

[bcw81]

Guys, c'mon. Back on topic with y'all.