Skill Progression and Starting Levels

[Jave]

I still think your focusing on combat.  You always go back to fighter vs non-fighter.  Please put the combat away.  Instead, look at how frustrating it is to try and skill-up non-combat skills. 

You're not going to sit down and have a knife-build-off with another PC to the death.  You're not going to IronChef Allanak, loser goes in the Pit.  Just trying to get the a half-dozen bandages made, or climb up onto the balcony, or sew a simple linen tunic that sells for half-a-small without spending two small in cloth or breaking your neck.

I mentioned fighters vs non-fighters because you did. That was in direct reply to you.

On the subject of non-combat skills I think the same case I made about hunters can be made however.

We improve clothmaking so now everyone can succeed in making sandcloth tunics out of char-gen. Every new merchant crafts sandcloth tunics and sell them. The shops become full of sandcloth tunics and it ceases to be a viable method of making money. Merchants have to try and craft the more difficult stuff that the shops will still buy, but lack the skills to do so and fail a lot. We're back here having a conversation about how merchants are just trying to sew a simple silk tunic that sells for three small without spending two large in cloth first.

The PC is just trying to reach "less incompetent".  As has been pointed out, low-Advanced still fails plenty to be frustrating, so we're not taking the frustration out completely.  Just bypassing the five-days played of truly being pathetic.  This is taxing on the player of the new PC and any mentor that they might have.  As much as it's a drag to have to skill through Novice?  It takes a school teacher's level of patience to constantly recruit new crafters knowing they're probably going to vanish before they're useful.

Emphasis mine. I think this goes to the crux of what I'm saying. "less incompetent" is not a static and objective line in the sand. "less incompetent" is a shifting subjective goal post that will always be defined more or less as: Being able to do what a new character cannot yet do. Given that, I don't think raising the skills would do much to assuage these frustrations.

[Jingo]

I thin that all problems could be solved just by letting warriors branch an exotic weapons skill at about 20 days played. That way they don't need to grind to the point of stupid just to get those tridents.

[Jave]

I'm more sympathetic to the warrior's plight than to the crafter's or the mage's since weapon skills are actually more difficult to improve and we have some discussion going on staff side about how we can tinker with that to make weapon mastery more attainable.

But what I think would solve the problems being expressed by whitt and Dresan is taking advantage of the skill bump system we have in place when they want to play a character whose background makes them more proficient in their selected skill set than a starting level character would be. -- Or when the opportunity presents itself, applying for a leadership role.

Leaders in clans get skill bumps now to better reflect their backgrounds as experienced characters, and because we want them to dive into the game head first as a somebody and start making in roads into politics, social status, etc which seems to be something Dresan places more of a premium on over the grind.

I think in this way he and other more socially inclined players can scratch their itch while the more achievement oriented folks can enjoy our crawl from nothing up to mastery.



I know it's already been voiced that Dresan at least feels like a maximum of 3 skill bumped characters a year isn't enough, but we have to put the line in the sand somewhere.

[RogueGunslinger]

Give warriors knife-weapons from the start. (assassins too, for that matter)

Make Blugeoning, Chopping, and Piercing all take as long to advance as the hard to master skills, like sleight of hand, or languages, but not forever, like currently happens.

Slashing now branches a new skill that gives + defense to multiple attackers.

[Lizzie]

You can literally do something someone else can't even attempt.

I think we're at the agree to disagree point.  Because the next step is a derail into the Pandora's Box of the closed skill system that is just how the game works.

I believe it's frustrating to the point of walking away to constantly have to fail to reach a level of less incompetent.  Unless I am wrong, you feel it's a rite of passage.

I think you (and other people) are using the word "incompetent" erroneously, and therein lies the confusion/disagreement. In the game of Armageddon, "incompetent" doesn't mean "novice". It means "not on your skills list at all." If you're at novice, it means you've shown up with something better than incompetence. You have proven capable of learning this skill. You have the capacity to improve, and in some cases, to obtain mastery of it. At the very least, you are likely to become proficient. The skills that aren't on your visible list YET, but that will branch, are skills you have the -capacity- to discover, if you work toward that end. If you don't work toward that end, then you will forever be incompetent with those un-seen un-branched skills. That isn't even an exception to my opinion. It proves the rule: capacity to learn means competence. Incapacity to learn is incompetence.

[nauta]

Some skills are pretty useful/fun even at novice levels, like hunt, flee, value, pick, listen, brew... and most recently, armor repair!  Maybe this list could be expanded.

bandage is a big one for me.  Why not have it restore 0hp most of the time, and 1hp on occasion.  Let someone burn through 500 coins of bandages if they want/need to.  It's a more roleplayable situation than "oops.  I recommend you sleep instead."

Re: Lizzie above -- I could be wrong, but I think 'competence' means 'useful/fun' even at novice levels.  I don't have a horse here, but I think an approach that might have traction is to focus on individual skills that could use some love at novice levels (like CodeMaster is doing), rather than advocating bumping them across the board.

(I do kind of have a horse: I've always been a fan of slowing progression down once you reach the 'useful/fun' level.  But I'm pretty sure I'm in the utter minority on that.  My reason: similar to Jave's -- I want to feel like there are still critters in the environment that are challenging without having to up the ante, so to speak, and go after that ankheg or whatever.)

[Jave]

Some of this frustration may also come down to differences in play style and understanding of the code as well.

If you try to climb repeated with novice climb right out of the box and eventually crit fail and end up laying there for 30 RL minutes ... you're going to have a stressful time.
If you try to climb once, slip (ie fail) and think alright then that's enough practice for today let me head on down to the tavern to meet some friends and RP ... you're going to have a less stressful time.

[nauta]

Some of this frustration may also come down to differences in play style and understanding of the code as well.

If you try to climb repeated with novice climb right out of the box and eventually crit fail and end up laying there for 30 RL minutes ... you're going to have a stressful time.
If you try to climb once, slip (ie fail) and think alright then that's enough practice for today let me head on down to the tavern to meet some friends and RP ... you're going to have a less stressful time.

Bingo!  (And mostly joking: or when you try to steal at novice and spend 90 RL minutes in jail.  I dunno if 'steal' is fixable.)

[Dresan]

No, I don't think meta-gaming and efficient skill training is the solution. Since it it doesn't change the fact that you have to do the same thing over and over, over for a set period of days before you can finally use some skills, or be any use to anyone every time you die and start a new character.

Outside of boosting for the skills I think guilds should be very good at from the start, the idea of making skills not need to be advanced/mastered to be useful would be an excellent solution too. However, this would probably mean re-coding several skills, potentially making it very large time consuming coding project. I can't help but think it is probably best to work with what we have.

[BadSkeelz]

Knowing "how" to train just skews the game in favor of veterans and encourages OOC discussion about how to train. I certainly didn't learn about skill timers on the GDB.

Best advice for the grind, however long and short of it is is: make sure you can do it with someone else. Because solo roleplay is the death of role interest, at least for me.

[whitt]

I think this goes to the crux of what I'm saying. "less incompetent" is not a static and objective line in the sand. "less incompetent" is a shifting subjective goal post that will always be defined more or less as: Being able to do what a new character cannot yet do. Given that, I don't think raising the skills would do much to assuage these frustrations.

I'm more from Nauta's camp.

I think 'competence' means 'useful/fun'

I also realize that at this point, I seem to be arguing for the sake of arguing.  So, I'll let it go with one final note: I know for my first "real" character I was very disappointed, almost to the point of stopping play, at how pathetic he was (he was a fighter/physician).  I stuck around for the RP beyond the skills.  Still do. 
That's me though, I come up with an excuse for why Amos sucks and background my character accordingly.  That said, I can't say I don't empathize with those who have bad luck and/or want to use their CGP to try a karma-req'd or extended subguild role instead of using their CGP on bumps to play someone that's not passable at their base skills especially after grinding just to "competent" (per above) and dying more than once in a row.     

[RogueGunslinger]

Some of this frustration may also come down to differences in play style and understanding of the code as well.

If you try to climb repeated with novice climb right out of the box and eventually crit fail and end up laying there for 30 RL minutes ... you're going to have a stressful time.
If you try to climb once, slip (ie fail) and think alright then that's enough practice for today let me head on down to the tavern to meet some friends and RP ... you're going to have a less stressful time.

I totally understand that confusion, because in real life you don't stop trying after the first failure at something, otherwise you'd never get good at it. You repeat it over and over until you know it like the back of your hand and it becomes second nature.

[nauta]

Knowing "how" to train just skews the game in favor of veterans and encourages OOC discussion about how to train. I certainly didn't learn about skill timers on the GDB.

Sometimes this is true -- like with some sneak skill (I forget which now) there are two different echo responses, and apparently one is a real fail and one a partial fail or something like that, and, since I sort of just push my thumbs in my eyes and pretend they aren't there vis-a-vis skills in Arm, I don't remember which one.  But!  I should point out that it is in the help file (the FAQ):

In almost every instance, skills and spells are learned by practice. If your character has some basic knowledge of a skill or spell (i.e., if it appears in your 'skills' list), then it will improve by doing it over and over again. When you fail in an attempt to use a skill or spell, there is a chance it will improve.

Faq 9

It doesn't mention the (presumably common gdb/veteran knowledge) about 'timers' and stuff, however.  That might be worth putting in there, e.g., "Once you've failed, there will be some time before you can have a chance at improving again, so take it easy, have a beer, punch a breed."

[Jihelu]

Remember kids, a partial fail is still a fail.

Atleast I'm pretty sure.
Oh god I don't know.

[Jave]

Bingo!  (And mostly joking: or when you try to steal at novice and spend 90 RL minutes in jail.  I dunno if 'steal' is fixable.)

Well, like combat skills, it's one of those skills that are easier and less dangerous to practice with a friend before going pro.

I'm more from Nauta's camp.

I think 'competence' means 'useful/fun'

I think this is just one step removed from my original point. Because what defines 'useful/fun' is going to be "able to do something new characters can't do".

No, I don't think meta-gaming and efficient skill training is the solution. Since it it doesn't change the fact that you have to do the same thing over and over, over for a set period of days before you can finally use some skills, or be any use to anyone every time you die and start a new character.

Outside of boosting for the skills I think guilds should be very good at from the start, the idea of making skills not need to be advanced/mastered to be useful would be an excellent solution too. However, this would probably mean re-coding several skills, potentially making it very large time consuming coding project. I can't help but think it is probably best to work with what we have.

When learning a skill, like an instrument, a martial art, language, or a topic of study, repetition breeds mastery but any instructor will tell you that practicing for 10 minutes every day of the week is better than practicing for 420 minutes every Sunday.

Repetition is important, but frequency is more important.

In that sense, practicing a skill IG a little each day rather than for a long period of time infrequently is not meta gaming, it's behaving realistically. It also leaves you with more free time to role play your character, which is great as well.

[solera]

I despise skill timers when I'm stuck at the bottom of a cliff. And when I have a surplus of materials, it is human nature to finish the day with a success, and some drinking sids. Having said that, in RL, sleeping on it does seem to lead to improvement of technique the next day.

[Jave]

I despise skill timers when I'm stuck at the bottom of a cliff. And when I have a surplus of materials, it is human nature to finish the day with a success, and some drinking sids. Having said that, in RL, sleeping on it does seem to lead to improvement of technique the next day.

Yes. This happens to me all the time.

[Dalmeth]

I despise skill timers when I'm stuck at the bottom of a cliff. And when I have a surplus of materials, it is human nature to finish the day with a success, and some drinking sids. Having said that, in RL, sleeping on it does seem to lead to improvement of technique the next day.

Yes. This happens to me all the time.

I tend to find hordes of people who can't let go of a task until they succeed to be far more in line with a harsh, desert world than a bunch of people who get up at dawn and go to sleep at night.  One seems like a horde of desperate, struggling individuals and the other seems like a straight analog to an idealized modern life. 

And that idealized modern life does not exist in the game itself, which is the great flaw in this notion.  To follow this idea, there have to be people who are simply playing their own delusion and not interacting with other characters.

[whitt]

I'm more from Nauta's camp.

I think 'competence' means 'useful/fun'

I think this is just one step removed from my original point. Because what defines 'useful/fun' is going to be "able to do something new characters can't do".

Nope.  Not at all.  "useful/fun" means if I tell someone I'm an 'X', I don't fail more often than I succeed at the mundane tasks of 'X'.  I don't care at all that Amos, who is an also an 'X' can just as easily succeed at the mundane tasks of 'X'.  Of course they can.  They're an 'X'.  It's kind of equally expected that they can do that.  Now Samosa?  She's not really an 'X'.  She just does it as a hobby (sub-guild).  So maybe she's still learning and yeah it's kind of funny when she burns the water trying to boil it.

It's not about comparing one PC to another PC at all.  Unless that comparison is "I'm a Seamstress and they're not".  If I say I'm an apothecary, and you ask me for bandages?  I shouldn't need to spend two small on cloth just to get a couple bandages made, which amounts to running scissors across the cloth.

It's not about "winning".  I'm talking about being able to believably portray the role your character is in.

[Jave]

I tend to find hordes of people who can't let go of a task until they succeed to be far more in line with a harsh, desert world than a bunch of people who get up at dawn and go to sleep at night.  One seems like a horde of desperate, struggling individuals and the other seems like a straight analog to an idealized modern life.  

And that idealized modern life does not exist in the game itself, which is the great flaw in this notion.  To follow this idea, there have to be people who are simply playing their own delusion and not interacting with other characters.

I don't think the biological need for sleep and the neurological processes that occur while sleeping are the result of modernity, so I disagree with you.

But if you want to play the struggling individual who can't let go of a task until they succeed you're more than free to do so. We do ask that you don't do it to an unrealistic degree (sparring/crafting/casting/foraging for multiple IG days straight for example) but if you want to portray someone who stays up for days on end huffing spice to stave off the exhaustion while they hammer away obsessively towards a goal like a dwarf with a focus I think that's a perfectly valid character concept to roll with.

[Jave]

Nope.  Not at all.  "useful/fun" means if I tell someone I'm an 'X', I don't fail more often than I succeed at the mundane tasks of 'X'.  I don't care at all that Amos, who is an also an 'X' can just as easily succeed at the mundane tasks of 'X'.  Of course they can.  They're an 'X'.  It's kind of equally expected that they can do that.  Now Samosa?  She's not really an 'X'.  She just does it as a hobby (sub-guild).  So maybe she's still learning and yeah it's kind of funny when she burns the water trying to boil it.

It's not about comparing one PC to another PC at all.  Unless that comparison is "I'm a Seamstress and they're not".  If I say I'm an apothecary, and you ask me for bandages?  I shouldn't need to spend two small on cloth just to get a couple bandages made, which amounts to running scissors across the cloth.

It's not about "winning".  I'm talking about being able to believably portray the role your character is in.

Eh, sorry I wrote out a lengthy reply but then realized a lot of it was repeating myself.

I'll leave it at: I understand you're saying "I don't like having to grind my character up from level 1. I want to already be competent in the profession I select and get involved in more important stuff when I roll into the game."

But please understand that there are plenty of players who do like the grind from level 1, and they appreciate how that differentiates the new characters from the accomplished ones, and it wouldn't be fair to them to take that away. It would possibly improve the game for you, but at their expense.

The skill bump system is, I think, the best compromise I've seen that we can do to keep the game as fun as it can be for everyone given the mutually exclusive desires.

In any case though, I enjoyed the conversation.

EDIT AGAIN TO ADD: Please don't misconstrue anything I wrote as dismissive of your concerns. We have different play styles and seem to enjoy different things but that does not mean that I don't want to see a happy middle ground found as much as it's possible to have one. -- Over in staff land we're looking into ways we can fiddle with the guilds and subguilds to provide a more organic experience. Stay tuned.

[RogueGunslinger]

I think you're still missing the point, Jave. At least as far as I'm understanding whitt.

It's not about having skills that work well right off the bat, netting high chance of success and being able to start off saying "I'm a hunter, see? I can kill stuff with archery!". It's about having skills like hunt, or forage, or many others in-game currently that are actually fun to use at low levels, even when they fail. It doesn't feel like you have to grind the skill up to master before it's useful in more realistic situations. Like backstab, climb, scan, and many other incredibly unforgiving or utterly useless skills at low level.



Let's go back to that archery example. Currently, at low levels it's incredibly unrealistic. Arrows plunk in for 5-10 hp dmg, the arrow breaks, the mob regens, and if you actually needed to kill something you'd just end up spending thousands of 'sids on arrows. To fight this people have actually taken to using slings to up their archery skill. That makes absolutely zero sense. It's jarring and increadibly unrealistic.

Instead, archery could work like so(yes I know this is very complex and would take a ridiculous amount of coding, also probably unbalanced, the concept is what's important, not the numbers):


1)Make arrows deadly. If you get a hit to the chest should be about 75 hp, regardless of how high your skill is. Get hit to the arm, and your drop the weapon/shield there. Get hit to the leg, and now you're sitting and lose 25 movement points.

2)Make arrows highly inaccurate with much distance at low levels(95% chance to miss at 1 room at novice), but very accurate when in the same room(say 25% chance to hit when in same room at novice).

3)If an arrow breaks in a mob, have it drop some flint and wood/bone, so they can be re-crafted.



So now instead of plinking off 15 arrows into some poor scrab nocking of bits of hp before it dies(or regens), you might only nail it once or twice in 15 shots, and it becomes crippled or heavily damaged, and able to be finished off with a blade.

That guy who walks into your room with a crossbow and tells you not to move, you would actually be afraid of. Because who knows, he might get lucky and shoot you in the guts.


Now you have an archery skill that actually has a use at anything below advanced, even if the uses are limited or based on somewhat low chances. It would be better than what you have currently, where it's like you might as well not have the skill until high journeyman.

[whitt]

I think you're still missing the point, Jave. At least as far as I'm understanding whitt.

It's not about having skills that work well right off the bat, netting high chance of success and being able to start off saying "I'm a hunter, see? I can kill stuff with archery!". It's about having skills like hunt, or forage, or many others in-game currently that are actually fun to use at low levels, even when they fail. It doesn't feel like you have to grind the skill up to master before it's useful in more realistic situations. Like backstab, climb, scan, and many other incredibly unforgiving or utterly useless skills at low level.

That was, I think Nauta's point, but sort of still a valid discussion point.  Having to fail a skill that could get you dead on every failure is harsh.

Again, I understand you're folks saying "But I don't like having to grind my character up from level 1. I want to already be competent in the profession I select and get involved in more important stuff when I roll into the game."

But please understand that there are plenty of players who do like the grind from level 1, and they appreciate how that differentiates the new characters from the accomplished ones, and it wouldn't be fair to them to take that away. It would possibly improve the game for you, but at their expense.

The skill bump system is, I think, the best compromise I've seen that we can do to keep the game as fun as it can be for everyone given the mutually exclusive desires.

Fixed one part of the above, because I'm more the sort to write a background that fits the skills my character will have and I liked the skill bump change too, as it added options.  I haven't run into a situation where I died so fast that I'd have to worry about running out of spec apps and if I did?  I'd probably just play another character or two.

[Dresan]

Again I really like the idea RGS and Nauta have been describing.

However, as he stated it would be a massive coding project. (though I bet we could make a list of the biggest offenders and focus on those first...would make a neat new thread)

Which is why I've been suggesting the other less code intensive option. Basically in order to avoid much of the initial grind and uselessness is to have these character start with the particular skills that define them at levels where the skill is actually useful.  Not maxxed but just at useful levels. It has nothing to do with combat skills, and this wouldn't make anyone badasses. People would just be more useful, and there would still be plenty of grind less for those that enjoy it.

And again, I don't believe I should have to spend a special app just to avoid a tedious experience.  

[Jave]

Fixed one part of the above ...

Point taken. I meant you in the general sense of the world so that's a more appropriate term.

I think you're still missing the point, Jave. At least as far as I'm understanding whitt.

I don't think this was what whitt was talking about, and I don't think it's actually related to skill progression or what level they start at. It's more about how skills function over all. Not to say that's not a conversation worth having, I'm saying I don't think I was missing whitt's point.

On the topic of tweaking how skills specifically work though, the coders are tweaking them. Ness just went through and made changes to the climb code to make it more realistic and fun to use but as you already pointed out coding is slow and difficult work and balance is always something we have to consider before introducing anything into the game.

Your archery example for instance would make it easier for novice archers to kill npc animals out in the wilds and for novice raiders to threaten victims with a crossbow as you pointed out, but imagine if arrows did a minimum of 75 damage when they hit you, and someone has already maxed out archery and doesn't miss anymore. 



I've played my fair share of rangers, and rather than using slings as you described, I was always more in the camp of getting off my mount, taking a knee, shooting and missing because novice archery isn't reliable. Cursing. Hopping back on my mount, and role playing running the animal down to engage it in melee combat.

I was still hunting no problem, and my archery improved eventually to the point that I wasn't missing anymore and would sometimes even one shot the critters I was out to hunt.

That's just how I trained up archery without letting it make me miserable about my hunting prowess or going through too many arrows.



But that's neither here nor there. I take the point that some skills could benefit from tweaking. Perhaps you can make a different thread about it in the code board and get some discussion going on specific skills? Then we can perhaps generate some discussion about it on the staff boards and see how feasible some changes are to implement.