endgame combat twinking hot take

[Shabago]

I believe it to be true in my heart. If your characters can't tell the story you want them to then you are making a serious mistake!

And if 'your story' can't be told without seeing advanced/master skills across your skill sheet right out of char-gen, you need to re-evaluate your story.

I've heard these arguments in the past. "I make a bad-ass warrior background and then my skills and stats suck! Concept ruined!'


....Why are you making that background? You know how skills/stats can be. Abusing the code or environment to achieve a paragraph concept that can be obtained through actual RP defeats the purpose of playing an RPI. I have said it before on discord and I will say it here for quotable reference. If code abuse / environment abuse is witnessed, those 'gainz' will be removed. Play appropriately.

This notion or concept that every skill needs to be a 'certain level' before you can interact with the player-base is just odd. I assume born from risk-aversion that has become rather prevalent over the last handful of years. Like, if you don't do it, you'll get steamrolled by someone who does. Self-fulling (and defeating) prophecy and issue.

[triste]

I have never had an issue with mundane plateaus...That being said, you need to be willing to lose your pc for the gains post high jm/advanced..it's not supposed to be easy and it isn't..it is also attainable and requires a ton of playtime.

Most accurate description of the scenario I've seen in this thread.

I don't think the way combat skill gains work is terribly broken, but it is jarringly different from magick skill gains. I don't want to spill all the magic beans, but it is fairly easy to max out most spells just by sitting on your ass (and standing internittently). But similar to what Krath mentions here, some spells do take additional effort to skill up and you might need to *gasp* leave your compound and *gasp* do this roleplaying thing Shabago mentions.

I guess my only gripe about the scenario is how much effort it takes. As a casual player with multiple jobs and multiple jobs, I have never gotten weapons skills past journeyman here. I used to be opposed to the idea of time based skill points that you can earn even when offline (someone mentioned this idea about a year ago), but the busier I get the more in favor I am of it. Might fix some of the gripes here.

[The Lonely Hunter]

I was pretty shocked when I stumbled across this thread. I don't read General much but this title stood out. If you are playing Armageddon like a H&S with RP elements, and you may be without even realizing it, you truly are missing out on what Armageddon is. I hope that you get to experience that feeling that has kept me coming back for so many years.

Also, I'm pretty sure a baby mantis someplace just died.

[X-D]

Wait, did I miss something, Somebody post something that is outside the thread title other then Shabago....one moment, going to look.

So yes, I went back and looked.

How is your post on topic Shabago?

Nobody posted anything about being combat gods or anything on day one. And in fact the thread is about the long haul, old PCs and the stupid shit they need to do to advance.

Now myself, I do not have an issue with it as long as staff does not penalize for it. Which they should not be as even Brokkr has stated (paraphrase) You will have to do stupid shit to get there.

Fine, I do not agree this should be the case, but since it is...shrug.

[Jihelu]

Unrelated but I feel I can get myself pretty thicc in the skills and offense/defense without engaging what I consider 'abuse' of the environment.

Which also seems...a problematic term. I feel it gets to the 'I know it when I see it!' category which isn't exactly...a good way to describe things (Now if someone can explain to me why the United States Supreme Court has used this term before I'd be very fucking happy)

[X-D]

And yes, What Jihelu said.

IRL, If I wanted to become good at backstab style attack, I can get a rubber knife and find me a partner and have a dummy. And eventually, I will become VERY good. Not in arm, In arm you have two ways to do it, You can play a psychopath and stab at everything you come across or you can "abuse the environment" No other options. So you did not make a psychopath, Oh wait, staff going to come down on you for using other methods.

IRL I have a 1.2second draw to fire on my primary EDC Did I have to learn that by drawing down on people in Alleys? Nope. I simply wear my gun All the time and practice ALL the time. After I got below 1.5 seconds I put a laser round in it to work accuracy. At no point did I ever have to shoot at a person.

In arm, this is not the case with ANY mundane skill. You HAVE to use the skill for real (not so with spells, go figure).

And then because the game was actually made so that you have to either do something that is likely OOC or you have to "abuse the environment" Though that is not defined....you run the risk of staff coming down on you because of the way staff designed it...Heh.

And to be clear, I do not have an issue with design, I have an issue with staff, who KNOW that the design means you have to do stupid shit, then come down on you because you did stupid shit that is not the highly dangerous stupid shit they prefer.

I will never get in trouble for taking my 10 day fighter against rantarri, which could kill him, I will get in trouble for taking him against 6 turaal with a rock at night.

And why, because There is no risk. And so staff comes down on you with some silly "It is not realistic." Crap.

Though, What is more realistic, Training in a manner that will Not kill or maim you or training in a manner that will?

Is it better to train boxing with pads and gear against a trainer or without gear in a money match verses Mike Tyson in his prime?

In one case you learn something, In the other case you wake up a week later trying to remember your name. Yet that is EXACTLY what staff prefers you to do.

Someone says OOC: "Why are you fighting rats in the dark?"
ooc Because he wants to get better at blind fighting.
Someone says OOC: That is unrealistic, stop it."
OOC: "You all made the skill, Oh I asked when it came into the game, How do I get better at this, Staff, you fight things in the dark and storms...So here I am doing exactly that and you have a problem?"
Someone says OOC: Yes, it is unrealistic.
OOC: "Then the skill itself is unrealistic."

True story.

[Lotion]

I believe it to be true in my heart. If your characters can't tell the story you want them to then you are making a serious mistake!

And if 'your story' can't be told without seeing advanced/master skills across your skill sheet right out of char-gen, you need to re-evaluate your story.

I've heard these arguments in the past. "I make a bad-ass warrior background and then my skills and stats suck! Concept ruined!'

You're right, that is absurd. Aside from gladiator roles or sponsored sarges being a badass warrior out of chargen is completely unreasonable.

....Why are you making that background? You know how skills/stats can be. Abusing the code or environment to achieve a paragraph concept that can be obtained through actual RP defeats the purpose of playing an RPI. I have said it before on discord and I will say it here for quotable reference. If code abuse / environment abuse is witnessed, those 'gainz' will be removed. Play appropriately.

I have never made that (badass warrior) background. I can think of a character I had with a notably heroic death which became a powerful fighter with stats many players would consider unplayably trash.

This notion or concept that every skill needs to be a 'certain level' before you can interact with the player-base is just odd. I assume born from risk-aversion that has become rather prevalent over the last handful of years. Like, if you don't do it, you'll get steamrolled by someone who does. Self-fulling (and defeating) prophecy and issue.

There are multiple factors which strongly encourage risk averse play. In matters of straight up pvp fighting there's a lot of narrowminded people who think you just have to have higher numbers on your character sheet which I find disappointing. If your numbers are lower you can still win, just not the classic meatgrinder style.

[Jihelu]

I will forever find it hilarious the game suggests in a helpfile, I believe the blind fighting or perhaps redstorm one, that people will commonly practice blindfighting by blindfolding themselves.
This is on the same level as 'weigh yourself down', which they've made actually fuck up your gains from what I understand.

The game suggests giving yourself a coded penalty to level up.
The real funny bit is there is no way to actually blindfold yourself to do this, all we have our the convenient dark rooms with 3 loaded mobs for twinking.

Also: Why does that room exist? What staffer put that there? Was it so they themselves can twink?

[Krath]

And yes, What Jihelu said.

IRL, If I wanted to become good at backstab style attack, I can get a rubber knife and find me a partner and have a dummy. And eventually, I will become VERY good. Not in arm, In arm you have two ways to do it, You can play a psychopath and stab at everything you come across or you can "abuse the environment" No other options. So you did not make a psychopath, Oh wait, staff going to come down on you for using other methods.

IRL I have a 1.2second draw to fire on my primary EDC Did I have to learn that by drawing down on people in Alleys? Nope. I simply wear my gun All the time and practice ALL the time. After I got below 1.5 seconds I put a laser round in it to work accuracy. At no point did I ever have to shoot at a person.

In arm, this is not the case with ANY mundane skill. You HAVE to use the skill for real (not so with spells, go figure).

And then because the game was actually made so that you have to either do something that is likely OOC or you have to "abuse the environment" Though that is not defined....you run the risk of staff coming down on you because of the way staff designed it...Heh.

And to be clear, I do not have an issue with design, I have an issue with staff, who KNOW that the design means you have to do stupid shit, then come down on you because you did stupid shit that is not the highly dangerous stupid shit they prefer.

I will never get in trouble for taking my 10 day fighter against rantarri, which could kill him, I will get in trouble for taking him against 6 turaal with a rock at night.

And why, because There is no risk. And so staff comes down on you with some silly "It is not realistic." Crap.

Though, What is more realistic, Training in a manner that will Not kill or maim you or training in a manner that will?

Is it better to train boxing with pads and gear against a trainer or without gear in a money match verses Mike Tyson in his prime?

In one case you learn something, In the other case you wake up a week later trying to remember your name. Yet that is EXACTLY what staff prefers you to do.

Someone says OOC: "Why are you fighting rats in the dark?"
ooc Because he wants to get better at blind fighting.
Someone says OOC: That is unrealistic, stop it."
OOC: "You all made the skill, Oh I asked when it came into the game, How do I get better at this, Staff, you fight things in the dark and storms...So here I am doing exactly that and you have a problem?"
Someone says OOC: Yes, it is unrealistic.
OOC: "Then the skill itself is unrealistic."

True story.

All of this.

[9001]

IRL, If I wanted to become good at backstab style attack, I can get a rubber knife and find me a partner and have a dummy. And eventually, I will become VERY good. Not in arm, In arm you have two ways to do it, You can play a psychopath and stab at everything you come across or you can "abuse the environment" No other options. So you did not make a psychopath, Oh wait, staff going to come down on you for using other methods.

The helpfile for backstab says:

This skill is a generic term for 'critical strikes' against an opponent, be it an animal or a humanoid. The victim of a backstab is not necessarily 'stabbed in the back'-- the attack could be from any direction. If your character successfully backstabs someone, the target has been 'hit in a vital location,' and will be badly injured, the severity of the injury depending on your character's backstab skill level.

It doesn't read to me like something you can get significantly good at with a practice weapon. The key part being that these are supposed to be critical strikes. Learning where to stab to get at vital organs and past protections like the ribcage seems like something that would require actually stabbing into people/animals. Living ones, to get feedback on just how debilitating the damage you're doing is.

[Jihelu]

There are plenty of ways of learning the prime spots for stabbing someone that doesn't involve actively killing another human being.

[X-D]

9001:

So, let me get this straight...You believe that You could not learn to kill say, a hog, With a 14" knife without running around stabbing hogs?

I mean really now. So, Even if somebody tells you exactly where to stab and what action to take, You will not be sure of the result until you do it for real?

I can assure you that if you take a ten inch knife, plunge it between a persons ribs  just below the armpit and wiggle it around that the result will 100% of the time, 100/100, 1000/1000 etc be the same.

That the critical zones are already known. How to access them is already known.

Now, can I figure out a way to practice stabbing a knife through somebodies neck then slicing out towards the front so there is no chance of life continuing without actually doing it to somebody? Um, Yup, easily, and get very good so that if it did come time to use it for real I would still be perfect at it.

And backstab is actually the LEAST of these skills that force you to treat your PC in a pretty unrealistic manner.

BTW, I would like to say again, I do not have an issue with the design. If that is the way it works then that is the way it works. I take issue with other people, Be it player or staff that complain because you are doing exactly that because of the design they (staff) put in place. And call it abusing the environment or abuse of code etc.

[Jihelu]

You can also learn how to get fairly good at types of combat without causing actual damage to someone, a la 'literally deadly' sparring weapons.

I can get pretty good at fencing with I want to say a .01 % chance of actually dying. In Arm that percent chance is a lot higher for some reason.

[9001]

9001:

So, let me get this straight...You believe that You could not learn to kill say, a hog, With a 14" knife without running around stabbing hogs?

You're misrepresenting my argument.

It's not about whether or not I could kill a hog with a 14" knife, but whether or not I could deliver a decisive, 'critical' strike. Give me enough time with a secured hog and I could (probably) kill it without any experience or teaching if I had to. But the victim of your backstab isn't just lying there while you poke them to death. Usually, anyways.

I'm not going to be good and efficient at killing hogs without actually getting experience killing a few. Probably more than just a few.

I mean really now. So, Even if somebody tells you exactly where to stab and what action to take, You will not be sure of the result until you do it for real?

What you're describing is the equivalent of someone using the teach command on Arm. And yeah, that would help. But there's still a leap from being told or even shown how to kill an animal (or humanoid) and the experience of doing it yourself. Knowing what to do in theory is not the same as being able to do it in practice. And do it well and quickly when what you're trying to kill is capable of resisting.

So yeah - I'm not going to be confident in reliably delivering a 'critical' strike until I've had experience doing it.

As an example of something you might be doing with backstab, you could be slipping your knife between someone's ribs with the intent of puncturing their lungs. Learning the angle to have your knife and where to slip it in and not bounce off bone on different body types takes experience. Or someone teaching you, which the code allows for.

If your character is practicing things in a non-lethal manner that you think is appropriate for the skill, toss a request to staff to get your skill bumped. The code doesn't cover everything. But when it comes to being able to deliver a brutally efficient 'critical' strike before someone can react to it like backstab is supposed to be, your character's actual experience sticking knives into people is key. They're not going to just hold their arm up so you can poke under their armpit and wiggle your knife around at your leisure. Your character doesn't have the same resources you do to learn about anatomy, either.

[X-D]

Interesting.

Well, the reason for the example is because it is a method to dispatch hogs, One I got right the very first time.

And while I sort of see where you are coming from....it is not a good argument.

I shot my first deer when I was 9, I had never shot a deer before and it was a good clean through both lungs and the heart. At around 30 yards. I had no doubt I could do it, I knew where to shoot and I had put A good 40 rounds through that gun to make sure I would hit.

I did not have to pick up a gun for the first time and learn how to shoot it by finding deer to shoot at. Although in game that is basically what you are expected to do.

Now let Us say backstab, surprise crit strike right?

Now You set up a basic dummy of straw, and using whatever weapon you plan to use. And say 3 months later you have gotten your surprise attack on the dummy down to drawing weapon and landing your strike in under .5 seconds and accuracy under an inch in 3 different crit zones.

Now you argue that You still do not know if you will be any good because you have not done it on a live person.

I argue that You can be pretty darn sure you will be successful and likely even that it would be easier on the live person.

I mean OJ managed a double kill on his very first time out.

And the issue is not that it should not take a good amount of time to get to "mastery" In these skills. It should...And it should not even be all that easy.

But it also should not force you to turn your PC into hannibal lector Or some suicidal freak in order to be able to fight 7 mantis warriors because that is the only way the skill would go up. Both of which are usually unrealistc as hell, yet you won't get in trouble for it.

But if you take on 7 gimpka rats and don't get up right away after failing a bash. You are very likely to hear about it because Now you are abusing the environment/code. And it is somehow unrealistic to work on your defense in a manner that might allow you to live through it if you mess up.

And that is the ONLY difference. Unrealistic for the PC to do but might Die, Good to go. Handy capping yourself in a basically safe manner and realistic for your basically friendly PC to do as well as having Real world analog? Nope, might cause karma loss. To the point that staff has even gone out of the way to remove or code out the more realistic and safer methods.

[Greve]

I believe it to be true in my heart. If your characters can't tell the story you want them to then you are making a serious mistake!

And if 'your story' can't be told without seeing advanced/master skills across your skill sheet right out of char-gen, you need to re-evaluate your story.

I've heard these arguments in the past. "I make a bad-ass warrior background and then my skills and stats suck! Concept ruined!'


....Why are you making that background? You know how skills/stats can be. Abusing the code or environment to achieve a paragraph concept that can be obtained through actual RP defeats the purpose of playing an RPI. I have said it before on discord and I will say it here for quotable reference. If code abuse / environment abuse is witnessed, those 'gainz' will be removed. Play appropriately.

This notion or concept that every skill needs to be a 'certain level' before you can interact with the player-base is just odd. I assume born from risk-aversion that has become rather prevalent over the last handful of years. Like, if you don't do it, you'll get steamrolled by someone who does. Self-fulling (and defeating) prophecy and issue.

Literally none of this has been said by anybody. Please don't invent arguments that nobody has made in order to shoot them down. Absolutely nobody is saying that they want to start at master or that they can't begin interacting until they're done grinding skills or anything like that. It hasn't even been insinuated once by anybody. That's really disingenuous of you.

There are three issues at play here:

- The point at which you can no longer progress doing anything that a player can realistically justify doing comes too early. I seem to have noticed that it's actually worst for the heavy combat classes, despite their apparently higher chance to increase these skills, leading me to believe that offense is the issue. When playing a character whose coded abilities revolve primarily around conventional combat (i.e. not backstab, poisons, etc.) it's really boring to arrive at that point already at journeyman. Worse still for the class that branches class-defining skills from weapons.

- Most animals seem to have crap defense, even ones that are supposed to be very dangerous. Any non-animal NPCs that one can justify fighting (e.g. raiders, muggers, even most gith) are similarly pitiful. The things you have to do to get past that disappointingly early hurdle tend to be things that are incompatible with sensible roleplay. Sparring can do the trick, but only if you happen to have a very skilled sparring partner available regularly, which is generally a pipe dream.

- No other skills are held to this impossible standard. Why can I raise much deadlier and more abuseable skills like backstab, archery and spells with ease doing things that are within the boundaries of common sense for a typical character concept, but if one wants to try the upper end of weapon skills, people come out of the woodworks with farcical strawman arguments and insane gaslighting trollposts? Why is it so taboo?

Of course there aren't very many character concept where you need high combat skills. There aren't all that many concepts where you need master sneak and hide, yet it feels like half of the world's PCs have it, and one could easily argue that this causes more problems than warriors getting past journeyman or low-advanced weapon skills does.

At the end of the day, this is a game we play for fun. Raising skills is part of that fun. Nobody is saying that it's the only thing they care about or that they must fully max out in order to have fun, but it's a part of the game and it's a part of the lives of characters. For all the same reasons that a crafter wants to learn to craft the best shit, a warrior wants to become as good at fighting as he or she can. Yet one subset of skills has this unique, bizarre series of obstacles that makes no sense and isn't present anywhere else in the game.

As far as risk aversion goes, I'd be tempted to suggest that it stems just as much from the fact that you have to do these crazy and often contoversial things to progress past mediocrity on a fighting character, and this makes people very hesitant to risk losing those PCs. If that wasn't the case, if you could see steady progress doing things that aren't stupid and twinky and bad for your karma, maybe players would be more willing to risk their characters' lives, knowing that they can make another one and not have to go through that twinky clown fiesta again in order to raise those skills to a level where it's actually interesting to have them.

After all, combat is a huge part of this game. It has by far the most clans and content devoted to it. We even have a class that only makes sense to pick if you think you can raise a weapon skill quite high (cheesy subclass shortcuts notwithstanding). Pretty much all HRPTs revolve around combat. Combat is integral to most kinds of plots. Most of the pivotal events in this game's history were heavily combat-oriented. I would venture to guess that over half of staff's active interference with the playing field pertains to combat in one form or another. There are perfectly valid, healthy reasons why people want their fighting PCs to get good at fighting, and to have a progress curve that doesn't come to an unsightly halt after ten days played. It's not just a bunch of idiots screaming, "Waaah, I want to be MASTER and I want it NOW so I can PK EVERYBODY!!"

[MeTekillot]

Everything Greve said is on point.

I think power should ebb and flow in the game, including combat power. Dynamically flowing power structures (whether structured in clans, economy, or coded skills) makes for a dynamic, interesting game that doesn't feel so damn stagnant.

[Dar]

I gotta ask though.  I might be off, but the amount of offense does not affect damage 'too' greatly.  So, why do you care? If you already can hit 'everything' then does it even matter of you are at journey, or at master?   It makes sense for some classes, because they branch skills. But if you don't, does it matter at all?

And if there is someone who hits 'everything' does it not mean that they can hit 'you' ? And it they can, then during sparring, they'll improve your defense.

My question is, does it matter?  If your hit rate is 90% at journey and your hit rate is 90% at master, then who gives a shit?   Unless you need to branch skills, I mean.

[Veselka]

Offense/Defense matters but I won't really get into the nitty gritty. It's mostly PvP, and I DO NOT SHARE MY SECRETS LIGHTLY!

[Krath]

Yes Dar, skill level does matter..Immensely. That is all I will say because I am already on the producer poo poo list as it is.

[Greve]

I gotta ask though.  I might be off, but the amount of offense does not affect damage 'too' greatly.  So, why do you care? If you already can hit 'everything' then does it even matter of you are at journey, or at master?   It makes sense for some classes, because they branch skills. But if you don't, does it matter at all?

And if there is someone who hits 'everything' does it not mean that they can hit 'you' ? And it they can, then during sparring, they'll improve your defense.

My question is, does it matter?  If your hit rate is 90% at journey and your hit rate is 90% at master, then who gives a shit?   Unless you need to branch skills, I mean.

You're right, it's not super important to get better once you're at the point where you're fine doing whatever ordinary shit your character typically does. On the same token, it's not necessary to get better at stealing once you're no longer dying of hunger and thirst, or better at crafting once you can begin to turn a profit. But it's nice to continue to get better. It's satisfying when you're playing a combat-oriented character for potentially a year of your life and actually see progress, instead of noticing that it grinds to a halt after the first month.

There's a whole slew of things in this game that are not wildly necessary to accomplish. What merchant really needs more than a few thousand in the bank? What hunter really needs to be able to expertly retrieve every little part of every animal they kill? It's not required for one's enjoyment of the game. Nobody is going to tell you that because you don't have <master> in slashing weapons, you're not welcome in the Crimson Winds or whatever the latest cool people club is called.

But it's fun. It's satisfying. It's enjoyable when your character has a chance to rise above the mean level. It's why this game is an RPI and not a MUSH. Maybe there'll come a day when those in-game years of hunting or sparring actually reflect in your character's coded prowess to the point where it's notable and impressive. Maybe that's the day when someone goes "alright, that guy is the one I'm going to recruit into my exciting new endeavor." Or you get to be the one who wins this year's sparring tournament, or roleplay the local swordmaster who gets all the ladies. More importantly, it's not some kind of crime against the game to pursue it.

Why, I ask, is there this insane wall of skepticism towards ambition within this single category of skills? Nobody bats an eye if somebody wants to be the best armorcrafter in the world. Nobody screams "TWINK!" when somebody wants to get as good as you can get at travelling through a sandstorm. But when it comes to the sparring skills - weapons, offense/defense, and a few other similarly coded skills - anybody who expresses any ambition whatsoever in this regard is lambasted from all sides as some kind of enemy of the game.

Why is this? Why this hysterical, irrational skepticism? I can go out right now and roll up whatever class gets the highest cap in archery or backstab and max the skill out in two RL weeks, and nobody will bat an eye. But if I'm not satisfied with the fact that it takes increasingly absurd activities to get much further than journeyman in slashing weapons, columns of players and admins line up to tell me how wrong I am for even considering pursuing it? Why is that a thing? It's just so wildly irrational and nonsensical.

If one was to make a list of skills that are controversial and dangerous when they reach the upper end of the curve, the conventional combat skills are nowhere near the top. They rank far below much more easily trained skills like sap, backstab, archery, even stealth, and especially any variety of spells. But if you admit that you'd like to try to become good with a fucking sword, you're apparently deserving of scorn and ridicule. It's just so absurd and unintelligent to listen to. Can nobody else see this? Am I taking crazy pills?

[Dar]

Yeah. But those are not correct comparisons.


If you still fail steal and get noticed at journey, while you can steal flawlessly and not be noticed. The difference in skill levels is significant.

A craftsman can craft certain basic things at journey and make money off it. But at Master, they can craft multitude of things they couldn't before, and they can create Custom Crafts.

A hunter can only hunt weak common prey and bring in common hides at journeys, while at Master he can expertly carve out rare glands that nobody else could.

A Warrior can hit everything at journey and they can hit everything at Master ... wait.


Or am I misunderstanding things?  If you have two people with you. One is at journey, the other one is at Master. None of them ever miss their swings. Are you even able to tell who's at journey, who's at Master?

[Krath]

A Warrior can hit everything at journey and they can hit everything at Master ... wait.

Or am I misunderstanding things?  If you have two people with you. One is at journey, the other one is at Master. None of them ever miss their swings. Are you even able to tell who's at journey, who's at Master?

Hey Dar, your statement is situational. I think you are misunderstanding how the mechanics of combat with weapon skills work. If one is at Journey and the Other is at master, both will still miss. The opportunity for them to miss or hit is based on several things combined, weapon skill level being one of those items. The opportunity for a person with a Master weapon skill to miss is significantly smaller, than someone at Journey.

I can go into more details, if staff say it is ok. Or staff could just tell everyone how it works.

[Dar]

If opportunity to miss is still there. Especially if opportunity to miss is significant enough to really speak of. Then the opportunity to improve is still there, no?

I thought by a plateau it's ment that at some rather early point, people no longer miss. Therefore no longer improve.

[Lotion]

If your character can't reasonably do what you want them to do (e.g. get weapons skills to master) then you should realize that it's your fault for not making a character that could get your weapon skills to master.