I've been thinking about the shops that characters access between character approval and actually entering the IC part of the world.

Am I wrong in remembering that you can see other characters there, if they happen to be in the shops at the same time? Because I feel like it's likely that there will be multiple characters shopping at the same time, since we'll have a bunch of new characters approved the same day, all pointing to Allanak.

If characters can see each other in there, I feel like it might be a good idea if they can't.  Mainly for the benefit of new players I guess, but also because it's more fun to see new short descriptions in character.

Similar to desert elves hide sneak skills in the desert give
City Elves the same (if they don't already get it, My city elves
guild always had started with both). Also give them
palm/plant/steal automagically too if they are to stay in line
with current documentation.

Starting in certain cities grants bonuses to some starting skills.
Similar to the skills list for guilds and subguilds, I would like
some transparency in what starting location gives bonuses to what
skills.

Example:
Point Allanak - You feel more adept with clubs and have a more
natural affinity with working with rocks. The thick silt and
dry heat here also grants you a better than average start in
your life with foraging.
Are you sure you want to pick here?

(100% an example I don't know what skill bonuses are given if any
outside of some combat ones.)

Quote from: Roon on April 22, 2024, 05:50:20 PMStats need to be made less random before they're made even more important.

I'd like to see the ability to swap stats around.

Swap Strength Wisdom
Unswap Strength Wisdom

Stats need to be made less random before they're made even more important.

10 days played is a lot but I do feel like this would result in people sitting around idling for their tri-monthly reroll! Hilariously, it would sometimes wind up with people going from mega strong to unable to wear their armor.

I kind of like this idea just for that, though. In fact, make the reroll mandatory. Major offscreen life event every 10 days played results in new stats.

It's your birthday! You have just turned 24.
You can now hold no more than four limes.

Stats constantly being re-rolled until you're amazing seems weird to me. Feels like a fixed point assignment system is a more natural option if we wanted to abandon RNG.

I don't personally mind the RNG, but it does cater to a throwaway, roll with it mindset.

Quote from: Windstorm on April 22, 2024, 11:13:53 AM

Quote from: Kavrick on April 22, 2024, 05:21:22 AMgrinding isn't fun

I agree and it's part of why I don't like the change.

This isn't reducing grind, which is my problem with it. Just reducing skill timers makes it so players inclined to will.... drumroll.... grind more often, and without any investment in being any smarter. To me this isn't reducing grind, it's encouraging more of it, doubly so if you play a combat role often and take wisdom last.

I agree with Windstorm's point. Skill timers are such that you are cannot go up 10 ticks in an RL day, or whatever, which discourages constant  grinding of skills. Decreasing that means you can maybe get a couple more gains if you stay logged in for a long time, but it doesn't really change the more casual play pattern of log in once or every couple days and train. One main 'grind' people feel is that people feel like they start really weak and don't get up to capable for a few days played - this change might make it slightly quicker for those who play a lot, but matters less for those people who log in far more intermittently.

The other grind is that some skills (combat skills, namely) simply won't increase because the rate of failure is low, and sometimes the rate of skill gain even if failing is low. Reduced timers won't really matter if you're never triggering the timer by gaining.

I moreover think that the characters to benefit, if they were spending that long online, would be high-stat, combat-stat prioritized characters, and helps out already powerful races (dwarves, muls, elves) that need very insanely godlike in PVP and very dangerous to other PCs. And that's not even considering ways to boost stats, which presumeably would then help timers.

-------------------

My thought would rather be help the initial curve out and make the top-end progress require investment (but not impossible flailing like now). That would be to increase the % chance to gain from novice->apprentice, apprentice->jman, and then once there you have a bit tougher of a time. You could even make it so novice->apprentice combat skills bump by 2 per gain, and then slow to 1, keeping offense/defense where its at, which I believe would starkly improve the time-to-not-newbie, get people on an even playing field faster.

 Obviously I don't think anyone wants it to be laughably easy to get maxed out combat chars, since those are overwhelmingly powerful vs PVE and PVP balance, and makes it hard for new PCs to catch up or be meaningful. But in a season, there is a limiter in the eventual end of season so you don't want everyone frustrated at a 'plateau' and trying to metagame past it.


 

Yeah, I like the changes @Krath is suggesting. The way that the weapons break down works well with classes are currently designed, as most of the pure combat classes if not all have all the weapon skills, and most of the more utility heavy classes have bludgeoning and piercing. As far as I know, the only classes that only have piercing are the trade classes which should also have a secondary agility bonus to help their crafting so it syncs well with the natural inclination of priorities of those classes, while giving people with mixed classes the ability to focus on strength or agility focus or both, while not impacting the pure combat classes negatively as far as I can tell.

I'm on the same page as Kavrick and Krath.