Strength

[JohnMichaelHenry]

Since I have to believe Brokkr knows how shit works, I like the way it is now, then.
Admittedly, I can't complain about anything, since most (all) of my characters usually (always) die before ever reaching the heights of skill you all are discussing.
However, I still have to ask, what is it you are trying to accomplish? Meaning, I have read several discussions about how there is no reason to raise weapon skills above journeyman to kill just about anything in the game, except other PC's.
So, are we talking here about being good at PK?
I'm not being snarky I swear, I am genuinely curious about the motivation of having master weapon skills.

[gotdamnmiracle]

Since I have to believe Brokkr knows how shit works, I like the way it is now, then.
Admittedly, I can't complain about anything, since most (all) of my characters usually (always) die before ever reaching the heights of skill you all are discussing.
However, I still have to ask, what is it you are trying to accomplish? Meaning, I have read several discussions about how there is no reason to raise weapon skills above journeyman to kill just about anything in the game, except other PC's.
So, are we talking here about being good at PK?
I'm not being snarky I swear, I am genuinely curious about the motivation of having master weapon skills.

Originally it was the branching of A-Weapons skills, but since that appears to be out the window, yes, now it is primarily about PK and safety in my opinion. That said, you may be surprised how much plots in this game revolve around PK. these are primarily player created plots in my experience, because it is one of the things in their direct control and is actively encouraged by staff.

Try, for example, playing a Guild Assassin with middling combat skills. Do you think you're faster than the flee code? Imagine trying to kill someone in a world where everyone spam-walks. Let's also assume that you'd like to be a little less banal than locking someone in an apartment and shanking them because it's pretty lame. How do you propose to complete contracts? Poisons? What if they have cures? Surprise? What if they have guards constantly?

Try playing a a bynner, an organization where it's inhabitants are actively killed off, and you don't necessarily want to lose your PC because you've played for literal weeks getting up to that middling ground. Would you rather be a pretty okay fighter or an excellent one when are hired to fight Ur-Zadan the Dragon's Son, Lord of the Sixth Circle, alongside Templar Akhana Oash?

Let's say you want to lead a hunting party, but not any hunting party, you want to take your party to the edge of the Known and beyond. But the edge of the Known is dangerous, you don't know what you'll find. Would you rather be pretty good or amazing at killing things then?

I'll grant you that they aren't very useful if that isn't your focus, like for being aides or merchants, but very often killing expediently is a huge part of plots, both staff created and player. You gotta respect that being better at killing bigger and badder things will give you more safety (and more of a center role) in these plots.

[Synthesis]

Actually, the idea is simple


Train with other PCs.

As you train, their skill levels will increase to your heights fast, or your skill levels will increase faster to reach their hights.

Once thats done, since your skills are all roughly equal, you progress at a neutral pace. Not faster since your opponent isnt higher then you. Now slower, since your opponent is not lower then you.

This discourages loner training tactics and encourages pc interactive tactics. Win win win.

Or am I missing something?

It depends on what counts as a failure.  If parries and blocks -really- generate offensive skillgains, then yes, sparring other PCs will be useful.

I think the history of sparring clans has demonstrated that, more than likely, parries and blocks don't count--otherwise becoming exceptional would not actually be exceptional.  Getting parried or blocked by a skilled warrior is not exceptional.  What is exceptional is something straight-up dodging you when you're at (master) slashing.

Since I have to believe Brokkr knows how shit works, I like the way it is now, then.
Admittedly, I can't complain about anything, since most (all) of my characters usually (always) die before ever reaching the heights of skill you all are discussing.
However, I still have to ask, what is it you are trying to accomplish? Meaning, I have read several discussions about how there is no reason to raise weapon skills above journeyman to kill just about anything in the game, except other PC's.
So, are we talking here about being good at PK?
I'm not being snarky I swear, I am genuinely curious about the motivation of having master weapon skills.

Survival and adventure-ability.  Master weapon skills aren't necessary for PK, and their utility is pretty limited in that regard, unless you have some circumstance/stat/other skill that synergizes with stand-up DPS.  (And that's where strength comes in:  higher damage per hit synergizes very strongly with the reel code.)

I mean, I've had two human warriors that branched multiple advanced weapons.  Between the two of them, I think I got a single PK (some poor sap shadowed me into my apartment and backstabbed me, probably thinking I was a merchant, since I was dressed for some party or something...then I wrecked his ASS while he was trapped in my apartment). 

Every single other PK interaction with them was lopsided in a way that (master) slashing and (master) parry couldn't compete.  Noobs don't come at you when you're pro, and the playerbase is small enough to remember who's been around for a RL year.  What comes at you are semi-pro muls and HGs that are landing grievous wounds to your foot, d-elf arrows landing at 30-60hp plus poison, and magickers.  Against those matchups, weapon mastery only helps you get away.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

What has been weeded out, like fighting weighted or drunk fighting, is easy skill failures in low risk environments when you aren't practicing with someone better than you.

Find and practice with someone better than you.
Find and kill something that takes some risk.*

*A bahamet may or may not be a good candidate for this, based on a number of factors, one of which is the title of this thread.

I'm not going to lie - I'm not fond of the idea that we can't trained weighted in order to simulate harsher circumstances, and I'm also not fond of the idea that a drunk Bynner, which honestly is sorta in character, can't improve himself. I've always felt like these sort of IC loopholes are just fine, and very easily fit into the world in any number of ways, without feeling twinkish at all. I don't agree with fighting animals barehanded though ... that's stupid.

But I am alright with the current state of things - if advanced is the new "master", then yeah, a true master will be a true master. I'll live with that.

[X-D]

So far...And I know this is totally OOC for me, but I am in full agreement with Synth.

Noobs don't come at you when you're pro, and the playerbase is small enough to remember who's been around for a RL year.  What comes at you are semi-pro muls and HGs that are landing grievous wounds to your foot, d-elf arrows landing at 30-60hp plus poison, and magickers.  Against those matchups, weapon mastery only helps you get away.

Totally true cept that...even the semi-pro muls and HGs do not come after you because the players know it is an unacceptable risk...but otherwise yes, that is all weapon mastery does.

[IntuitiveApathy]

I'm going to make some assumptions below, and if they're incorrect, please do correct me.

There are several hundred thousand people living in Allanak if I recall a breakdown provided by the imms some time ago on the GBD.  For ease of discussion, let's not bother counting other places such as Luir's, Red Storm or the various other villages/tribal camps, and let's also exclude Tuluk since it's closed to play.

There are less than 200 active players week-to-week currently, per the website stats, but let's make it 200 for ease of calculation.  Let's assume there are another 100 PC inactives that have relevancy (ie. exclude those who don't have any significant amount of play-time and are unlikely to be played) to make 300 active or potentially active player characters in the world.  Of those characters, let's say half are combat-oriented, and with the new class system, let's specify that 1/3 are heavy combat.  Of those roughly 100 heavy-combat characters, only a portion of those will be played and survive long enough to become truly skilled - let's say 1/5, though I think that's fairly generous.  So that's maybe 20 characters that might have the potential to become exceptional, with only another portion of those actually active, though that portion would be relatively higher compared to the general active/inactive character ratio - so let's say somewhere around 20 just to have a round number.  Of the active player population, that's about 10%.  Of the Known's population, that's some miniscule percentage.

Given that PC's represent a very small percentage of the Known's population, it seems odd to me that there seems to be an aversion to more player characters becoming exceptional at combat amongst the PC population.  20 people or less out of hundreds of thousands doesn't seem particularly off to me in terms of how many people should be exceptional in a given population.  Sure, not every person in the Known that is exceptional at something will be played by a character.  But I've always thought that it was accepted that PC's can and should have that potential, within relative reason - PC's can and always have been potentially representative of the exceptional part of the population that are accomplishing things.  PC's are a major driver in the plots of the world - yes, they don't have to be exceptionally skilled to do so, but those that are have the potential to affect the world in more significant ways, or have an easier time doing so.  I'm not sure if the philosphy surrounding that has changed, and if the glass ceiling has been lowered, but we've already seen sorcerers and psionicists removed and not wanting to see more PC's master combat seems to fall in line with that idea.

It doesn't seem to have been a problem in the past to have a number of PC's running around at the same time that have been exceptional at combat.  I've played on and off since the really early days of the game (back when you could see the Offense and Defense skills in your character sheet, and the actual numerical level of skill you had in them) - enough to have seen good examples of such characters and such times.  As Synthesis and others have already pointed out, combat skills are far from the end-all to character success or even survival.

I also agree with 7DV - I also dislike that characters motivated to excel at combat are OOC'ly being barred from doing what should be IC to them to improve their combat prowess.  Brokkr mentioned finding and practicing with someone better than you and taking risks should be IC actions - if your character is going to weigh themselves down, or go into a spar drunk, doesn't that fall into line with those ideas?  By being weighed down, your opponent will be better than you, and it's a risk that your character takes in that they will be less able to defend themselves.  IC'ly, your character consciously would know that and would be specifically stepping into that situation.  Same with being drunk (okay, volition for entering combat when drunk isn't necessarily the same, but there's an opportunity for roleplay there!).  Or whatever other coded methods there might be to do this - as has already been pointed out, people IRL do these sorts of things.  If it's the level of risk vs. reward that's the concern, then why not allow it but make it slow or cap it.  Or increase the associated risk, by increasing the chances of a serious (or even fatal) accident.

I'd also like to point out that needing to find a higher skilled PC to be able to have the chance to improve at an any appreciable rate beyond the plateau effect Synthesis pointed out severely disadvantages those who wish to play independents, in small iso-clans, or those who play off-peak.  Essentially, those players will have an automatic artificial knee-capping for their characters, and that seems unfair, given the challenges they already face in playing the game.  Sure, I accept that maybe not everyone should automatically be entitled to be able to reach the heights of skill available to everyone else in the game, or even play the same sort of characters as others, but that shouldn't be predicated at all on what time in the day someone can play the game. 

We've got along with the karma system for many years now.  If it's somehow truly an issue that too many characters are getting too good at combat and if that's really caused problems for the game, tie the system to karma, if need be - allow those who have earned the trust to excel, to actually be able to excel if it fits their character concept, and in doing so, to help drive certain stories forward that only those characters can.  But I still feel that having a handful of PC's that are excellent at combat isn't problematic, and never has been.

Finally, to tie this all back into the topic of the thread: strength is a very significant factor in success at combat, and that's just luck of the draw.  A character out of the gate that is very strong can and will win combat against even moderately skilled opponents - human characters are capable of starting with levels of strength that can heavily skew combat, and dwarves, muls and giants can far exceed that still.  If a PC is able to get to higher levels of skill more easily after putting in the time and effort to get there, both IC'y and OOC'ly, that can and will attenuate the effect of higher levels of strength in combat (to a certain extent of course, say, bahamets), which is IHMO, the way it should be, both from an IC perspective as well as an OOC perspective.

[Brokkr]

We may simply have different definitions of excellent.  To further discuss this, I'd have to get into a bunch of detail that I am not going to get into.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Yeah, this is far enough, I think. You've done an awesome job, Brokkr, in this thread, laying things out for us. I'm not complaining, really. I'm disagreeing with this or that. No foul meant.

In the end, really, anyway, I don't come here for the stats or skills. I come here for the stories. But oh, I do like like chatting about the gears of the world, though. I do.

[X-D]

Same as 7DV.

Although, I have copied Brokkr saying "take risks", To have just in case in the future I do so with a PC and have staff going Hey...this Pc takes odd risks. Which has happened in the past to myself and others.



Partly kidding there, I actually work really hard to make sure the risks my PC takes are calculated IG and IC.

[gotdamnmiracle]

Given that PC's represent a very small percentage of the Known's population, it seems odd to me that there seems to be an aversion to more player characters becoming exceptional at combat amongst the PC population.  20 people or less out of hundreds of thousands doesn't seem particularly off to me in terms of how many people should be exceptional in a given population.  Sure, not every person in the Known that is exceptional at something will be played by a character.  But I've always thought that it was accepted that PC's can and should have that potential, within relative reason - PC's can and always have been potentially representative of the exceptional part of the population that are accomplishing things.  PC's are a major driver in the plots of the world - yes, they don't have to be exceptionally skilled to do so, but those that are have the potential to affect the world in more significant ways, or have an easier time doing so.  I'm not sure if the philosphy surrounding that has changed, and if the glass ceiling has been lowered, but we've already seen sorcerers and psionicists removed and not wanting to see more PC's master combat seems to fall in line with that idea.

I agree with this. It feels a bit like dropping the glass ceiling on the heads of masters and just saying "well of course it's possible, you just gotta earn it" as people have struggled to make a MMH and there hasn't been a Red Robe since when? Senior Noble?

That said, I can appreciate the response. Though I'm not a fan of the system and think that it's clunky, hurts indies, and incentives bad play I can try to work inside of it. Thanks, Brokkr.

[Cind]

I'm a little confused. When I was in the Byn my, third to last time there (several years back,) every fucker I saw was weighed down for their sparring matches. I was weighed down because I didn't have an apartment to put my crap in and I didn't trust those fuckers, and all of those guys had their crap with them.... I think I had a pack full of rock greb. No one said anything about it then, so I guess I don't see the reason for disallowing it, especially since we all know it helps higher tier warriors train better.

[Jihelu]

If I recall, putting shit on to the point of being...I forget, maybe heavy+, straight up disallows certain combat fails.

Don't @ me tho I could be making that up.

[tapas]

God. This is so frustrating.

I don't know why we're even talking about skill gaps and O/D here.

Skills seem to matter exactly jack shit anyways when you're hitting for bounces and grazes. And I'm not saying that lightly.

It takes me 10 minutes for my highly trained character to kill a mob. This character has spent huge swathes of time in the sparring ring. The same mob took 10 seconds on my last character with barely any training.

ANY five day dwarf with a bit of armor could walk up and have a good chance of killing this character. If not they'd basically be invincible in their chitin armor.

Yes. I'm more afraid of being alone in a room with a dwarf than I am with a magicker. But "stats are fine".

[Dar]

The more burdened you are, the less you learn.

I don't know Tapas,




PS: I should stop typing on the phone, lol.

[tapas]

No.

Skills and learning are not the problem. This is a high skilled character. The problem is that skills don't do much when your damage is capped so low.

[mansa]

No.

Skills and learning are not the problem. This is a high skilled character. The problem is that skills don't do much when your damage is capped so low.

At this point, I would suggest to put in a request, as you're talking about in game events with a current character.   We can give our advice and experience, but if you want more indepth information you're going to have to put in some questions with Brokkr or other staff to see if their game design expectation is a reality.

[Hauwke]

In my opinion, a low strength character practically needs to have high two-handed just for the damage boost. Forget everything else about the skill just the damage boost is enough to make them reasonably competative again once it gets middling, then once it is really high they are very much capable.

Not more so than a high strength doing the same, but still, it makes them usable.

[Cind]

God. This is so frustrating.

I don't know why we're even talking about skill gaps and O/D here.

Skills seem to matter exactly jack shit anyways when you're hitting for bounces and grazes. And I'm not saying that lightly.

It takes me 10 minutes for my highly trained character to kill a mob. This character has spent huge swathes of time in the sparring ring. The same mob took 10 seconds on my last character with barely any training.

ANY five day dwarf with a bit of armor could walk up and have a good chance of killing this character. If not they'd basically be invincible in their chitin armor.

Yes. I'm more afraid of being alone in a room with a dwarf than I am with a magicker. But "stats are fine".

If strong dwarves are the new problem now, perhaps we simply have to counter them the way people who have never relied on strength would; noncombat and/or sneaky means.

If you've got five poisoned arrows in your quiver and are a great shot and are hellbent on taking down the dwarf who singlehandedly destroyed the Blackwings, shoot them once and pretend to take off, waiting until they swallow their cure. Then, come back and shoot them four more times. Overkill? They did destroy 400+ virtual elves. The people who cause these kinds of things to happen should be prepared to deal with the consequences.

Oh, wait, dwarves are almost immune to magick and poison. Who in the world thought that up? I'm sure four arrows to the heart will give them a shitty time, though, if not outright kill them. I know I'm suggesting killing combat-overpowered characters through elvish means, but sometimes people who've spent the last game year in the Byn or so forget that these are means they can use. There are reasons pcs stay unmanifested for ages before becoming known as witches; they join clans, make friends, and seal their reputations as whatever sort of personality and levels of drive they have. Then--- those clans and friends now have the means the solve a problem that might mean their downfall, because believe it or not some humans are loyal to each other.

If you don't have a lot of extra time or money to spare you can always go rinthi style and get your blade whetted with some poison as a self-defense measure. Its super easy to hide that you have that and can save your life from a strong person someday. An animal getting bloodburned would keep fighting you, but a pc might stop.

[Greve]

Also you have to remember the O/D differential applies to learning weapon skills as well.

I have a belated question about this. Does this mean that if my offense gets high enough to where I can no longer raise it doing the things I normally do, I can't start training a new weapon skill? Let's say my character hunts rhinos for a living. It's all he does. Rhinos can get you up to 50 offense and no further. To get any higher, I have to hunt tigers which I don't do. In the process of hunting rhinos up to 50 offense, my piercing skill also hit 50. But my slashing skill is 20, and since my offense is now 50, I can't raise slashing above 20 fighting rhinos, even though I'm demonstrably worse at fighting them with a sword?

[Eyeball]

If the plateau is a thing what would you suggest a player do if not twink in some silly way or another to become that exceptional warrior?

I think it's been said. Take risks to fight tough enough things that will make you exceptional.

If it takes a thousand learning "instances" to become exceptional, and each is at a risk of even %1 mortality, you'll be dead long before you become exceptional.

[Brokkr]

If the plateau is a thing what would you suggest a player do if not twink in some silly way or another to become that exceptional warrior?

I think it's been said. Take risks to fight tough enough things that will make you exceptional.

If it takes a thousand learning "instances" to become exceptional, and each is at a risk of even %1 mortality, you'll be dead long before you become exceptional.

No, exceptional people would live and be, well, exceptional.

Most people would die though.  Because they are not exceptional.

Seems like that would be working as intended?

[Eyeball]

If the plateau is a thing what would you suggest a player do if not twink in some silly way or another to become that exceptional warrior?

I think it's been said. Take risks to fight tough enough things that will make you exceptional.

If it takes a thousand learning "instances" to become exceptional, and each is at a risk of even %1 mortality, you'll be dead long before you become exceptional.

No, exceptional people would live and be, well, exceptional.

Most people would die though.  Because they are not exceptional.

Seems like that would be working as intended?

If you define exceptional as one in about 23,000 PCs who try. That's what those odds yield. I.e. pretty much no PC (or even a player who goes through a hundred or more PCs) will ever be that sort of exceptional.

If someone does get there, it's because they've found a way to eliminate the risk.

[Lizzie]

If the plateau is a thing what would you suggest a player do if not twink in some silly way or another to become that exceptional warrior?

I think it's been said. Take risks to fight tough enough things that will make you exceptional.

If it takes a thousand learning "instances" to become exceptional, and each is at a risk of even %1 mortality, you'll be dead long before you become exceptional.

No, exceptional people would live and be, well, exceptional.

Most people would die though.  Because they are not exceptional.

Seems like that would be working as intended?

If you define exceptional as one in about 23,000 PCs who try. That's what those odds yield. I.e. pretty much no PC (or even a player who goes through a hundred or more PCs) will ever be that sort of exceptional.

If someone does get there, it's because they've found a way to eliminate the risk.

At all times, there one PC that is more skilled, more buff, stronger, more agile, more magickally scary, more politically savvy, more mudsexable, more [insert trait here] than EVERY other PC in the game.

"Exceptional" is a comparative. It means better than most. If more people were exceptional, they wouldn't be exceptional anymore. Exceptional people are the exception.

[tapas]

I recently played a character with weapon skills boosted to journeyman. They also had poor strength.

Even with those boosted skills, I would describe the amount of time required to get from "awful-bad" to "reasonable" as excruciating.

And that was with logging in on early mornings just to hit those skill timers. It also meant still getting stomped by the guy that rolled exceptional strength.

I don't know about the rest of you, but it seems to me that the system doesn't work at all.

[Lizzie]

I recently played a character with weapon skills boosted to journeyman. They also had poor strength.

Even with those boosted skills, I would describe the amount of time required to get from "awful-bad" to "reasonable" as excruciating.

And that was with logging in on early mornings just to hit those skill timers. It also meant still getting stomped by the guy that rolled exceptional strength.

I don't know about the rest of you, but it seems to me that the system doesn't work at all.

Sounds like it's working perfectly. Their strength is exceptional. Yours is poor. That means you should expect failure, often, whenever you're dealing with them. No matter how good you get, you will never match or outdo the exceptional, if you are poor.

However, if you have poor, for combat, it is most likely you selected a primary class that didn't focus on combat. Or a race that is known for being not very strong. Or you prioritized something other than strength.

In addition, that exceptional strength guy - if he was loaded down at unbelievably heavy in his pack, but had no armor on, and your journeyman self got him in the neck with a tainted arrow, he'd probably die just as easily as you would if he was wearing light gear, was unencumbered, and had a +20 death deadly wicked metal razor-sharp blade of doom and desturction.