Armageddon General Discussion Board

Bear with me while I whine a bit as seems to be my tendency on the GDB.   :D

I've played Armageddon since almost the beginning and in my twenties I spent obsessive and unhealthy hours in from of the CRT.  I guess one of the ways you can tell you've played a particular game a long time is that the technology you use to play the game has changed dramatically over the years, but I digress.

As a middle-aged gamer I have tons of RL stuff I love to do - work and my family obligations topping the charts.  Factor in all the other stuff - running and hiking, playing guitar, drinking beer on my porch - well there just isn't that much time to game nor do I have the patience to sit in front of the computer for endless hours developing plots, hanging out and socializing and all that.

That said - I WANT to play so I end up making endless short-lived characters that go nowhere and ultimately leave me unsatisfied because prime game hours when one can really socialize, I am usually off the computer and the hours I log in - well - might be another week before you see my character again.

Honestly - I want to play a merchant in a clan - would LOVE too, or a Templar, or just a Byn warrior but I can not maintain the commitment the game requires.  This is so frustrating! 

In the end, yeah, I know - not much to do about it.  So if you see a character aimlessly wandering around with a slightly puzzled and depressed look on his face, buy him a Red Sun, will ya?

Thanks!

All you need is a laptop and wireless internet so that you can mud and drink all the beer you want on your porch.  My my, how far we've come.

Oh the days when 800x600 was not a pitiful resolution and when 1280x1024 gave you oodles of extra space.

Quote from: DustMight on June 01, 2011, 09:44:16 AM
That said - I WANT to play so I end up making endless short-lived characters that go nowhere and ultimately leave me unsatisfied because prime game hours when one can really socialize, I am usually off the computer and the hours I log in - well - might be another week before you see my character again.

Honestly - I want to play a merchant in a clan - would LOVE too, or a Templar, or just a Byn warrior but I can not maintain the commitment the game requires.  This is so frustrating!

This, a thousand times.  I still do have fun in Armageddon; it's just not all that I imagine it could be.

I agree.  A prime example why many people are forced to play different types of characters... or generally just have different playing styles altogether.  With my time constraints, I end up playing a lot of action-oriented characters (raiders, thugs, wanderers) that may not have much need to form social relationships.  The trick is trying to do this while not looking like a twink that is just out to PK.  So far the only way I've figured out how to do this is to keep "mercy" on and allow most people I end up attacking to live, if possible.  I really don't end up attacking many people to begin with, but the nature of those roles can get you into a lot of conflict.  Really, many times I've gotten attacked and attempted to be killed more than I've attacked others... and they are, much of the time, seeming like they just want to "win" and slay the bad raider guy.  Which can suck sometimes as well...

Maybe a good time to discuss some ideas on how to play non-boring characters when you don't have much time to play?

It would be nice if certain things could be automated when your character is offline, but this is stuff that's only going to be in 2.Arm, if at all.

Examples:

If you're in the Byn or another clan with a set schedule, your relevant skills (e.g. the skills you would raise by sparring, doing armor repair, cooking, desert training, etc.) should go up whether you're logging in or not.

Or even if you're not in a clan, it would be nice if you could say, log into a web-based system and set your character's default daily activities that would be performed virtually when you aren't logging in.  So you could set it to early morning-high sun=hunting (northlands), early afternoon-late afternoon=foraging (food-northlands), dusk-dawn=sleeping.  Then, when you log back in after a period of time, you might have a few hides/skins/bones (based on your skill levels) and some relevant food-forage items.  Nothing major, but at least enough to make some 'sid to cover rent, so you don't have to madly spam-hunt every time you log in just to afford a quiet place to mudsex.  Also, your relevant skills (scan/listen/hunt/archery/ride/combat/etc.) would go up incrementally.  If you wanted to be really evil, you could have negative consequences attached (e.g. you roll a natural 1 and a virtual raider virtually raids and takes 100 'sid or whatever).

Speaking of rent:  automated rent payment.

The same things could go for crafters:  you set your default crafting activities, and you'd end up with materials and/or finished goods related to the default, and your skills would go up.

So on and so forth.  I suppose certain skills wouldn't be applicable (steal, pick, backstab, sap), but that's a fairly small limitation, overall.

The idea is mostly to let "maintenance" stuff occur virtually, so that a) your PC doesn't fall behind his peers, skill-wise such that b) when you free up some time for the RPT, you aren't completely skill-less, despite your PC having been around for RL months, and c) you can do more interesting stuff when you log in, instead of spam-foraging salt for the hour you have, just to cover your rent.

Could someone "abuse" it by rolling a PC, setting defaults, not logging in for a year, then coming back to a hardcore badass? I suppose...but...someone being willing to wait 6-12 months just to cause some grief seems pretty far-fetched.

You could handle it more simply by just giving people coins and mild skill bumps across the board without any of the fancy stuff, but the default-activities route seems to be a more elegant solution.

Try playing a long-lived and/or wandering independent of some variety, and do things with whoever's around at the time. Try not to get into a job where you're relied upon for peak playtimes / ability to make contacts / high amount of time playing, or when the interesting matters only occur then. Merchant in a clan might be more viable than Byn warrior.

Quote from: Synthesis on June 01, 2011, 12:10:53 PM
It would be nice if certain things could be automated when your character is offline, but this is stuff that's only going to be in 2.Arm, if at all.

Examples:

If you're in the Byn or another clan with a set schedule, your relevant skills (e.g. the skills you would raise by sparring, doing armor repair, cooking, desert training, etc.) should go up whether you're logging in or not.

Or even if you're not in a clan, it would be nice if you could say, log into a web-based system and set your character's default daily activities that would be performed virtually when you aren't logging in.  So you could set it to early morning-high sun=hunting (northlands), early afternoon-late afternoon=foraging (food-northlands), dusk-dawn=sleeping.  Then, when you log back in after a period of time, you might have a few hides/skins/bones (based on your skill levels) and some relevant food-forage items.  Nothing major, but at least enough to make some 'sid to cover rent, so you don't have to madly spam-hunt every time you log in just to afford a quiet place to mudsex.  Also, your relevant skills (scan/listen/hunt/archery/ride/combat/etc.) would go up incrementally.  If you wanted to be really evil, you could have negative consequences attached (e.g. you roll a natural 1 and a virtual raider virtually raids and takes 100 'sid or whatever).

Speaking of rent:  automated rent payment.

The same things could go for crafters:  you set your default crafting activities, and you'd end up with materials and/or finished goods related to the default, and your skills would go up.

So on and so forth.  I suppose certain skills wouldn't be applicable (steal, pick, backstab, sap), but that's a fairly small limitation, overall.

The idea is mostly to let "maintenance" stuff occur virtually, so that a) your PC doesn't fall behind his peers, skill-wise such that b) when you free up some time for the RPT, you aren't completely skill-less, despite your PC having been around for RL months, and c) you can do more interesting stuff when you log in, instead of spam-foraging salt for the hour you have, just to cover your rent.

Could someone "abuse" it by rolling a PC, setting defaults, not logging in for a year, then coming back to a hardcore badass? I suppose...but...someone being willing to wait 6-12 months just to cause some grief seems pretty far-fetched.

You could handle it more simply by just giving people coins and mild skill bumps across the board without any of the fancy stuff, but the default-activities route seems to be a more elegant solution.

Why??

Far-fetch, no, matter of fact, I know three or for people that would happy do it just to put in your face and "HA, mother fucker". And , yes, people do shit out of spite.

Aside from that, its easy to go off and get lost in RL, or some other game, while knowing that you character is growing.

Really if this is a need and was implemented then it would become the norm and you would see more characters, yet less interaction on a role play level. Soon people would leave the mud all together.

Quote from: Potaje on June 01, 2011, 12:39:02 PM

Quote from: Synthesis on June 01, 2011, 12:10:53 PM
It would be nice if certain things could be automated when your character is offline, but this is stuff that's only going to be in 2.Arm, if at all.

Examples:

If you're in the Byn or another clan with a set schedule, your relevant skills (e.g. the skills you would raise by sparring, doing armor repair, cooking, desert training, etc.) should go up whether you're logging in or not.

Or even if you're not in a clan, it would be nice if you could say, log into a web-based system and set your character's default daily activities that would be performed virtually when you aren't logging in.  So you could set it to early morning-high sun=hunting (northlands), early afternoon-late afternoon=foraging (food-northlands), dusk-dawn=sleeping.  Then, when you log back in after a period of time, you might have a few hides/skins/bones (based on your skill levels) and some relevant food-forage items.  Nothing major, but at least enough to make some 'sid to cover rent, so you don't have to madly spam-hunt every time you log in just to afford a quiet place to mudsex.  Also, your relevant skills (scan/listen/hunt/archery/ride/combat/etc.) would go up incrementally.  If you wanted to be really evil, you could have negative consequences attached (e.g. you roll a natural 1 and a virtual raider virtually raids and takes 100 'sid or whatever).

Speaking of rent:  automated rent payment.

The same things could go for crafters:  you set your default crafting activities, and you'd end up with materials and/or finished goods related to the default, and your skills would go up.

So on and so forth.  I suppose certain skills wouldn't be applicable (steal, pick, backstab, sap), but that's a fairly small limitation, overall.

The idea is mostly to let "maintenance" stuff occur virtually, so that a) your PC doesn't fall behind his peers, skill-wise such that b) when you free up some time for the RPT, you aren't completely skill-less, despite your PC having been around for RL months, and c) you can do more interesting stuff when you log in, instead of spam-foraging salt for the hour you have, just to cover your rent.

Could someone "abuse" it by rolling a PC, setting defaults, not logging in for a year, then coming back to a hardcore badass? I suppose...but...someone being willing to wait 6-12 months just to cause some grief seems pretty far-fetched.

You could handle it more simply by just giving people coins and mild skill bumps across the board without any of the fancy stuff, but the default-activities route seems to be a more elegant solution.

Why??

Far-fetch, no, matter of fact, I know three or for people that would happy do it just to put in your face and "HA, mother fucker". And , yes, people do shit out of spite.

Aside from that, its easy to go off and get lost in RL, or some other game, while knowing that you character is growing.

Really if this is a need and was implemented then it would become the norm and you would see more characters, yet less interaction on a role play level. Soon people would leave the mud all together.

::)

I was thinking something similar to Synth's suggestion, but with a caveat; I don't think there should be any item/money gain, and I think that the skill gain should be about 1/8 the rate it could be if you were logged in and actively training everything. That way people who want to spend most of their time socializing can still practice in their off time (when logged out), though if they're logged in 8 hours a day not training, their skills aren't going to be going up much, since they're not logged out. It would balance fairly well I think.

This would also be nice for hard-to-train skills such as backstab. ICly, it'd represent virtual practice and learn-by-observation, and OOCly, it'd encourage longevity and patience.

Edit:

The reason I don't think items/money should accrue while logged out is simple.

If you're never using an apartment, you don't need one; let people who play more often rent it out. If you really need a place to hunker down and/or mudsex there's always tavern back rooms (also; shameless plug for my idea of having multiple inn rooms available for daily/weekly rentals, so you can stash your trade goods)

As for money and items, when logged out, you don't need food or water, so the virtual maintenance balances itself out that way.

The benefits of putting time and effort and interaction into the game would still be there.  I think we are just looking for ways to balance things out at least a little bit for those of us that can't sit in the game for hours on end.  One thing that could be done is having PC age affect skills (at least a little) or something.  The counter-balance to this would be the detriments that come with old age.  So no, everyone won't start rolling old geezers just to have higher skills.  In fact, I think there would also need to be something else along the lines of what Synth suggested in order to really balance things out.  Nobody is looking to ruin the game... just make it more playable for a lot of people.

Quote from: a strange shadow on June 01, 2011, 01:17:19 PM
I was thinking something similar to Synth's suggestion, but with a caveat; I don't think there should be any item/money gain, and I think that the skill gain should be about 1/8 the rate it could be if you were logged in and actively training everything. That way people who want to spend most of their time socializing can still practice in their off time (when logged out), though if they're logged in 8 hours a day not training, their skills aren't going to be going up much, since they're not logged out. It would balance fairly well I think.

This would also be nice for hard-to-train skills such as backstab. ICly, it'd represent virtual practice and learn-by-observation, and OOCly, it'd encourage longevity and patience.

My caveat would be that there was a 45% chance you log into to a mantis head from a training accident, poisoned your self, murdered on the way to the market to get the food to cook or materials to craft. Robbed, beaten, murdered, torn to tiny bits and rapped repeatedly with a gortok jaw during your logged off sessions of Buffer-roo-bonzai.

Then we would be speaking more on a Virtual reality, for which you all are posing.  

Not being able to put time into the game isn't really about stats, is it?  It isn't for me at least.  What makes Armageddon shine is the PC to PC interaction and when you can't put time in for that...no way to automate that.

Quote from: DustMight on June 01, 2011, 01:26:32 PM
Not being able to put time into the game isn't really about stats, is it?  It isn't for me at least.  What makes Armageddon shine is the PC to PC interaction and when you can't put time in for that...no way to automate that.

The entire point of automating the banal shit is so you can actually interact with people when you log in, instead of doing banal shit...without having to suffer the consequence of being completely useless at anything that requires coded skill.

As an analogy:  imagine if during your pen-and paper tabletop gaming sessions, your DM made you actually sit there for the required number of game-hours memorizing spells, instead of hand-waving and saying "okay, all the time required for spell mems passed when we weren't playing during the work-week, now you've got your spells."  Nobody would ever play with that DM, because you'd spend the vast majority of your time sitting around doing dumb, repetitive shit.

As far as nightmare scenarios are concerned (Potaje):  let it go, dude.  You're taking some bizarro-extreme example that would never be implemented and using it as your arguing point.  Income could be easily balanced.  Skill-gain could be capped at "journeyman" or whatever.  Saying, "OMFG it will be overpowered," before we even begin discussing caps and limitations is premature and really...pretty annoying.

Without going so far as to have offline training (like Eve does, btw; I'm not saying it's crazy), you could adjust the skill gain calculations such that the least bit of training, done regularly, was nearly as effective as constant training.

DustMight, how much time per day would you be both willing and able to put into Armageddon?  Per week?

The biggest drawback of multilayer online games is that time is a big advantage to anyone willing to invest it.  Some can afford to put more time into games, and others cannot, this creates a situation where the one group is always going to have more.

In Arm, time equals skills/materials/money, but it is also friends/relationships/exposure with others/etc.  In my time playing, I've noticed many (including myself) don't want to play with others that don't play at least at some regular degree (depending on whatever is expected).  In fact when someone of power or influence doesn't log in regularly, its very easy to get frustrated/angry/upset because they are depended on to some degree.  Those that play more frequently may not consider it worth their own time to play with those that aren't around consistently/regularly.

 a better argument is that training and crafting are role play opportunities as much as sitting on ones ass in the tavern socializing. Basically whats being suggested is the free ride to twinking, because you abhor the -in game- grind.
I simply disagree, Synthesis, who are you to say give it up, you post your opinions, these are mine, whether you agree with them or not. 

Yeah why I suggested before that you be able to buy higher mundane skills with karma and not just mages and races. Who wants to go through the grind?

It also doesn't make sense for you to be in the 'byn or a martial group and not learn to kick when everyone is kicking or assassins being unable to rescue even after a year of doing so. So I don't know lots of things don't exactly make sense when it comes to skill learningnot just why your character sucks because he doesn't log in.

Quote from: Titania on June 01, 2011, 02:33:14 PM
Yeah why I suggested before that you be able to buy higher mundane skills with karma and not just mages and races. Who wants to go through the grind?

Another good idea... maybe a little bit of each of these ideas would bring the proper balance.

Quote from: Potaje on June 01, 2011, 02:31:53 PM
a better argument is that training and crafting are role play opportunities as much as sitting on ones ass in the tavern socializing. Basically whats being suggested is the free ride to twinking, because you abhor the -in game- grind.
I simply disagree, Synthesis, who are you to say give it up, you post your opinions, these are mine, whether you agree with them or not.  

Exactly... just the same as different people have different amounts of time to play or different playing styles.  It would be nice if the those that didn't have much time to play were not punished for it.  Nobody is asking for a free ride to twink.. seriously.  They just want to be able to play the game and have fun, just like you.

Quote from: DustMight on June 01, 2011, 09:44:16 AM
As a middle-aged gamer I have tons of RL stuff I love to do - work and my family obligations topping the charts.  Factor in all the other stuff - running and hiking, playing guitar, drinking beer on my porch - well there just isn't that much time to game nor do I have the patience to sit in front of the computer for endless hours developing plots, hanging out and socializing and all that.

The bolded part.. that's a lot of it right there.  When you have more important stuff to do, it's hard to want to play as much or the same as you've done in the past - or how others play or are expected to play.  I'm not saying everyone needs to cater to only the needs of the time-challenged, but what do you do?  Balance things out a little or say "go away"?  There are ways to play and RP properly without playing the same as everyone else does... plot-intensive or social-intensive, whatever you want to call it.   The problem is that it's just not very easy and it is not as fun when you get handicapped because you can't do the grind.  Whether it be the social grind or skill grind or anything else.

I really like the idea of a middle ground between having to quit or full time jobs to be competitive, and taking away the gains that come through effort.

I think some offline gain at a percentage couple with caps is a nice compromise. (For what it's worth and no one asked me, I play 15-20 hours a week.

Another idea I had was learning by watching.

Sort of like an auto-teach. (small chance but a chance?)

If you are in the room when a master is performing certain actions, surely clever people could pick up on it. Someone makes a chest, you see him a couple times I think that would boost your ability to make chests realistically more than grabbing some wood and trying it a few times.  I could go on and on. You see a ranger finding tracks, just watching where he goes and what he does seems like it'd help you.

But I think it you should have to be less than journeyman or some difference level for it to work like that.


Maybe not all skills, maybe only visible ones?

Quote from: Potaje on June 01, 2011, 02:31:53 PM
a better argument is that training and crafting are role play opportunities as much as sitting on ones ass in the tavern socializing. Basically whats being suggested is the free ride to twinking, because you abhor the -in game- grind.
I simply disagree, Synthesis, who are you to say give it up, you post your opinions, these are mine, whether you agree with them or not. 

Yeah, they're your opinions, but there's a difference between "having an opinion that people disagree with that has no negative effects on those who disagree with it" and "having an opinion that people disagree with that does have negative effects on those who disagree with it"  (see: gay marriage; pedophilia).

As far as role-playing is concerned:  going back to my analogy...the DM could say that "oh, well, roleplaying out memorizing your spells is roleplaying just as much as going out to firestorm a goblin camp...suck it up."  The question isn't about what is or isn't roleplay:  it's about what is fun roleplay.

Now, you might answer, "Well, sparring and salt-foraging are fun, for me," and that's fine.  For you.  However, seeing as this is a multiplayer game, I think the optimal situation promotes an environment where everyone can enjoy the game, not just those who have three or more hours to put in every day.

Quote from: a strange shadow on June 01, 2011, 01:17:19 PM
The reason I don't think items/money should accrue while logged out is simple.

If you're never using an apartment, you don't need one; let people who play more often rent it out. If you really need a place to hunker down and/or mudsex there's always tavern back rooms (also; shameless plug for my idea of having multiple inn rooms available for daily/weekly rentals, so you can stash your trade goods)

As for money and items, when logged out, you don't need food or water, so the virtual maintenance balances itself out that way.

Two problems with your train of thought, here:

1) Apartments shouldn't be a privilege reserved for those who can play often.  The solution, if there is an apartment shortage, is to provide more apartments, not to create (or maintain, really) a two-tiered class system of players.

2) Virtual maintenance is only balanced at zero if the average player who plays regularly doesn't accrue any net gain by doing things while logged in.  Since I'm pretty sure everyone beyond the abject newbie stage maintains a positive 'sid balance (otherwise, they'd be starving to death), this clearly isn't in balance:  being logged in and playing yields a positive income, while not being logged in yields zero income.  Thus, the balance is clearly tipped in favor of those who log in frequently.  (Note:  this only applies to indies who aren't getting access to "free" food/water from a clan, and who aren't getting regular monthly payments from the clan.)

Quote from: Titania on June 01, 2011, 02:54:30 PM
Another idea I had was learning by watching.

Sort of like an auto-teach. (small chance but a chance?)

If you are in the room when a master is performing certain actions, surely clever people could pick up on it. Someone makes a chest, you see him a couple times I think that would boost your ability to make chests realistically more than grabbing some wood and trying it a few times.  I could go on and on. You see a ranger finding tracks, just watching where he goes and what he does seems like it'd help you.

The problem with this is that it doesn't really solve the problem of "you haven't logged in enough, therefore  you suck at everything despite having played this character for 2-3 RL months."

Neither does it solve the "you're broke as a joke despite having played this character for 2-3 RL months...meanwhile the dude you saw in the Hall of Kings when you were picking scars is funding his own upstart merchant house."

Good points, Synthesis, I can't really argue with any of that.

This problem has been encountered on many MUDs before.  

As to the opposite point, I remember one, specifically on a PK MUD, where there was a Swedish kid who was literally logged in 24 hours a day (idling while he slept 6-8 hours), and within a year or two, he'd managed to accrue every item and level on the game, which was beyond the intention of the creator.  What's funny, too, was that some of us with better random variables and PK skill were still "winning."

There are always going to be people who can devote more or less time to a game.  I always liked running into those folks I thought were dead or stored, and if they were a good roleplayer or interesting character, tried to make time to interact (because to me, you can bend the rules for interaction, because it is ultimately the golden rule).

Now, to me, it would already seem frustrating playing a character for a long time, having to endure this grind, roleplay it tediously, only to see Hamburglar twink their way to the finish line, so to speak.  Now, you're saying you can just skip the twinking, and karma up?  Bah.  I wouldn't play anything other than merchant, in this case.

I do like Synth's idea, and probably, for better or worse, I'd cut my playing times down.  I'm probably logging in too much as it is, right now.  I think you'd see a dramatic slide down to something like 10-15 hours a week, though.  I don't think I'm alone there, either.

How what I said helps, but not fixes it is is add more ways to get your skills up with the time you do have. I guess if someone doesn't exactly agree with you, you jump to bullying with your yes-man toadies.

Would there be any chance of dying in the automation?  Risk vs. reward and all.

Quality over quantity I don't see as a bad thing. I doubt these ideas will ever come to pass, but a girl can dream.

Eldritch: I imagine the auto-gain would be capped at a mid-low level. Somewhere around 'competent enough to not suck horribly, but not really great, either'.

Quote from: Synthesis on June 01, 2011, 03:12:54 PM

Quote from: Potaje on June 01, 2011, 02:31:53 PM
a better argument is that training and crafting are role play opportunities as much as sitting on ones ass in the tavern socializing. Basically whats being suggested is the free ride to twinking, because you abhor the -in game- grind.
I simply disagree, Synthesis, who are you to say give it up, you post your opinions, these are mine, whether you agree with them or not.  

Yeah, they're your opinions, but there's a difference between "having an opinion that people disagree with that has no negative effects on those who disagree with it" and "having an opinion that people disagree with that does have negative effects on those who disagree with it"  (see: gay marriage; pedophilia).

As far as role-playing is concerned:  going back to my analogy...the DM could say that "oh, well, roleplaying out memorizing your spells is roleplaying just as much as going out to firestorm a goblin camp...suck it up."  The question isn't about what is or isn't roleplay:  it's about what is fun roleplay.

Now, you might answer, "Well, sparring and salt-foraging are fun, for me," and that's fine.  For you.  However, seeing as this is a multiplayer game, I think the optimal situation promotes an environment where everyone can enjoy the game, not just those who have three or more hours to put in every day.

What I went on to say is that there needs to be a balance if you want the realism your asking for in your stat/skill boosts. You pc needs to also have the - I constantly exist so I should be much better than I am - scenario. If you can justify the point that you would be always training then It is equally justifiable that your pc would have to go out of the safety of a concealed environment and thus should take all the same chance of being killed, injured or robbed.
So your whole comment about my rebuke of your idea is short sighted and purely defensiveness.

Quote from: Potaje on June 01, 2011, 03:37:21 PM

Quote from: Synthesis on June 01, 2011, 03:12:54 PM

Quote from: Potaje on June 01, 2011, 02:31:53 PM
a better argument is that training and crafting are role play opportunities as much as sitting on ones ass in the tavern socializing. Basically whats being suggested is the free ride to twinking, because you abhor the -in game- grind.
I simply disagree, Synthesis, who are you to say give it up, you post your opinions, these are mine, whether you agree with them or not.  

Yeah, they're your opinions, but there's a difference between "having an opinion that people disagree with that has no negative effects on those who disagree with it" and "having an opinion that people disagree with that does have negative effects on those who disagree with it"  (see: gay marriage; pedophilia).

As far as role-playing is concerned:  going back to my analogy...the DM could say that "oh, well, roleplaying out memorizing your spells is roleplaying just as much as going out to firestorm a goblin camp...suck it up."  The question isn't about what is or isn't roleplay:  it's about what is fun roleplay.

Now, you might answer, "Well, sparring and salt-foraging are fun, for me," and that's fine.  For you.  However, seeing as this is a multiplayer game, I think the optimal situation promotes an environment where everyone can enjoy the game, not just those who have three or more hours to put in every day.

What I went on to say is that there needs to be a balance if you want the realism your asking for in your stat/skill boosts. You pc needs to also have the - I constantly exist so I should be much better than I am - scenario. If you can justify the point that you would be always training then It is equally justifiable that your pc would have to go out of the safety of a concealed environment and thus should take all the same chance of being killed, injured or robbed.
So your whole comment about my rebuke of your idea is short sighted and purely defensiveness.

If I was short-sighted and defensive, it's because your original posts were far less conciliatory and open-minded than your subsequent posts have been.  Your first post was "people will log in once a year to grief everyone!" and "everyone will stop playing!", two outcomes which, quite frankly, I'm sure you realize are ridiculous and would never be allowed, yet you brought them up presumably for purely rhetorical purposes.  Your next post was "well, critical failure should result in DEATH," which again...is just as dumb a suggestion as your previous two (see: necksnap).  Finally, you retreated to "well, that's just my opinion, man."  So it strikes me as fairly absurd that you're accusing -me- of being casually dismissive, when you haven't posted anything that could be even remotely considered as a constructive, intelligent response.

If you re-read my original suggestion, I included in it the possibility of some negative consequences on "critical failures" of the default-activities script.  However, I think "death" would be a particularly stupid potential outcome of failure.  Clearly, we'd like to tie reward to risk, and that's really all that needs to be said about it on the GDB, because the particular reward ratio would be something that requires data that a) aren't publicly available and b) shouldn't be posted on the GDB, even if known.

I'd be interested to see a system something like this:

Suppose that skill level is a numeric value from 0 to 100.

(1) For every skill slot, track the amount of improvement in the last day and in the last week.  (Rolling average, not Sunday-to-Sunday.)  Call these numbers SkillGainedLastDay and SkillGainedLastWeek.
(2) Set two global caps: MaxGainPerDay and MaxGainPerWeek.  (You might adjust the base values for each character based on his stats.)
(3) Set two skill gain rates: ImprovePerFail and ImprovePerSuccess.

When you use a skill and fail, that skill increases like so:
  skill = skill + ImprovePerFail * min( MaxGainPerDay - SkillGainedLastDay, MaxGainPerWeek - SkillGainedLastWeek )

When you use a skill and succeed, the skill increases by:
  skill = skill + ImprovePerSuccess * min( MaxGainPerDay - SkillGainedLastDay, MaxGainperWeek - SkillGainedLastWeek )

This system gives you much flexibility for tweaking how you want the game to feel.  If you want to really level the field between active and casual players, you set:
  MaxGainPerWeek = 2 * MaxGainPerDay  (after your second day, you've maxed your skills for the week)
  ImprovePerFail = 0.7  (a single failure gives you 70% of the total allowed skill gain for the day/week)
  ImprovePerSuccess = 0.3  (even succeeding at a skill helps you a ton)

If you want to put things in hard/grindy mode, you set:
   MaxGainPerWeek = 7 * MaxGainPerDay   (effectively no weekly cap)
   ImprovePerFail = 0.1  (requires many failures to max out your improvement cap)
   ImprovePerSuccess = 0.0  (no improvement when you succeed)


What I like about this, as opposed to setting up offline training, is that it does require consistent play.  If you're not logged in AT ALL, exposed to other players and the environment, and actually using your skills (at least a little bit), you will not improve.  Yet it can be tuned such that even a little bit of usage will keep you even with your fellow players in the skillin'-up arms race.

I think TL;DR is a little rude when considering someone who is totally nice, like brytta.  So I'll say, TMM;DR (Too Much Math; Didn't Read).   ;)

@ Synthesis:

While I like your idea, and would endorse it, do you think it's possible that people will play Arm a lot less, increasing the chance of losing playerbase to other activities?

I seriously doubt people would abuse automated actions by staying logged out to improve if automation was capped significantly and/or slowed down in comparison to actually playing. Plus, players love to actually play the game whenever they can  :) CRACKAGEDDON will call them back if abusing automation ever entered their mind.

I don't see a problem with auto-paying rent by drawing out from a bank account either (our bankers are also our landlords, after all). It actually sounds like a convenient feature that would help everyone. You could even offer the option to toggle it at an apartment lobby.

However, considering these changes are probably kind of difficult to put into the current game, I think it's important to go over a couple of tips that casual players might be able to use.

Consistency, not quantity, is key. Being on during the same times regularly counts for more than being able to give large amounts of time to the game. If other players know your PC will be around 7PM - 9PM daily, or the same few hours on weekends, or something similar, then they'll be more likely to seek you out and interact with you. Plenty of people agree with their family and friends to set aside time for their hobbies, so you don't need to be ashamed of doing so either. Though I can't speak for staff, I would guess you are more likely to get a sponsored role if you play regular times, too.

Make your time count. Know what you like to play in Armageddon, and make sure most or all of your time is devoted to it by planning your PC background carefully to allow for what you like to do. If you like PC-to-PC interaction the most, play characters who could spend most or all of their time in taverns. If you like hunting and exploring, play a ranger and possibly join a clan giving you the freedom to do that. And so on and so forth. You might be able to find ideas for a role you might like by asking GDBers for a role. Helpers can also help you make a PC to some extent.

Tell us what times you think you could meet and I'm sure a few people will give you ideas for a role if you're stumped.

Quote from: Kismetic on June 01, 2011, 04:23:09 PM
I think TL;DR is a little rude when considering someone who is totally nice, like brytta.  So I'll say, TMM;DR (Too Much Math; Didn't Read).   ;)

:D :P

TL;DR: Set up daily and weekly caps for skill gain to limit the hardcore players.  (That's not an original idea.)  Make your first few practice attempts of the day or week worth more than your later ones.

Yeah, I'd be relatively satisfied with a system where you could get one good login per week (Sunday night for most people, I imagine) and get get 70-80% of the same skillgain as someone who logged in every day.  

However, I wouldn't tie the calculation to the relative amount you've improved, but to the amount of time you've actually spent logged in.  There's no reason for such a system to benefit people who play 8 hours a day, but spend the entire time mudsexing, for instance.

Thus, SkillgainPerFail would be inversely proportional to RollingAverageLoginTime and directly proportional to (MaxSkillgainThisWeek - ActualSkillgainPerWeek), while MaxSkillgainPerWeek would be capped at the same value for all cases, and obviously would be a hard cap on progression.

At the same time, the wisdom stat could modify (increase or decrease) both MaxSkillgainPerWeek and SkillgainPerFail, although I'd remove the "increases only on fails" restriction, because at higher levels, that amounts to a time-played advantage, as failures become quite difficult to achieve in some cases.

But skills are only half the battle, here.  Income equalities persist...but I imagine that certain things like salt foraging are intentionally weighted toward the "excess income" side to lend some support in that regard...even if they have the potential to make the income divide even larger, when taken to extremes by individuals with high playtimes.

Quote from: Titania on June 01, 2011, 03:30:59 PM
How what I said helps, but not fixes it is is add more ways to get your skills up with the time you do have. I guess if someone doesn't exactly agree with you, you jump to bullying with your yes-man toadies.

Chill out, dude...nobody's bullying.  I was just outlining the limitations of your approach, with respect to some of the problems that have been outlined.

Quote from: brytta.leofa on June 01, 2011, 04:37:02 PM

Quote from: Kismetic on June 01, 2011, 04:23:09 PM
I think TL;DR is a little rude when considering someone who is totally nice, like brytta.  So I'll say, TMM;DR (Too Much Math; Didn't Read).   ;)

:D :P

TL;DR: Set up daily and weekly caps for skill gain to limit the hardcore players.  (That's not an original idea.)  Make your first few practice attempts of the day or week worth more than your later ones.

As someone with a lot of free time, currently (but not always in the past), who now plays Arm hardcore, I can tell you that it's already pretty hard to max out a character.  ;)

Or maybe I'm doing it wrong!  I definitely would hate for it to be harder.  Having had a character before with over 1, 000 hours logged that I felt like was only halfway through their coded development seemed pretty ominous (in a good, and challenging way).

Quote from: Synthesis on June 01, 2011, 04:39:19 PM
Thus, SkillgainPerFail would be inversely proportional to RollingAverageLoginTime and directly proportional to (MaxSkillgainThisWeek - ActualSkillgainPerWeek),

Isn't that already covered by the necessity of actually using the skill?  If you're idling/tavern sitting/sexin', you're not using your weapon skills.

Quote from: Kismetic on June 01, 2011, 04:49:42 PM
Or maybe I'm doing it wrong!  I definitely would hate for it to be harder.

I don't want it to be harder, per se; I want it to be very nearly the same difficulty for "average" and "hardcore" players, with "casual" players skilling up at a slower but still respectable rate.  Whether that means that your skills would increase slower or that everybody else's would increase faster...would depend on how things were set.

This is my basic understanding of this, would it be like increasing (doubling, trippling?) skill gains for those logged in over an hour (or some other minimum amount of time) but less than two hours (or some other max amount of time)  in a 24 hour (or some other extended) period?  With the gains being applied after the extended period?

Quote from: brytta.leofa on June 01, 2011, 05:09:19 PM

Quote from: Synthesis on June 01, 2011, 04:39:19 PM
Thus, SkillgainPerFail would be inversely proportional to RollingAverageLoginTime and directly proportional to (MaxSkillgainThisWeek - ActualSkillgainPerWeek),

Isn't that already covered by the necessity of actually using the skill?  If you're idling/tavern sitting/sexin', you're not using your weapon skills.

Yes, but under your proposed system, someone who logs in predominantly to mudsex, whose job has nothing to do with sparring or fighting, etc, etc. could advance in combat skills almost as quickly as someone who spars every day.  Thus, your proposed system simply benefits everyone who spars little, not just those who spar little because they don't have the time to log in and do it.  Example:  you can mudsex 8 hours a day, 7 days a week, then spar once, and you'd have 70-80% of the same skillgain as someone who spars 8 hours a day, 7 days a week.  Clearly, that isn't a defensible system.

I don't want everyone to get easier skillgains, only those who simply aren't logging in frequently enough under the current system.  Thus, for simplicity's sake, it should be tied to the variable that matters:  actual time spent logged in.

I'm just chiming in to agree with the OP.  I chronically play rogue magickers because somehow it fits i.e. you never get "in" with too many people anyways, so why develop relationships?

I feel ya, I had a Sorcerer (talk about anti-social) die many years ago ultimately because I could not log into an RPT (though that isn't the whole reason).  Its sort of frustrating.

Seems like such a system would discourage the hardcore players to maintain there high play-times, which in a leadership role is always nice to have.

I figure a good way to do it would to gradually increase how much skill your allowed to improve the longer you haven't been logged on. Maybe this could be coupled with gaining just a bit of skill while logged off, too?

Say you log on every day for a week. Your max gain is determined by wisdom, so you have decent wisdom, like 20. That means you can improve your skill every two hours (i am spitballing i do not know how code works). Now, your skill timer gradually gets smaller and smaller the less you log in. Say you don't log in for a week. Your skill timer gets reset to skill gain every thirty minutes or every ten minutes, to where you eventually get back to what would be an average. Gain skill and the skill timer gets slightly longer until it equalizes with your wisdom as normal.

Quote from: Kismetic on June 01, 2011, 04:23:09 PM
While I like your idea, and would endorse it, do you think it's possible that people will play Arm a lot less, increasing the chance of losing playerbase to other activities?

I don't think that would happen, because I think that the main issue for people is that they WANT to be able to login more... just can't.  I would pick the chance to log in and actually play the game over the choice of staying offline and having minimal skill increases and missing the other fun I could be having actually being in the game.

Quote from: NOFUN on June 01, 2011, 06:04:03 PM
Seems like such a system would discourage the hardcore players to maintain there high play-times, which in a leadership role is always nice to have.

I would have pretty close to the same answer to this... most people that like to play a lot are going to do so anyway.  I'm pretty positive a properly balanced system would not cause any issues like this.  Most of the fun is actually being in the game and interacting... it would just make interacting more fun and viable for those that can't be in the game as much as they would like.

Quote from: MeTekillot on June 01, 2011, 06:33:09 PM
I figure a good way to do it would to gradually increase how much skill your allowed to improve the longer you haven't been logged on. Maybe this could be coupled with gaining just a bit of skill while logged off, too?

Say you log on every day for a week. Your max gain is determined by wisdom, so you have decent wisdom, like 20. That means you can improve your skill every two hours (i am spitballing i do not know how code works). Now, your skill timer gradually gets smaller and smaller the less you log in. Say you don't log in for a week. Your skill timer gets reset to skill gain every thirty minutes or every ten minutes, to where you eventually get back to what would be an average. Gain skill and the skill timer gets slightly longer until it equalizes with your wisdom as normal.

That's basically what brytta.leofa and I are suggesting, but by changing the amount of skillgain per boost, rather than the frequency with which you can get boosts.

Again, a frequency-based system isn't going to help a low-time player, because even if it technically allows them to spam-train and get multiple skillgains quickly, the point is that a low-time player doesn't want to spend all of his time spam-training.

You guys are doing a good job of hashing this out, but I personally wouldn't support moving the training aspect of the game off stage, so to speak. In my opinion, training is an important aspect of character development, and you are cheating yourself and your fellow players by taking it off stage. If you don't like training backstab anymore, maybe it is time to play a merchant.

Quote from: Drayab on June 01, 2011, 07:57:06 PM
You guys are doing a good job of hashing this out, but I personally wouldn't support moving the training aspect of the game off stage, so to speak. In my opinion, training is an important aspect of character development, and you are cheating yourself and your fellow players by taking it off stage. If you don't like training backstab anymore, maybe it is time to play a merchant.

I have to agree here.

Quote from: Drayab on June 01, 2011, 07:57:06 PM
You guys are doing a good job of hashing this out, but I personally wouldn't support moving the training aspect of the game off stage, so to speak. In my opinion, training is an important aspect of character development, and you are cheating yourself and your fellow players by taking it off stage. If you don't like training backstab anymore, maybe it is time to play a merchant.

We've already suggested removing certain skills from consideration, here.

We've also already addressed the "training is roleplay" objection.

If you have specific counter-arguments to those, by all means, continue, but simply stating the same thing over and over again because you couldn't be bothered to read the entire thread is just lazy.

Mm... Just going to note ... There is somewhat of a fundamental flaw in a game, as a game, that rewards you for not playing it.  ;)

Quote from: Kalai on June 01, 2011, 08:09:51 PM
Mm... Just going to note ... There is somewhat of a fundamental flaw in a game, as a game, that rewards you for not playing it.  ;)

One man's "reward for not logging in" is another man's "removal of a penalty for not logging in."

And it's not a fundamental game design flaw unless there's some negative unintended consequence.  Some have been proposed, but ironically hinting that there may be others isn't really that helpful.

Well, I think you should still be rewarded more for playing as opposed to not playing...(even though one could argue that the privilege of having time to play more than others is reward enough in itself) but I think the whole point of balancing things out would be to not penalize those of us that have minimal time to play.  Obviously it would still be unbalanced if you were rewarding people for playing less... I think we are trying to figure out how to meet in the middle somewhere so that low-time players are not at such a huge disadvantage and they are able to focus more on role-playing their character properly.  It's hard to RP a rugged, experienced <whatever> when you barely have enough time to hone your skills enough to <do whatever>.  ;)   Yes, we all know that skills are not everything, but the coded aspect of the game is a huge part of the reason why we love Armageddon.

I don't see why players who put more into Armageddon shouldn't get more out of it. Sure, it's not fair on those with less time but that guy who plays all day everyday probably put a lot of IRL stuff aside so he/she can play more.

Quote from: Synthesis on June 01, 2011, 08:15:52 PM

Quote from: Kalai on June 01, 2011, 08:09:51 PM
Mm... Just going to note ... There is somewhat of a fundamental flaw in a game, as a game, that rewards you for not playing it.  ;)

One man's "reward for not logging in" is another man's "removal of a penalty for not logging in."

And it's not a fundamental game design flaw unless there's some negative unintended consequence.  Some have been proposed, but ironically hinting that there may be others isn't really that helpful.

Yea, to be honest, you're doing an excellent job of figuring out how it should work, if it were implemented. I'm unsure it's the most useful suggestion for players currently trying to play with the code as is, and feel like this discussion would go better in code discussion with some links.

Quote from: Synthesis on June 01, 2011, 08:04:30 PM

Quote from: Drayab on June 01, 2011, 07:57:06 PM
You guys are doing a good job of hashing this out, but I personally wouldn't support moving the training aspect of the game off stage, so to speak. In my opinion, training is an important aspect of character development, and you are cheating yourself and your fellow players by taking it off stage. If you don't like training backstab anymore, maybe it is time to play a merchant.

We've already suggested removing certain skills from consideration, here.

We've also already addressed the "training is roleplay" objection.

If you have specific counter-arguments to those, by all means, continue, but simply stating the same thing over and over again because you couldn't be bothered to read the entire thread is just lazy.

Well, backstab was just an easy example. Replace it with whatever skill it is you don't like training anymore.

To prove I read it, here's your argument against 'training is roleplay.'

Quote from: Synthesis
As far as role-playing is concerned:  going back to my analogy...the DM could say that "oh, well, roleplaying out memorizing your spells is roleplaying just as much as going out to firestorm a goblin camp...suck it up."  The question isn't about what is or isn't roleplay:  it's about what is fun roleplay.

Now, you might answer, "Well, sparring and salt-foraging are fun, for me," and that's fine.  For you.  However, seeing as this is a multiplayer game, I think the optimal situation promotes an environment where everyone can enjoy the game, not just those who have three or more hours to put in every day

Now, I agree that we should try to make the game fun for everybody, within reason, and there are certainly things we'd rather have handled off-stage, but I think you are taking a myopic point of view about training. In the game, training is not done in a vacuum. You will inevitably interact with other characters on some level. A hunter bumps into raiders. A pickpocket gets notices sneaking around. A warrior spends a lot of time sparring, and people start to talk about his/her skill in the taverns as they begin to build up a reputation. By moving it off stage, you are removing all those interactions your character should have had as a normal part of their development. So, I say you should do a better job of choosing a role that you will like every aspect of (ha) so that none of your time gets wasted on things you don't like.

Quote from: Sokotra on June 01, 2011, 08:20:14 PM
Well, I think you should still be rewarded more for playing as opposed to not playing... but I think the whole point of balancing things out would be to not penalize those of us that have minimal time to play.  Obviously it would still be unbalanced if you were rewarding people for playing less... I think we are trying to figure out how to meet in the middle somewhere.

Quote from: NOFUN on June 01, 2011, 08:29:06 PM
I don't see why players who put more into Armageddon shouldn't get more out of it. Sure, it's not fair on those with less time but that guy who plays all day everyday probably put a lot of IRL stuff aside so he/she can play more.

Yeah, I don't think anyone is arguing that actually logging in shouldn't be more beneficial, in any regard.

I should note that technically, the skillgain system is already set up such that not playing a lot is vastly more beneficial than high playtimes, in terms of the (skillgain:time spent at keyboard) ratio, if you have the stomach and discipline to really push the boundaries.

Also, you know...I kind of question whether it's really that healthy to encourage players to log in beyond a certain amount of time.  Intuitively, "more players, playing more = better," but is that necessarily the case?  I mean, we all get a chuckle out of the CRACKAGEDDON meme, but there is a real dark side to it, and it's not just in terms of RL detriments.  I think it's arguable that the quality of the game suffers overall when you're only encouraging a certain type of player...for argument's sake, let's go with "emotionally-stunted basement-dweller."

Quote from: Drayab on June 01, 2011, 08:42:14 PM

Quote from: Synthesis on June 01, 2011, 08:04:30 PM

Quote from: Drayab on June 01, 2011, 07:57:06 PM
You guys are doing a good job of hashing this out, but I personally wouldn't support moving the training aspect of the game off stage, so to speak. In my opinion, training is an important aspect of character development, and you are cheating yourself and your fellow players by taking it off stage. If you don't like training backstab anymore, maybe it is time to play a merchant.

We've already suggested removing certain skills from consideration, here.

We've also already addressed the "training is roleplay" objection.

If you have specific counter-arguments to those, by all means, continue, but simply stating the same thing over and over again because you couldn't be bothered to read the entire thread is just lazy.

Well, backstab was just an easy example. Replace it with whatever skill it is you don't like training anymore.

To prove I read it, here's your argument against 'training is roleplay.'

Quote from: Synthesis
As far as role-playing is concerned:  going back to my analogy...the DM could say that "oh, well, roleplaying out memorizing your spells is roleplaying just as much as going out to firestorm a goblin camp...suck it up."  The question isn't about what is or isn't roleplay:  it's about what is fun roleplay.

Now, you might answer, "Well, sparring and salt-foraging are fun, for me," and that's fine.  For you.  However, seeing as this is a multiplayer game, I think the optimal situation promotes an environment where everyone can enjoy the game, not just those who have three or more hours to put in every day

Now, I agree that we should try to make the game fun for everybody, within reason, and there are certainly things we'd rather have handled off-stage, but I think you are taking a myopic point of view about training. In the game, training is not done in a vacuum. You will inevitably interact with other characters on some level. A hunter bumps into raiders. A pickpocket gets notices sneaking around. A warrior spends a lot of time sparring, and people start to talk about his/her skill in the taverns as they begin to build up a reputation. By moving it off stage, you are removing all those interactions your character should have had as a normal part of their development. So, I say you should do a better job of choosing a role that you will like every aspect of (ha) so that none of your time gets wasted on things you don't like.

That's nice and all, but none of that stuff would happen (much) for someone who logs in infrequently, anyway, so there isn't much of a net "loss" of roleplay-interactions.

Yes, because people who put in a lot of time in Arm are all basement dwellers with no social life.  ::)

Quote from: BleakOne on June 01, 2011, 08:54:02 PM
Yes, because people who put in a lot of time in Arm are all basement dwellers with no social life.  ::)

Yes, because clearly that's what I said.  ::)

Quote from: Synthesis on June 01, 2011, 08:46:17 PM
That's nice and all, but none of that stuff would happen (much) for someone who logs in infrequently, anyway, so there isn't much of a net "loss" of roleplay-interactions.

It's more than just a net loss of interactions - it makes a hole in the collective story because nobody knows what you character has been up to until he decides to tell us. Maybe your character's friends won't care very much, but it gives your character an unfair level of anonymity when he makes some enemies. Nobody has ever heard of him practicing with his favored sword, so how can anybody know that is he is good at it? That sort of secrecy should not come for free.

Quote from: Synthesis on June 01, 2011, 09:00:17 PM

Quote from: BleakOne on June 01, 2011, 08:54:02 PM
Yes, because people who put in a lot of time in Arm are all basement dwellers with no social life.  ::)

Yes, because clearly that's what I said.  ::)

Just messin' with you, dude.  ;D

Quote from: Drayab on June 01, 2011, 09:02:41 PM

Quote from: Synthesis on June 01, 2011, 08:46:17 PM
That's nice and all, but none of that stuff would happen (much) for someone who logs in infrequently, anyway, so there isn't much of a net "loss" of roleplay-interactions.

It's more than just a net loss of interactions - it makes a hole in the collective story because nobody knows what you character has been up to until he decides to tell us. Maybe your character's friends won't care very much, but it gives your character an unfair level of anonymity when he makes some enemies. Nobody has ever heard of him practicing with his favored sword, so how can anybody know that is he is good at it? That sort of secrecy should not come for free.

Welcome to the life of an off-peaker, or a low-playtime player, dude.

My last PC only spoke words to two other PCs in about 7 days' played...over like 2 or 3 months RL time.

In short, your concerns are valid, but they have to be weighed against the very basic, very real penalties that casual gamers are facing.  Personally, I'm not too concerned with it, because really, the lack of basic anonymity is a problem, in and of itself.  Why should you know every dude in the city who's good with a sword?

 I would purpose, that if something where to be considered to be implemented that it be restricted to further variables:

1. Class and skills that can be trained must be tied to an association, i.e. for Weapon training they be enlisted in the Byn, or House Tor, House Winrothol, Arm of the Dragon or Sun Legion.

This would thus be more indicative than an independent that would have to seek out to the more virtually realistic dangers to train up their skills. And thus risk death or raiding.

All this can be translated into grebbing as well, perhaps with a caveat for independent grebbers to gain income, or not, for then you should also weight in the need to eat and drink constantly on an equal level.

This I would also see including sneakies in a guild of family, they would in actuality be risking their lives to further their abilities.

Now I exclude Greater Merchant Houses for trained fighters, for generally they are hunters, one could argue this aspect, fine, argue it.

But I would reserve them the ability to level up their crafters as the War Complexes hand the other aspect.

(Though I still disagree with the premises as a whole, this would be my constructive input.)

Quote from: Potaje on June 01, 2011, 09:45:35 PM
I would purpose, that if something where to be considered to be implemented that it be restricted to further variables:

1. Class and skills that can be trained must be tied to an association, i.e. for Weapon training they be enlisted in the Byn, or House Tor, House Winrothol, Arm of the Dragon or Sun Legion.

This would thus be more indicative than an independent that would have to seek out to the more virtually realistic dangers to train up their skills. And thus risk death or raiding.

All this can be translated into grebbing as well, perhaps with a caveat for independent grebbers to gain income, or not, for then you should also weight in the need to eat and drink constantly on an equal level.

This I would also see including sneakies in a guild of family, they would in actuality be risking their lives to further their abilities.

Now I exclude Greater Merchant Houses for trained fighters, for generally they are hunters, one could argue this aspect, fine, argue it.

But I would reserve them the ability to level up their crafters as the War Complexes hand the other aspect.

(Though I still disagree with the premises as a whole, this would be my constructive input.)

Restricting it to only after you join an organization is a bad idea on four points:
1. Joining a clan is a little difficult in the first place, if you don't play a lot, or you're off peak.
2. Clans have recruiting limits, and it would suck to have a clan populated by people who only play once a week, who joined only so they could get access to the script (although this is really the same problem as the apartments problem that I addressed earlier...i.e. the solution is to increase hiring caps, but I digress).
3. Clan-based PCs aren't the only ones who use skills, so there really doesn't seem to be a good reason to restrict skillgain to clan-based PCs.
4. Being in a clan sucks if you're hardly ever around, or if you're around only off-peak.

Again, risk:reward can be tailored for each particular skill, and a global cap can be put on the script so that no skill (just as an example) can progress beyond (journeyman) or whatever.  Since weapon skills in particular increase so slowly even when you're using them, they would presumably also improve very slowly via the 'default activities' method.

I really don't see what you're so concerned about, if we start with two fundamental limits:  1) nobody becomes a badass via the method and 2) nobody becomes wealthy via the method.

However, the clan thing is a good idea, on its own.  I would modify it such that being in a clan might improve the maximum level you could reach in particular skills via the "default activities" method.  E.g. if you're a Tor Scorpion, maybe you can get combat skills to (advanced) instead of just (journeyman), or if you're a crafter for House Kadius, you can get tailoring and jewelrymaking to (advanced), or whatever...but that's just sort of a bonus thing that isn't intrinsic to the general idea.

Quote from: Nyr on June 01, 2011, 01:51:29 PM
DustMight, how much time per day would you be both willing and able to put into Armageddon?  Per week?

I could never guarantee daily play-times. 

At best I might be able to do one or two times a week and one of those for several hours (meaning 3 - 6 hours).  The rest of the time is hit and miss.  Maybe one day at 5 hours, maybe another at an hour - maybe.  The following week, maybe only 3 hours total.

My personal goal when playing a character?  To generate plots.  But clearly I'll never qualify for a sponsored roll, for good reason and I certainly can't advance a character with those kind of play times to become a self-generating plot dude.

Quote from: Niamh on June 01, 2011, 10:26:27 AM
All you need is a laptop and wireless internet so that you can mud and drink all the beer you want on your porch.  My my, how far we've come.

This is a prime example of why we need a "like" button.

I remember back when I had alot of time to play Arm (around 5-7, sometimes upwards of 12 hours a day), I'd respond to a proposed system like this with a resounding, "Fuck no!"

But... now that I'm at the point to where making a character seems pointless because I can barely scrape together a few hours a week-- most of that time being spent grebbing for food and water or what-have-you, I really wouldn't mind seeing a system like this in place.

Arm is a -very- stagnant game for casual players.

Quote from: Potaje on June 01, 2011, 09:45:35 PM
1. Class and skills that can be trained must be tied to an association, i.e. for Weapon training they be enlisted in the Byn, or House Tor, House Winrothol, Arm of the Dragon or Sun Legion.

I'm not keen on offline training or on restricting it to clans...but, y'know, there have been times when getting signed on to the Tor Academy was about the worst thing you could do for your coded combat career.  Which is unfortunate.

(I know, the Academy is not primarily a sparring school.)

Quote from: Qzzrbl on June 01, 2011, 10:35:08 PM
I remember back when I had alot of time to play Arm (around 5-7, sometimes upwards of 12 hours a day), I'd respond to a proposed system like this with a resounding, "---- no!"

But... now that I'm at the point to where making a character seems pointless because I can barely scrape together a few hours a week-- most of that time being spent grebbing for food and water or what-have-you, I really wouldn't mind seeing a system like this in place.

Arm is a -very- stagnant game for casual players.

I would imagine a lot of people would have this response.  If they have plenty of time to play currently, they would be against these ideas.  Once they get (somewhat permanently) restricted by RL down to a couple of hours a week of play time they would suddenly like this idea.  If they didn't care, they would just disappear mostly and end up playing the game less and less... which is more likely to happen if you don't address the needs of low-time players.

As someone who plays this game anywhere from "none at all" to "all the time," I would highly encourage a system in place that offered a coded benefit for those of you struggling to find time to play.

However, here's what I'm having trouble with:

From what I can understand, you're saying ...  as a low-time player, you want your skills to progress at nearly the same rate as someone with high playing times, and yet ...  if a person with high playing times decides they don't want to spend their time logged in the game doing the mundane skill practice, they would make less progress than the player with little to no playing times?

How does that make any sense at all?

This is the thought process you're encouraging.  "I don't want to spend all my time training skills anymore than Joe Realguy, so I think I'll stop playing so much so that I'm not penalized."

Before you commence Johnny Storm style "flame on," I do get that you're talking about a capped system.  As well, I'm all for some little skill bumps so your Ranger can actually hit the broad side of a barn, or your Pickpocket isn't in jail for the duration of your sparse time logged in the game.  I especially agree with the notion of giving some offline monetary gain based on a "trade skill," so that people who only have an hour or two to play once in a blue moon might not have to spend all of their time logged in playing the Grebber Game.

I'm definitely against singling out a portion of the playerbase because they're having just too much darn fun.  That's no more fair than have too much darn life to play with your favorite toy.  Hell, for some of you, this probably isn't even your favorite toy.

I don't think you should be rewarded for not playing the game.  The level of "maintenance" should be fair, and should support roleplay, but turning around and trying to exclude the effort of others because you think your character should "be somebody" is kinda dumb.  A little help, though?  Yes, of course.  By all means.

By way of example, I had a long-lived character who often got neglected because my real life kept me away for days to weeks at a time, and upon being able to play, it was difficult to "keep up with the curve."  Even when I did have more playtime, it was still difficult, because I am a player who chooses to spend the bulk of my time roleplaying, rather than "skilling up."  I found, too, that when I was doing these skill-up sessions, it was at the inclusion of other characters, in the hopes of enriching their playing experience.  Was it frustrating not being able to play my favorite game?  Yes, definitely.  But I didn't, as a player, get butthurt over the fact that people were consistently passing me in skill.  I just worked harder at it, and kept surviving (probably because I was always too busy with work to make RPTs :D).

Real life gets us all, and yeah, I do see that for some people (at times, myself included), this is a little more than just a game.  It's not your position to judge your fellow players lifestyles (directing this solely at Synthesis' emotionally-stunted comment).  Hopefully, those of you who aren't able to play will be afforded some kind of assistance, but with this in mind, I want to finally say:

Isn't Armageddon supposed to be hard?   :o

While I'd be all for a "skill up while your ass is logged out" system....

I wouldn't want to see the skill increases come any faster than "snails pace" (i.e.: three or four months worth of straight not logging in to bump from novice to apprentice) or with a cap any higher than "journeyman".

If applied in moderation, I'm ok with it. As long as it remains at a pace where more active players still have a noticable edge, and there's a cap of Journeyman level or something, I can see it helping to bring more casual gamers in, and that's a good thing.

It would need to be careful done though, to get theright balance.

Just to be clear, the OP wasn't about skills at all.  The lack of skills is only a small part of the problem.  The roles that I, myself, really desire to play have little to do with skills and a lot to do with social interaction - Templar, Merchant, plot-developer dude.

I was thinking about sponsored roles for casual players, and how that would work. Basically roles that staff could call for players with low and inconsistent playtimes and fill them well. I think certain noble, templar, and merchant roles could work well for good players with lower playtimes - it's just that while they won't be expected to do the things the typical player in this role is expected to do, they would be expected to make the most of their time.

An example of such a sponsored role would be a noble in a highly-specialized House like Negean or Sath, where you could spend much of your time simply listening to current events, making efforts to gather more secret rumors, and writing them down. Another example is a white-robed templar that preaches about Tektolnes and leads the occasional devotion... and keeps an eye on the people that never show up to them. A third example could be a Nenyuki agent, where a player with low or erratic playtimes could thrive on arranging loans for people and renting out empty houses in the cities.

While these role examples might be classified (and dismissed) by some as "flavor roles", I disagree. I think opening roles like these would round out the playerbase and bring more of the current casual players that are avoiding making a commitment, into the game. I also think better ideas for such roles could be made up by the staff and other players with time.

Quote from: Kismetic on June 02, 2011, 03:10:32 AM
From what I can understand, you're saying ...  as a low-time player, you want your skills to progress at nearly the same rate as someone with high playing times, and yet ...  if a person with high playing times decides they don't want to spend their time logged in the game doing the mundane skill practice, they would make less progress than the player with little to no playing times?

How does that make any sense at all?

This is the thought process you're encouraging.  "I don't want to spend all my time training skills anymore than Joe Realguy, so I think I'll stop playing so much so that I'm not penalized."

Yeah, if it ended up that way it would pretty much be unbalanced.  I think we were trying to avoid that.  If someone said that is how they wanted it to work, I guess I didn't read it.  That, or you interpreted that the ideas presented would make things that way.  I would be against that the same as you.  I don't think we want a system that would make playing less more beneficial than playing more.  That would be sort of counter-productive to the whole reasoning for changing things in the first place.  Although I think that having the privilege to play more is a big reward in itself, and should be considered, I still wouldn't want to be unfair to the people that put more time and effort into the game.  Again, I would only want those that are -forced- to have minimal play time (because of important real life circumstances) to have some sort of help so they could play the game effectively and not fade out of existence.

Logging in and training with your peers will give an influence and bonds that code can never confer.

@ Sokotra:

Maybe I read it wrong, but somewhere in brytta's suggestion, and subsequent suggestions by Synthesis, I was getting the impression that people with longer playtimes who preferred social roles would get less benefit than, say, people who preferred social roles, but just didn't have the time to log in.  That made zero sense to me.

I read these posts while I'm MUDing, or watching NetFlix, so there's a chance that I missed some vital detail (and I honestly don't feel like going back and re-reading it).

Mostly, Sokotra, what I think is important for someone who hasn't logged in a long time and isn't an active player on the game is to narrow your focus a little.  On another note, I don't think having high play times is that much of a privilege, I'm sure Armageddon isn't the only thing people could be doing.  They choose to be here.  I always felt it was more of a privilege to even get to play when my work schedule was in the upwards of 60-90 hours/week.

I've yet to hear any real detailed, creative, non-coded solution to this dilemma.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but code of this nature is very unlikely to see the light of day.

Quote from: DustMight on June 01, 2011, 10:15:38 PM

Quote from: Nyr on June 01, 2011, 01:51:29 PM
DustMight, how much time per day would you be both willing and able to put into Armageddon?  Per week?

I could never guarantee daily play-times. 

At best I might be able to do one or two times a week and one of those for several hours (meaning 3 - 6 hours).  The rest of the time is hit and miss.  Maybe one day at 5 hours, maybe another at an hour - maybe.  The following week, maybe only 3 hours total.

My personal goal when playing a character?  To generate plots.  But clearly I'll never qualify for a sponsored roll, for good reason and I certainly can't advance a character with those kind of play times to become a self-generating plot dude.

I don't think there's much of an option for players like you to get the things you desire out of the game without adjustments to your time spent on other hobbies.  Correct me if I'm wrong (I know everyone else in this thread is off on a skills tangent, I assume ) but I think the core issue is time management and opportunity costs.  You have your needs and obligations (work, family, home).  You can't really compromise with your needs and obligations.  You have your hobbies and interests (running, hiking, playing guitar, drinking beer on your porch, and Armageddon).  You can compromise on these.  Figure out how much time you're spending on everything you can adjust even if you hate it, and then decide which things can take a back seat more often (if you want to play more Armageddon to your liking).  If you can get at least 6 hours per week into the game in regular segments of 2 days or 3 days of playtime, you can accomplish the goals you want, though at the lower end of your expectations.  It is unlikely you would be a prime candidate for playing a noble or templar or GMH family member, but the following roles would work:

• soldier, either city-state
• bard, Tuluk
• sales in a merchant house
• partisan, Tuluk
• gemmed mage, Allanak

I think that for you, the best thing to do would be to figure out the low threshold of required playtime to enjoy Armageddon, and whether that sacrifice to your other interests is worth it to you.  I would say that the low threshold for social roles would be about 6 hours per week.  If you can dedicate two days per week to playing Armageddon, slot in about 2.5 to 3 hours each day.  You'd be using more time per day, but less days of the week, and that may be better for your new and improved hobbies and interests schedule.  If you can dedicate three days per week to playing Armageddon, slot in about 1.5 to 2 hours each day.  You'd be using more days per week, but less time per day, and THAT may be better for your new and improved hobbies and interests schedule.  I'd recommend the 3 days thing, myself.  There's other options as well (five-six days per week, 1 hour ish per day) that will net you less total time per day, but that probably will start you sliding towards less actual Armageddon enjoyment time, considering the PC-to-PC interaction you are interested in finding.  Consider also that if you are in GMH sales, you will be putting in orders with staff via the request tool. I don't know if this would cut into your time the same way, but it would have to be considered.

Quote from: Cutthroat on June 02, 2011, 08:00:45 AM
I was thinking about sponsored roles for casual players, and how that would work. Basically roles that staff could call for players with low and inconsistent playtimes and fill them well. I think certain noble, templar, and merchant roles could work well for good players with lower playtimes - it's just that while they won't be expected to do the things the typical player in this role is expected to do, they would be expected to make the most of their time.

An example of such a sponsored role would be a noble in a highly-specialized House like Negean or Sath, where you could spend much of your time simply listening to current events, making efforts to gather more secret rumors, and writing them down. Another example is a white-robed templar that preaches about Tektolnes and leads the occasional devotion... and keeps an eye on the people that never show up to them. A third example could be a Nenyuki agent, where a player with low or erratic playtimes could thrive on arranging loans for people and renting out empty houses in the cities.

While these role examples might be classified (and dismissed) by some as "flavor roles", I disagree. I think opening roles like these would round out the playerbase and bring more of the current casual players that are avoiding making a commitment, into the game. I also think better ideas for such roles could be made up by the staff and other players with time.

This looks really good on the surface and may work.  The cons outweigh it:

• We still would want reports on what these people did during the week.  Even if done bi-weekly, these people are casual gamers, are they not?  Taking 15-30 extra minutes of one's time to toss in a request may be a pain in the ass.
• What if the player suddenly becomes more active?  Time frees up due to unfortunate RL events or sudden addiction to Armageddon, and they start clocking in regular noble/templar/GMH family hours.  We now have an extra noble/templar/whatever that we weren't expecting to be this active.  Doing nothing means that we have a top-heavy section of the game, so staff would ahev to intervene and determine what to do here.  This places an additional burden that we don't currently expect to have with existing sponsored roles.  Admittedly, these problems happen in reverse for sponsored roles, but we expect that.
• Policing these players.  They are playing new roles, they will need to be watched, and they will need to be watched carefully.  They may not be doing much (that would make it easier) but it is still something to consider.
• At least some of the mentioned roles have little to no documentation or existing expectations from staff.  The answer is to write it, but it is another consideration.

Quote from: Synthesis on June 01, 2011, 12:10:53 PM
It would be nice if certain things could be automated when your character is offline, but this is stuff that's only going to be in 2.Arm, if at all.

Initially when I read this I was skeptical, and had a reaction much like Potaje did (basically OMFG WHY WORST IDEA EVER), but I'd only skimmed the first time I read it. Skimming further, I saw the post about it being premature to judge before any skill caps were set and how it wasn't good to dismiss things out of hand. That was pretty late last night, but I decided to take a fresh look this morning. Reading the entire post through, I think that this is something I could by in to, with some limitations. I think that Synth makes a good argument about how it couldn't really be abused, because you'd have to wait 6-12 months for it to get anywhere, and really, who would want to do that?

Quote from: a strange shadow on June 01, 2011, 01:17:19 PM
I was thinking something similar to Synth's suggestion, but with a caveat; I don't think there should be any item/money gain, and I think that the skill gain should be about 1/8 the rate it could be if you were logged in and actively training everything. That way people who want to spend most of their time socializing can still practice in their off time (when logged out), though if they're logged in 8 hours a day not training, their skills aren't going to be going up much, since they're not logged out. It would balance fairly well I think.

This would also be nice for hard-to-train skills such as backstab. ICly, it'd represent virtual practice and learn-by-observation, and OOCly, it'd encourage longevity and patience.

I agree with the no money thing for the reasons that you said, but I don't like the training up rare skills like backstab thing. That's something that I think you should do ICly, because you need to find an IC solution. I think there should only be certain skills that are trainable when you're logged out.

Quote from: Sokotra on June 01, 2011, 02:46:50 PM

Quote from: Titania on June 01, 2011, 02:33:14 PM
Yeah why I suggested before that you be able to buy higher mundane skills with karma and not just mages and races. Who wants to go through the grind?

Another good idea... maybe a little bit of each of these ideas would bring the proper balance.

I'm against this, unless someone can show a comprehensive plan about it that I can buy in to. I like that everyone starts at the same point, even if there is a lot of work to raise skills. If someone could make a convincing argument for it, maybe, but my initial reaction is just that I don't like it.

Quote from: Synthesis on June 01, 2011, 03:12:54 PM
Two problems with your train of thought, here: [Synth says reasons for providing money when logged off]

I still don't like it. I think that you should either play regularly to have an apartment, so that you're actually using it, or that you should rent with someone who can cover the rent for you. Even if you provided more apartments, if you get paid when logged out and autopay rent when logged out, you could have people who played once renting an apartment indefinitely. I guess a solution would be to have a minimum log in amount for those privileges, but I don't see imms giving us more apartments anytime soon... I'm just not a fan of this part of it.

Quote from: Synthesis on June 01, 2011, 03:12:54 PM
Neither does it solve the "you're broke as a joke despite having played this character for 2-3 RL months...meanwhile the dude you saw in the Hall of Kings when you were picking scars is funding his own upstart merchant house."

Well, yes, but on the other hand... The dude you saw in the Hall of Kings has been devoting a lot of hard work and effort to get that. I'm all for balance so that players who don't play aren't at such a disadvantage, but the general fear over a proposal like yours is just that: That someone who has been around playing intensively for 2-3 RL months will now be equal to the guy who never logged in. Now, you aren't purposing that (you are advocating for a more balanced approach), but that's what players like Potaje are worried about.

Quote from: brytta.leofa on June 01, 2011, 04:10:02 PM
What I like about this, as opposed to setting up offline training, is that it does require consistent play.  If you're not logged in AT ALL, exposed to other players and the environment, and actually using your skills (at least a little bit), you will not improve.  Yet it can be tuned such that even a little bit of usage will keep you even with your fellow players in the skillin'-up arms race.

My mind shut down when I tried to read your numbers. However, I like the idea of rewarding someone who logs in consistently, over someone who never logs in at all. My one thing is that I still think that people who are logged in longer and have to go through the tediousness of sparring practice should still get to advance faster.

Quote from: brytta.leofa on June 01, 2011, 04:37:02 PM
TL;DR: Set up daily and weekly caps for skill gain to limit the hardcore players.  (That's not an original idea.)  Make your first few practice attempts of the day or week worth more than your later ones.

I don't think it's a bad idea to limit the hardcore players, if the cap was set relatively high. For people that play a ton during the day, more then even your average dedicated armer could play, I think it's reasonable. I'd be opposed to something that set the cap too low, however.

Quote from: brytta.leofa on June 01, 2011, 05:09:19 PM
I don't want it to be harder, per se; I want it to be very nearly the same difficulty for "average" and "hardcore" players, with "casual" players skilling up at a slower but still respectable rate.  Whether that means that your skills would increase slower or that everybody else's would increase faster...would depend on how things were set.

I like this.

Quote from: NOFUN on June 01, 2011, 06:04:03 PM
Seems like such a system would discourage the hardcore players to maintain there high play-times, which in a leadership role is always nice to have.

I'm a pretty hardcore player (I play way, way too much at times), and I can say that I wouldn't find it discouraging at all, as long as it's balanced. People also still gain more by logging in and spending time actually doing stuff, and it's only for super extreme skill use that the hardcore player cap would come into effect.

Quote from: MeTekillot on June 01, 2011, 06:33:09 PM
I figure a good way to do it would to gradually increase how much skill your allowed to improve the longer you haven't been logged on. Maybe this could be coupled with gaining just a bit of skill while logged off, too?

Say you log on every day for a week. Your max gain is determined by wisdom, so you have decent wisdom, like 20. That means you can improve your skill every two hours (i am spitballing i do not know how code works). Now, your skill timer gradually gets smaller and smaller the less you log in. Say you don't log in for a week. Your skill timer gets reset to skill gain every thirty minutes or every ten minutes, to where you eventually get back to what would be an average. Gain skill and the skill timer gets slightly longer until it equalizes with your wisdom as normal.

I don't like this. I like the idea of reward for players who can't log in as much but want to, who devote consistent time to the game when they can. This, however, seems to favor the idea of never logging on and then logging on once to make it up all at once. That's probably not your intention, but it seems to be the effect.

Quote from: Synthesis on June 01, 2011, 10:10:12 PM
Restricting it to only after you join an organization is a bad idea on four points:
1. Joining a clan is a little difficult in the first place, if you don't play a lot, or you're off peak.
2. Clans have recruiting limits, and it would suck to have a clan populated by people who only play once a week, who joined only so they could get access to the script (although this is really the same problem as the apartments problem that I addressed earlier...i.e. the solution is to increase hiring caps, but I digress).
3. Clan-based PCs aren't the only ones who use skills, so there really doesn't seem to be a good reason to restrict skillgain to clan-based PCs.
4. Being in a clan sucks if you're hardly ever around, or if you're around only off-peak.

I think that these are good points, particularly about the hiring caps, and I don't think the proposal, if implemented, should be limited to clan roles. However, I think that it might be reasonable for independents to have a slightly lower skill gain. Why? Because in a clan, there is more safety like Potaje mentioned and there's more reason to want to keep your skills higher (you need to be competitive with your fellow clan mates, so that if you can make an RPT, you're somewhat competent). I'm not arguing for a huge difference between clan vs. not clan, but I do think that there should be a little bit of a bump in favor of clans.

Quote from: Kismetic on June 02, 2011, 03:10:32 AM
From what I can understand, you're saying ...  as a low-time player, you want your skills to progress at nearly the same rate as someone with high playing times, and yet ...  if a person with high playing times decides they don't want to spend their time logged in the game doing the mundane skill practice, they would make less progress than the player with little to no playing times?

How does that make any sense at all?

This is the thought process you're encouraging.  "I don't want to spend all my time training skills anymore than Joe Realguy, so I think I'll stop playing so much so that I'm not penalized."

I think that this is a valid concern. Especially if you're in a clan, and there's nobody to spar with. Then, someone who logged in with infrequent playtimes will actually surpass you. I think that you can still do solo RP and submit logs for a skill bump (you can't do it for a stat bump anymore, but I think you can for a skill bump), but very few people want to solo RP that much to make the logs. Maybe the gain for someone not logging in as much should be less... Or should there be a better way for players who are logged in regularly to avoid getting penalized for when people aren't logged in with their clans? You could definitely argue that a player who is active is losing out when others aren't logged in, because they can only spar with a dummy.

Quote from: Cutthroat on June 02, 2011, 08:00:45 AM
While these role examples might be classified (and dismissed) by some as "flavor roles", I disagree. I think opening roles like these would round out the playerbase and bring more of the current casual players that are avoiding making a commitment, into the game. I also think better ideas for such roles could be made up by the staff and other players with time.

I like this idea, and also, what's wrong with flavor roles anyway? I like the idea of flavor roles.

Quote from: Nyr on June 02, 2011, 10:07:09 AM
This looks really good on the surface and may work.  The cons outweigh it:

• We still would want reports on what these people did during the week.  Even if done bi-weekly, these people are casual gamers, are they not?  Taking 15-30 extra minutes of one's time to toss in a request may be a pain in the ass.
• What if the player suddenly becomes more active?  Time frees up due to unfortunate RL events or sudden addiction to Armageddon, and they start clocking in regular noble/templar/GMH family hours.  We now have an extra noble/templar/whatever that we weren't expecting to be this active.  Doing nothing means that we have a top-heavy section of the game, so staff would ahev to intervene and determine what to do here.  This places an additional burden that we don't currently expect to have with existing sponsored roles.  Admittedly, these problems happen in reverse for sponsored roles, but we expect that.
• Policing these players.  They are playing new roles, they will need to be watched, and they will need to be watched carefully.  They may not be doing much (that would make it easier) but it is still something to consider.
• At least some of the mentioned roles have little to no documentation or existing expectations from staff.  The answer is to write it, but it is another consideration.

These are reasonable points and that makes me sad.  :(

The system that brytta.leofa and I sketched out doesn't penalize you for playing, so long as you are actually practicing your skills.  We both have it set up that you get more skillgains for actually playing, up until the point you reach a weekly maximum.  The -best- a low-playtime player could do is to get equal skillgain, and only at the weekly maximum.

However, if you are logging in a LOT, and only practicing your skills very little, yes, a low-playtime player might be getting more skillgain than you.  But, I maintain that this makes sense:  during their time logged off, presumably they are doing virtual activities that would result in increasing skill and knowledge.  If you are logging in frequently, but aren't doing anything that improves your skills, there's no reason to presume that your character would be doing anything different while offline.

In other words, the only people who would be gaining skills slowly are the people who already are:  aides who don't use anything but contact and barrier, unmanifested magickers who haven't yet begun casting, sneakies in combat clans who aren't using their stealth skills, etc.  So the system doesn't change much in that regard.

I know my post is TL;DR length, and that you are in part answering other players, but I do support your idea overall. This would just the one part that I think was a valid concern:

Quote from: Taven

Quote from: Kismetic on June 02, 2011, 03:10:32 AM
From what I can understand, you're saying ...  as a low-time player, you want your skills to progress at nearly the same rate as someone with high playing times, and yet ...  if a person with high playing times decides they don't want to spend their time logged in the game doing the mundane skill practice, they would make less progress than the player with little to no playing times?

How does that make any sense at all?

This is the thought process you're encouraging.  "I don't want to spend all my time training skills anymore than Joe Realguy, so I think I'll stop playing so much so that I'm not penalized."

I think that this is a valid concern. Especially if you're in a clan, and there's nobody to spar with. Then, someone who logged in with infrequent playtimes will actually surpass you. I think that you can still do solo RP and submit logs for a skill bump (you can't do it for a stat bump anymore, but I think you can for a skill bump), but very few people want to solo RP that much to make the logs. Maybe the gain for someone not logging in as much should be less... Or should there be a better way for players who are logged in regularly to avoid getting penalized for when people aren't logged in with their clans? You could definitely argue that a player who is active is losing out when others aren't logged in, because they can only spar with a dummy.

I think that something could be changed to fix that, however.

If you're in a situation where you're in a clan with a schedule, you log in frequently, but nobody is around...yeah, that is actually a situation where the proposed system would out-benefit you.

But there are two different ideas in play here (with regard to skillgain), and it would probably be better not to confuse them:

1) What I originally proposed:  setting "default activities" that cover what you'd be doing offline and

2) What brytta proposed, and I modified a little: Modifying the in-game skillgain number-crunching in such a way that casual gamers stay competitive.

Neither of these is really designed to cover the case where you join a clan, but can't get skillgain because other players aren't around.  The fact that it improves the situation for casual gamers isn't a detriment to low-population-clanned-hardcore-gamers...it just doesn't improve the situation for those guys, which isn't a problem for the system, because it's not one of the problems it's intended to address.

I could propose a few solutions for that problem, but it would start to get into feature-creeping the ideas that are currently in play on the thread.  Start another thread for this one?

I think Nyr addressed the OP's concerns thoroughly, but in relation to the derail, I'll propose a system.  I'll use Ranger as an example:

Ranger

Core skills - archery, ride, hunt, skinning
Support skills - forage, bandage, listen, scan

Core skills progress at a rate that it would take half of a RL year to reach half-mastery, where automatic gain is capped.  Support skills progress at a rate that it would take a full RL year to reach half-mastery.  Everyone receives the same benefit of this "push," but is factored into a maximum gain that reflects those actively training skills would progress at twice the rate of someone who is completely inactive (and active skilltrain is not limited to any particular skillset).

This allows casual players to interact competently (and, I suppose, competitively) with the gameworld, and in affect, penalizes no one.

Edited to add, this gain is largely nominal, and a courtesy.  It doesn't take long to train skills if you are diligent, and know what you're doing.  If the casual player wanted to "twink" their skills, they would remain competitive in all aspects but PK, really (base O/D should not get a steady raise, for instance).

Quote from: Kismetic on June 02, 2011, 06:35:37 PM
I think Nyr addressed the OP's concerns thoroughly, but in relation to the derail, I'll propose a system.  I'll use Ranger as an example:

Ranger

Core skills - archery, ride, hunt, skinning
Support skills - forage, bandage, listen, scan

Core skills progress at a rate that it would take half of a RL year to reach half-mastery, where automatic gain is capped.  Support skills progress at a rate that it would take a full RL year to reach half-mastery.  Everyone receives the same benefit of this "push," but is factored into a maximum gain that reflects those actively training skills would progress at twice the rate of someone who is completely inactive (and active skilltrain is not limited to any particular skillset).

This allows casual players to interact competently (and, I suppose, competitively) with the gameworld, and in affect, penalizes no one.

Edited to add, this gain is largely nominal, and a courtesy.  It doesn't take long to train skills if you are diligent, and know what you're doing.  If the casual player wanted to "twink" their skills, they would remain competitive in all aspects but PK, really (base O/D should not get a steady raise, for instance).

Those rates are laughably low, FYI.

Quote from: Synthesis on June 02, 2011, 07:21:56 PM

Quote from: Kismetic on June 02, 2011, 06:35:37 PM
I think Nyr addressed the OP's concerns thoroughly, but in relation to the derail, I'll propose a system.  I'll use Ranger as an example:

Ranger

Core skills - archery, ride, hunt, skinning
Support skills - forage, bandage, listen, scan

Core skills progress at a rate that it would take half of a RL year to reach half-mastery, where automatic gain is capped.  Support skills progress at a rate that it would take a full RL year to reach half-mastery.  Everyone receives the same benefit of this "push," but is factored into a maximum gain that reflects those actively training skills would progress at twice the rate of someone who is completely inactive (and active skilltrain is not limited to any particular skillset).

This allows casual players to interact competently (and, I suppose, competitively) with the gameworld, and in affect, penalizes no one.

Edited to add, this gain is largely nominal, and a courtesy.  It doesn't take long to train skills if you are diligent, and know what you're doing.  If the casual player wanted to "twink" their skills, they would remain competitive in all aspects but PK, really (base O/D should not get a steady raise, for instance).

Those rates are laughably low, FYI.

Well, wouldn't want them to be too quick. Any more than maybe 50% of normal would be too much, imho.

As I said, they are nominal, and reflect "casual" training.  The rates aren't the meat of the suggestion, however.

Quote from: BleakOne on June 02, 2011, 07:29:38 PM

Quote from: Synthesis on June 02, 2011, 07:21:56 PM

Quote from: Kismetic on June 02, 2011, 06:35:37 PM
I think Nyr addressed the OP's concerns thoroughly, but in relation to the derail, I'll propose a system.  I'll use Ranger as an example:

Ranger

Core skills - archery, ride, hunt, skinning
Support skills - forage, bandage, listen, scan

Core skills progress at a rate that it would take half of a RL year to reach half-mastery, where automatic gain is capped.  Support skills progress at a rate that it would take a full RL year to reach half-mastery.  Everyone receives the same benefit of this "push," but is factored into a maximum gain that reflects those actively training skills would progress at twice the rate of someone who is completely inactive (and active skilltrain is not limited to any particular skillset).

This allows casual players to interact competently (and, I suppose, competitively) with the gameworld, and in affect, penalizes no one.

Edited to add, this gain is largely nominal, and a courtesy.  It doesn't take long to train skills if you are diligent, and know what you're doing.  If the casual player wanted to "twink" their skills, they would remain competitive in all aspects but PK, really (base O/D should not get a steady raise, for instance).

Those rates are laughably low, FYI.

Well, wouldn't want them to be too quick. Any more than maybe 50% of normal would be too much, imho.

"Normal" for some non-weapon skills is maybe 2-3 weeks from novice to master, if you actually use the skill regularly.  Just about -any- non-weapon skill can go from novice to master in 1-1.5 months.  Weapon skills typically take much longer, unless you have very good wisdom.

Even at the slow rate on weapon skills, in about 6 months on a warrior, I had mastered every basic weapon skill, and was probably one of the most hardass pterodactyls in the Known World.  A month in the wastes with a ranger, and you can basically shoot kryl out of the sky blindfolded and mass-murder tembo with one hand tied behind your back while doing cartwheels atop your inix.

Surely you understand that you're "racing to the finish line" so to speak.  And now that you point this out, I wonder why you even want such a system in place, if you're a pterodactyl mastercrafter?

How could mastering every weapon skill in six months be considered 'slow'? That sounds more like above-average at least.

I don't think people should get anywhere close to that level of coded skill without the time being put in. Gaining up to reasonable 'I can solo a scrab or two' level is fine, though, and makes sense to me.

Quote from: Synthesis on June 02, 2011, 08:13:37 PM
"Normal" for some non-weapon skills is maybe 2-3 weeks from novice to master, if you actually use the skill regularly.  Just about -any- non-weapon skill can go from novice to master in 1-1.5 months.  Weapon skills typically take much longer, unless you have very good wisdom.

Even at the slow rate on weapon skills, in about 6 months on a warrior, I had mastered every basic weapon skill, and was probably one of the most hardass pterodactyls in the Known World.  A month in the wastes with a ranger, and you can basically shoot kryl out of the sky blindfolded and mass-murder tembo with one hand tied behind your back while doing cartwheels atop your inix.

I don't doubt that this is true, but I don't think this is in any way typical, or even close to it. Particularly the part about rangers, although I realize you're exaggerating.

Quote from: flurry on June 02, 2011, 10:33:22 PM

Quote from: Synthesis on June 02, 2011, 08:13:37 PM
"Normal" for some non-weapon skills is maybe 2-3 weeks from novice to master, if you actually use the skill regularly.  Just about -any- non-weapon skill can go from novice to master in 1-1.5 months.  Weapon skills typically take much longer, unless you have very good wisdom.

Even at the slow rate on weapon skills, in about 6 months on a warrior, I had mastered every basic weapon skill, and was probably one of the most hardass pterodactyls in the Known World.  A month in the wastes with a ranger, and you can basically shoot kryl out of the sky blindfolded and mass-murder tembo with one hand tied behind your back while doing cartwheels atop your inix.

I don't doubt that this is true, but I don't think this is in any way typical, or even close to it.

Yeah, I'm just saying...a hardcore player can have -that- much of an advantage over someone who doesn't regularly log in.

If we went the "1-year to half-mastery" route, over the course of a year, the difference between a casual gamer and a hardcore gamer will be the difference between Sujaal and a freshly-minted Byn Trooper.  That's the situation people are complaining about...it's not an improvement in any way shape or form, because you can already reach half-mastery in a real-life year if you even think hard about using a skill.

I think the -cap- should probably be overall at high journeyman for most everything, because that's about the level where skills start becoming usable (weapon skills could probably be capped at apprentice-ish...but I'd rather not go through every skill and propose a point).  However, I think 2 months is about the time people start getting frustrated at being useless.

Instead of speculating about it, it's probably easier for the Imms to just take a look at PC stat sheets, see what the skill levels are for characters at particular "real life time" ages, correlate that with days' played, calculate the MeanSkillgainPerUnitTime for the average player, then adjust the system to correspond to a certain fraction of that (maximum) for a casual player.

Again, speculating about what is or isn't overpowered isn't a helpful debate, because we aren't sharing datasets, here.  Personally, I don't even know what the bitch-end of the shitty skillset vs. time curve looks like, because I haven't been skillgain-challenged for many years.  It's not a problem for me, because I don't mind chilling and grinding with the few hours I have to play, and I think I have the basic fundamentals of the skillgain system figured out, such that the grind isn't, really.

But, you know, I can step out of my context as an experienced, knowledgeable, and achievement-oriented player, and empathize with the poor cat who likes playing mercenary types, but doesn't necessarily enjoy or even know how to skill up in a time-efficient manner, and is thus stuck being the eternal red-shirt or victim for the rest of y'all's adventures.

Quote from: BleakOne on June 02, 2011, 10:14:53 PM
How could mastering every weapon skill in six months be considered 'slow'? That sounds more like above-average at least.

I don't think people should get anywhere close to that level of coded skill without the time being put in. Gaining up to reasonable 'I can solo a scrab or two' level is fine, though, and makes sense to me.

He's very likely talking about playing an elf.  That, or he's an enormous twink.  ;)

Also, @ Synthesis:

The whole half year for core skills wasn't really the point, it could be 3 months and be as valid.  What I was getting at is, a guild's core and support skills could get a slow bump over time.  I don't think it should raise above journeyman, because, as you said, if it's not a weapon skill, it's already pretty easy to get a lift.  And if everyone receives this bonus, then you're just putting the game out of whack entirely.

Quote from: Kismetic on June 02, 2011, 11:07:51 PM

Quote from: BleakOne on June 02, 2011, 10:14:53 PM
How could mastering every weapon skill in six months be considered 'slow'? That sounds more like above-average at least.

I don't think people should get anywhere close to that level of coded skill without the time being put in. Gaining up to reasonable 'I can solo a scrab or two' level is fine, though, and makes sense to me.

He's very likely talking about playing an elf.  That, or he's an enormous twink.  ;)

You would all be utterly embarrassed by what I managed to do in 48 hours logged with a poor-wisdom dwarf, but that's neither here nor there.

Quote from: Synthesis on June 02, 2011, 11:13:46 PM

Quote from: Kismetic on June 02, 2011, 11:07:51 PM

Quote from: BleakOne on June 02, 2011, 10:14:53 PM
How could mastering every weapon skill in six months be considered 'slow'? That sounds more like above-average at least.

I don't think people should get anywhere close to that level of coded skill without the time being put in. Gaining up to reasonable 'I can solo a scrab or two' level is fine, though, and makes sense to me.

He's very likely talking about playing an elf.  That, or he's an enormous twink.  ;)

You would all be utterly embarrassed by what I managed to do in 48 hours logged with a poor-wisdom dwarf, but that's neither here nor there.

Embarrassed, or disappointed?  :D

Quote from: Kismetic on June 02, 2011, 11:12:08 PM
Also, @ Synthesis:

The whole half year for core skills wasn't really the point, it could be 3 months and be as valid.  What I was getting at is, a guild's core and support skills could get a slow bump over time.  I don't think it should raise above journeyman, because, as you said, if it's not a weapon skill, it's already pretty easy to get a lift.  And if everyone receives this bonus, then you're just putting the game out of whack entirely.

Well, yeah, that's a simple-not-elegant solution.

The elegant solution is to allow you, the player, to pick what your character is really doing virtually, and have only skills related to those activities go up.  Thus, if you're technically a ranger, but you've been hired as an aide in the Atrium, you'd specify "Aide-Southron" in the list, and your 'scan,' 'listen,' and 'alcohol tolerance' skills would go up, instead of ride, skinning, and archery.

And again, with the caps, really, I'm -done- talking about where the fucking caps would be, because even when I say something in the most generic, non-specific terms possible, someone objects that it would be "too X or Y," without any relevant data or proposed constraints.

If you can imagine the possibility that it could be balanced and helpful, that's all that matters.  The coders and the dudes with the actual data can hash out what is or isn't over-powered.

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea.  The only caveat I have is that it benefits everyone the same.  Really, if I thought I'd gain more by logging in a quarter of the time (taking out all of the coded interactions with other players, and the subsequent loss of interest in the game that goes with playing less) merely to socialize, I would, and I think my clan would lose out.

Does this make sense?

Also, I'd support a greater level of skill gain for people who log in for short times (more than 10 minutes, though) regularly during a RL week. Since that does count, in my mind, as putting the time in.

Quote from: BleakOne on June 02, 2011, 10:14:53 PM
How could mastering every weapon skill in six months be considered 'slow'? That sounds more like above-average at least.

It's ludicrous. I doubt this was put into practice after players were actually able to view their skills and know they actually were at 'master' level.

Huh.  This discussion is still going on.

I'd like to direct you all towards Reiloth's signature.

Thread still going on and now with in-depth analysis of coded skill-gain mechanics.

:-\

But yeah, what Mal said.

Code-wise, we'll never have casual players being "competitive" with hard-core players.  Any system where that's truly so would be tantamount to punishing people for actually playing the game.

Quote from: Malifaxis on June 03, 2011, 09:17:20 AM
Huh.  This discussion is still going on.

I'd like to direct you all towards Reiloth's signature.

You know I had to spend like two minutes actually looking for Reiloth's signature there. I was surprised, not used to having to search for it.

There are people who play off-peak / whenever you may be able to log on. You may have to widen your social net a bit to catch them, since they might be undesirables, playing in another city-state, or simply mildly reclusive. I'd recommend looking into eccentric dwarven focuses ... because when you need a character to fit your unique dilemma ... well, dwarf can cut it, somehow.  :D

Or better yet play one of those elves who 'lead shiftless lives with no ties of loyalty at all' and reap the benefits of actually being able to maintain a level of anonymity.

This thread was derailed without even a token attempt to address the OP's concerns, even after the OP stated that the coded discussion was unrelated.  Due to the lack of regard for following forum rules, I don't think it's worth splitting the thread or reviewing any other ideas touted.

DustMight, hopefully there's some suggestions here you can glean; if you'd like more space to vent, feel free to make a new thread.