The Importance of Teaching

[Miradus]

That's more or less what I expect from teach, Lizzie.

If someone doesn't understand the mechanics of the code, I'll IC it a long explanation until I think they get the mechanics. If they clearly understand the mechanics but we're just training up together then I'm not going to go near into depth.

[LucildaHunta]

Maybe I've been lucky in my rp, but anytime I've played in a fighting clan, particularly one with a schedule, someone was always teaching something. I think what ends up happening especially ones with high turnover, sometimes you might be unlucky enough to have missed the slashing lesson for example.

Anytime I've ever made it to a certain level, I've always tried to use it to help other players. Sort of a pay it forward type of thing. I can't say I've ever seen it abused.

The problem I see is when you're playing in a smaller clan, you might be the only person with certain skills. Then there is nobody to teach you or you don't share playtimes, so you're kind of on your own. If you do have someone in your clan with the same skill set, you're hoping to god they're on the same page as you as far as that type of thing goes. I think what happens is sometimes players see another competent player and assume they don't need help. Or that sort of master/pupil relationship isn't there.

It never hurts to ask either.

[Nergal]

Teach does work, and rather well at that, in instances where the teacher has sufficient information to impart to the student. That being said, skills gain on a timer - once you gain in a skill, you cannot gain in it for a time. Teach is included in this mechanic. So if you want someone to learn something, you may want to RP lessons before activity takes place that can result in skill failures - for example, holding a lesson before a sparring session or a ride.

[Miradus]

Teach does work, and rather well at that, in instances where the teacher has sufficient information to impart to the student. That being said, skills gain on a timer - once you gain in a skill, you cannot gain in it for a time. Teach is included in this mechanic. So if you want someone to learn something, you may want to RP lessons before activity takes place that can result in skill failures - for example, holding a lesson before a sparring session or a ride.

Holy crap. That's huge. I've been doing it wrong.

[gotdamnmiracle]

Teach does work, and rather well at that, in instances where the teacher has sufficient information to impart to the student. That being said, skills gain on a timer - once you gain in a skill, you cannot gain in it for a time. Teach is included in this mechanic. So if you want someone to learn something, you may want to RP lessons before activity takes place that can result in skill failures - for example, holding a lesson before a sparring session or a ride.

Thank you for the insight, Nergal. That's awesome!

[John]

30-60 minutes? I always RP before using the teach command, but damn. If that's really obligatory, I guess I was abusing the command without realizing it.

I don't think you need 30 to 60 mins. I think you can have OOC 10 to OOC 20 mins which are 1 to 2 IC hours.

Skills are not measured below 1%.  They're integer values, so there are no fractions/decimal values.

Gaining from 0 goes to 1, not any value between zero and one.

Understood. (Edited) so, how significant is the teach skill, really?

Assuming the number really is 1%, then that would indicate it is equal to 1 skill failure. It takes using a skill potentially only once to get that failure (I don't know if you automatically go up by 1 each failure, or if there is a chance you'll go up by 1, or if you sometimes go up by more than 1 via teach or failing).

30 minutes takes you from dawn to high sun. Is it so unreasonable to spend a morning teaching someone?

To bring real life into it: At high school I would have classes that went for 40 mins (or 7 OOC mins for the Zalanthan 1 hour) and I would learn something within that time. I think 10 to 20 mins of solid roleplay is all that's needed to justify the teach command.

In that case, do you think players avoid teaching in order to avoid scrutiny from big brother?

Back before skills were visible, it felt like the only time you could successfully teach someone is if they had never used the skill before. Now that skills are visible I can confirm that you can be at least at apprentice and still benefit from the teach command. I don't know how much difference there needs to be with teacher and student though. And I think that's the main reason people don't use it more (that and forgetfulness). I think we get so accustomed to the idea that player's must grind to "git gud" that we forget there are much easier and more IC ways to do so. While clans may encourage the use of the teach command, there is nothing stopping you from doing so with two unclanned characters.

I've definitely been guilty of "I'm just going to grind rather than find a teacher." Based on recent experience I might change that mentality with future characters.

Holy crap. That's huge. I've been doing it wrong.

On the other hand you've been doing it fine. You've been taking what is a tedious task at times (skilling up) and given the player some tips on how to roleplay what they're doing that they may impart on future characters. Regardless of whether they got the skill up from a failure or because you used the teach command should be irrelevant if fun was had and the appropriate IC actions were taken. I'd rather skill up with a teacher (regardless of how I'm skilling up) then weighing myself down with heavy blocks of stone and searching for tregils or whatever the current NPC of choice to use is (never actually done the bag of blocks thing on purpose and believe it is no longer effective).

[Dresan]

Teach is one of the coolest skills in the game, that can make a good RP scene into a great one. Heck, it can make any encounter go from meh to amazing.

Unfortunately, I feel that there aren't enough guildlines around it. This has made the use of the skill very much like backstab was in the past, where one staff member was okay with what they saw, while another left you a don't backstab animals or else message. The way i've taught, it to pass on words of wisdom found in helpfiles often, and little bits of knowledge I've learned around a skill. Most skills have quirks after all. At least its interesting, especially when you are teaching a true newbie. Usually it begins a conversation/discussion with questions which will make those minutes fly. Yes there should be some RP involved, but 20-30 mins of coming up with bullshit around a skill that may or may not work differently in someone else's imagination is a bit much to me at least. I would like to see the skill used more, and I would like to use the skill more myself, but does feel like you may be playing russian roulette with staff half the time.

This is a skill of goodwill towards another player and creates meaningful interaction. Rather not see people fearful of using it 'improperly'. Instead,  I would rather see more guildlines in the helpfile or the skill being changed to something where you begin teaching and depending on when you stop, a certain amount of skill is learned. That way there is much value in teaching for 10+ mins than 2-4 mins, but still beneficial either way.

[gotdamnmiracle]

I don't foresee any change in the Teach mechanic, nor do I believe there should be one. I think it is best left to common sense and see no reason to be overly cautious with it. I trust that a PC watching or staff will be able to make it clear that the line from good play to abuse has been crossed. Frankly, if you were dumping Teaches on me without a word I would be just as inclined to not play with your PC as I would if you were doing the same thing with sparring. What's the point of an RPI without the first two letters?

[Dresan]

I don't think I've seen anyone walk up and randomly teach someone. The thing I've seen people do is say a few lines and then teach. Again, its not the best role play, they are still taking the time of day to try to enrich someone else's experience. They could have just as easily kept on walking.

I don't think it is best to common sense, for example, in a game with a modest population, where effort is being made to improve the experience, this doesn't seem common sense to me:

Frankly, if you were dumping Teaches on me without a word I would be just as inclined to not play with your PC

There is nothing wrong with your line of thought, it just doesn't make sense to me. People just think differently when there is no defined consensus. In short, I would still like to see some solid guildlines in the helpfiles. 

[John]

There is nothing wrong with your line of thought, it just doesn't make sense to me. People just think differently when there is no defined consensus. In short, I would still like to see some solid guildlines in the helpfiles.

I really don't think we need guidelines for people to not "west; teach man; west" which is the impression I got from goddamnmiracle (maybe not that quite extreme, but close to it).

[Dresan]

My point is that "maybe not that quite extreme, but close to it" should be defined, since I have yet to see anyone do west; teach man; west myself, ever. I do remember a staff member mention they expected a good afternoon (20mins~) of teaching before teach skill is used, which is alot more time than anyone has mentioned so far (oh nevermind someone mentioned even more time than that already). 

Just to add, 5-10 mins always seemed okay to me.

[John]

Just to add, 5-10 mins always seemed okay to me.

Just do what you think is IC and staff will alert you if they care enough to get angry.

[gotdamnmiracle]

There is nothing wrong with your line of thought, it just doesn't make sense to me. People just think differently when there is no defined consensus. In short, I would still like to see some solid guildlines in the helpfiles.

I really don't think we need guidelines for people to not "west; teach man; west" which is the impression I got from goddamnmiracle (maybe not that quite extreme, but close to it).

Actually, I was saying the exact opposite of that and urging people to stick to role playing in addition to using the teach skill without the need for a set of rules.

I'm not sure how you came up with either one of the the black-white examples I was trying to urge people away from, but I can tell from your comments above that you seem to have similar intent, so no worries.

[solera]

I wish teach was independent of the skill timer. RP is RP, whether it is backed by code or not, but it would be nice not to have that niggling thought, "If only I had got here before he started busting rocks."

[Riev]

I wish teach was independent of the skill timer. RP is RP, whether it is backed by code or not, but it would be nice not to have that niggling thought, "If only I had got here before he started busting rocks."

Honestly, this has been my biggest gripe about the Teach code. Its AWESOME to teach a dozen Runners about Shield Use without them having to individually spar and "get them fails".

However, most Teach moments end up being "hold your shield like this;teach shield use;okay now spar" which doesn't do anyone any good anyway. I think the mechanics behind Teach, to me, are so arcane that I assume "okay well MAYBE I get a skill up from this person teaching me, but if I don't... did they waste their RP? Did I "know" what they taught already? Do I pass it off that this was interesting, if someone just taught a highschooler how to do basic addition?"

Teach is amazing, ESPECIALLY with weapon skills, for various reasons. But if you're just going to go for fails anyway.. *shrug*

[Nergal]

What's arcane about the mechanics behind teach? It's actually very simple, but players ascribe complications to it that don't exist. The helpfile goes into everything:
- It grants skill gain based on the difference in skill level between the teacher and student
- The student must "spend time absorbing the new information" (skill timer)
- If your student is about as good at you as the skill, you won't be able to teach them much (or anything at all)

That's literally all there is to it. Use roleplay to determine if a student would benefit from a lesson, then use roleplay to conduct lessons. Is there anything that should be made clearer?

[RogueGunslinger]

It should ignore skilltimers or have its own. The only situations it seems useful are for skills impossible to practice with someone else. Like backstab. Otherwise its uselessly overlapping with training the skill.

Giving someone a lesson during training should amplify that training. Not be useless.

[nessalin]

We're certainly not going to remove the skill gain timer from teaching only to end up policing abuse of the teach where someone uses it to teach another character a skill up to their max teachable % in a matter of a few minutes.  It's difficult to understand how anyone thinks that would be a good idea.

[gotdamnmiracle]

We're certainly not going to remove the skill gain timer from teaching only to end up policing abuse of the teach where someone uses it to teach another character a skill up to their max teachable % in a matter of a few minutes.  It's difficult to understand how anyone thinks that would be a good idea.

I don't think it is a good idea.

Would it, however, be possible to alter the help file to make it clear that teach is best utilized prior to sparring or crafting by virtue of it's code. It needn't be mentioned that it uses the same timer, but don't see why it can't also be mentioned considering it was already discussed here. I feel like a lot of the feeling regarding it being useless is related to misunderstanding of it's use.

[RogueGunslinger]

We're certainly not going to remove the skill gain timer from teaching only to end up policing abuse of the teach where someone uses it to teach another character a skill up to their max teachable % in a matter of a few minutes.  It's difficult to understand how anyone thinks that would be a good idea.

It's difficult to understand why you singled in on that one aspect of the idea. When I also said it should have its own timer. Look I have no idea how any of this would be implemented. But if your natural reaction is to take every idea to its most illogical conclusion than it really doesn't matter what is suggested, as it seems you're already closed to the idea of making a change.

[nessalin]

We're certainly not going to remove the skill gain timer from teaching only to end up policing abuse of the teach where someone uses it to teach another character a skill up to their max teachable % in a matter of a few minutes.  It's difficult to understand how anyone thinks that would be a good idea.

It's difficult to understand why you singled in on that one aspect of the idea. When I also said it should have its own timer. Look I have no idea how any of this would be implemented. But if your natural reaction is to take every idea to its most illogical conclusion than it really doesn't matter what is suggested, as it seems you're already closed to the idea of making a change.

Putting forward the idea that the command could be abused by raising someone's skill to its max teachable value is not "its most illogical conclusion".  It is actually the reality of what would likely happen based on a few decades of observing player behavior.  While things like this happen less than they used to, and rarely happen out of malice, the reality is they do happen and we do spend time policing them when we could be doing other things.  Instead we put code limits in to ensure we don't have to.

We're not under any compulsion to either address each post in full or not respond at all.  My response was addressing the point I felt dragged down the rest of your post as a sort of poison pill.  You're welcome to continue on with your suggestion, but that idea would be a deal breaker.

I'm open to making changes as has been demonstrating greatly by our code projects over the last two years.  If you disagree then I feel you're either mis-informed or that you are the one that has already closed their mind.

Finally, a suggestion.  When proposing ideas, making change requests, or pointing out perceived flaws in the game, slow your roll a bit before speaking in absolutes, citing false causes, or indulging in the straw man fallacy.  We're here working to make the game a better place not score fake internet points.

[WarriorPoet]

I like teach and use it often. 20 minutes on the proper way to use a spear? Teach. 45 minute meandering lecture on knife-making? Teach. Two line emote about showing that poor bastard to sit forward a bit on that beetle, grip with your legs! Teach it up.

[RogueGunslinger]

We're certainly not going to remove the skill gain timer from teaching only to end up policing abuse of the teach where someone uses it to teach another character a skill up to their max teachable % in a matter of a few minutes.  It's difficult to understand how anyone thinks that would be a good idea.

It's difficult to understand why you singled in on that one aspect of the idea. When I also said it should have its own timer. Look I have no idea how any of this would be implemented. But if your natural reaction is to take every idea to its most illogical conclusion than it really doesn't matter what is suggested, as it seems you're already closed to the idea of making a change.

We're not under any compulsion to either address each post in full or not respond at all.  My response was addressing the point I felt dragged down the rest of your post as a sort of poison pill.

The point that dragged it down, that you focused on, had a solution in the very same sentence.

As for absolutes, false causes and straw men, I don't see how they have relevance to what I posted. I never said you were adverse to changing things. I said it seems like you've given up on the idea of changing Teach because of the curt way you responded to my post.

What kind of response do you think this:

It's difficult to understand how anyone thinks that would be a good idea.

Is supposed to illicit?

[nessalin]

Skills are not measured below 1%.  They're integer values, so there are no fractions/decimal values.

Gaining from 0 goes to 1, not any value between zero and one.

Understood. (Edited) so, how significant is the teach skill, really?

Assuming the number really is 1%, then that would indicate it is equal to 1 skill failure. It takes using a skill potentially only once to get that failure (I don't know if you automatically go up by 1 each failure, or if there is a chance you'll go up by 1, or if you sometimes go up by more than 1 via teach or failing).

Sorry, I should have been clearer.  I did not mean that it gains specifically and explicitly 1% at a time.  Rather I meant to illustrate that skills only increase by whole numbers, not by fractions.  Different skills increase by different amounts, per skill gain.
0 to 1
0 to 2
...
0 to N

Never
0 to 0.75
0 to 1.25
...
0 to N.NN

[gotdamnmiracle]

But a successful teach is equivalent to a guaranteed gain, correct? Also, reading the helpfile seems to suggest that having a teacher of a much higher skill level will impart a larger chunk towards the teachee's skill. Is that correct?