Nosave Parry

[Asmoth]

I'm not going to really elaborate further than this, but it suffices to point out the text in 'help faq_9': When you fail in an attempt to use a skill or spell, there is a chance it will improve.

Failure does not always lead to skill gain every single time. There are a number of factors, and due to the nature of the skill list that players see, gains are hard to measure. Often you would be more successful paying attention to the actual results of combat over time than what it says next to your skill.

All that is completely irrelevant, because it doesn't change the UNDENIABLE FACT that sparring "quick" critters will jack your weapon and style skills up faster than anything else.  So much faster that, even if parry-fails do "technically" count, they practically do not, over any reasonable period of time.

There are plenty of those quick critters out there to fight.

If people are really all that concerned about the plateau, by the time you hit that plateau you're most likely pretty boss skills wise and probably clan/organization wise.

Find a reason to go smack the shit outta a stilt lizard.

[Nergal]

I'm not going to really elaborate further than this, but it suffices to point out the text in 'help faq_9': When you fail in an attempt to use a skill or spell, there is a chance it will improve.

Failure does not always lead to skill gain every single time. There are a number of factors, and due to the nature of the skill list that players see, gains are hard to measure. Often you would be more successful paying attention to the actual results of combat over time than what it says next to your skill.

All that is completely irrelevant, because it doesn't change the UNDENIABLE FACT that sparring "quick" critters will jack your weapon and style skills up faster than anything else.  So much faster that, even if parry-fails do "technically" count, they practically do not, over any reasonable period of time.

I don't see how my statement is irrelevant. Obvious to some, perhaps, but not irrelevant. Of course, you are pointing out the obvious as well - it's understood in probability that if there is a chance of an outcome happening in a given trial, then the event is more likely to happen within a larger set of trials. Note that that isn't an endorsement of the "spar quick critters" method of training, but rather me saying that you can fail a thousand times against an animal or a clan-mate and still achieve (roughly) similar skill gains over (roughly) the same period of time, long-term.

That's all I have to say about that. I don't personally see anything wrong with the initial idea in the OP, I just sought to point something out that wasn't factual in the post in order to help guide discussion toward the merits of the idea itself without regard to what impact it might have on skill gains.

[Synthesis]

I'm not going to really elaborate further than this, but it suffices to point out the text in 'help faq_9': When you fail in an attempt to use a skill or spell, there is a chance it will improve.

Failure does not always lead to skill gain every single time. There are a number of factors, and due to the nature of the skill list that players see, gains are hard to measure. Often you would be more successful paying attention to the actual results of combat over time than what it says next to your skill.

All that is completely irrelevant, because it doesn't change the UNDENIABLE FACT that sparring "quick" critters will jack your weapon and style skills up faster than anything else.  So much faster that, even if parry-fails do "technically" count, they practically do not, over any reasonable period of time.

There are plenty of those quick critters out there to fight.

If people are really all that concerned about the plateau, by the time you hit that plateau you're most likely pretty boss skills wise and probably clan/organization wise.

Find a reason to go smack the shit outta a stilt lizard.

Schools of thought on this:

1.  Only a few people deserve to be amazing fighters.  Only sparring stilt lizards seems to produce amazing fighters.  Only a few people will grind out stilt lizards to become amazing.  Ergo, the system is producing the desired result.

2.  Only people who perform legitimate roleplay tasks deserve to be amazing fighters.  99/100 times, sparring stilt lizards is not a legitimate roleplay task.  Ergo the system is producing exactly the opposite of the desired result.

I'm not going to really elaborate further than this, but it suffices to point out the text in 'help faq_9': When you fail in an attempt to use a skill or spell, there is a chance it will improve.

Failure does not always lead to skill gain every single time. There are a number of factors, and due to the nature of the skill list that players see, gains are hard to measure. Often you would be more successful paying attention to the actual results of combat over time than what it says next to your skill.

All that is completely irrelevant, because it doesn't change the UNDENIABLE FACT that sparring "quick" critters will jack your weapon and style skills up faster than anything else.  So much faster that, even if parry-fails do "technically" count, they practically do not, over any reasonable period of time.

Note that that isn't an endorsement of the "spar quick critters" method of training, but rather me saying that you can fail a thousand times against an animal or a clan-mate and still achieve (roughly) similar skill gains over (roughly) the same period of time, long-term.

I don't care whether you have access to the code or not...this statement is completely at odds with the experience of anyone who has attempted to skill up a warrior, ranger, or assassin the legit way.

We are telling you:  the code is not working the way you think it works.  We know this, because we grind it out character after character after character after character, and only the characters who hunt  tarantulas, stilt lizards, and the gangly elf ever get anywhere beyond journeyman.

[Asmoth]

... and the gangly elf ever get anywhere beyond journeyman.

This made me laugh my ass off.  I didn't know he was so widely known.

[Nergal]

I don't care whether you have access to the code or not...this statement is completely at odds with the experience of anyone who has attempted to skill up a warrior, ranger, or assassin the legit way.

We are telling you:  the code is not working the way you think it works.  We know this, because we grind it out character after character after character after character, and only the characters who hunt  tarantulas, stilt lizards, and the gangly elf ever get anywhere beyond journeyman.

For what it's worth, your longest-lived combat characters have skills that are pretty much what I'd expect anyone with that playtime to have, regardless of how they trained, based on my time being on staff and seeing my clan's PC's skill sheets. I don't know what else to say to convince you that the code is working fine, but of course you are free to believe what you want.

[Alesan]

Well, I've gotten a weapon skill to advanced without ever fighting those gangly or stilt things at all. I never actually did anything out of the ordinary with that character and my weapon skills rose anyway. Granted, I often have a lot of time to play, and decent wisdom helps it along. But it's still possible to do without doing anything unreasonable.

[lostinspace]

Well, I've gotten a weapon skill to advanced without ever fighting those gangly or stilt things at all. I never actually did anything out of the ordinary with that character and my weapon skills rose anyway. Granted, I often have a lot of time to play, and decent wisdom helps it along. But it's still possible to do without doing anything unreasonable.

Pretty much the same, on the one character I devoted to making into a badass warrior I hit Advanced weapon skills pretty quickly in a sparring clan. There was definitely a plateau after that, but mostly because my playtimes declined and I moved from being the one learning in the clan to one of the ones teaching.

[hopeandsorrow]

I've never played a warrior to advance weapon skills but hearing people talk about it scares me off from it.

[Synthesis]

I don't care whether you have access to the code or not...this statement is completely at odds with the experience of anyone who has attempted to skill up a warrior, ranger, or assassin the legit way.

We are telling you:  the code is not working the way you think it works.  We know this, because we grind it out character after character after character after character, and only the characters who hunt  tarantulas, stilt lizards, and the gangly elf ever get anywhere beyond journeyman.

For what it's worth, your longest-lived combat characters have skills that are pretty much what I'd expect anyone with that playtime to have, regardless of how they trained, based on my time being on staff and seeing my clan's PC's skill sheets. I don't know what else to say to convince you that the code is working fine, but of course you are free to believe what you want.

...that's because my longest-lived combat characters killed the shit out of tarantulas and stilt lizards, and they reached their guild maximums LONG before they actually died.

Giuseppe maxed slashing around 20-25 days played, but he was only at journeyman when he left the Byn at 15 days (after starting at apprentice, mind you, because of the starting location bonus...so I went from like 20% to 40% in 15 days).  However, probably the last 5 days of that were completely stagnant, wasted time. Then I joined Salarr, moved to stilt lizard country, and rocketed from low journeyman to master in 5-10 days (40% to 80% in 5-10 days).  That ranger dwarf whose name I can't remember ranger-maxed chopping and etwo at I don't know...15 or so, because he started out up north, and I -still- branched parry the old-fashioned way faster than just about any other ranger I've played.

I'm a pretty smart, observant dude, with a pretty good memory, most of the time.  Like...I obviously don't know exactly what the problem is here, but there is a pretty dramatic disconnect between how y'all think shit works and how it actually works.

[Nergal]

Okay, then. Let's get back on topic.

[Armaddict]

...well.  Or how it works and how you think it should work, Synth.

Edit:  Er, the answer to the above is 'of course' as it stands.  I meant this as in if we're told it's going up in a certain way...it's probably safer to assume the code isn't lying, and we're instead projecting an expectation for a certain piece of data that was previously a keystone, but apparently is not.  Maybe the 'chance to improve' is smaller on weapon skills altogether, or is on the same timer as something else, or something...so that it's always the last thing to improve.  Hell, I dunno, but normally staff don't tell me how code works, so I'm inclined to take that.

[hyzhenhok]

Nosave parry would be a nice roleplay tool, that's pretty much it.

If you want to fix combat skill gains (and IMO you should), there are a lot more direct ways to go about it.

[Large Hero]

Okay, then. Let's get back on topic.

...that's because my longest-lived combat characters killed the shit out of tarantulas and stilt lizards, and they reached their guild maximums LONG before they actually died.

But this is an important statement to address.

Nergal says Synthesis' long lived tarantula/lizard-hunting PCs are on par, code wise, with long-lived clan-sparring Warriors.

Synthesis says that his characters achieve that level of skill in a fraction of the time - and this matches the experience of others who have twinked up a PC. And is the crux of what the discussion has been about thus far: that "unrealistic" training provides better coded results.

It's unfortunate that there's a call for a topic change immediately after a key point is made.

Maybe a separate thread is in order?

I can't be alone in thinking that the brokenness of Arm's weapon skills is a problem that should be addressed.

[Desertman]

It's pretty simple.

The more you fail, the more you learn. That is undeniable and nobody is trying to deny it.

If you find ways to fail more often, you will learn faster.

If your clannies are slower than a stilt lizard and you go fight stilt lizards instead of spar them, then yes, you will advance faster.

That's basic math.

I don't think a single person, including staff, is denying that is the case.

The real question is, "Should things be changed to make player on player sparring more readily reliable for "fails" at higher levels?".

That I don't know, but that is the question.

I still stand behind my recommendation that we should just allow skill gains for successes as well. I showed up for sparring/fighting/hunting/archery/climbing training. I did those things. If I failed to do them or not shouldn't matter. I did them, and doing things makes you better at doing things.

If I show up to Muy Thai training and I throw fifty perfect thai kicks, I get better at doing thai kicks. I don't have to completely miss the bag like a retard to get better. I showed up, I trained, I got better.

Seems pretty simple to me.

Now, this may be a code issue. The way you "gain" might be something that is stock Diku code that can't be changed or something. I don't know.

All I DO know now is I have to throw in a picture about getting my mad gains...

[Nergal]

Maybe a separate thread is in order?

You're welcome to start one on your own. I have no interest in splitting this thread to discuss a false premise.

[Asmoth]

Okay, then. Let's get back on topic.

...that's because my longest-lived combat characters killed the shit out of tarantulas and stilt lizards, and they reached their guild maximums LONG before they actually died.

But this is an important statement to address.

Nergal says Synthesis' long lived tarantula/lizard-hunting PCs are on par, code wise, with long-lived clan-sparring Warriors.

Synthesis says that his characters achieve that level of skill in a fraction of the time - and this matches the experience of others who have twinked up a PC. And is the crux of what the discussion has been about thus far: that "unrealistic" training provides better coded results.

It's unfortunate that there's a call for a topic change immediately after a key point is made.

Maybe a separate thread is in order?

I can't be alone in thinking that the brokenness of Arm's weapon skills is a problem that should be addressed.

I have always know weapon skills to take for fucking ever to move. I always just chalked it up to the fact that it's because they are so powerful in pvp.

I've seen rangers that have had such high offense they could knock out Bahamet in a few rounds of hard hits to the head.

Yet get utterly destroyed by a byn warrior who did nothing but spar at late morning or whatever their schedule is.

So I've always viewed weapon skills as the tool of the pker and normal offense and defense as the tool of hunters and pve ers.

[Nergal]

The real question is, "Should things be changed to make player on player sparring more readily reliable for "fails" at higher levels?".

That I don't know, but that is the question.

This seems like something worth discussing in a separate thread. This thread is essentially about something that would be an RP tool. It would not impact skill gains positively or negatively.

[Desertman]

The real question is, "Should things be changed to make player on player sparring more readily reliable for "fails" at higher levels?".

That I don't know, but that is the question.

This seems like something worth discussing in a separate thread. This thread is essentially about something that would be an RP tool. It would not impact skill gains positively or negatively.

*nod* *nod*

[Chettaman]

I like the idea of nosave parry. But there's already a command for it.
rs
rp
rtwo

I don't mean to go against everything said, but just emote lowering your weapon. You can't parry if you don't have a weapon. You can't block if you don't have a shield. Bam. Now all you can do is dodge.

I imagine that when you become a master, facing another master who isn't trying their hardest isn't going to make you any better.

[Riev]

Moreso than NoSave Parry, I'd like to see more of a setEffort (x) sort of skill, wherein you aren't saving against using skills per se, but you are purposefully limiting yourself by a factor of (x). Make it setEffort low/medium/high/max or something so skillmaxers don't have the numbers down, but imagine setting your effort to low, as a Byn Sergeant, when first-sparring a Runner? You might not get skill gains but people won't see you fight at your best.


I would love to, in the middle of an RPT, be like "ALRIGHT ITS TIME TO BURN UP!" and seteffort max and obliterate everything because I was secretly stilt training.

[JackGibbons]

Moreso than NoSave Parry, I'd like to see more of a setEffort (x) sort of skill, wherein you aren't saving against using skills per se, but you are purposefully limiting yourself by a factor of (x). Make it setEffort low/medium/high/max or something so skillmaxers don't have the numbers down, but imagine setting your effort to low, as a Byn Sergeant, when first-sparring a Runner? You might not get skill gains but people won't see you fight at your best.


I would love to, in the middle of an RPT, be like "ALRIGHT ITS TIME TO BURN UP!" and seteffort max and obliterate everything because I was secretly stilt training.

This kind of thing is the most hilarious part of SOI which has this code. Do all your clan sparring at 40%, then get turnt for the orc invasion 'set effort 100' 'shout Elendil!'