Skill Progression and Starting Levels

[BadSkeelz]

Code based player retention?

Honestly the problem with player retention has nothing to do with code tweaks.

I can personally vouch that having to put 240 hours into a character's code-based levelling up before I reach a point where I can start playing as I want to IS a turn-off.

[wizturbo]

I can personally vouch that having to put 240 hours into a character's code-based levelling up before I reach a point where I can start playing as I want to IS a turn-off.

240 hours even with skill bumps BadSkeelz?  Or just if you start from scratch?

[wizturbo]

And I agree, skills should start higher AND train faster. The slow grind of mundanes doesn't really facilitate much RP in my opinion.[/list]

I don't know...  I kind of like the notion that really bad ass warrior types are rare.  I don't want every mundane warrior whose been around for 10 played days to be a monster in combat.

My beef with bad ass warrior types is that they get to that level by doing things that aren't necessarily the pinnacle of role playing.  Solo hunting (from my limited perspective) seems to be the way to become a combat monster, and that seems lame to me.  I'm not saying it shouldn't be one way to gain skill.  Don't nerf it.  But I think showing up to training every single day, being trained by professionals and bad asses themselves, should be an equally fast route to coded combat power.  A guy whose served in the Byn for a couple IC years, then the AoD, and then trained by House Tor once he got promoted to a position to get enrolled, should be just as dangerous, if not more so, than the guy whose hunted critters.

[wizturbo]

Skill bumps might shave a few hours off of the grind, but unless you're playing 40 hours a week and using a skill timer it's difficult to  get to a point where you feel your character is competent in a "reasonable" time frame. At least where combat is concerned.

I'd like to see Armageddon be more of a game and less of a part/full-time job.

A few hours off?  I thought skill bumps shaved 100+ hours off the grind...  am I mistaken?

[LauraMars]

Combat is fine but other skills could be adjusted a bit.

Its not only that most skills should train faster, but I also feel like some skills should start a little higher. Either at apprentice or journeyman depending on the guild of the character, so that they are able to a bit more do more from chargen. However I agree the amount of time it takes for any character to become decent is way too long, resulting in people not wanting to  risking the lives of their characters and contributing to lack of plots from the player side.

I like feeling like I accomplish something when I play a game.  If skills started higher, I'd feel like I was already in a place where half my leveling had been done for me.  In some cases I think this is fine (training Contact from novice to master on multiple subsequent characters is something I absolutely don't miss), in others I like feeling as though I've pulled my character up from nothing.  Starting out shit at a skill and gradually being able to roleplay yourself improving is a lot of fun, for me at least.  But I do wish it wasn't as difficult to train some skills - combat's a ridiculous time investment, as many have noted.  In other words, I wish the road to become good at something wasn't as long and steep, but I still want to travel the road, not be dropped off halfway to the destination.

[Delirium]

Skill bumps might shave a few hours off of the grind, but unless you're playing 40 hours a week and using a skill timer it's difficult to  get to a point where you feel your character is competent in a "reasonable" time frame. At least where combat is concerned.

I'd like to see Armageddon be more of a game and less of a part/full-time job.

A few hours off?  I thought skill bumps shaved 100+ hours off the grind...  am I mistaken?

Yes. I'd say it's more along the lines of 48-72 hours, maximum. Which is a good chunk, but you'd still have a LONG way to go.

Two bumps to one skill seems to get you to low journeyman at best, and you can't bump off/deff, and those take forever to improve.

Break it down - I have 8 Karma, which gives me 11 CGP. I app a warrior/slipknife, that uses up 3 karma right there. I then spend 2 skill-bumps on all four weapon skills, which takes me to high apprentice. So I've gone from novice to apprentice in all of my weapon skillls but none of my other skills have been given a bump whatsoever.

Whereas, I have personally gotten all of my weapon skills from novice to apprentice in approximately 2-3 days played, so it essentially shaved a couple days off my playtime but didn't help me with any of my other combat skills, so I am starting out with decent weapon skills but nothing else.

CGP skill bumps are kiiiind of a ripoff because they really don't do much at all for you unless your guild has only one focal set of skills (stealing and sneak, for example). Even then, all you've really done is shaved a couple days of playtime off the grind, which considering most of our PCs don't tend to get truly "good" until 15,20 days played.. ain't much.

[wizturbo]

Yikes...  here I thought I could play a reasonably decent fighting type straight out of char gen...  Maybe the "two bumps only" rule should be reconsidered?  Maybe allow 4?  Get up to high journeyman?

[Beethoven]

For the love of everything mercilful please raise the issue again.  

Yes, let's. Even if it's a very contentious topic, it's something that in my mind ought to be considered. I WANT to make rugged combat characters. I want to make (mundane) world exploration characters. I just...can't bring myself to, because the grind is so unfun and exhausting and drains time I'd rather be RPing.

A twinky ranger guide some of you guys might know about actually flat-out says NOT to make friends and not to interact while you're grinding your skills, because it's going to cut into your grinding time, making it even slower, and you're useless to anybody until you get your skills up anyway. If that's the kind of play the slow skillup encourages, something should be changed.

[Riev]

Starting everyone at "competent" skill levels just raises the bar of competency and makes the game much less "scary" if you get wtfpwn'd by a scrab. I HATE the grind, and as with all games that don't produce expansions or like 6month overhauls of their systems, Arm's combat has been the same for years. Decades, near to. You might see a warrior skill set trying to kill someone, but its not very likely, because there's an air of "flee self;e;e;e;e;e;e;e;e;win". So everyone twinks assassins and secret magickers that kill you in one prompt, and the response is an arms race to be defensive enough not to be in that situation.

That said, I've branched things on a warrior a couple times, and each time it resorted to either a method of twinking or outright abuse (Yes, I'm aware) of code. The idea that a warrior can't get these skills without going to some PRETTY extreme lengths, and then the chances of them -ever- being decent at them is just ridiculous.

I feel like I'm pouring a pinch of flash powder x50,000 all over again.

[Rayonklar]

I'm not really sure why it's believed that being maxed out or pretty highly skilled is a requirement for competence when soft skills are important and all clans I've been in always had leaders who managed the risks around skill levels of its members well, without concern for being super expert.

[LauraMars]

The skill stuff might be worthy of a new thread, we're well out of brainstorming about player retention territory. I'll split off some of this chatter.

[LauraMars]

Ugh, this was an ugly split. Sorry about that. In my defense the gdb is nearly non functional for me right now. Crazy lag spikes when I went to split the posts and it hasnt let up. If another mod wants to go back and salvage more posts from that thread that would be helpful.

[Narf]

Code based player retention?

Honestly the problem with player retention has nothing to do with code tweaks.

I can personally vouch that having to put 240 hours into a character's code-based levelling up before I reach a point where I can start playing as I want to IS a turn-off.

I've raised the idea of bumping up all starting levels in the past. In fact I wanted to move them all to a point where no one bothered to train them, putting (in my mind) the focus on RP, rather than coded advancement.  An informal query amongst players resulted in multiple people expressing a desire not to shift all skills to this kind of level. I believe the reasoning was that some felt it devalued their characters progression if others could just app in at 1 hour old and be at the level of more experienced characters.

I'd be happy to revisit the idea if thinking amongst the playerbase was different.

It doesn't have to be either/or. Why not add an option to start with nearly maxed skills, but at some kind of long-term cost? I think it was Desertman that suggested a while back to offer up options for characters that skipped the grind so to speak, but had lower skill caps. You could also reduce skim a few of the branched skill lists down (possibly using the reduced skill maxes as guidelines) and make what amounts to a new set of guilds that have all the features you mention at a some sort of cost (reduced maximums, trimmed skill lists, or maybe even a higher minimum age).

I think this would be a huge boon to people with lower playtimes, or people that wanted to play high-danger roles like a noble's assassin or a bandit and didn't want to make the 20 RL days training to 1 RL day of doing the role trade off that's not required.

It would be less work, and open up options for both styles of play depending on what the player preferred.

[Refugee]

I don't mind that it takes a long time to get good at combat.  I don't enjoy grinding but I can deal with it being necessary for making an out-of-the-ordinary warrior.  Of course I have a lot of time to put in the game, and I tend to play long-lived PCs.

I don't like that the players who do the much-more-boring play of sparring day after day don't do as well as the players who get to go out at will hunting, which is much more fun, in my opinion.  You should improve more from structured training.

I don't like how you basically have to twink and know the code to get weapon skills past jman.  I think it's much more realistic that you couldn't get weapon skills past jman unless you -were- doing structured training.  All the tricks you have to do to accomplish it are really kind of unreasonable in an RP sense, why would you do that...

[Dresan]

I guess my posts didn't make the cut. Good thing some people quoted them.

Anyways, as I said before for the most part I think combat is fine. In the sense there is a clear difference between a 1 day warrior, and a three day warrior, five day warrior. And by combat, I mostly mean the hidden offense/defense skills.

I don't think they need to be touched. If you ever play a 30 day old warrior, and then play a fresh warrior with advanced weapons. You will still see a very big difference in performance. Again skill bumps don't make as big of a difference as people think at first at least. Still I agree with Delerium when she says its kinda of a rip off, which is why I'm been asking for two skill bumps for one CGP for a long while.  So for those people that think characters recieving a modest boost to start skill will prevent them from having that feeling of accomplishment, don't worry,  there is still a long way to go before you are standing toe to toe with bahamets. Even if combat training time is cut in half, it would still take a couple months of your 75~ years in this living world before you get there.  

And then you'll get sucked into a plot, where you will be kill anyways and have to start all over again.

Even if visible skills start higher, even if offense/defense get a slight bump (not saying this one in particular should happen but it wouldn't be the end of the world either), and even if you can train everything slightly quicker it won't change the fact that there will be a huge difference between younger and older characters in terms of power and influence, both codedly and socially.  The main change here is that people will have less to grind and more to time to use their skills towards generating demand, offering services and plotting in general. Not to mention dying and starting a new character doesn't take the player out of the game for a month or two, before they can start contributing/generating solid plots.

[Delusion]

Wrote it in the other thread, but I no longer play characters that actually have to use their skills, besides merchants. I don't have the inclination or the time for that initial grind, and the skill bumps available are only slight.

[Dresan]

This might be a slight derail but I think there should be a process where longer lived characters can have a slight customization done to their characters.

If your roll a human pickpocket/hunter and join a GMH. Move up the ranks and have played there for over six months. Perhaps using one/two of your yearly apps to ask for a boost in riding or archery beyond your original cap.  Or maybe you assassin made sergeant of the byn and he wants to learn a combat move, he can learn it at the extended guild skill level.  Some small modification to make your longer lived character a little more special more special.

And yes I think six months of my life is a long time to spend anywhere. I think there should be more freedom for characters to grow in game then there is now and it should be a documented process, just like creating a small merchant clans is currently.  

[whitt]

Also start primary guild skills at the bottom of Apprentice instead of Novice.  Branched skills can grind away, but few new players come into game understanding how much they are going to suck at the skills they think (and probably background app'd) their character as having made a living at.  Not sucking out the gate makes for a better new player experience.  You're still not going to be good.  Not sucking would be pretty hot for characters that die and need to start over too.

You could still skill bump from low-apprentice and get two things: 1) Meaningful bumps that move you from Apprentice Bone Sword Hacker to Veteran Bone Sword Hacker and 2) Noticeably closer to a branch that might help your concept along.

I get the feeling that the grind is part of the game, but grinding through the bottom-feeder suck?  I think if I ever stop playing it will be because I can't stomach needing to come up with another background that explain why my character is totally incompetent at their life's vocation. 

[Lizzie]

Also start primary guild skills at the bottom of Apprentice instead of Novice.  Branched skills can grind away, but few new players come into game understanding how much they are going to suck at the skills they think (and probably background app'd) their character as having made a living at.  Not sucking out the gate makes for a better new player experience.  You're still not going to be good.  Not sucking would be pretty hot for characters that die and need to start over too.

You could still skill bump from low-apprentice and get two things: 1) Meaningful bumps that move you from Apprentice Bone Sword Hacker to Veteran Bone Sword Hacker and 2) Noticeably closer to a branch that might help your concept along.

I get the feeling that the grind is part of the game, but grinding through the bottom-feeder suck?  I think if I ever stop playing it will be because I can't stomach needing to come up with another background that explain why my character is totally incompetent at their life's vocation. 

That's why I would like to see the bottom (novice) raised to a higher minimum than it currently is. That way, you're closer to your first "visible" bump to jman, but you still have to "earn" the accomplishment.

[Rokal]

This might be a slight derail but I think there should be a process where longer lived characters can have a slight customization done to their characters.

If your roll a human pickpocket/hunter and join a GMH. Move up the ranks and have played there for over six months. Perhaps using one/two of your yearly apps to ask for a boost in riding or archery beyond your original cap.  Or maybe you assassin made sergeant of the byn and he wants to learn a combat move, he can learn it at the extended guild skill level.  Some small modification to make your longer lived character a little more special more special.

And yes I think six months of my life is a long time to spend anywhere. I think there should be more freedom for characters to grow in game then there is now and it should be a documented process, just like creating a small merchant clans is currently.  

I feel the same way about this, while I -understand- the hesitation to not give characters skills outside their chosen guild choice, sometimes you wind up in a situation which you never expected in a character, doing something completely unexpected, or simply have been doing something for a long time.

A thief who winds up in the military training with badass warriors for some IC years would definetly pick up a trick or two. Things like that. IMO.

[Norcal]

Starting skill levels should be pegged to age and guild.

If I start as a 30 year old (insert guild here), then my starting skills should reflect that I have been doing certain things for at least 12 years. I should start at journeyman.

This should apply to a set of core skills which are specific to the guild. Not the entire skill set.

Skilling up in weapons and combat is very hard. It takes a long time. This should be adjusted .

[Malken]

Starting skill levels should be pegged to age and guild.

If I start as a 30 year old (insert guild here), then my starting skills should reflect that I have been doing certain things for at least 12 years. I should start at journeyman.

This should apply to a set of core skills which are specific to the guild. Not the entire skill set.

Skilling up in weapons and combat is very hard. It takes a long time. This should be adjusted .

It should have been this way 15 years ago.

[Rokal]

Starting skill levels should be pegged to age and guild.

If I start as a 30 year old (insert guild here), then my starting skills should reflect that I have been doing certain things for at least 12 years. I should start at journeyman.

This should apply to a set of core skills which are specific to the guild. Not the entire skill set.

Skilling up in weapons and combat is very hard. It takes a long time. This should be adjusted .

This too, I can agree with.

It makes little sense for a 13 year old to start at the same level of skill as an adult of 25 years, ect.

The way i see it, if you're playing a kid char, you're supposed to be playing extreme hard mode.

[Old Kank]

Skill progression is an important part of the game.  I hate it at times, but I would hate more for it to be removed or seriously diminished by starting all characters with advanced level skills.

I have two suggestions:

1.  Change the combat skill-level descriptors to be much, much lower.  Novice = 1-10%, Apprentice = 11-20%, Journeyman = 21-30%, Advanced = 31-40%, Master = 41-99%.  You reach 41% and suddenly you, the player, can see no further descriptions of skill level advancement.  At 41%, your character is sufficiently badass to handle a lot of things, but you can still encounter other PCs that are better than you, by far.

2.  What if, when your character dies, their skill levels are carried over to matching skill sets?  So, your warrior masters bash, and piercing weapons, then dies.  Your next character is an assassin, and he starts with standard skill levels, except for piercing weapons which starts at master.  Your third character is a Whiran, which shares no skills with assassins, so they start with a completely clean slate.  That way, if a player chooses to put in all the time and grind, they can choose to hang onto part, or all of that work, just in a different form.

[Eyeball]

Once upon a time, Arm had a system in which the skill levels attained by one character were transferred in part to the next upon death.