Learning without failing (non-weapon skills)

[Dresan]

There now always a small chance to dodge in melee combat ensuring there is always a chance to learn weapon skills assuming the other conditions are met.

However, for other (mostly combat)skills outside melee there should also be a small chance to learn and improve the skill a small amount assuming you have a decent level of wisdom.  This chance for a small improvement increasing slightly the more wisdom you have. Right now under certain conditions, some skills have a hard time failing and improving, leaving you to rarely miss while at the same time still getting poor results with the skill succeeding.

Some possible benefits:
1. If you don't use wisdom as a dump stat, you will now learn slowly but steadily even at higher levels of skill.
2. You will always have a chance to learn regardless of other attributes which may make certain skills very difficult to fail.
3. Less of a need of chasing failures or doing strange things to help generate failures.

While this seems nothing but good at first, if you succeed with the skill, you learn a little. Thus it wouldn't improve as fast as if you had failed with it first time. This means that while skills eventually reach the peek of your class, it may not always necessarily be faster than if you would have been just been able to chase the fails.

The condition of this is of courses that your wisdom is pretty decent, which means you sacrificed another stat in order to get this benefit. Right now due to the fact that you only learn when failing the value of wisdom in terms of speed of learning is not that valuable at higher levels of the skill.

(this should probably be in code section, sorry )

[Brokkr]

some skills have a hard time failing and improving, leaving you to rarely miss while at the same time still getting poor results with the skill succeeding

I have no idea what you mean here.  Not failing but not succeeding isn't really possible?

[Namino]

some skills have a hard time failing and improving, leaving you to rarely miss while at the same time still getting poor results with the skill succeeding

I have no idea what you mean here.  Not failing but not succeeding isn't really possible?

I believe he is referring to a phenomenon where barely succeeding is the same as masterfully succeeding as far as skillups are concerned.

As far as the effective impact of a masterful success (a critical headshot) and a bare success (barely graze), however, those two things are worlds apart, which is where the poor results portion of the statement comes from.

No comments besides that -- just interpreting.

[Brokkr]

I have no idea what you are talking about.  There is no such thing as a critical.

[Dresan]

some skills have a hard time failing and improving, leaving you to rarely miss while at the same time still getting poor results with the skill succeeding

I have no idea what you mean here.  Not failing but not succeeding isn't really possible?

I meant the skill will rarely miss, as in not fail. However, even though its hitting the target(not missing/failing) the result  is rather poor. Throw is sometimes a good example of this, where it hits but barely does much damage until it becomes higher level. Sorry if it was not clear

[Namino]

Setting aside that pedantic argument, the point is that success is variable while skill failure is binary.

Character 1 with average human strength, agility, wisdom, and endurance attacks an NPC. He swings five times with apprentice slashing:
Nick
Barely graze
Lightly Slash
Barely graze
Barely graze

Character 2 with average human strength, agility, wisdom, and endurance attacks an NPC. He swings five times with advanced slashing:
Solid slash
Very Hard slash
Vicious slash
Very Hard slash
Solid slash

Both characters have succeeded 100% of their attacks and neither of them stand a chance of skilling up.

Character 1 succeeded poorly, as Dresan pointed out.

I hope this interpretation and example helps you understand.

Edit: That being said, Dresan isn't talking about weapon skills. My comments are simply to clarify what is meant by 'succeeding poorly'.

[Cerelum]

I believe in both those scenarios, a hit is a hit, whether it takes away 1hp or 20hp.

So as far as skillgain, there is none?

If I understand how the failure to gain works.  So if they don't dodge your hit, you didn't gain.

[Brokkr]

Dresan is actually talking about skills other than the skills you are talking about, Namino.  In your case of melee combat, remember there are other rolls, like the roll of your weapon.  As well as other factors like damage mitigation through armor, or which location you hit.  That are all independent of your weapon skill, offense, etc.  So yes, I have literally no idea what you mean, as success is also binary.  It is then followed by additional rolls and factors that are not related.

As for the throw example, working as intended?  If you are hitting, at all, it is working.  The fact that you aren't very good at it will have an impact on the efficacy.  Again, different rolls.

In both cases, the hit or miss is binary.  You don't really succeed well or poorly.  It is then followed by other rolls, which can take into account a variety of things.

[Dresan]

I believe in both those scenarios, a hit is a hit, whether it takes away 1hp or 20hp.

So as far as skillgain, there is none?

If I understand how the failure to gain works.  So if they don't dodge your hit, you didn't gain.

This basically for combat skills (not weapon skills or styles, for example throw).

Under some conditions it seems it becomes harder to fail(miss) despite having lower level skill, while still getting poor results. Wisdom at this point does nothing to help speed things up, making it really less valuable for learning speed regardless what priority you set it. Unless you twink spam a skill, you aren't getting much.

Which my idea might help alleviate a bit, again not necessarily making things faster, perhaps sometimes slowly, but at least more steady if you invested priority into wisdom.

[Namino]

As for the throw example, working as intended?  If you are hitting, at all, it is working.  The fact that you aren't very good at it will have an impact on the efficacy.  Again, different rolls.

Using that example, then. Don't you have to miss your target with throw to tick a chance to skill up?

If I throw 5 daggers and do a total of 10hp damage in five hits and then you throw 5 daggers and do a total of 125hp damage in five hits, skillgain wise our results are identical (nobody got anything), but functionally, I 'succeeded poorly'.

Personally I don't think non-weapon skills need changing, just to go on the record. Throw certainly skills up very quickly in my experience, as does archery, without falling into a hole. Bash/kick/disarm slower, but they never stalled on any of my characters the way weapons did. My statements are more for clarification.

[Brokkr]

What I am saying is that you didn't "succeed poorly", you have different potentials, and within your potential it is possible you did quite well.

[Dresan]

Ah well...I fucked up this proposal. My bad. 

[Nile]

Just while the topic of throw is up...Are we allowed to know whether missing vital areas, such as the neck/head like you see with higher skill levels, contribute to skilling up? This is something I've always thought intuitively makes sense and would be in place but never asked about. Forgive me if this is too in-depth of a code-related question for the GDB.

[Hauwke]

I was under the impression that throw goes up even with a hit, so long as it isn't a neck shot. Same as every other ranged skill.

[Riev]

Honestly though, I think the point of the combat change was more to fix a fringe situation in which there was NO WAY 2 PCs fighting one another could possibly miss.

I don't believe the other combat (non-weapon) skills have this situation. At some point you will fail to bash against SOMETHING to get your skill up. Even if your kick to the shin gets blocked, you still hit their shins.

[Namino]

Honestly though, I think the point of the combat change was more to fix a fringe situation in which there was NO WAY 2 PCs fighting one another could possibly miss.

I don't believe the other combat (non-weapon) skills have this situation. At some point you will fail to bash against SOMETHING to get your skill up. Even if your kick to the shin gets blocked, you still hit their shins.

I had an slightly-above average height elf with <master> bash and was curious so I tried to:

Code Select Expand

>bash braxat

Can confirm you can likely always fail auxilliary combat skills.

Sometimes quite hilariously so.

[Synthesis]

It -seems- like only a miss counts as a fail for throw/archery/crossbow/sling/blowgun, because it -seems- like, over time, the only way you can get to (master) is by intentionally seeking out things that you continue to miss.  I can't ever recall a time where I saw my skill level tick over on a poor hit.  I've only ever observed it on a total miss.

That being said: is it possible that it's coded such that you can theoretically roll a failure and get the skillgain, but then get some modifier (stat, magick, luck, whatever) that allows you to hit? I suppose so.  If that's the case, though, I've never observed it happening.

[Namino]

I've only ever observed it on a total miss.

Second this observation. I've only received a recognizable tick (ie, going from one skill level to the next) on flat misses.

[Dresan]

I too have seen those skill (bash,throw, etc ) only go up on misses. If there is any attributes (size,stats,etc) that makes the skill harder to miss, it makes it stuck on a lower level(meaning less damage for many skills) much longer unless you go do some silly things. Additionally at higher levels of any skill, missing becomes harder in general which is fine but further dilutes the value of wisdon unless you spam use the skill and chase those misses.

My idea was based around making wisdom useful in these sorts of situations and just in general for learning.

At the moment the way high wisdom works at best promote twinkish spam use of skills, which is why to me it has never felt as wisdom is that useful in regard to learning speed the game's current environment.