Starting skill level adjustment

[KankWhisperer]

I wonder sometimes do people enjoy the skill grind? Do they love waiting so long to become competent? Do we reward those who just wanna get those fails? Personally I think we should raise the starting skill level for people so they can spend less time trying to be useful and more time doing things that are fun and exciting.

[Marauder Moe]

Actually... yeah, for some things.  It lends a sense of accomplishment when you kill your first scrab, break even with a craft, etc.  Not to mention the re-vitalized sense of fear you get with a brand new character, alone in the world with shit for skills, friends, and resources.

Regardless, I think CCP for skill boosts sufficiently addresses this issue/desire.  Or, at the very least, let's see how things are once CCP are automated.

[whitt]

Downside of removing the grind is that it removes the OOC mitigation of just throwing away character after character.  That investment to get to competent from pathetic is the hump that makes repeatedly playing total throwaways less viable, IMO.

Agree with Moe that when you're not just throwing characters into the wind, the Skill Bumps should cover the skill you'd like to not start out at complete crap with.

[RogueGunslinger]

Eh. I don't really feel this would help the grind, it would just delay it or make it shorter. The problem I have with skill advancement in the game is characters in certain roles who can never train skills when they should be the ones getting superior training, or some skills that takes forever to raise or simply just wont raise unless you're punching spiders while drunk or some wacky shit.

[valeria]

Sometimes I think we all have different definitions of grinding skills.

When I think grinding skills, I think people who avoid other RP and so on in order to improve slashing or whatever.  They're skipping out on training to hunt things in the desert.  They never show up to the flavor events, because they're too busy trying to backstab everything that moves in the dark, not to kill them or mug them or whatever, but just to try to backstab and flee and move on to the next thing to try to backstab.  They're avoiding the bar and crafting all night because they think it will improve dildo_crafting.  Or whatever it is they're doing that isn't realistic to the game world or how people actually act.

I'm not thinking of the Byn Trooper that spars regularly, because that is their job and just part of the Byn RP.  I'm not thinking of the crafter that spends the morning working on crafts, because that's their job and it's part of the crafter RP.  I'm not thinking of people that make an excuse to use a skill as long as the excuse makes IC sense and they don't start avoiding RP to do it.

[Ender]

Eh. I don't really feel this would help the grind, it would just delay it or make it shorter. The problem I have with skill advancement in the game is characters in certain roles who can never train skills when they should be the ones getting superior training, or some skills that takes forever to raise or simply just wont raise unless you're punching spiders while drunk or some wacky shit.

Drunken spider boxing is a time honored tradition.

[ibusoe]

I wonder sometimes do people enjoy the skill grind? Do they love waiting so long to become competent? Do we reward those who just wanna get those fails? Personally I think we should raise the starting skill level for people so they can spend less time trying to be useful and more time doing things that are fun and exciting.

I think that some players misunderstand the grind from a design standpoint.

Along with the other benefits of the grind, the grind serves as Something To Do While You're Waiting For Your Friends to Log On.

If the grind weren't available, people would log off and then there would be no way of hitting critical mass.  

At least, this is why I like the grind - it's something to do.

EDIT:  In sharing my opinion, I'm not trying to take a crap on your idea.  Your idea may still be very much valid and workable.

[BadSkeelz]

There's grinders, and then there's the Grind. You've described the spam grinder, Valeria: someone who's just out for the next skillup to the dismissal of everything else. They're annoying but unless they're somehow leveraging their poorly-achieved code ability into real power all you can do is roll your eyes at them. It's bad play, but they're really just side effects of the system.

The Grind has a couple of facets that bugs me. A big one is just how long it takes to make a semi-capable combat character. Skill Bumps have definitely helped (a rockin' stat line to start helps too) but Combat Characters still require a lot of work to get decent in their roles. A combat character's going to need something like 10 days played (240 fucking hours!) of decent action before they're considered "Good"; an aide or merchant can become good at their role as long as you give them a bit of personality and a great ass in the mdesc.

And then people complain that there's no enough Murder Corruption Betrayal and 'Drop Pack,' when combat-PC players play cautiously so as not to lose their investments. If it didn't take a month or so of skill-up to make a decent combat PC you'd probably see people a lot more willing to throw down with them.

Another aspect of the Grind that's annoying is one RGS alluded to: that if you want to become truly great at combat skills you need to start doing stupid or insane shit to force that Miss. Combat's the only area of the game where people are punished for behaving realistically.

[Kismetic]

I'm mostly okay with how the grind works.  It takes forever to have a kickass PC, and once you do, it's unique, with what you bring to the game world, and how you got there.  One thing that I think would be cool is ...

Not necessarily limiting the power of magickers, because they should be super awesome, but making their skill progression like that of a combat mundane.  Those high tier spells that make your PC a worldshaker?  That's gonna take 40 days played, hang in there.

[BadSkeelz]

Just make every Magick skill-up fail come with a 1% chance of your PC exploding.

[CodeMaster]

I wonder sometimes do people enjoy the skill grind? Do they love waiting so long to become competent? Do we reward those who just wanna get those fails? Personally I think we should raise the starting skill level for people so they can spend less time trying to be useful and more time doing things that are fun and exciting.

I think defining "competent" is important in discussions like these.  if everyone new were to start where a ten-days-played character is now, that would be the new "incompetent".

if nobody participated in the grind and winked code tricks at each other our notion of competent would be different too.

on a mobile keyboard.

[Synthesis]

Combat skills are more or less the only skills that have a significant grind, and there's already a thread for that, if I recall correctly.

[KankWhisperer]

To put it in perspective. My character has sparred 5000+ times and still has mostly apprentice weapon skills, following a clan schedule.

[whitt]

To put it in perspective. My character has sparred 5000+ times and still has mostly apprentice weapon skills.

Stop winning?   

I think this is much more an indictment of the needing your opponent to dodge (to create a failure) in order for your weapon skill to advance than anything else.  Or you seldom pick up a new weapon for a round of sparring, which I doubt.

[Armaddict]

To put it in perspective. My character has sparred 5000+ times and still has mostly apprentice weapon skills, following a clan schedule.

There is already a thread up discussing weapon skills and their advancement.  I will say the same thing here that I said there, which is that if you're winning all your fights, I don't see what difference it makes.

[whitt]

I will say the same thing here that I said there, which is that if you're winning all your fights, I don't see what difference it makes.

Not sure which thread that was, but...  If you're winning all your fights but your coded skill is still crap?  You can't use the Teach skill to instruct a novice with a weapon.

Sure you could explain that as a poor ability to instruct, like - "Nope, I'm just that good.  I can't explain how I always win." But for a veteran in a military clan, that seems a bit out of touch with reality.

[RogueGunslinger]

To put it in perspective. My character has sparred 5000+ times and still has mostly apprentice weapon skills, following a clan schedule.

There is already a thread up discussing weapon skills and their advancement.  I will say the same thing here that I said there, which is that if you're winning all your fights, I don't see what difference it makes.

The difference is you're beating everyone in your tiny clan microcosm, the reality is you're weak as shit as soon as you step outside the gates or decide to train with the new recruit who decided to hunt for his first IC year.

[Armaddict]

To put it in perspective. My character has sparred 5000+ times and still has mostly apprentice weapon skills, following a clan schedule.

There is already a thread up discussing weapon skills and their advancement.  I will say the same thing here that I said there, which is that if you're winning all your fights, I don't see what difference it makes.

The difference is you're beating everyone in your tiny clan microcosm, the reality is you're weak as shit as soon as you step outside the gates or decide to train with the new recruit who decided to hunt for his first IC year.

Which...makes sense.  ALSO as discussed in the other thread.

[RogueGunslinger]

You're misinterpreting what I'm saying. Obviously a hunter should be a better hunter than a  soldier. But a hunter should not be a better soldier than a soldier.

[bardlyone]

I'm mostly okay with how the grind works.  It takes forever to have a kickass PC, and once you do, it's unique, with what you bring to the game world, and how you got there.  One thing that I think would be cool is ...

Not necessarily limiting the power of magickers, because they should be super awesome, but making their skill progression like that of a combat mundane.  Those high tier spells that make your PC a worldshaker?  That's gonna take 40 days played, hang in there.

So basically your idea to make the least fun shit to raise/play (warrior/combat) due to the frustration and headaches associated with raising/skilling... is to not only not change it, but also hey, lets make half the other guilds ALSO work this way?

And you think that this will make the game more fun or add to it in some meaningful way?

How? Why?

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Combat skills should rise faster from novice to advanced, and then slow to the current crawl from advanced to master, with one lone change - successes must have a small chance to advance your skill. This single thing would change most of the hatred associated with grinding.

[Armaddict]

You're misinterpreting what I'm saying. Obviously a hunter should be a better hunter than a  soldier. But a hunter should not be a better soldier than a soldier.

Ah, indeed misinterpreted.  Sorry.

[Delirium]

Combat skills should rise faster from novice to advanced, and then slow to the current crawl from advanced to master, with one lone change - successes must have a small chance to advance your skill. This single thing would change most of the hatred associated with grinding.

Agreed 10000%.

[Kismetic]

I'm mostly okay with how the grind works.  It takes forever to have a kickass PC, and once you do, it's unique, with what you bring to the game world, and how you got there.  One thing that I think would be cool is ...

Not necessarily limiting the power of magickers, because they should be super awesome, but making their skill progression like that of a combat mundane.  Those high tier spells that make your PC a worldshaker?  That's gonna take 40 days played, hang in there.

So basically your idea to make the least fun shit to raise/play (warrior/combat) due to the frustration and headaches associated with raising/skilling... is to not only not change it, but also hey, lets make half the other guilds ALSO work this way?

And you think that this will make the game more fun or add to it in some meaningful way?

How? Why?

I've always found the meteoric nature of magickers to be pretty bullshit.  Spammed that spell ten times?  Ok, you branch.  Next spell.  Go in the desert, spam spam spam.  Okay, next tier!  Five days played?  Oh!  Hey, Mr. Tek!  Can I help you with that volcano?  It's just the laziest, easiest way to accrue power in this game.  It has the highest power ceiling, and it has the easiest path to said power.

If you look at the other guilds, they really shine at the 40 days played mark.  I think it would be very cool if magickers took a little more effort to shape into a monster, not the token wink-nudge spamfest that we all know them to be.

As for Warriors and stuff?  Hey, I'm with you!  My 100-day Warrior never branched a special weapon because he had poor wisdom.  That was sort of my choice, to have really awesome other stats, but on the other hand, 100 days?!  That's 2400 hours!  That's more than two years at a part-time job!  I think even the dumbest warriors should be branching at least one special weapon at ~60 days, because damn.  Just damn.  Haha.  I like the old suggestion of making something like 1/100 attacks automatically fail.  It presents some risk to you, while still giving you an edge.  Maybe master weapons are immune to this arbitrary fail.

What I don't wanna see is like, every single damn body mastering their skill/spell sheets at 10 days played.  This game is already candy-ass enough, at times.

[Saellyn]

I clearly suck at skill grinding compared to some people.


Magickers have to offset the fact that as soon as you engage one in coded PVP, barring certain slim exceptions, you're going to walk up one side of them and down the other in five seconds flat without any effort.

Still, they do rise pretty fast. I just think that's due to you guys spamming the spell more often than not. It takes me a long time to branch out, and I received notes about spamcasting before. Trouble is, I was doing what my clannies were doing, and I got nicked for it.

I dunno. Maybe I'm just bad at magick!