Armageddon General Discussion Board

Can we look at increasing the rate at which skills increase in Armageddon? Especially weapon and certain combat skills (dual wield and two handed).

Our playerbase is aging. Many of us started playing Armageddon in our late teens or early twenties when spending 5 hours a day on a text-based roleplaying game (or hack and slash if you started way back then) was doable. Now most of us have careers, kids, and obligations that keep us from spending as much timestaring at text scroll. It's extremely difficult to play Armageddon casually both because characters need to be present to maintain IC relationships and because characters take a long, long, long time to skill up.

Combat skills are especially onerous. It isn't unusual to spend an IC year in the T'zai Byn sparring for an hour each and every day and come out with apprentice weapon/combat skills. It currently takes something on the order of 10 days played to get to journeymanish level combat skills. That's absolutely ludicrous. Ten days is 240 hours, 6 weeks of a full time job, or $3600 at $15 an hour.

As it stands Armageddon has some of the highest ability disparity between characters with different playtimes. Joe Grebber who can manage to play for 5 hours a day and fight hawks will almost always have a significant combat advantage over Bob Byn Sergeant who can only play 3 hours a day.  I think this can be alleviated somewhat by fiddling with the way skills - especially combat skills - increase. It has always been something thrown about, but I think it's time we seriously consider it, because right now the opportunity cost to get a journeyman weapon skill has a low end of $3600... and that's insane.

I totally agree, despite a lot of the playerbase resenting me for saying so.

I have kids. But I still feel inclined to try to log in and eke out a little bit of training so I can get those gainz.

It's also hard to RP anything without having the skills to at least semi-back it up. You essentially have to start every character off as, "They were x, but now they're Y," or else it's not really logical.

REGARDLESS. TL;DR:

The yeas have it!

...

I pledge my whole-hearted support behind this initiative.

In all seriousness. I agree. It would also take the sting away from losing characters and allow players to perhaps take larger risks.

I'm a musician without a regular job, so I can afford to spend a lot of time playing, especially when I'm putting off practicing. In fact, I think I annoy other people because no one can compete with my playtimes, and they assume I expect them to play as much as I do, which couldn't be further from the truth!

Despite my ridiculous availability, there are a lot of people that I want to play with who "just don't have time for it." I know the timesink/grind puts off new players and drives away old. So I would agree that maybe skill gains, particularly combat skill gains, could be looked at. The opportunity to learn from successes would be particularly helpful, though probably one of the more difficult ways to code faster skill gains.

There is, I believe, one option on the table: you can special app a skill increase.  However, when I went to the main web-site to pull down a link, I couldn't find too much information on it.

So the help file for Special Applications (http://www.armageddon.org/help/view/Special%20Applications) mentions this:

Quote
We are also currently testing out extended subguilds and skill increases using the same process for special applications. See the helpfiles on both of these subjects for details.

But when I went to the Skill Increases link there's no mention of it (http://www.armageddon.org/help/view/Skill%20Increases)

One problem I see is that solutions would benefit everyone (casuals and non-casuals) alike, and so you'd more or less end up with the same results against PCs.  So, what if you had some sort of way of calculating how 'casual' a player is, and give them benefits as a result.  For instance, if Bob logs in 3 hrs a week, they would fall into the skill_gains at +10% for that week.  5 hrs a week, skill_gains at +5%.  More than 5hrs a week or less than 3hrs a week: skill_gains at +0%.  (You can play with my numbers, baby.)

ETA: Orrrrr, this.  Increase the rate at which you learn two-fold while also increasing the 'time gap' after a fail before you can learn again two-fold.

Skill bumps are limited per year, I believe.

Skill bumps are fine but once you get into the game you're still stuck with the same problem as before. Getting a bump to journeyman in slashing is pretty nifty and useful but you still need to sacrifice your life to Ginka if you ever want a chance to hit master one day. (in ALL of my characters played, I've achieved that feat once in my life, and I think I was playing like 8+ hours a day for an entire summer + fall) - Almost lost my girlfriend and great GPA to it, yeah, no thanks.

Quote from: nauta on June 14, 2016, 11:54:08 AM
There is, I believe, one option on the table: you can special app a skill increase.  However, when I went to the main web-site to pull down a link, I couldn't find too much information on it.

So the help file for Special Applications (http://www.armageddon.org/help/view/Special%20Applications) mentions this:

Quote
We are also currently testing out extended subguilds and skill increases using the same process for special applications. See the helpfiles on both of these subjects for details.

But when I went to the Skill Increases link there's no mention of it (http://www.armageddon.org/help/view/Skill%20Increases)

One problem I see is that solutions would benefit everyone (casuals and non-casuals) alike, and so you'd more or less end up with the same results against PCs.  So, what if you had some sort of way of calculating how 'casual' a player is, and give them benefits as a result.  For instance, if Bob logs in 3 hrs a week, they would fall into the skill_gains at +10% for that week.  5 hrs a week, skill_gains at +5%.  More than 5hrs a week or less than 3hrs a week: skill_gains at +0%.  (You can play with my numbers, baby.)

There comes a point when you have to spend a significant amount of time actually fighting to increase certain combat skills. What I'm advocating for is increasing skillsgains in such a way that it takes less time in combat to actually increase a skill. It should have a flat effect of giving people more non-fighting time period. So both high hour and low hour players get more time to do stuff other than spar.

I don't think there's a way to completely remove the gap between high hour and low hour players and I think that's fine.

Quote from: Malken on June 14, 2016, 12:02:40 PM
Skill bumps are fine but once you get into the game you're still stuck with the same problem as before. Getting a bump to journeyman in slashing is pretty nifty and useful but you still need to sacrifice your life to Ginka if you ever want a chance to hit master one day. (in ALL of my characters played, I've achieved that feat once in my life, and I think I was playing like 8+ hours a day for an entire summer + fall) - Almost lost my girlfriend and great GPA to it, yeah, no thanks.

I'd be for a proposal that looks to balance things to allow casuals to reach 'fun/useful' levels for RP -- being useful to your boss --, which in my view fall into the mid-apprentice/low-journeyman level for combat skills, certainly not 'master'.

And just as some anecdotal evidence, I recently played a ranger and a warrior with moderate stats (and no skill increase spec. app.) and I found I was useful enough after about a dozen sparring/combat sessions with a given type (humanoid, bug).  I forget the numbers (apprentice-ish or journeyman-ish), but I started with 'haha flee' and moved to 'killed it, yes!' in about a dozen attempts.

There have been at least two important changes recently that might inform this sort of discussion:

o the correction of hidden mob-type offense/defense scores -- so you might be great at killing gith but suck at killing vultures, I guess.

o whatever tweak Nergal et al. implemented about training with better opponents a couple months back.

It's really not that hard to get your character to a reasonable skill level. You just have to... use the skills that you want to get better. Like, a failure once a RL day will get you to where you need to be in less than two weeks. 30 - 40 minutes play time a day is all you need, and 30 - 40 minutes is ample time to spar and have a tavern convo, or a little hunting trip, or cast a few spells, or craft a few things, or sneak around, or whatever it is you want your character to do.

"Get where you need to be in less than two weeks" is a ridiculous fucking statement for a video game.

Quote from: BadSkeelz on June 14, 2016, 12:23:58 PM
"Get where you need to be in less than two weeks" is a ridiculous fucking statement for a video game.

Don't worry, his estimate is total BS so it doesn't matter.

I find it nearly impossible to train up combat skills. If there have been changes lately to mediate this, that's fantastic. Other guilds and skill types, with appropriate effort, I can make make all manageable.

I've also had a combat character with the special apped bumps and they show in survivability, but they're in no imaginable way a match for the players with the time and patience to plug it in all day, every day in the sparring circles, bless their hearts.

I just can't possibly.

I wanted to edit to add, I think Nauta has a really key point here. It's not at all about being the Baddass of the Known. It's more about feeling useful. I roll into clan after clan feeling like my PC is basically a useless piece of trash, and instead of experiencing the desirable character progression of that changing, I just don't have the time. So it never happens. I seem to stay at base and static situations generally aren't the most fun.

I decided to get back into the game after a short break. Rolled a warrior. Got in the game to kill some scrabs for fun, fell off my mount 4 times in a row, didn't get anywhere, had 80/110 hp which I had to rest up, by the time I was full HP the gates were about to close... Decided instead to just log out.

The problem isn't that skills gain too slowly(unless you're a combat skill), it's that they're fucking horrible to use at low levels. So I guess I'm okay with faster progression, but I don't think it's going to fix the problem all the way.

Quote from: RogueGunslinger on June 14, 2016, 12:44:29 PM
So I guess I'm okay with faster progression, but I don't think it's going to fix the problem all the way.

I don't think it's the ultimate fix either. But I think it's an incremental improvement we should push for.

I feel in a lot of ways the game is already "easy-mode" catering to the lowest common denominator compared to what it used to be.

Anything that pushes us further in that direction gets a thumbs down from me.

Sorry.

Quote from: Desertman on June 14, 2016, 01:11:13 PM
I feel in a lot of ways the game is already "easy-mode" catering to the lowest common denominator compared to what it used to be.

Anything that pushes us further in that direction gets a thumbs down from me.

Sorry.

You just keep getting more efficient, leaving us in the dust :)

Quote from: Desertman on June 14, 2016, 01:11:13 PM
I feel in a lot of ways the game is already "easy-mode" catering to the lowest common denominator compared to what it used to be.

I prefer to see it as Armageddon adapting to the gaming reality of 2016 and an aging community than going "easy-mode" but I understand your point of view.

I've always been in favor of having a "casual character" option available to players. You give up some things (likely lower caps), but in exchange you either start with higher skills or gain skills faster.

I posted about this under the old "what do we do about lack of raiders?" thread, but it's just as applicable here. This sort of thing would let you opt to play a character either casually, or with a high chance of "early retirement" and still be able to really play the game as opposed to just training all the time. You wouldn't be able to play hyper-powerful characters this way, but if you're playing casually or playing dangerously that's probably an inherent limitation to the playstyle that's already observed anyways.

I confess if I stop playing Arm one day, it will likely be because the concept of playing another character through Novice skill levels has become unbearable.

Quote from: whitt on June 14, 2016, 01:43:54 PM
I confess if I stop playing Arm one day, it will likely be because the concept of playing another character through Novice skill levels has become unbearable.

It's why I usually get bored with every character at around 3-5 days played.

If you can get a skill up to a theoretical 100, and you get one point increase for every fail, but with an average wisdom only once per hour ... then you're looking at ~100 hours to master a skill. For a casual player who drops 3 hours a night (which I would say ISN'T very casual at all), then it will take about 1 month on a single character to master skills. If you can play 10 hours a day without losing your job or your spouse then you can do it in a little over one week.

That's in theory based on quizzing helpers about it. I haven't found it to work out quite that smoothly. It seems like it wouldn't be THAT big of a deal to have to take a month to get up to the top end. I have certainly put in a lot more effort in other muds, even hack and slash ones.

But it FEELS worse under this system. I'll log on and get a skill fail and then be like, "What do I do for the rest of the hour? Roleplay? I'm 75 rooms away from the nearest tavern. Do some more crafting? These materials are too valuable to waste on a non-increase potential fail."

I would like to gain skill increases THROUGH SUCCESS instead of through failure. I have never believed in the "learn more through failure" mantra that's tossed about. It's a flimsy justification. I can go out in my yard and fail at kung-fu all day long and not suddenly become a kung-fu master. No, you learn by seeing what WORKS as well as what fails.

I would advocate a system where you get a chance to learn through success or failure with no timer. Then when you play your three hours per night you're going to get more than 3 upticks.

I used to alternate between gicks and mundanes because it kept things from getting too stale with only leveling one way. Not looking forward to having to worry about weapons skills and such when I finally roll a gick.

Disagree.

All this looks to do is try to equalize somehow by making everyone maxed.  That's ridiculous, given where that puts the idea of progression in the game as a whole.

A better idea is to stop thinking of the game as something you only get into once your skills are high enough.

Quote from: BadSkeelz on June 14, 2016, 12:23:58 PM
"Get where you need to be in less than two weeks" is a ridiculous fucking statement for a video game.

No, it is not, in a game that most of us play fairly regularly and for long term.

This is not Skyrim, where you play it until you win the game and toss it aside.  We play it over and over and over again, and the insinuation that everyone should be getting closer to maximum skill levels faster is actually a pretty shit argument.  I've seen you talk about branching skills that I've -never branched- on rangers and such in fifteen days of playtime.  I've played those same classes to 40 and 50 days with constant playtime.  It would appear a skills-centric view is giving you the idea that everyone is ahead of you when there's nothing that actually supports that argument.

Go the other way.  Make skills invisible again, for everyone, and these silly discussions that assume everyone needs to be advanced and master at everything goes away.

Quote from: Armaddict on June 14, 2016, 03:26:05 PM
Go the other way.  Make skills invisible again, for everyone, and these silly discussions that assume everyone needs to be advanced and master at everything goes away.

With the rest of the few players still willing to sacrifice their rl away, yeah.

This would cheapin the feeling of progression.

Next we'll whine about how stats effect the overall curve of how good your easily-maxxed character is compared to the rest etc etc. With a long curve on progression there's a real sense of accomplishment when your skeet-hunter becomes the Bahamet-slayer or your common alleyway thug is a master assassin in Allanak who's murderizing nobles with a nod from a templar. Making progression easier makes the few who reach 'godlike' not as special. The ONLY skills that don't raise quickly are combat skills, however I've raised them quite how being only a casual player. Not in a week, not in two weeks, but they do raise. I think the long progression of weapon skills dual wield/two handed/slashing etc does great at showing the gap of skill between novice and master and all the stages between.

If you're considering playing a long term cooperative writing RPG on the internet 'sacrificing your RL away', the problem is not skill progression rate.

Quote from: Armaddict on June 14, 2016, 03:32:06 PM
If you're considering playing a long term cooperative writing RPG on the internet 'sacrificing your RL away', the problem is not skill progression rate.

Yeah, thanks for reminding me why I don't even bother with it anymore.

That was a good try on your part, Yam, but surely you knew it would lead to nothing. My suggestion? Stick to Overwatch.

Quote from: Malken on June 14, 2016, 03:42:21 PM

Quote from: Armaddict on June 14, 2016, 03:32:06 PM
If you're considering playing a long term cooperative writing RPG on the internet 'sacrificing your RL away', the problem is not skill progression rate.

Yeah, thanks for reminding me why I don't even bother with it anymore.

That was a good try on your part, Yam, but surely you knew it would lead to nothing. My suggestion? Stick to Overwatch.

Yeah.  Because inferences of 'Make this game more like counterstrike or you won't pick up people who like counterstrike' is super convincing.  Stick to overwatch indeed.  And when you feel like playing out an actual character, log in and play the character instead of trying to max it out.

I'm appalled that with this viewpoint you're even remotely attracted to permadeath games in the first place.  You seem to want the permadeath but to make it inconsequential...like the worst roguelike ever made, or something.

Quote from: Armaddict on June 14, 2016, 03:26:05 PM
[Go the other way.  Make skills invisible again, for everyone, and these silly discussions that assume everyone needs to be advanced and master at everything goes away.

Here's an idea. At chargen, you can choose (or pay CGP / karma or whatever) to have a character who:

- has combat skills hidden
- skillgains combat skills at +50% (rather than spending 10 mins sparring a scrab, you'd spend 5 minutes to get that fail)
- skill failure timer extended to +50% for combat skills (rather than, say, 1 IG day it'd be 2 IG days before you could go skill gain again)

(The general point is that to make things fair to both casuals and non-casuals, you'd extend the 'timer' -- so non-casuals can only skill gain a few times a RL day.)

Whoa. I would LOVE for skill levels to be invisible again.

I think it's hitting a bit below the belt to just accuse us of being lazy folk who want it all easy. I just want there to be a closer middle ground between what it takes to become efficient with combat as compared to other skill sets.

Quote from: Armaddict on June 14, 2016, 03:20:59 PM
Disagree.

All this looks to do is try to equalize somehow by making everyone maxed.  That's ridiculous, given where that puts the idea of progression in the game as a whole.

A better idea is to stop thinking of the game as something you only get into once your skills are high enough.

In turn I disagree, though not on the fact that you can play without Master (insert skill).

My disagreement is that starting level skills are suffocatingly bad.  Short of the requirement to branch, I could care if I ever had a skill passed Advanced.  

I simply detest playing a character that sucks at what they supposedly make their livelihood doing.  Setting initial Guild skills to the bottom of Apprentice instead of Novice isn't going to upset the jallal cart.  It would allow players to start at some level other than pathetic and maybe frustrate less newbies and veterans alike.  

I very much feel this is the crux of the matter, the suck of Novice, more than the race to Master.

PS - changing where skills branch would also alleviate some of the feel that there is a need to race to Master and the frustration at needing fails to advance a skill.  Namely that high-level fail requirement only exacerbates the seemingly slow progression rate.

Malken, Armaddict, please don't shit up the thread with too much venom. We're old now. Most of us have played the game and the GDB flame fest for a decade (me especially). We all want the game to do well, retain experience players, and attract new ones. If you don't think changes to skill progression will help that, that's a totally valid opinion. But please don't be dick about it and get the thread shut down.

It is reasonable to expect a character that trains rigorously for 10 IC years to master a weapons kill. However if you only have 2 hours a day to play (which is still a significant chunk of time for many of us) you probably wont master a weapon skill in 10 IC years unless you get really lucky with a sparring partner that shares your login hours or you devote that to hours per day to hunting. One of the ideas I've heard is to let successes increase skill - I think this would really help. Often the issue with skilling up is that it is difficult to find a suitable sparring partner or game if you can only play for short periods of time (i.e. less than 2 hours).

Quote from: path on June 14, 2016, 04:01:49 PM
I just want there to be a closer middle ground between what it takes to become efficient with combat as compared to other skill sets.

I agree with this. I think most skills have a good level of progression. Weapon and combat skills are the ones that take way too long to raise.

Quote from: path on June 14, 2016, 04:01:49 PM
Whoa. I would LOVE for skill levels to be invisible again.

I think it's hitting a bit below the belt to just accuse us of being lazy folk who want it all easy. I just want there to be a closer middle ground between what it takes to become efficient with combat as compared to other skill sets.

Well.  When you say 'us', you kinda make it a group united.  And when the main argument is 'I don't want to spend time on this game that I've chosen to focus in on how effective I am versus people who play more', then yeah.  That kind of puts a damper on things.  Particularly when I can routinely run into people who kick my long-lived character's asses (well, the ones who actually engage in pvp), even when I'm in the middle of one of my events where so much good things are happening I feel like playing all the time.

It's a very falsetto argument.  The actual desire here is to not play in areas with low skills.  The ideas presented all work towards this, whether they be raising starting skill levels, increasing skill progression, etc.  So yes.  I do tend to view it as lazy, as you put it, or not being truly involved in the danger of the game, is how I put it.  It's like we're trying to erase death from the permadeath game.

No one progresses quickly.  There are some chosen few who can play a lot more, and they tend to progress faster...which is -very- fitting with the 'gaming era of 2016'.  (I don't know of a game -with- progression where casual players and dedicated players get pushed into a system of where it's all made equal; they tend to lose their dedicated players, when they push for that).  In the end, this is an equity vs equality argument.  I don't think anyone is getting shat on here, which is continually how this is made to sound.

"Ohhhh, I work and have a family, this game I enjoy should accommodate for that and make it easier for me to keep up with everyone else -- almost all of which also have jobs and other RL events to deal with."  Or, you know...you could just play the game you say enjoy, instead of watching from afar and saying you don't enjoy it unless changes are made.

Quote from: Yam on June 14, 2016, 04:07:51 PM
Malken, Armaddict, please don't shit up the thread with too much venom. We're old now. Most of us have played the game and the GDB flame fest for a decade (me especially). We all want the game to do well, retain experience players, and attract new ones. If you don't think changes to skill progression will help that, that's a totally valid opinion. But please don't be dick about it and get the thread shut down.

Yeah, sorry.

I'm just going to pull back and wait for the changes that will someday bring me back to the game. It's part of why I keep reading the GDB after all, I still get a little excited deep inside each time I see new changes (I'm hoping that the new templars will work out for you guys! - I don't really know much about them)

Maybe I'd agree on the weapon skills...if most of the content didn't fall easily under your boots at journeyman weapon skills.  Most of it even below that.

Edit:  So along that same line...sure.  If we simultaneously bump up the difficulty of every commonly hunted NPC in the game.   Or we could just leave all the numbers set up over the past few decades where they've generally been.  But making things easier is...just as bad of a platform as you're complaining about.

I actually like progression. I want to see it and feel it. I want to be better than I started and I aspire to be better than others.

However, I don't like the current system much. It doesn't allow for me to maximize my playtime. I am achievement based, not social. Frankly, I'd play Armageddon if it was a single player game on my own computer. Having other players around is generally 50/50 whether it makes it better or worse than that single player experience. I dig the code and I dig the difficulty and I really, really dig the permadeath and survival aspects of the game.

But if I invest two hours towards skill achievement, I would like to see 2 hours worth of skill achievement instead of (maybe) 2 points forward as if I'd only put in 5 minutes until the first fail and then went and played something else.

It's one of the reasons I hate the Byn. I hate hate hate grinding cause its getting boring so effing fast. And yeah, i don't have the time for it either. I rather roleplay than emoting the same shit each time I spar or even worse... train myself versus the dummy.

Quote from: Iiyola on June 14, 2016, 04:48:40 PM
It's one of the reasons I hate the Byn. I hate hate hate grinding cause its getting boring so effing fast. And yeah, i don't have the time for it either. I rather roleplay than emoting the same shit each time I spar or even worse... train myself versus the dummy.

...but are you relatively fine in an environment where the emphasis is -not- on grinding?


On the lines of being a -non-grinding- character:
I played a 100 day character in the last couple years who had to be very wary of anyone in the Byn.  If they had attended training for 2 days of playing time...they would mop the floor with him.  He was a mundane.  He had skills.  He just didn't have much reason to fight.  I really don't buy into the whole 'We need to fix this because it screws over casuals' argument:

-A casually-played character who is grinding will still very quickly and easily surpass a prolifically-played character who is not.  How do we equalize that situation, aside from saying that everyone should be grinding to keep it equal?  This is, after all, about equality.
-A casually-played character who is grinding will very quickly reach an efficient level of being able to hunt and sustain in the wilds, even against relatively dangerous creatures, making it even less of a point as far as a pve perspective.

This really does turn into a matter of wanting to see (master) for weapon skills, for me, which we've discussed over various threads over and over.  This is why I'd rather we just hide them, and have people guessing at what their skill levels are again; when they kick ass, they feel more confident.  Skills that are not weapon skills generally go up pretty easily for people...unless you're -expecting- to get too powerful too quickly.  Even in widely acknowledged MMO's, you have to go -pretty hardcore- to try to reach upper levels in less than 24 hours of playtime, and in arm, if you're grinding for 24 hours of playtime...you're not doing so bad at those skills at all.  I think for the 'Era of gaming in 2016', things line up nicely.  Hell, if you're playing those 24 hours casually, you're ahead of other people with 24 hours of playtime, because of timers.  They may be 'ahead' of you, but you're sure getting more for your time, which is exactly the plight of the casual, isn't it?  More for less time?

Edit:  Meh, I quoted Iiyola but really it just served as a catalyst to pointing out that not everyone is grinding the way these arguments always make it sound, which...totally makes the casual progression v dedicated progression approach a perception-based argument; you feel like you're falling behind because of who you're comparing to.

As far as skill failures and novice...I've never had an issue with those improving quickly.  Like I said, aside from weapon skills...24 hours of playtime and it goes away.   That seems big, but when you expand character lives out to 20, 30, 50, and 60 days, which is common in Arm, you're trying to change the way things are done over a fractional portion of many characters lives.

I think the problem is that even if you want to play a combat focused character you probably wont be able to reach a master weapon skill in a reasonable amount of time (e.g. 2 hours per day, 4 days per week) in a reasonable number of IC years. One of the reasons is that it just takes a long time to skill up even if you find a well matched sparring partner. Another reason is that it is difficult to find a well matched sparring partner if you can only be on for a short amount of time per day.

I don't think it's reasonable to effectively lock out people with limited time from the combat sphere of the game world.

I also think that the excruciating combat grind is one of the big reasons that Armageddon has started to feel stale and static. Characters take so long to skill up that people start to feel protective of what they see as a time investment. You can argue that this is a bad way to play, sure, but it's a pretty natural way to feel and I suspect it's at the root of some of Armageddon's stagnancy. I think we should at least try out changing the speed of progression and seeing how it feels.

Quote from: Yam on June 14, 2016, 05:30:12 PM
I think the problem is that even if you want to play a combat focused character you probably wont be able to reach a master weapon skill in a reasonable amount of time (e.g. 2 hours per day, 4 days per week) in a reasonable number of IC years. One of the reasons is that it just takes a long time to skill up even if you find a well matched sparring partner. Another reason is that it is difficult to find a well matched sparring partner if you can only be on for a short amount of time per day.

I don't think it's reasonable to effectively lock out people with limited time from the combat sphere of the game world.

I also think that the excruciating combat grind is one of the big reasons that Armageddon has started to feel stale and static. Characters take so long to skill up that people start to feel protective of what they see as a time investment. You can argue that this is a bad way to play, sure, but it's a pretty natural way to feel and I suspect it's at the root of some of Armageddon's stagnancy. I think we should at least try out changing the speed of progression and seeing how it feels.

Ah.  The master weapons skills again.  In the previous thread on this (that I participated in at least), there was a general consensus that reaching master was generally how it should be, but the problem was where the advanced weapon skills branched; master weapon skills in Armageddon are truly frightening skills to have, and thus the long grind is somewhat deserved;  you will not be a legendary swordsman until you are, indeed, singular, and you will, indeed, stomp most things that come at you.

You seem to be basing this all off of sparring, though.  Again, sparring until you reach master is a bad mentality to have.

I counter your assertion for stagnancy with my own: This entire mentality of needing skills to be at a certain level before you can do anything is just as prevalent in this stagnancy.  I see various players who contribute a great deal without being skill-based at all, not to mention -good- at combat skills.  So the idea that the game is stagnant because not enough people are reaching master levels of skills quickly enough is pretty out there.  But you can toss that in with about a billion other reasons people are saying for 'stagnation of the game'.  However, I am averse to such things as this because it's not just a simple tweak to be made.  It's an entire rebalance.  And once it's done, 'just to see how it works', changes committed are very seldom pulled back in Armageddon.  So when you push this for, and fall back on 'let's try it out', it doesn't fit the compromise since there's not much precedence.  Even things with outright disclaimers of 'This will be tweaked or pulled later' rarely, if ever, seem to do so, even with feedback.

I will continue to say that this is based on your perception of things rather than how they actually are; you're upset the word isn't changing fast enough, and ignoring the fact the skill is actually behaving quite a bit different in use.

Aside from the weapon skill branching, of course.  In which case we could just drop those down to advanced and call it good.

What do you think is a reasonable amount of time to master a weapon skill?

Quote from: Yam on June 14, 2016, 05:30:12 PM
I think the problem is that even if you want to play a combat focused character you probably wont be able to reach a master weapon skill in a reasonable amount of time (e.g. 2 hours per day, 4 days per week) in a reasonable number of IC years. One of the reasons is that it just takes a long time to skill up even if you find a well matched sparring partner. Another reason is that it is difficult to find a well matched sparring partner if you can only be on for a short amount of time per day.

Unless you just don't want to join a clan, I don't think lack of a sparring partner is ever really a problem, and if you're going the solo indie route, what does it matter, so long as you accomplish your goals? As for master weapon skills, I have no idea how long they actually take because the highest I've ever gotten a combat skill is Advanced. I'm fine with very few ever getting them. I play for progression, and most the time once a character is mostly maxed I'll store. To me branching a master weapon skill would be a great achievement, I would be proud of accomplishing something so difficult to do.

I don't think Master Weaponskill should be the benchmark for when a character is useful. My most useful character never got past jman (in a single weaponskill skill) and it took him 70 days just to get to advanced 2hand.

Quote from: BadSkeelz on June 14, 2016, 05:52:34 PM
I don't think Master Weaponskill should be the benchmark for when a character is useful. My most useful character never got past jman (in a single weaponskill skill) and it took him 70 days just to get to advanced 2hand.

It definitely isn't. But it's a benchmark of when people start to hit the ceiling and when playtime stops being a big ability divider.

My position is that it takes to long to get to any level of a weapon skill or dual wield/two handed.

A billion days.

Whatever makes it so that the majority of players aspiring for it don't reach it.  Particularly from the safety of a sparring ring.  This seems to be working nicely right now.

Quote from: BadSkeelz on June 14, 2016, 05:52:34 PM
I don't think Master Weaponskill should be the benchmark for when a character is useful. My most useful character never got past jman (in a single weaponskill skill) and it took him 70 days just to get to advanced 2hand.

That's what I mean, though.  Most skills don't take that long in comparison to any other game that requires any sort of 'grind'...the difference is that here we embrace permadeath, so you don't just keep it.  This makes it very good as long as you aren't clinging to higher skills.  As far as weapon skills go, they're on a different scale, yes.  But the entire issue here is not skills taking too long to master, it's people depending too heavily on reaching master.

Warriors have a valid gripe.  Not because of master, but because of -branching-.  We agreed in this topic before that those should be moved down.  But effectively shifting progression altogether solves no problems, makes more work, creates no new content, and is all around a symptom of people trying to max everything out to feel relevant.

My rangers don't branch parry.  My warriors don't get above journeyman (except in maybe one or two cases).  Saying that this makes them irrelevant is completely shorting the currency exchanged in an RPG for the need to say 'Maximum reached; now able to do a few things I probably won't ever do because I'm risk averse to losing my maxed character'.

And yet it keeps coming up.  Not in a way that changes.  The repeated mantra is 'it's for the casuals'...but it doesn't even truly serve the casuals either.  It's all about the words on their skill list.

Quote from: lostinspace on June 14, 2016, 05:52:21 PM
Unless you just don't want to join a clan, I don't think lack of a sparring partner is ever really a problem, and if you're going the solo indie route, what does it matter, so long as you accomplish your goals?

I wouldn't mind seeing more humanoid NPCs in the wilds so you can train up a raider without having to join the Byn for a year.

Yam,

If you make everyone progress quicker (and not just invent some sort of mechanism to allow casuals to keep up with non-casuals), then you are in the exact same place as before, aren't you?  In PvP, casuals will be worse than non-casuals.  Moreover, if you make everyone progress quicker, then we'll have to have tougher NPCs -- that is, the delicate balance in PvE will have to change.  In my view, other than a few OMGROFLMASTOMPmobs still out there, the PvE balance is pretty good: you can move from getting stomped by a scrab to defeating a scrab after about a dozen battles with it.

Quote from: nauta on June 14, 2016, 06:02:27 PM

Quote from: lostinspace on June 14, 2016, 05:52:21 PM
Unless you just don't want to join a clan, I don't think lack of a sparring partner is ever really a problem, and if you're going the solo indie route, what does it matter, so long as you accomplish your goals?

Yam,

If you make everyone progress quicker (and not just invent some sort of mechanism to allow casuals to keep up with non-casuals), then you are in the exact same place as before, aren't you?  

Not necessarily. I think the ideal system would be one where you can get a skillup in one 10-20 minute sparring session with someone reasonably close to your level of ability. That would leave the person with two hours of playtime another 100 minutes to go do build up whatever other relationships they want to build.

As it stands right now you need to spend a fuckload of time in a fight fishing for several failed attacks to progress. Often it isn't even possible to get a missed attack against another player unless some specific things are done.

It's not just a matter of progressing quicker, it's a matter of changing progression. BadSkeelz had a character that spent 70 days of playtime in a combat clan and never got higher than a journeyman weapon skill. That's the kind of character that SHOULD master a weapon skill, but it never will because combat skill progression is goofy.

Quote from: Yam on June 14, 2016, 06:12:56 PM


It's not just a matter of progressing quicker, it's a matter of changing progression. BadSkeelz had a character that spent 70 days of playtime in a combat clan and never got higher than a journeyman weapon skill. That's the kind of character that SHOULD master a weapon skill, but it never will because combat skill progression is goofy.

I'm pretty sure the code was tweaked a while ago so that this isn't as true as it used to be.

I had a character that would go out and fight mobs, usually hunting down multiples and failing bash attempts to fall on my butt as I fought. After about 3 or 4 I'd get a miss. Then some nebulous code changes got posted in the notes and suddenly I'd miss the same mobs regularly while standing up. Furthermore I'd miss players that sparred regularly, something that never happened before that.

You might want to double check that some of these assumptions aren't out of date.

This is developing into an extension of http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,49514.150.html (http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,49514.150.html), almost point for point.

And yes.  There was a code announcement about skill gains on certain skills being tweaked to make them improve faster, but we were not given details on how.

I can very much attest that training in combat clans is much more effective now with the changes. Addressing what seems to be the real issue people seem to have which is progressing combat skills.

Quote from: Narf on June 14, 2016, 06:19:08 PM
You might want to double check that some of these assumptions aren't out of date.

I've played a couple of combat oriented PCs pretty extensively after the updates. I think they were a step in the right direction but as of now I don't think it was enough. I'm also a student and I have quite a bit of time to spend on the game grinding if I feel like it. I don't think the Nergal's code change significantly altered the state of combat progression.

Quote from: Armaddict on June 14, 2016, 06:20:16 PM
This is developing into an extension of http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,49514.150.html (http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,49514.150.html), almost point for point.

This topic tends to crop up every year, yes.

Quote from: Yam on June 14, 2016, 06:23:56 PM
I don't think the Nergal's code change significantly altered the state of combat progression.

It very much did for me. It was like night and day, but I suppose that's just an anecdotal experience.

new player perspective, but having played MMOs for ages:
if you're a casual player, you should expect to advance at a casual pace.  adjust your RP accordingly.  
I liked the 'I used to do this, but now I do this' explanation for why I would suck at my chosen profession at first.
I would love to not be able to see skill levels.

Were I in charge (I'm not), I would not take anecdotal evidence like that to try and balance skill gains.

I'd take a snapshot of the player database at any given time and list out how many warriors we have right now and then list how many of those are at master and what their playtimes are. I'd also annotate on that chart whether they are clanned or unclanned.

I'd love to see that sort of info published here, not just for warriors but for everything. I'm a data fanatic though. Data, data, data. Can't make bricks without clay.

As for pure power though, the warriors I have who made it up to journeyman started feeling pretty awesome. It wasn't one particular skill it was the aggregate of shield, parry, and weaponskill. Plus the time invested in buying decent armor and learning bash high enough not to fall on my face during the fight. Seeing "master" or getting a new, advanced weaponskill would have been cool, but I didn't feel gimped without it.

Aside from warrior, I think pickpockets, assassins, and burglars have it way worse. As a warrior I can go use my warrior skills five minutes after I type "enter arch". As a stealthy character I have to master my skills in secret before I ever even CONSIDER using them in public. So you may be a pickpocket who will never pick a player's pocket until seven days played.

Quote from: Miradus on June 14, 2016, 06:28:46 PM
Were I in charge (I'm not), I would not take anecdotal evidence like that to try and balance skill gains.

I'd take a snapshot of the player database at any given time and list out how many warriors we have right now and then list how many of those are at master and what their playtimes are. I'd also annotate on that chart whether they are clanned or unclanned.

I'd love to see that sort of info published here, not just for warriors but for everything. I'm a data fanatic though. Data, data, data. Can't make bricks without clay.

As for pure power though, the warriors I have who made it up to journeyman started feeling pretty awesome. It wasn't one particular skill it was the aggregate of shield, parry, and weaponskill. Plus the time invested in buying decent armor and learning bash high enough not to fall on my face during the fight. Seeing "master" or getting a new, advanced weaponskill would have been cool, but I didn't feel gimped without it.

Aside from warrior, I think pickpockets, assassins, and burglars have it way worse. As a warrior I can go use my warrior skills five minutes after I type "enter arch". As a stealthy character I have to master my skills in secret before I ever even CONSIDER using them in public. So you may be a pickpocket who will never pick a player's pocket until seven days played.

This is the exact risk aversion I'm talking about; 'I can't do things until I never fail'.  And then people complain about stagnation.  Pheh!

QuoteThis topic tends to crop up every year, yes.

Well.  Not every year.  It started being consistent a couple years after the skill visibility.  It's gotten more and more prevalent.  It's almost like...*gasp* the concerns about skill visibility were well founded!  I think your response here is to say that 'If it's still coming up, it's still a problem', but if that's the case we shouldn't have mages anymore.

It came up regularly before skill levels were made visible too. Combat skill progression certainly isn't in line with any of the other skills which you can expect to master in at most 10-20 days played of frequent use.

Quote from: Armaddict on June 14, 2016, 06:35:04 PM
This is the exact risk aversion I'm talking about; 'I can't do things until I never fail'.  And then people complain about stagnation.  Pheh!

What would the consequences of failing steal on a player be, inside the city? Or outside for that matter?

An NPC is going to shout "Thief thief" and run away and that's the end of it. A player is either going to kill me, or worse, run back to the Gaj and end all future roleplay potential I might have with that character.

I guess you could have a city elf pickpocket who says, "Yeah, I'm a thief, and I'll rob you blind if you don't watch me constantly. What of it?" In fact, that might be a lot of fun. But thus far even being suspected as being a thief is not a lot of fun. The only thing people like less than a half-elf is a new character whose guild they haven't yet figured out. Walk into the Gaj as a known thief on a crowded evening and watch how fast those backpacks get locked and the watchful eye hemotes start flying.

I'd happily embrace that novelty if I hadn't watched several times as templars arbitrarily (or what looked arbitrary to me as an outsider) had people's heads ripped off in the street.

Quote from: Yam on June 14, 2016, 11:37:04 AM
Can we look at increasing the rate at which skills increase in Armageddon? Especially weapon and certain combat skills (dual wield and two handed).

Our playerbase is aging. Many of us started playing Armageddon in our late teens or early twenties when spending 5 hours a day on a text-based roleplaying game (or hack and slash if you started way back then) was doable. Now most of us have careers, kids, and obligations that keep us from spending as much timestaring at text scroll. It's extremely difficult to play Armageddon casually both because characters need to be present to maintain IC relationships and because characters take a long, long, long time to skill up.

Combat skills are especially onerous. It isn't unusual to spend an IC year in the T'zai Byn sparring for an hour each and every day and come out with apprentice weapon/combat skills. It currently takes something on the order of 10 days played to get to journeymanish level combat skills. That's absolutely ludicrous. Ten days is 240 hours, 6 weeks of a full time job, or $3600 at $15 an hour.

As it stands Armageddon has some of the highest ability disparity between characters with different playtimes. Joe Grebber who can manage to play for 5 hours a day and fight hawks will almost always have a significant combat advantage over Bob Byn Sergeant who can only play 3 hours a day.  I think this can be alleviated somewhat by fiddling with the way skills - especially combat skills - increase. It has always been something thrown about, but I think it's time we seriously consider it, because right now the opportunity cost to get a journeyman weapon skill has a low end of $3600... and that's insane.

Haven't read the rest of the thread yet - but your math is wrong by a whole lot.

Ten days is 240 consecutive hours, during which only 1/3 is spent working, if you're a full-time employee (and even then - most full-time employees work only 37.5 hours and in some cases, only 35 hours). Approximately 1/3 is spent sleeping. And the other third is spent doing anything other than work or sleep. In addition, of those 3 hours per day you referred to in your post, the average Bynner can only attempt to skill up a relatively small percentage of that three hours, because of skill timers. So that 10 days played is really only MAYBE 2-3 day's played of skillups. If he's doing it right, the rest of the time is being spent roleplaying.

If your average Bynner is spending every minute of that 10 days played in the sparring ring, then hopefully someone will have already reported him to staff for ignoring the game world in exchange for twinkery.

Also, if you increase skill gain, then everyone who DOES have time to spend working the skill timers efficiently, will STILL be ahead of everyone who doesn't have time to work the skill timers efficiently.

The game isn't balanced. It was never designed to be balanced. It doesn't favor casual players. But if this were a MUSH that had no coded skills of any kind, and relied 100% on roleplay, it STILL wouldn't favor casual players. Someone who can't devote a dozen or two hours every week, consistently, will always be codedly behind someone who devotes 40 hours a week consistently. This is true with everything. Someone who practices guitar faithfully every day, will have stronger calluses on their fingertips than someone who practices once a week.

That's just how it works, when you're dealing with "time spent doing something."

Quote from: 650Booger on June 14, 2016, 06:27:43 PM
new player perspective, but having played MMOs for ages:
if you're a casual player, you should expect to advance at a casual pace.  adjust your RP accordingly.  
I liked the 'I used to do this, but now I do this' explanation for why I would suck at my chosen profession at first.
I would love to not be able to see skill levels.

Bingo.

Quote from: Yam on June 14, 2016, 06:43:00 PM
It came up regularly before skill levels were made visible too. Combat skill progression certainly isn't in line with any of the other skills which you can expect to master in at most 10-20 days played of frequent use.

Uhm.  No?  It did not, at least not with any sort of consistency, nor with weight behind it.  I've actually been searching for couple hours prior to making that outright claim.  Thusfar, most of what i'm seeing is the want for everyone to get weapon skills, for weapon skills to be more diverse, and for weapon skills to be teachable to someone without them, and things of that nature.  The first post I can see of this nature is 2012 by Sunburned.

It really is a word after a skill name you're irritated about.  Not even what you can do with it, or without it.  Just what it says.

QuoteI'd happily embrace that novelty if I hadn't watched several times as templars arbitrarily (or what looked arbitrary to me as an outsider) had people's heads ripped off in the street.

It's funny, because I think by -most- accounts, our templars have been pretty tame for awhile.  (This is not a complaint, mind you.)

It's also worth noting that you, with your vantage point, have not seen the elven pickpockets that I've seen that became plagues on the city by 3 or 4 days of playing time, precisely because they were willing to risk getting caught for moments of opportune scores.

I had a militia soldier once who used to catch and release one who got the -code- never caught, but players 'knew it was him' (No, he really didn't hide it well).  Asserting that journeyman anything is useless is based on a platform of requiring 100% success with minimal risk.  Hence the term of risk aversion.

The problem was back in the day twinks were running around thinking they were badass's (myself included) and never actually knew we were still rocking what is now apprentice/jman combat skills.

The veil has been lifted, now you realize that your 40days played badass only has jman chopping and you think ermagerd I am teh sucks. 40 days played badass now is still the same 40 days played badass of the past (prob better actually cause you know the code more than you did back then), just NOW you get to see you can be more badass than you are currently.

Chillax and play ur rolez scrubs. Casuals play casually, non casuals, play non casually, both can MCB.

Quote from: Lizzie on June 14, 2016, 06:55:48 PM

Quote from: Yam on June 14, 2016, 11:37:04 AM
Can we look at increasing the rate at which skills increase in Armageddon? Especially weapon and certain combat skills (dual wield and two handed).

Our playerbase is aging. Many of us started playing Armageddon in our late teens or early twenties when spending 5 hours a day on a text-based roleplaying game (or hack and slash if you started way back then) was doable. Now most of us have careers, kids, and obligations that keep us from spending as much timestaring at text scroll. It's extremely difficult to play Armageddon casually both because characters need to be present to maintain IC relationships and because characters take a long, long, long time to skill up.

Combat skills are especially onerous. It isn't unusual to spend an IC year in the T'zai Byn sparring for an hour each and every day and come out with apprentice weapon/combat skills. It currently takes something on the order of 10 days played to get to journeymanish level combat skills. That's absolutely ludicrous. Ten days is 240 hours, 6 weeks of a full time job, or $3600 at $15 an hour.

As it stands Armageddon has some of the highest ability disparity between characters with different playtimes. Joe Grebber who can manage to play for 5 hours a day and fight hawks will almost always have a significant combat advantage over Bob Byn Sergeant who can only play 3 hours a day.  I think this can be alleviated somewhat by fiddling with the way skills - especially combat skills - increase. It has always been something thrown about, but I think it's time we seriously consider it, because right now the opportunity cost to get a journeyman weapon skill has a low end of $3600... and that's insane.

Haven't read the rest of the thread yet - but your math is wrong by a whole lot.

Ten days is 240 consecutive hours, during which only 1/3 is spent working, if you're a full-time employee (and even then - most full-time employees work only 37.5 hours and in some cases, only 35 hours). Approximately 1/3 is spent sleeping.

I think you misunderstood me. Ten days of playtime is 240 hours, which hopefully isn't accrued consecutively.

Quote from: Armaddict on June 14, 2016, 06:57:41 PM

Quote from: Yam on June 14, 2016, 06:43:00 PM
It came up regularly before skill levels were made visible too. Combat skill progression certainly isn't in line with any of the other skills which you can expect to master in at most 10-20 days played of frequent use.

It really is a word after a skill name you're irritated about.  Not even what you can do with it, or without it.  Just what it says.

I'm not really irritated about anything here (except maybe the way you're arguing this). I don't have any issues skilling up combat PCs. I can play in the background at my work, wait around to find as many buff sparring partners as I want, and go on as many extended hunting trips as I want to find the really meaty mobs with lots of agility and defense. The current state of combat progression is great for players like me because I can achieve a nearly insurmountable advantage over people who can only play for an hour or two a few days a week.

The fact is that people have dropped the game because they can't get any sense of progression and feel like they can't keep up if they don't put in a ton of hours. I don't think it matters whether or not that feeling is justified. I just want to see more people come back to the game and more new players retained. I think that will happen if we ease up on the combat skill grind.

Quote from: Armaddict on June 14, 2016, 07:00:57 PM

It's funny, because I think by -most- accounts, our templars have been pretty tame for awhile.  (This is not a complaint, mind you.)

It's also worth noting that you, with your vantage point, have not seen the elven pickpockets that I've seen that became plagues on the city by 3 or 4 days of playing time, precisely because they were willing to risk getting caught for moments of opportune scores.

I had a militia soldier once who used to catch and release one who got the -code- never caught, but players 'knew it was him' (No, he really didn't hide it well).  Asserting that journeyman anything is useless is based on a platform of requiring 100% success with minimal risk.  Hence the term of risk aversion.

That would actually be pretty cool to see. From my limited time in Allanak, it's way too safe and tame for the setting. I get in more problems in Red Storm than I do in Allanak.

I typically gauge success by real-world conditions rather than the words on the skillsheet. Not that I still don't spam "skills" every 30 seconds while playing because I'm interested to see when stuff changes, but if I'm mostly not failing at charge or trample when I hit journeyman or I can fight without falling off my mount then I'm happy as a clam.

My life expectancy with any character is not great. It's always "I wonder how far east these salt flats go" or "I wonder what's in that hole in the cliff wall" or "#Session Died" and come back without a character to play.

I'm another one of those guys that can play 5 hours a day if I want to. The thing is that I don't want to.

I hate the grind and I resent that I have to compete with players that are willing to engage the grind to play a powerful character.

Quote from: Miradus on June 14, 2016, 07:16:09 PM

Quote from: Armaddict on June 14, 2016, 07:00:57 PM

It's funny, because I think by -most- accounts, our templars have been pretty tame for awhile.  (This is not a complaint, mind you.)

It's also worth noting that you, with your vantage point, have not seen the elven pickpockets that I've seen that became plagues on the city by 3 or 4 days of playing time, precisely because they were willing to risk getting caught for moments of opportune scores.

I had a militia soldier once who used to catch and release one who got the -code- never caught, but players 'knew it was him' (No, he really didn't hide it well).  Asserting that journeyman anything is useless is based on a platform of requiring 100% success with minimal risk.  Hence the term of risk aversion.

That would actually be pretty cool to see. From my limited time in Allanak, it's way too safe and tame for the setting. I get in more problems in Red Storm than I do in Allanak.

I typically gauge success by real-world conditions rather than the words on the skillsheet. Not that I still don't spam "skills" every 30 seconds while playing because I'm interested to see when stuff changes, but if I'm mostly not failing at charge or trample when I hit journeyman or I can fight without falling off my mount then I'm happy as a clam.

My life expectancy with any character is not great. It's always "I wonder how far east these salt flats go" or "I wonder what's in that hole in the cliff wall" or "#Session Died" and come back without a character to play.

Well.  I would just like to say...life expectancy isn't really a great way to judge the fun of the character, either.  Some of my coolest scenarios were brought about by the 'oh shit' of not knowing where I was.  Yeah, I lost a lot of characters, but I also got to experience some real shit.

QuoteI'm not really irritated about anything here (except maybe the way you're arguing this).

Well.  I wasn't meaning that in the way of you're directly irritated -now-, I should have likely referenced something more along the lines of 'the motivation behind these posts' being a simple state of terminology with visible skills; people are frustrated by not seeing weapon skills go up quickly, and my one big boon of these threads that I am eager to do (as you can see) is point out that master weapon skills are entirely overrated.  If you reach them, you are part of the 1%, and I congratulate you...but the majority of the game, like Majikal said, can be experienced at a far lower skill level.

If you pen yourself into a room and try to grind out to where you're not afraid anymore, then go out and you're not afraid anymore...of -course- the game will feel stale.  But I'm also of the sincere belief that the idea that this will make the game more enjoyable, by essentially making progression faster, is a fallacy.  Less risk is bad.  Getting stronger too fast is bad.  Thinking of skill levels as levels that let you know when you're 'ready for endgame' is detrimental to yourself and the game as a whole...and thus why I think it was easier with no visibility.  Sure, it looked weird to a newbie, but it also forced that idea of testing yourself, fearing the unknown, and using information available to glean what you need to know (i.e. I'm not sure I can kill that guy.  Find out how he does against this guy in sparring, because I can spar with that guy and get an idea, etc).

While I talk about it a lot, I'm -sure- we are not going back to invisible skill levels.  But I do view it as a problem, and this recurring discussion is trying to fix that problem by sliding further on along its slippery slope.

Quote from: Jingo on June 14, 2016, 07:19:03 PM
I'm another one of those guys that can play 5 hours a day if I want to. The thing is that I don't want to.

I hate the grind and I resent that I have to compete with players that are willing to engage the grind to play a powerful character.

And I definitely have characters in that same boat.  'rinthers, in particular...there is no logical combat experience unless I go around pretending that people are picking fights (which is twinky in my head), unless I purposely wear things for it to happen (also twinky in my head), or unless I give my character some code that makes them select targets.

However...increasing skill progression rates aids the grinder.  Not the anti-grinder, particularly not in this plight.  You'll just have more people hitting the point that you're worried about faster, where your opportunities will remain limited.  Do more, but remain limited, which means even people far behind will just catch up.

And then there's players like me who sometimes login to go chop shit with bone swords, I enjoy the grind. Sometimes I grind, sometimes I spend days at a time without touching a skill. If grinding was limited moreso than it is, there's plenty of playtime I wouldn't even login because I want to go level up on diablo or shoot people in overwatch.

If the grind gets limited or removed or is made casual, lots of times I want to login I simply wouldn't. I doubt I'm the only one that gets excited and logs on cause 'omg I'm about to branch'. So if the game was more casual, I'd log in less.

Quote from: Yam on June 14, 2016, 07:09:42 PM
The fact is that people have dropped the game because they can't get any sense of progression and feel like they can't keep up if they don't put in a ton of hours. I don't think it matters whether or not that feeling is justified. I just want to see more people come back to the game and more new players retained. I think that will happen if we ease up on the combat skill grind.

But there are people who still play, who have played for years, who do get a sense of progression. So I suggest to you that those people who have dropped the game because they "can't get any sense of progression" are just experiencing their own perception, which might not correlate at all to reality.

I have -moments- when I get frustrated with a lack of progression. But then, the moment passes, I discover that I'm progressing, and I get over it. If I take a week off and don't play at all the entire week, when I come back, I KNOW I haven't progressed at all in the past week. I don't compare my lack of progression with someone else's uber progression. Why should I? Chances are some other random person's going to PK my character anyway, and that someone might've been playing a year longer than I have. Or get me while my character is sleeping. Or succeed a poison dice roll. Or it might be a mekillot and not a PC. Seriously - I really think some people put way too much emphasis on comparing their skills against everyone else. It's like you're playing a totally different game that's nothing more than a H&S.

Sounds like a giant bucket of unintended consequences waiting to happen.

Quote from: valeria on June 14, 2016, 07:47:35 PM
Sounds like a giant bucket of unintended consequences waiting to happen.

Yeah. I can think of a dozen issues I'd much rather tackle than skill progression.

While this game is an RPI, a MUD, and not a MUSH, MOO, etc (Meaning there is a verbose coded combat system, crafting system, and it is by no means a game only perpetuated by RP), I sometimes feel like i'm playing a really, really, really, really good H&S with great RP reinforcement.

I know from reading this thread and having played the game for over a decade and a half, that there are different strokes for different folks. That is great. Some people enjoy playing in clans, others don't. Some people like playing magickers, others, not so much. That's what gives this game such a verbose cast of characters -- You rarely find only the Beefy Warriors in the T'zai Byn. You see the elves, the dwarves, the cutesy girls, the psionicists, the magickers in hiding. Rarely do you find only one 'type' of player anywhere.

Similarly, the grind may appeal to people like Majikal and Armaddict, and many others who aren't voicing their opinions. And it isn't the 'grind' per se, from what i'm reading. It's the natural progression from 0 day 0 hour PC, to the 25 day played Warrior, or Assassin, or Ranger who you can compare to the 0 day 0 hour and visibly see the difference in skills and combat worthiness.

To me -- And this is just me, I can't speak for others -- Perhaps part of the reason I miss Tuluk is that it felt that no matter when or why your character dropped into the bar or ran into someone, there was a thread of a plot that had nothing to do with skills. It felt like I was playing within a story, that was organic, and moved around my PCs with or without them. While elements of this do exist in Allanak, whether because I enjoy playing there less, or simply a lack of participation (not finding the right people, for instance), I find the 'grind' as it were is more of a focus than ever.

It appears (to me) that people don't even consider sending out a 'person' as an Assassin. Instead, they send out the 50 Days Played Assassin, who they are sure is going to kill the target. There are ways they can vet the PC to see if they are capable. Now -- One could argue, Reiloth, anyone in their right mind would do this. Why would they send the 'newbie' assassin to kill someone? And, I would agree. There is a disconnect here...An interchange between meta knowledge and IG knowledge/perception.

While I see and agree with much of Yam's arguments about coded skill gain, my solution would be along a different route. I would actually argue to make 'newbie' PCs more dangerous than they are. This would not discount people who put in time to train, to kill, to learn. In fact, it would make them more dangerous as well.

Ever seen two (Master) Warriors fight one another? It is a woefully long affair, riddled with kicks and bashes and disarm attempts that are reversed...It's rather farcical.

How about two newbish people get into a bar fight? Riddled with whiffs and near hits, it's one of the least enjoyable things to sit through (either as a participant or as a spectator).

What I would suggest is to make starting offense and defense of a character higher at chargen. Allow skill to directly translate to damage while hitting (So that a Brutish 0 day 0 hour dude might be able to hit you more often, but maybe not in as fatal a manner as a trained Salarri/Bynner).  Allow for the brutish 0 day 0 hour dude to pick a fight in a bar, and actually beat someone up. Have the pair of brutish dudes be able to murder each other quickly outside in a shiv match. Have the brutish 0 day 0 hour dude get wrecked even quicker and more brutally by the trained Salarri. Allow combat between a trained combatant and a newb combatant to be over in a few seconds. Allow combat between two newbs to be over in a few seconds. Make shit brutal, short, and permanent.

To me, this would increase PC turnaround, allow for casual players to be members of the 'cast' of Allanak and the rougher parts of the world without needing to devote time to combat related clans (Many of my PCs wouldn't want to join the Byn, for instance, but I feel pressured to as a Player because I similarly don't like murdering NPCs in the Labyrinth). Reduce attachment to the PC as a 'Toon' and 'status symbol' of skill gain, and re-enter the story and atmosphere of Zalanthas. Reward people for time spent RPing and building stories around their PCs, rather than spending time gaining skills.

As someone pointed out earlier in the thread, you can gain skills easily. Practice, fail, and wait a bit. But if you don't have time to wait a bit -- If the response of the playerbase is 'Well, if you don't have enough time to play the game anymore, sucks to be you'...Then I guess so it goes. Nothing lasts forever, and perhaps I just have to come to terms with the fact that the model of ArmageddonMUD and how you progress through it doesn't suit my lifestyle anymore.

However, I would be terribly saddened to know that as a fact. I guess we'll all get there some day. But it'd sure be nice to be able to plug in to Armageddon every now and then and feel like my PC could participate, get involved, and make a difference without devoting many hours a day to training.

When the bar of what your PC is capable of doing is determined by numbers on skill sheets, rather than RP, we move dangerously closer to a Hack and Slash. I applaud people who do have the time to commit and maintain the model of ArmageddonMUD as it was for the last 10-15 years (perhaps more recent than that, with being able to see skills). However, much has changed within the Armageddon community, including the age and capability of its players to devote large chunks of time to the game.

I personally would play more if I could avoid the 'skill shame' of being a casual player. I would also play more if it was taken for granted that people have lives, and may not play every day of the week, and to not freak out when they go/arrive/base trust on whether they're around/threaten to murder them for not being around/etc.

Quote from: Malken on June 14, 2016, 01:18:36 PM
I prefer to see it as Armageddon adapting to the gaming reality of 2016 and an aging community than going "easy-mode" but I understand your point of view.

I've a sense that this particular problem needs to be addressed, but what we have in resources are limited.  I mean, my phone autocorrects words at high efficiency because my thumb mashed the screen somewhere in the vicinity of a combination of letters, and yet if I can't find the archaic combination of commands to roll up a spice joint:  "Huh?"  "You can't do that here."  "No." "What the fuck are you on about, Jack?"  The tech is archaic, and that's because this is a hobbyist game, not a professional development.

Still, I think if anything, we could make combat skills more reasonable.  It doesn't make any sense why you can max a spell tree in 100 hours of play, and yet expect 1000 hours or more to master a single weapon skill.

And to the poppycock about "stop trying to master skills and roleplay", well, alright dudes.  I'm sure you'd have that same attitude if you couldn't master "swordmaking" and fulfill your character's long-running desire to make a custom blade.

Characters want different things -- that one is unattainable without ridiculous levels of investment seems broken to me.

The change made a few months back to combat skill gain has made a huge difference in the rate at which characters advance in skill. While it still takes a long time to master a combat skill, it takes a relatively very short amount of time to achieve a level of competence in one. Additionally, offense and defense are hidden skills that were also affected by this change, and make a difference in combat as well - and generally speaking, combatant PCs I've looked at over the past few months have been gaining those skills a lot quicker as well - reaching competence (which is important for survival) quickly, and reaching mastery (which is far less important) a little less slowly.

So staff are definitely open to increasing the rate of skill gain, but it should also be understood that there's a balance to be struck. You have to consider that the faster a PC gains in skill, the faster they become powerful - even infallible, in terms of PvP conflict. Casual play at the moment doesn't suffer from an extreme disadvantage compared to more "dedicated" (for lack of a better word) play, because it can be counterbalanced by a casual player seeking out a challenging opponent to advance faster. Making skill gain faster would actually increase the gap between casual and "dedicated" players because the latter group would be able to get more skill-gains with the time they have to spend on getting them, leaving casual players in the dust even more quickly than they're left in the dust now.

Additionally, the more we increase skill-gains the less we make wisdom a factor in them. To be as frank as possible here, if you treat wisdom as a dump stat the effects of that are definitely felt in the long-term. I can't really get into code specifics but it suffices to say that wisdom really does what it's intended to do, and could maybe even be more of a factor in the future.

Thanks for the insight, Nergal!

I hate to see the game drift more in the direction of, "Things are easier and easier to accomplish.".

The reason for this? I'm an achiever type player. I want to achieve things. I want to build things. I want to establish things that are going to last. I want to step back at the end of a long-lived character's life and say, "Yeah, it was fucking hard, but I did that.".

That's not for everyone. MOST people want to sit down in front of a game and say, "I had a fun time, and that's what matters.". I get that. Absolutely. That mentality is exactly why World of Warcraft will always have more players than Armageddon MUD. To be honest I'm more and more in that corner myself these days. However, there are other games where I can easily get that fix.

I do not want Armageddon to become one of those games. It has never been one of those games and it shouldn't become one of those games.

I'm going to use a dirty word. Casual.

Armageddon is not a game for Casuals and it should never become a game for Casuals. If you are a Casual, you should go play Overwatch, it is awesome. Add me to your Battlenet because you are going to find me there playing it with you a lot these days.

As much as some people WANT Armageddon to be more casual friendly and "easier", you have to keep the math of the situation in mind.

Every time the game gets easier, what you accomplish means less and less.

People already do this with certain things. They put an asterisk mentally and sometimes literally next to accomplishments:

Did you accomplish this with a staff sponsored character? Asterisk.
Did you accomplish this back in the day when it was the Wild West of staff favoritism (Atrium for example)? Asterisk.
Was this a staff ran plot you were just a part of and not a player ran plot? Asterisk.
Was this with a magicker PC and not a mundane? Asterisk.


What I don't want is to see the following, because it would make me not want to try and accomplish things because I would KNOW I did it on easy-mode, and it didn't mean very much:

Did you accomplish this after the big code change where everyone could be viable/good at fighting in just a few days? Asterisk.



Every time it gets easier, what you accomplish means less.

I feel we are at a good middle ground as it is.

Quote from: Desertman on June 15, 2016, 09:01:11 AM
I hate to see the game drift more in the direction of, "Things are easier and easier to accomplish.".

The reason for this? I'm an achiever type player. I want to achieve things. I want to build things. I want to establish things that are going to last. I want to step back at the end of a long-lived character's life and say, "Yeah, it was fucking hard, but I did that.".

I'm pretty sure that we all want that, actually :)

But honestly, when's the last time you feel like a character of yours has achieved something of worth? Something truly world-changing?

If you've achieved, established and built things with most of your characters, then I truly envy you!

It should still feel fucking hard, I agree. I feel like most don't achieve much of worth, though, even after giving it a real good and long effort.

Frankly, I'm shocked to hear this kind of stuff from the guy who admits to loving Torbjorn.   ;D

I almost always achieve something of worth TO ME but it's almost never of worth to the game world at large.

With my last character I discovered a whole new chunk of about 40 rooms in Allanak I'd never seen before, mapped them all, and found cool spots to do things in. I assume they aren't well known or commonly traveled due to the number of typos I bugged. :)

Having a long lived character does not seem that difficult to me. I have had several merchants who I could still be playing today if I hadn't gotten bored with them and took a day off from grinding out widgets to go explore some new spot. If you stick to the roads and the tregil-zones then you're probably going to live a very long time. It's when I get that wild hair to see what lies out past the grasslands or salt flats that I get in trouble.

But accomplishing something as an independent? I mean accomplishing something other players would take note of? No idea how to do that.

Quote from: Malken on June 15, 2016, 09:35:20 AM

Quote from: Desertman on June 15, 2016, 09:01:11 AM
I hate to see the game drift more in the direction of, "Things are easier and easier to accomplish.".

The reason for this? I'm an achiever type player. I want to achieve things. I want to build things. I want to establish things that are going to last. I want to step back at the end of a long-lived character's life and say, "Yeah, it was fucking hard, but I did that.".

I'm pretty sure that we all want that, actually :)

But honestly, when's the last time you feel like a character of yours has achieved something of worth? Something truly world-changing?

If you've achieved, established and built things with most of your characters, then I truly envy you!

It should still feel fucking hard, I agree. I feel like most don't achieve much of worth, though, even after giving it a real good and long effort.

You have me here actually.

But the solution isn't, "Make me able to hit things easier with my bone sword.".

The lack of an ability to accomplish lasting things in the game in a reasonable manner has absolutely nothing to do with coded skill levels.

There is a glass ceiling you hit at one point or another where you either get approval to move ahead how you want or you get shutdown. That shutdown can come and has come in a variety of ways. You get your political backing yanked at staff level, you get your money yanked at staff level, you get your employees yanked at staff level. It happens and has happened more than once. The issue is how that glass ceiling is handled. You eventually get to a point where a decision is made, "Do we let them remain powerful, or do we yank their power, because they've reached the point where they can accomplish things.". How that question gets answered more or less determines if you succeed at this point in creating a lasting accomplishment.

It has nothing to do with how fast you get good at fighting.

Quote from: SuchDragonWow on June 15, 2016, 10:01:41 AM
Frankly, I'm shocked to hear this kind of stuff from the guy who admits to loving Torbjorn.   ;D

You watch your filthy mouth!

Torbjorn is love, Torbjorn is MOOOOOLLLLTEEEEN COOOOOOOOREEEE!!!!

One of the "accomplishments" is coded.

I want to max all my skills. That's an OOC goal for pretty much all my characters. It's of FAR lesser importance than any IC goal, but it's still a goal. If it was easy to max all my skills, it wouldn't be a goal at all. It'd be just one less thing for me to give a shit about.

I like having goals and accomplishments. I also like just playing for the sake of playing. I like both of these things.  I don't want either of them taken from me. I'm selfish like that (you can tell because of all the times I include the word "I" in my posts).

Someone told me I am INSANELY patient when it comes to skill gains. Maybe I am. I don't think I am - it takes me FOREVER to gain skill, probably because I rarely make use of combat or crafting or magick skills when I have them. I might have a full RL hours worth of sparring/practicing/spam-crafting, and then for the next two RL days I just hang out or go exploring. That's my choice, but the downside is it takes me a long time to max out on anything. If I min-maxed instead of playing my character, I'm sure I'd be maxed out in 20 days or whatever the cool kids consider an uber experience. It isn't hard, I'm told. If it's not hard, then I'd really like for it to NOT get easier.

Like DMan - I want my accomplishments to mean something. I want them to be significant. Those accomplishments range from "finding a place no one else has found before" to "influencing a Senate hearing" to "being an integral part in a significant plotline" and yes, to "maxing and branching all the skills on my skills list."

If I want easy mode I'll go back to GemStoneIII and rewrite all my wizard scripts.

Quote from: Desertman on June 15, 2016, 10:21:35 AM

Quote from: SuchDragonWow on June 15, 2016, 10:01:41 AM
Frankly, I'm shocked to hear this kind of stuff from the guy who admits to loving Torbjorn.   ;D

You watch your filthy mouth!

Torbjorn is love, Torbjorn is MOOOOOLLLLTEEEEN COOOOOOOOREEEE!!!!

I'm sure that's what he howls while he's jacking off behind that turret, that demonic little fucker.

I don't know what the happy medium is. I just want more players. I care more about having more players who are into roleplay than having the ideal rate of skill gain that gives me that feeling of accomplishment without being too much of a drag. So anything that will draw in more new players or bring back more vets who have lives now gets a +1 from me.

The mentality of 'casual is a bad word' will only lead to a death for the game. Some great players have already moved on because they cannot spend the time on the ArmageddonMUD paradigm as it currently stands. They don't make ragequit posts, or even postulations like I am doing (because i'm not trying to actively leave, i'm trying to actively stay actually). They just fade away -- And as they fade away, we lose many of the sparks of inspiration that make ArmageddonMUD great.

Casual players are the red shirts in your Byn Party -- The people who show up to have fun when the fun can be gotten. There will always be a place for the achievement players who have the time to commit to the game. You will always have your world shakers -- The Templars, the Minor Merchant House aspirees, the social catamites who know every dirty secret, the Nobles with their cadre of minions and plots. Those roles all take time, and are rarely possible for a Casual player to do anything besides interact with.

To call Casual a dirty word names many of the people who still attempt to play the game unsuitable to play the game. The only people who should play the game are people who have time to play the game. And it sends the message to people who can only play casually of 'play another game if you want to play ArmageddonMUD casually'. To which, many casual gamers will say 'No problemo', and the playerbase dwindles even further.

While skill gain is not the problem per se, the culture of skill shaming or ability shaming is prevalent in the current state of the game. If you aren't skilled enough to do a task, you aren't involved with plots. You need to train more, and spend more time doing inane training tasks, before you are allowed to sit at the table. You need to be around more often, so we can begin to trust you. What do you mean you need to leave? There is a certain guilt-tripping that goes on, where if you aren't 'around enough', whether that means training or simply talking, you aren't worth it.

Part of me understands this, having played many leadership roles myself. You don't want to waste time on people who may never log in again or show up for 'work'. At the same time though, you are sending the message that you are only interested in people who spend many hours playing the game, and you don't have time for 'casuals'.

There is very little wrong with the achievement based playing style -- There is plenty of room for you to devote many hours of your life to achieving great things in ArmageddonMUD. But for the people who just want to log in a few hours here and there, due to the requirement by many to be talented / skilled before involvement in plots, there is very little beyond the casual RP in a bar, or the solo Ranger who can 'make their own fun'. To shut out or pretend there aren't casual players having these problems is very short sighted. I think you will find that much of the ArmageddonMUD playerbase has become more casual due to necessity of their life obligations -- And to have fewer avenues for them to be involved in the game, you will likely find they will just go elsewhere.

I'm not sure what solution there is -- Nergal pointed out that Staff already saw this as a problem in the past and made adjustments, and would be open to making more adjustments. Is Skill Gain the real problem here though, or is it the culture of requiring people who are 'skilled' to be involved with plots, due to a fear of failure?

Quote from: Reiloth on June 15, 2016, 11:33:02 AM
While skill gain is not the problem per se, the culture of skill shaming or ability shaming is prevalent in the current state of the game. If you aren't skilled enough to do a task, you aren't involved with plots. You need to train more, and spend more time doing inane training tasks, before you are allowed to sit at the table. You need to be around more often, so we can begin to trust you. What do you mean you need to leave? There is a certain guilt-tripping that goes on, where if you aren't 'around enough', whether that means training or simply talking, you aren't worth it.

Part of me understands this, having played many leadership roles myself. You don't want to waste time on people who may never log in again or show up for 'work'. At the same time though, you are sending the message that you are only interested in people who spend many hours playing the game, and you don't have time for 'casuals'.

I like this point.  One thing I really liked about playing in a tribe was that, regardless of who you were, you were instantly involved in the plots.  Of course that's a tribe where everyone trusts everyone.  Outside a tribe, it's a tension between the (almost suicidal) track of trusting a new AoD soldier or Guild recruit with secrets, on the one hand, and not trusting them until they've lasted a year or whatever.  Personally, I think we should lean more towards trusting people with our secrets, or at least tossing those secrets out.  It helps spread stories (and so can go a ways towards diminishing the feel that 'nothing is happening'), creates far more dynamic plots, allows for betrayal, and so on.

Quote from: nauta on June 15, 2016, 11:48:24 AM

Quote from: Reiloth on June 15, 2016, 11:33:02 AM
While skill gain is not the problem per se, the culture of skill shaming or ability shaming is prevalent in the current state of the game. If you aren't skilled enough to do a task, you aren't involved with plots. You need to train more, and spend more time doing inane training tasks, before you are allowed to sit at the table. You need to be around more often, so we can begin to trust you. What do you mean you need to leave? There is a certain guilt-tripping that goes on, where if you aren't 'around enough', whether that means training or simply talking, you aren't worth it.

Part of me understands this, having played many leadership roles myself. You don't want to waste time on people who may never log in again or show up for 'work'. At the same time though, you are sending the message that you are only interested in people who spend many hours playing the game, and you don't have time for 'casuals'.

I like this point.  One thing I really liked about playing in a tribe was that, regardless of who you were, you were instantly involved in the plots.  Of course that's a tribe where everyone trusts everyone.  Outside a tribe, it's a tension between the (almost suicidal) track of trusting a new AoD soldier or Guild recruit with secrets, on the one hand, and not trusting them until they've lasted a year or whatever.  Personally, I think we should lean more towards trusting people with our secrets, or at least tossing those secrets out.  It helps spread stories (and so can go a ways towards diminishing the feel that 'nothing is happening'), creates far more dynamic plots, allows for betrayal, and so on.

That's an excellent point. Tribal play may actually be more attuned to casual play styles, due to the immediate trust between tribe members, and no real distinction of 'roles' beyond the flavor. A Sajahain of the Sun Runners is a 'higher rank' compared to a Naza Pah, but they are still both Sun Runners, and that's the most important thing.

I would agree with your statement as well -- I think not trusting someone doesn't necessarily mean shutting the door in their face. It can mean giving them false information, and seeing if they spread it around town, and then killing them for being a snitch. It can lead to fun RP, rather than a dearth due to fear of failure.

Don't misinterpret my meaning. I personally don't have a problem with casual players. The game needs casual players. I only say "casual" is a dirty word because of the negative connotations associated with it in general.

However, while I admit we need casual players, what I don't think we need is to change the game into a casual game for them.

Armageddon is and always has been a hardcore game.

Armageddon is and always has been a game where hardcore players succeed and reap the most benefits and "less inclined" players make up exactly what you have said....the Red Shirts.

We need the "Red Shirts". We absolutely do, but they should realize they are the Red Shirts and probably always will be the Red Shirts.

Nothing wrong with having them around. They can even be very fun. Casual players are in general the ones most inclined to do odd and zany things since they don't have 80+ days invested into the PC to worry about losing. They can be a heap of fun.

But, at the end of the day, the game shouldn't be changed to cater to them. They should understand their place as a casual player in a hardcore game and be happy with it, and if the aren't happy with it....come play Overwatch with me.

It's not that I don't want them here, it's that I don't want "here" changed for them (and thus myself) and if they can't have fun without that change, then yeah, there's other games for them.

You just may have to come to terms with the game being of a much smaller population of 'hardcore' players. You can't have it both ways, just as casual players can't have it both ways in your perception.

However, the only people who are going to truly miss out from casual players turning to Overwatch and other casual games are the people playing ArmageddonMUD. Catering to an exclusively hardcore demographic will only harm the player count of ArmageddonMUD going forward. There will have to be a compromise at some point, or it will be a very low player count (or a low quality player count), as with many other RPIs out there.

Telling people 'all you are ever going to be is a red shirt, because you don't play the game enough' not only sounds like an incredibly unappealing turn off, it is a very elitist message. While I don't think ArmageddonMUD is for everyone, telling people who are 10+ year veterans that they don't have a place at the table because they don't play enough is more than shooting yourself in the foot.

Quote from: Desertman on June 15, 2016, 12:30:22 PM

Nothing wrong with having them around. They can even be very fun. Casual players are in general the ones most inclined to do odd and zany things since they don't have 80+ days invested into the PC to worry about losing. They can be a heap of fun.

This is part of the culture of 'skill shaming' that I am discussing.

Why do you care more about having an 80+ day played anything, with the skills to match, than contributing to the overall story of ArmageddonMUD together with other players?

More to the point -- Why does it matter how much time you invested in a PC? To me, it seems like you are playing a single-player game within a multi-user game. To me, it always matters whether or not my PC is telling a story and involved in a story. I've had PCs who are 0 days 0 hours and get involved in some awesome stuff (albeit, this was back in the day, and in Tuluk). I've had 50+days played PCs take risks that were appropriate to their playstyle, rather than caring whether or not my 'time investment' would be lost.

Who cares if you invest time in your PC, really, besides yourself?

Quote from: Reiloth on June 15, 2016, 12:52:06 PM

Quote from: Desertman on June 15, 2016, 12:30:22 PM

Nothing wrong with having them around. They can even be very fun. Casual players are in general the ones most inclined to do odd and zany things since they don't have 80+ days invested into the PC to worry about losing. They can be a heap of fun.

This is part of the culture of 'skill shaming' that I am discussing.

Why do you care more about having an 80+ day played anything, with the skills to match, than contributing to the overall story of ArmageddonMUD together with other players?

More to the point -- Why does it matter how much time you invested in a PC? To me, it seems like you are playing a single-player game within a multi-user game. To me, it always matters whether or not my PC is telling a story and involved in a story. I've had PCs who are 0 days 0 hours and get involved in some awesome stuff (albeit, this was back in the day, and in Tuluk). I've had 50+days played PCs take risks that were appropriate to their playstyle, rather than caring whether or not my 'time investment' would be lost.

Who cares if you invest time in your PC, really, besides yourself?

You are making the assumption I'm talking about losing your skills. I'm not.

I'm talking about risking losing 80+ days of roleplay development including IC accomplishments and relationships.

I haven't played a character past the five day marker in RL years where I continued to actively train their skills. There's no need.

At five days played you are viable enough skillwise to do just about anything you want to do within reason.

The amount of time it takes to actually "get good" with a PC for practical purposes in regards to skills is an afterthought at best, honestly....which is why I find the idea of making that even easier to be laughable.

If a player is too casual to put in five days played on a PC to "get good", then yeah...they probably are too casual for Armageddon to make game-wide sweeping changes to cater to them.

About how often do you play every day/week?

Also, who's to say you have control over losing/keeping your 80+ days of RP? A Templar could come by and toss you in the Pit if they like. Why are you attached? Isn't that part of the perma-death in our game?

Quote from: Reiloth on June 15, 2016, 01:09:06 PM
About how often do you play every day/week?

Eh, not very much the last few months. I'm on a bit of a break for a few reasons.

But, in terms of playing a PC I'm actively involved in and really pushing to advance in the IC world, maybe two or three hours a night after work if I'm not a leader.

If I am a leader I might put in upwards of four or five hours a night but that's when I've made an OOC decision to devote my time to the game and the enjoyment of other players who are counting on me to be around. (Even I admit this is a bit taxing and does eventually become a burden at a point, but, casual players shouldn't be leaders. That's my opinion on leaders in general. I don't feel bad about it.)

I go to the office for nine hours a day, I go to the gym after that. I'm in bed by 11 or 11:30 every night and up at 6:30 am.

I'm not exactly living in my mom's basement devoting every waking hour to Armageddon MUD.

I'm a normal guy with a normal job who happens to also spend his limited free time playing some Armageddon, and I do just fine.


Usually I find viability at around an IC year to an IC year and a half played, which seems about right. I enter the game world, I have an IC year to a year and a half to train my character and establish my starting relationships to get "my life going". That seems more than reasonable. It is probably intended to be exactly that way. Look at the T'zai Byn for example. To my chagrin it is universally known these days as "the newbie training clan". It takes you about an IC year to become a Trooper. Basically.....it takes you about an IC year to "get good". Working as intended.

Quote from: Reiloth on June 15, 2016, 01:09:06 PM
Also, who's to say you have control over losing/keeping your 80+ days of RP? A Templar could come by and toss you in the Pit if they like. Why are you attached? Isn't that part of the perma-death in our game?

I'm not sure what your argument is here.

Yes, Templars can kill people.

I don't see how Templars having the power to kill people means you shouldn't grow attached to your storylines and your characters and their friends/family.

Not trying to say you are the 'in your basement of mother's house' type, nor that being that person is a bad thing. Just curious what the 'hardcore player' amount of time is.

I can personally only play a few hours a week, by comparison. I'll have a night or two off where I can actually put time into playing, rather than just logging on for 20 minutes. So that is what I would call 'ultra casual'. I think there are people who can play more consistently or often (same day of the week, for instance) and put in more like 1-2 hours a day. I personally can't at the moment, and keep in mind, i'm not asking for the game to change to my schedule. I'm curious if there are ways to involve casual players more readily -- Nauta's suggestion of Tribal Clans for instance is a very good one along those lines. You can jump in and out without worrying that your trust will be ICly/OOCly speculated upon. My next PC, from this suggestion, will likely be a tribal.

There's no argument with the Templar statement. It's a fact. You can try your hardest to hold on to a long lived PC, and a Spider or a Templar will take it away one day. I suppose i'm recommending becoming less OOCly attached to your PCs, but to each their own.

As we're both of opinions (some shared, some different), maybe we can collectively brainstorm on where/how casual plays can fit in to ArmageddonMUD. I think that's more productive.

Reiloth said it much better than I did and I think got to the real issue. Maybe there isn't a code solution to mending the casual/hardcore schism.

I admittedly sympathize with people like Majikal and Desertman. I enjoy the grind. I'd probably play less if the grind was drastically reduced. Part of me really likes going out and whacking shit with bone swords and slowly getting better at it. The combat portion of the game right now is great for players like me and damn near impossible for players like Reiloth.

What about expanded options to apply for semi-sponsored characters in clans with skill boosts and some of the same limitations as sponsored leadership roles? Would it make sense to offer players the chance to jump into a private in the AoD right away? To play a pre-grizzled Byn trooper that they can immediately contribute with?

Hmm. I think someone mentioned like starting a class with a higher starting level (Jman, or something), and a lower cap. So they can start off stronger, but never really achieve 'master' level in skills.

I'd personally be fine with that.

A semi-sponsored role -- A Byn Mercenary, Trooper, or Salarri Hunter, might be fun too. If it was like a Byn Sergeant, where you don't really move up or down at all, even, that'd be fine by me. I don't really play the 'achiever' type. I've never played an Agent in a House and wanted to be the 'Senior Merchant' or wanted to move up against the glass ceiling. I appreciate the glass ceiling.

It might be helpful if a Player could apply for roles like these that interested them, without needing a Staff call for one. I know that as it stands, a player can't apply for a Noble or Templar without there being an open role call for one. Part of this is favoritism -- It's more fair if everyone applies at the same time, and they're weighed, and then someone is picked.

But with more 'flavor' roles (A Byn Trooper, a Guild Enforcer, a Salarri Hunter), it'd be cool if it was a little more superfluous. So a Player who comes up with an idea can run it by Staff, Staff can approve/make suggestions/deny, and then go from there.

Quote from: Reiloth on June 15, 2016, 01:37:59 PM
Hmm. I think someone mentioned like starting a class with a higher starting level (Jman, or something), and a lower cap.

I liked this idea when I first saw it.

A character who will never be a master at anything but can start out, "Decent" and eventually get "Pretty Good".

I thought it was a good idea worth creating a new thing to spend CGP on.

Then again the argument could be made that you can already do this to a point with skill bumps, I'm just not sure if it is the equivalent.

Quote from: Desertman on June 15, 2016, 01:40:58 PM

Quote from: Reiloth on June 15, 2016, 01:37:59 PM
Hmm. I think someone mentioned like starting a class with a higher starting level (Jman, or something), and a lower cap.

I liked this idea when I first saw it.

A character who will never be a master at anything but can start out, "Decent" and eventually get "Pretty Good".

I thought it was a good idea worth creating a new thing to spend CGP on.

Then again the argument could be made that you can already do this to a point with skill bumps, I'm just not sure if it is the equivalent.

Having played several 'skill bump' PCs before they became a bit more restricted (I think they were a headache for Staff) I can say it definitely helped. I'd personally be fine with a 'more rounded' Guild, so I didn't have to pick the skills. It was also a headache for me as a player to figure out which skills to pick. I just sort of wanted a 'slightly better dude'.

It'd just be like 'Novice Warrior who can become a Master in everything' and 'Journeyman Warrior who will always be a Journeyman, with maybe some advanced caps.'

For me -- This allows me to be skilled enough to jump into a plot or be skilled enough to be perceived as trustworthy (?). So while it doesn't change the culture of skill shaming, it does allow me to cater to it better I suppose as a casual.

RE: Pre sponsored roles. Part of the problem I can perceive with it is that Leaders like hand-grooming their Lieutenants. They pluck them from the Novice Bosom and raise them up to be their cronies. However, I actually played a couple of sponsored in Aide/Lieutenant types, and I think it can work surprisingly well too. Part of raising the Novice Bosom scenario is a grind in and of itself. Sometimes it's nice to have someone fall into your lap, ready to do your bidding. I think the fine point here is these roles shouldn't be automatically TRUSTWORTHY (unless they are a tribal, within a tribal role). People who would play these should play PCs, not cogs within the Clan Machine.

As to how these roles get there, they are part of a larger organization. People die and leave behind little caches of people that served them, who then get shuffled around. Pretty simple, ICly speaking.

#EndSkillShaming

That kind of sucks. Wisdom's my least favorite stat, if only because I feel like I'm cheating by not RPing an absolute idiot whenever I use it as a dump stat.

The rest of your post makes a lot of sense, Nergal. My own personal experience since the changes is that while my skills don't seem to go up much faster, my character's competency has.

Edit: As a corollary to the above, it's easy to feel that my PC is not advancing because his skills are still all at apprentice of journeyman. But this doesn't mean he can't make a good showing of himself in the field. The only real way to know whether your character is skilled up is to test those skills in "the wild." Sparring just doesn't allow for the same kind of judging.

Now, when we view our characters as $3600 investments in terms of time, walking up to a tembo just to see if I can take it on can be a little daunting.

Here's an idea: The Useful Casual.

The basic idea is you could roll up a useful minion/flavor role straight out of chargen.

o You'd have to play in a clan. (I think progression should be there for independents, although I'm on the fence since this would exclude raiders.)  
o If your character ever left that clan for whatever reason, you'd be stored.  (This is to prevent the abuse of someone getting the goods and then just leaving.)
o You'd be capped to low advanced in combat skills.  (Prevents jealousy.)
o You'd have no room for promotion.  (Prevents jealousy.  There is something annoying about playing a Salarri, say, and rooting for that promotion only to have someone pop in out of nowhere and get it.)
o You'd get a little staff note to the clan leadership that this character has been a Private/Trooper/Enforcer/At The Job for so-and-so many years (part of your background) and so is (more) trusted than some new guy off the street.  (Could be an animation.)
o You'd get (all?) skills set to low journeyman.  (Not sure.)

I like that.

I like that too.

#nautaforDNCnomination

I don't like the caps on promotions. I'd rather have a casual leader who's a good RPer and generator of fun than a 10-hour-a-day skill-grinding boring-as-fuck twink for a boss.

Otherwise I've advocated before for a "journeyman" PC who comes in to the game with useful skill levels and no means of advancing them. It'd let people who don't have the time or inclination skip the skill-up phase and get right to the doing phase.

Quote from: nauta on June 15, 2016, 01:54:33 PM
Here's an idea: The Useful Casual.

The basic idea is you could roll up a useful minion/flavor role straight out of chargen.

o You'd have to play in a clan. (I think progression should be there for independents, although I'm on the fence since this would exclude raiders.)  
o If your character ever left that clan for whatever reason, you'd be stored.  (This is to prevent the abuse of someone getting the goods and then just leaving.)
o You'd be capped to low advanced in combat skills.  (Prevents jealousy.)
o You'd have no room for promotion.  (Prevents jealousy.  There is something annoying about playing a Salarri, say, and rooting for that promotion only to have someone pop in out of nowhere and get it.)
o You'd get a little staff note to the clan leadership that this character has been a Private/Trooper/Enforcer/At The Job for so-and-so many years (part of your background) and so is (more) trusted than some new guy off the street.  (Could be an animation.)
o You'd get (all?) skills set to low journeyman.  (Not sure.)

You wouldn't count towards your clan leader's player cap for their unit/group/organization. You aren't around enough to "count", basically.

I only say this because when staff comes in and makes a leader clear their roster, casual players who aren't able to contribute as much are the first to go. I don't like it, but that is the reality. Clan leaders have to keep the people who are the most useful/around the most and dump those that aren't.

If I am a clan leader I don't want a special app casual-player underling counting towards my clan unit number cap when I didn't even get a say in if they got hired to begin with.

I think that's fair. Though I think it should be determined by Staff what 'casual' is, not by a player. Because I think they'd probably have a more objective view point of that.

Then again, if it is associated with this sort of 'role' thingy, it'd be assumed that they are a casual player, or at least someone less interested in skill grind.

Quote from: Reiloth on June 15, 2016, 02:55:47 PM
I think that's fair. Though I think it should be determined by Staff what 'casual' is, not by a player. Because I think they'd probably have a more objective view point of that.

I can tell you from experience this is an absolutely terrible idea (though I admit it would seem to make sense on the surface).....simply because staff doesn't know. The player leader knows because they are the ones actually running the clan and seeing who is and isn't actively participating in things that matter in the clan on a daily basis. Staff generally has no idea.

I think the benefits of joining a clan serve their purpose in terms of skill progression.

In my case even more so because the moment I join a clan I stop giving a shit about progressing combat skill at all. I could care less if I'm good at combat or not, will probably be traveling in groups and be stuck somewhere safe the rest of the time. Would my character who just got this wonderful job really risk it by doing something stupid like attacking people on their own, probably not. And if I want to kill someone or someone wants to kill me, it'll probably be done in a way where combat skills are not a factor.   :-\


I wish my ranger(and other classes) started with apprentice forage though.  That would be nice.

Quote from: Desertman on June 15, 2016, 04:19:07 PM

Quote from: Reiloth on June 15, 2016, 02:55:47 PM
I think that's fair. Though I think it should be determined by Staff what 'casual' is, not by a player. Because I think they'd probably have a more objective view point of that.

I can tell you from experience this is an absolutely terrible idea (though I admit it would seem to make sense on the surface).....simply because staff doesn't know. The player leader knows because they are the ones actually running the clan and seeing who is and isn't actively participating in things that matter in the clan on a daily basis. Staff generally has no idea.

But how can a player check someone else's playtimes? Couldn't someone be playing just as much as you, but in GMT time zones? From what I understand, Staff can actually check how often someone is playing, not just assert their assumptions as universal truth (which is all a player can do, really).

Just because you aren't playing at the same time as someone doesn't mean they aren't playing (???). It just means they aren't playing at the same time as you.

Quote from: Reiloth on June 15, 2016, 04:31:25 PM

Quote from: Desertman on June 15, 2016, 04:19:07 PM

Quote from: Reiloth on June 15, 2016, 02:55:47 PM
I think that's fair. Though I think it should be determined by Staff what 'casual' is, not by a player. Because I think they'd probably have a more objective view point of that.

I can tell you from experience this is an absolutely terrible idea (though I admit it would seem to make sense on the surface).....simply because staff doesn't know. The player leader knows because they are the ones actually running the clan and seeing who is and isn't actively participating in things that matter in the clan on a daily basis. Staff generally has no idea.

But how can a player check someone else's playtimes? Couldn't someone be playing just as much as you, but in GMT time zones? From what I understand, Staff can actually check how often someone is playing, not just assert their assumptions as universal truth.

Unfortunately this is where you get into a grey area of OOC Feelings vs IC Usefulness.

OOC'ly I do not want to hurt this players feelings. In fact, so long as staff doesn't put the hammer down and force me to purge, I will let them stay around playing off peak for eternity just to avoid having to hurt their feelings.

IC'ly, they have zero value to me as a leader trying to accomplish goals since they aren't around when I need them to do things I need them to do. (Unless they are a hunter role or another similar role that can produce in a way where I don't need to actively oversee them. In such a case I would actively setup a system where I could monitor and reward them for their efforts and obviously would not purge them/count them as useless/inactive for the group. In fact I can think of instances where I have done exactly this.)

OOC'ly, my inclination is to let them stay.

IC'ly they are dead weight and even though they "are around" but not when my PC is they might as well not even exist for my purposes, and since I am the leader, my purposes are what will be gone by when it comes time to purge.

If staff wants to recruit an off-peak leader, more power to them, but I'm not an off peak leader so that's not my responsibility and/or concern. My concern is being a great leader when I'm available and keeping underlings who follow suit.

Quote from: Dresan on June 15, 2016, 04:26:42 PM
I think the benefits of joining a clan serve their purpose in terms of skill progression.

In my case even more so because the moment I join a clan I stop giving a shit about progressing combat skill at all. I could care less if I'm good at combat or not, will probably be traveling in groups and be stuck somewhere safe the rest of the time. Would my character who just got this wonderful job really risk it by doing something stupid like attacking people on their own, probably not. And if I want to kill someone or someone wants to kill me, it'll probably be done in a way where combat skills are not a factor.   :-\


I wish my ranger(and other classes) started with apprentice forage though.  That would be nice.

I guess my postulation about 'just join a clan and it will take care of itself' is further accentuated by Desertman's position. If you aren't around, and you joined a clan, then you are just 'taking up space against the clan cap', leading to apparent frustration between you, the casual, and the leader in the clan. While I don't think this is actually the case, it does stand to reason that you make a commitment by being in a clan, to login regularly and interact with other clanmates. That isn't an unfair assumption -- But it can put stress on a casual player to commit time they may not have.

I admit that when I join a clan, I may be stoked about it the day I join, and feel like I do have enough time to commit to playing Arm. But then if I go a few days between logging in...I feel increasingly guiltier that I didn't/can't log in. And then after a week or so, I usually store because I feel bad that I took a spot in the clan.

So I think there are two sides to it, for sure. Clan caps (from what i've experienced) don't really come into play until there's like 13 ACTIVE ASS MOTHERFUCKERS in a clan. The one time Staff asked me to cap the clan I was running was in Tuluk, and we had something like 9 active people in it. It was just too much for such a small pond.

Quote from: Desertman on June 15, 2016, 04:34:42 PM

Quote from: Reiloth on June 15, 2016, 04:31:25 PM

Quote from: Desertman on June 15, 2016, 04:19:07 PM

Quote from: Reiloth on June 15, 2016, 02:55:47 PM
I think that's fair. Though I think it should be determined by Staff what 'casual' is, not by a player. Because I think they'd probably have a more objective view point of that.

I can tell you from experience this is an absolutely terrible idea (though I admit it would seem to make sense on the surface).....simply because staff doesn't know. The player leader knows because they are the ones actually running the clan and seeing who is and isn't actively participating in things that matter in the clan on a daily basis. Staff generally has no idea.

But how can a player check someone else's playtimes? Couldn't someone be playing just as much as you, but in GMT time zones? From what I understand, Staff can actually check how often someone is playing, not just assert their assumptions as universal truth.

Unfortunately this is where you get into a grey area of OOC Feelings vs IC Usefulness.

OOC'ly I do not want to hurt this players feelings. In fact, so long as staff doesn't put the hammer down and force me to purge, I will let them stay around playing off peak for eternity just to avoid having to hurt their feelings.

IC'ly, they have zero value to me as a leader trying to accomplish goals since they aren't around when I need them to do things I need them to do. (Unless they are a hunter role or another similar role that can produce in a way where I don't need to actively oversee them. In such a case I would actively setup a system where I could monitor and reward them for their efforts and obviously would not purge them/count them as useless/inactive for the group. In fact I can think of instances where I have done exactly this.)

OOC'ly, my inclination is to let them stay.

IC'ly they are dead weight and even though they "are around" but not when my PC is they might as well not even exist for my purposes, and since I am the leader, my purposes are what will be gone by when it comes time to purge.

If staff wants to recruit an off-peak leader, more power to them, but I'm not an off peak leader so that's not my responsibility and/or concern. My concern is being a great leader when I'm available and keeping underlings who follow suit.

I guess again, to each their own. I'm glad someone who is the diametric opposite to me in many ways plays the game, because it reassures me that I am not the only 'type' of player that plays this game, and it's a testament to the strength of the game as a whole that it can cater to two very different people/playstyles.

Personally, I was very enthusiastic to hire someone who had the opposite playtimes from me, when I played leader roles, especially Nobles or Templars. Not exclusively, but 1-2 employees in playtimes that venn diagramed with me once in a while, while the majority of the time were opposite, had great appeal to me. It allowed me coverage in areas that I had no influence in, because of my time constraints/playtimes. I found most of my effective Aides/Clan Players were in timezones different from my own. It's a different style of leadership from your own (in many ways), but that doesn't make one better or worse, just different. And, I believe that my style of leadership actually lends itself to more casual players/people in different timezones, because I don't feel the need to directly have a hand in their affairs/over their actions in order to be associated with them, or take responsibility for them.

It did mean I had less direct oversight over these PCs, and in fact, one of my Kuraci PCs was betrayed due to this kind of 'lack of oversight'. But it was worth the risk, and actually that lead to a fun series of events including Murder, Corruption, and Betrayal, simply for taking a risk on someone who didn't play at the same times as me.

Reiloth, I think clans are boring, and don't join them because they are boring. I think the only criteria to being in a clan is just be around. There is an emphisis on -I- here, because I know others don't feel that way and thats great, personally I don't like others to dictate what fun I can have when I do log in but this discusssion isn't really about clans and really to each their own.  

Different clans offer different methods of progressing most skills, and i'm okay with that. Regardless of whether you are ever going to use them or not. Its not for me, but I'm okay with that.


As I said, I would just be happy with apprentice forage on my starting characters.

Right on, and I agree. The dictate of the mass politic (whatever Leader might be leading the clan) shouldn't affect your approach to clans or what makes clans fun to you (or not fun to you).

Quote from: Nergal on June 15, 2016, 07:26:10 AM
The change made a few months back to combat skill gain has made a huge difference in the rate at which characters advance in skill. While it still takes a long time to master a combat skill, it takes a relatively very short amount of time to achieve a level of competence in one. Additionally, offense and defense are hidden skills that were also affected by this change, and make a difference in combat as well - and generally speaking, combatant PCs I've looked at over the past few months have been gaining those skills a lot quicker as well - reaching competence (which is important for survival) quickly, and reaching mastery (which is far less important) a little less slowly.

So staff are definitely open to increasing the rate of skill gain, but it should also be understood that there's a balance to be struck. You have to consider that the faster a PC gains in skill, the faster they become powerful - even infallible, in terms of PvP conflict. Casual play at the moment doesn't suffer from an extreme disadvantage compared to more "dedicated" (for lack of a better word) play, because it can be counterbalanced by a casual player seeking out a challenging opponent to advance faster. Making skill gain faster would actually increase the gap between casual and "dedicated" players because the latter group would be able to get more skill-gains with the time they have to spend on getting them, leaving casual players in the dust even more quickly than they're left in the dust now.

Additionally, the more we increase skill-gains the less we make wisdom a factor in them. To be as frank as possible here, if you treat wisdom as a dump stat the effects of that are definitely felt in the long-term. I can't really get into code specifics but it suffices to say that wisdom really does what it's intended to do, and could maybe even be more of a factor in the future.

Good post.

It would be cool as fuck to pop in as a nameless mook during a deadly event that killed your last character. Have any of you ever heard of the All Guardsmen Party?
It's Warhammer40k, but this is basically how they managed to get their roster of characters:
The DM had each player make around fifty characters. Low-level mooks.
Then, he put them through a ringer. He had them dying left and right, 'til only the toughest of the toughest mooks, three or four for each player, survived.
Now, they have their characters with backstory, skill, and ability to switch to another well-seasoned character should their current mook kick the bucket.
Personally, seems brilliant to me.

Long time listener to the thread, first time poster.

First, Nuata, your idea makes me drool.  The Useful Casual.  It made my black little heart sing.

Secondly, Nergal, wisdom?  I could kiss you.  You and the rest of staff.  Wisdom has long been my favorite stat, and to know that it's actually being utilized more efficiently makes me randy, baby.

The tweaking of skill gains and the concept of The Useful Casual would end a lot of these worries, I think.

Combat skills:

In my books if you can travel to luirs without having to run from raptors, you are competant. And if you can travel to redstorm without having to run from beetles you are a badass.  The length of time for a PC to become good enough to travel alone to luirs is one RL month at the most, but of course that depends depending on stats, PC skills available and knowledge. It used to be 0 months with skill boosts, but you still had to avoid from beetles. :)

Since travel promotes interaction and plots so its worth considering all the options available to players, including combat, but thats about it. I really think combat is fine the way it is, I think my merchant PC made me realize how trivial it can be in the grand scheme of things, even more so now with all the changes to the game.

Wisdom:

Putting combat skills aside, my only issue with wisdom is that if I have low wisdom it takes me 10 days to master skill. If I have very high wisdom, it takes me 10 days to master a skill.  :-\ The wisdom stat doesn't seem to take into account that some of us only have one chance per log in to train a skill.  

All that said, I mostly wish classes began with apprentice forage. I was waiting for the guild revamp since the staff was saying they would make a few small changes and give a few small boosts (hopefully forage), and they were discussing it but not sure if that is still happening anymore. The game seems to have gone in a slightly different direction with magickal sub-guild changes.

Reiloth, you say you prefer it when your clan-leader PC hires someone whose player plays opposite your play times, rather the same play times. What about the player whose PC you're hiring? I can tell you - the first character on my account was a ranger who got hired by a Salarri - and unbeknownst to me at the time, their player played from the other side of the planet. TOTALLY opposite play times. He just happened to be around that day. I can tell you right now if I had known then that I would be hired, with no tasks, no authority to make decisions or hob-nob with potential customers, no one to tell when something "important" was happening and needed the boss's attention ASAP, and (at the time) no one to pay me, no one to bring something to eat - I would have turned that job down. As it was, I ended up storing my character after two months of frustration.

I wouldn't wish that on anyone, especially not a new player.

Joining a clan as a complete newbie seems like the worst possible way to learn the game, or your way around.

Quote from: Miradus on June 15, 2016, 10:23:14 PM
Joining a clan as a complete newbie seems like the worst possible way to learn the game, or your way around.

Depends on the clan and the time. In my experience it's the best way to learn the game and find your way around. You know, because you're usually surrounded by others who know wtf is going on and are willing to help you.

Probably Byn is the most important clan for a newbie or game in general. It teaches concept of time, routine, city laws, skill earning process and most importantly what rpi mud actually means. Also there are a lot of codes one must use in Byn. Also it is really hard to get used to combat screens of a mud and well.. Byn teaches that as well.

About skill gains. I think opposite of what title of the this thread suggests. I would lower speed of the skill gain. It may make people to play without checking their skills everyday. Slow process would mean more teamwork and interaction.

Quote from: Lizzie on June 15, 2016, 09:36:07 PM
Reiloth, you say you prefer it when your clan-leader PC hires someone whose player plays opposite your play times, rather the same play times. What about the player whose PC you're hiring? I can tell you - the first character on my account was a ranger who got hired by a Salarri - and unbeknownst to me at the time, their player played from the other side of the planet. TOTALLY opposite play times. He just happened to be around that day. I can tell you right now if I had known then that I would be hired, with no tasks, no authority to make decisions or hob-nob with potential customers, no one to tell when something "important" was happening and needed the boss's attention ASAP, and (at the time) no one to pay me, no one to bring something to eat - I would have turned that job down. As it was, I ended up storing my character after two months of frustration.

I wouldn't wish that on anyone, especially not a new player.

I should have said a few more things, as I think you are misconstruing your personal experience with what I vaguely discussed as to what I actually do as a leader.

I always (when I was playing a leader):
- Make it clear what my playtimes are, when i'm at work, when i'm available, that I can be available off-peak or on peak with PMs/notices in advance.
- If I had a few employees, and this one was GMT or off-peak from me, would make it clear via OOC that I might not be around all the time when they are, but that X Y Z people are (or to check on the GDB forum for the clan to see when people were).
- I would make it clear that it was a trial, thus giving them an out if the situation didn't work out OOCly (I made this clear as well OOCly, for the reasons you mention above).

However, I found it very beneficial not to shut people out just because they weren't always playing at the same time as me. I also found that giving Aides or people of that level a certain autonomy, even allowing them to use my name to get things done, was very helpful and perpetuated my leader PC's presence without needing to be logged in 24/7. It also lead to interesting backlash plots, when people didn't take those Aides seriously because they weren't me, and I decided to either back up my Aide or not.

I would never hang another Player out to dry -- I tend to be very understanding on an OOC level, because this is a game, it isn't medici level politics or a novel-writing class people are paying for. If someone isn't having fun and they make that patently obvious, I typically let them go without too much fuss. If they do something retarded IG in order to get out of employment well...I also take things IG to be IG. There's a balance (as with all things).

Quote from: Reiloth on June 15, 2016, 04:56:25 PM

Quote from: Desertman on June 15, 2016, 04:34:42 PM

Quote from: Reiloth on June 15, 2016, 04:31:25 PM

Quote from: Desertman on June 15, 2016, 04:19:07 PM

Quote from: Reiloth on June 15, 2016, 02:55:47 PM
I think that's fair. Though I think it should be determined by Staff what 'casual' is, not by a player. Because I think they'd probably have a more objective view point of that.

I can tell you from experience this is an absolutely terrible idea (though I admit it would seem to make sense on the surface).....simply because staff doesn't know. The player leader knows because they are the ones actually running the clan and seeing who is and isn't actively participating in things that matter in the clan on a daily basis. Staff generally has no idea.

But how can a player check someone else's playtimes? Couldn't someone be playing just as much as you, but in GMT time zones? From what I understand, Staff can actually check how often someone is playing, not just assert their assumptions as universal truth.

Unfortunately this is where you get into a grey area of OOC Feelings vs IC Usefulness.

OOC'ly I do not want to hurt this players feelings. In fact, so long as staff doesn't put the hammer down and force me to purge, I will let them stay around playing off peak for eternity just to avoid having to hurt their feelings.

IC'ly, they have zero value to me as a leader trying to accomplish goals since they aren't around when I need them to do things I need them to do. (Unless they are a hunter role or another similar role that can produce in a way where I don't need to actively oversee them. In such a case I would actively setup a system where I could monitor and reward them for their efforts and obviously would not purge them/count them as useless/inactive for the group. In fact I can think of instances where I have done exactly this.)

OOC'ly, my inclination is to let them stay.

IC'ly they are dead weight and even though they "are around" but not when my PC is they might as well not even exist for my purposes, and since I am the leader, my purposes are what will be gone by when it comes time to purge.

If staff wants to recruit an off-peak leader, more power to them, but I'm not an off peak leader so that's not my responsibility and/or concern. My concern is being a great leader when I'm available and keeping underlings who follow suit.

I guess again, to each their own. I'm glad someone who is the diametric opposite to me in many ways plays the game, because it reassures me that I am not the only 'type' of player that plays this game, and it's a testament to the strength of the game as a whole that it can cater to two very different people/playstyles.

Personally, I was very enthusiastic to hire someone who had the opposite playtimes from me, when I played leader roles, especially Nobles or Templars. Not exclusively, but 1-2 employees in playtimes that venn diagramed with me once in a while, while the majority of the time were opposite, had great appeal to me. It allowed me coverage in areas that I had no influence in, because of my time constraints/playtimes. I found most of my effective Aides/Clan Players were in timezones different from my own. It's a different style of leadership from your own (in many ways), but that doesn't make one better or worse, just different. And, I believe that my style of leadership actually lends itself to more casual players/people in different timezones, because I don't feel the need to directly have a hand in their affairs/over their actions in order to be associated with them, or take responsibility for them.

It did mean I had less direct oversight over these PCs, and in fact, one of my Kuraci PCs was betrayed due to this kind of 'lack of oversight'. But it was worth the risk, and actually that lead to a fun series of events including Murder, Corruption, and Betrayal, simply for taking a risk on someone who didn't play at the same times as me.

I play mostly military leaders or mercantile type leaders where I need my people actively around because I am "Doing Things" with them and taking them to do things. The types of leaders I USUALLY play are centered around the concept of group activities and group accomplishments.

For MOST of my leaders, if you aren't actively around with boots in the sand helping the group regularly and visibly, you might as well not exist for us.

As a Templar or Noble, hiring someone off peak to cover my political/social/other needs when I'm not around with another portion of the playerbase.....yeah absolutely a good idea. I just don't play that sort of role often.

Brief aside, as someone who plays frequent leaders, I don't mind having "casuals" in my clans and never have.  Especially not if they're vibrant characters who are fun to RP with when they're around.

Then again, I don't really play Armageddon to do stuff.  And I certainly don't lead clans to do stuff.

Quote from: valeria on June 16, 2016, 09:01:48 AM
Brief aside, as someone who plays frequent leaders, I don't mind having "casuals" in my clans and never have.  Especially not if they're vibrant characters who are fun to RP with when they're around.

Then again, I don't really play Armageddon to do stuff.  And I certainly don't lead clans to do stuff.

Same here. If I focus too much on "giving people stuff to do" or "creating plots" like it's an obligation, I freeze up. It feels artificial and I can't think of anything. I have to let it develop organically or it'll never happen, I've found.

Quote from: valeria on June 16, 2016, 09:01:48 AM
Brief aside, as someone who plays frequent leaders, I don't mind having "casuals" in my clans and never have.  Especially not if they're vibrant characters who are fun to RP with when they're around.

Then again, I don't really play Armageddon to do stuff.  And I certainly don't lead clans to do stuff.

*sigh*

Tie that commentary back in with the "why does Arm feel so static/stagnant" thread.

Because the leaders don't want to do stuff?

I played around her when she was a leader, and she was a good one that entertained everybody. I think she just means she doesn't think of it that way.

Quote from: Beethoven on June 16, 2016, 09:26:38 AM
I played around her when she was a leader, and she was a good one that entertained everybody. I think she just means she doesn't think of it that way.

Probably a great leader, but seriously, that's why there's not going to be any epic change to the storyline or the game world.

A leadership position in one of the clans would give you the resources, the manpower, and the plot armor to go out and really shape the game world. A Kuraci militia leader decides to set up a permanent hole-in-the-wall fortress in the Tablelands. Or Kadius decides to set up a diamond mine along the shield wall.

But instead it's going to be, "Woohoo! I'm a leader! Now everyone go spend an hour on the sparring dummy and then clean your armor."

I could understand if the staff were telling the leaders that they couldn't do anything like that. Or at least understand that better than someone simply not wanting to. And I can tell you from my point of view, if the clans WERE doing stuff like that then you'd have people on a waiting list to join the clans instead of what we have now which are complaints about too many indies running around.

As a point of order, can we split off the discussion about 'Leadership and Casuals'?

If you wish. I've made my point on it though so I don't have much more to say. And I hope it doesn't hurt any feelings from someone in a leadership position. I have encountered most of the leaders of various outfits in the game and enjoyed roleplaying with them a lot. It's not a matter of roleplay. I haven't met a bad one in the bunch.

Quote from: Miradus on June 16, 2016, 09:21:43 AM

Quote from: valeria on June 16, 2016, 09:01:48 AM
Brief aside, as someone who plays frequent leaders, I don't mind having "casuals" in my clans and never have.  Especially not if they're vibrant characters who are fun to RP with when they're around.

Then again, I don't really play Armageddon to do stuff.  And I certainly don't lead clans to do stuff.

*sigh*

Tie that commentary back in with the "why does Arm feel so static/stagnant" thread.

Because the leaders don't want to do stuff?

I think you're reading me wrong. When I say "do stuff" I mean accomplish coded things in the game world. Hunting Carru #5266 Dead is less important to me than plotting against my characters' enemies or trying to secure IC advancement when I play leaders.

And these things aren't dependant on having full-minions full-time. Yes, you usually need 2 solid minions to get things done (unless you're the Byn, but the Byn cap is really high anyway).

But that's just it. I usually only need 2 solid people to play around to enjoy myself and get things done. 2 hunters/whatever and 5-6 semi-regular other characters would be just as useful to me as a full complement of full-time hunters, especially because casuals tend to show up to RPTs, which is when you really need those bodies. My nobles usually get on with MAYBE one aide IF they can find one.

In some ways, the casuals are even MORE valuable because they don't require my constant hand-holding to keep them entertained.

So... casuals are 100% welcome in clans I'm leading. I'm very opposed to the mentality that they MUST log on regularly or they're taking up space (or anything else that discourages casuals from playing in my clans).

Yeah, I was reading you wrong.

I read that as you just want to sit around and gossip and not actually push for the advancement of your organization, which is ... well ... it's an attitude I'm bringing from another game into this one. I shouldn't do that and I apologize for tarring you with that brush.

Minus Nergal's contribution, this thread is pretty damn depressing. The game should cater to accessibility, not some veteran's elitist notions of get-gud.

Based on the OPs cash math, my current PC is worth: $53,640.

Anyone want to buy a slightly used character?

Quote from: Vwest on June 19, 2016, 04:32:06 AM
Based on the OPs cash math, my current PC is worth: $53,640.

Anyone want to buy a slightly used character?

149 days played? :O

Yep.

We should make a thread and gauge exactly how much money we could have collectively made with our pooled hours played.

If nothing else, that should make all those casual players realize they're the real winners in all of this.

My top 4 add up to right at 200 days played.  If I billed my usual rate, that's 264000$.  I'll take a check please

I'd really rather not know how much time I've wasted.

Man I've lost so much money to sleeping

I don't find it hard to skill up in this game playing casually, although weapons/combat skills do move slowly on your skill sheet. I do think at least in weapons skills' case, an apprentice or even novice one is much better than jman+ in other skills in terms of effectiveness. I don't believe you need to master everything to be useful either.  I know everybody wants to be the best and all, but without mitigating the bonus from being able to play more, you still won't be better than them if you make skilling easier - since they benefit too.

Advanced weaps could branch earlier and appear as master earlier without changing the skill and it'd solve that problem better than adjusting rates for it.

As for the rest, being more casual or whatever, offline training options? Slow and steady?

You don't really need weapon skills above journeyman.

All PvE content is accessible around there, except for A) content intended for organized groups or B) content gated behind staff animations. And even if you're (Master) Slashing or even (Master) Razors, odds are good you aren't going to survive those kinds of encounters on your own without more going for you that high skills. You might not even survive them with a group in some cases.

The impression I get is people believe (Master) weapon skills or advanced weapon skills will somehow make you unassailable, or some kind of PvP killdozer.

It's a crock of shit, but people believe it.

Quote from: Vwest on June 19, 2016, 05:11:49 PM
The impression I get is people believe (Master) weapon skills or advanced weapon skills will somehow make you unassailable, or some kind of PvP killdozer.

I think, rather, it's the need to Master in a weapon skill to branch the follow-on skills that causes the race to Master.  If you're never failing, what diff does it make what label is put on your skill? 

Take... Archery for example.   You may never miss with the proper gear and Advanced archery.  Some guilds may never learn to make an arrow until they've reached Master.

If I could easily start every new character with the skills of a 30-40 day warrior (or class equivalent), I might play this game again.  I don't have enough time to dedicate to this game to enjoy a mostly social role.  I want to hop into the thick of it and get some shit done without worrying about dying to scrabs or 10-day-warrior-twinks.

Quote from: Sephiroto on June 19, 2016, 09:39:12 PM
If I could easily start every new character with the skills of a 30-40 day warrior (or class equivalent), I might play this game again.  I don't have enough time to dedicate to this game to enjoy a mostly social role.  I want to hop into the thick of it and get some shit done without worrying about dying to scrabs or 10-day-warrior-twinks.

But then you'll just get pissy when my 50-day ranger with max archery and max poison gets an arrow into your 2-hour warrior with 30-day warrior skills.

Quote from: Lizzie on June 19, 2016, 09:58:09 PM

Quote from: Sephiroto on June 19, 2016, 09:39:12 PM
If I could easily start every new character with the skills of a 30-40 day warrior (or class equivalent), I might play this game again.  I don't have enough time to dedicate to this game to enjoy a mostly social role.  I want to hop into the thick of it and get some shit done without worrying about dying to scrabs or 10-day-warrior-twinks.

But then you'll just get pissy when my 50-day ranger with max archery and max poison gets an arrow into your 2-hour warrior with 30-day warrior skills.

Except he can just make another one, doesn't seem like a reason to get upset...

Quote from: lostinspace on June 19, 2016, 10:05:31 PM

Quote from: Lizzie on June 19, 2016, 09:58:09 PM

Quote from: Sephiroto on June 19, 2016, 09:39:12 PM
If I could easily start every new character with the skills of a 30-40 day warrior (or class equivalent), I might play this game again.  I don't have enough time to dedicate to this game to enjoy a mostly social role.  I want to hop into the thick of it and get some shit done without worrying about dying to scrabs or 10-day-warrior-twinks.

But then you'll just get pissy when my 50-day ranger with max archery and max poison gets an arrow into your 2-hour warrior with 30-day warrior skills.

Except he can just make another one, doesn't seem like a reason to get upset...

No, then he'll complain that he doesn't have time to make a 50-day character to avoid being killed by every other 50-day character. You have to start somewhere. As in most games, you start out at level 1. If you get annoyed or refuse to play the game until you are allowed to play catch-up, then you might as well just pretend you're a 400-day character and say "I win." No matter how powerful your character is, SOMEONE or SOMETHING is going to be able to kill it. This is the nature of the game, and no amount of time invested, or "levels granted" is going to change that.

The more I think about it. The more I think I should be spending my time on this character doing something else. I've got close to thirty hours in, but I'll be dammed if I couldn't spend that time learning a language or taking an extra summer class. I'm just kind of sick of both the skill grind and having to avoid the lamer-twinks that seem pathologically bent on ruining my fun.

I want to play my character without having to organize his daily fucking skill-up schedule in the service of having a reasonable shot somewhere in the realm of two months from now. I work in accounting and I'm not even kidding when I find my work more stimulating than the requisite grind of the game.

Some cool cats keep trying to pull me back. But I'm teetering on the edge here.

Yeah, the thing is, the people opposed to this, act like they're opposed to it from a PVP front because 'then that warrior that's 10 days longer played will still beat you, so what's the point', but realistically, most of the people who have concerns about this issue have concerns from a PVE perspective. It takes X amount of hours before you can reliably provide basic necessities, you want it to be a portion of that. That's reasonable. That's not at all the same as wanting to be able to ring someone's bell in PVP sooner. That's basically just saying 'Well, at this point with everything degrading and expiring and reel-locking the everloving fuck out of me, it sure would be nice if I could ROLEPLAY instead of skilling up until I could survive the PVE of the setting, and THEN roleplay'. I know that, because that is the same way I feel. I've been playing almost a decade and pk'd someone: 1 time. I've been pk'd about 18-20 times, and I honestly don't care about getting pk'd or pk'ing others. But I would sure as hell like not to have to sink 4 days of my actual life into making a character who can make something other than arrows or poles on a character that starts out as THE CRAFTING GUILD. That seems reasonable, right? Am I eating crazy pills here?

I think it's all a matter of perspective. I don't have any special powers or favors from staff that lets me skill-gain any faster than anyone else. I'm pretty sure other players and staff combined can attest to the fact that my PCs do NOT skill-gain any faster than most other PCs, in fact.

And yet, I manage to have long-lived characters who take risks. I have characters that piss people off, get involved in other peoples' conflicts, adventure and explore, fall off shield walls, crawl into dark places not knowing what'll show up when I light my torch, visit the enemy territory, spot a bahamet and wander in that direction anyway.

I have never maxed out a character. Ever. I've come close, with 1 rukkian and 1 ranger. I can count the PKs I've "accomplished" on one hand, and on my list of characters, around half were assassinated (as opposed to random PK, which as far as I know has never happened to any of my characters), and around half were stored. Only a few spider/gith/raptor deaths among a few dozen PCs total.

I can keep a PC active, risk-taking, and alive, for many RL months with no problem - and STILL not max out their skills. A little tavern-sitting, a little adventuring, a little political drama, sometimes spending a full hour doing nothing but working on skills - and sometimes hanging around waiting for other people to show up. Most of my characters stay around for a minimum of 2 RL months, with a minimum of 10 days played.

I don't have the experience some of you seem to have - I don't know what it is you're doing that's causing you to even THINK about having to skill-up, or worry about being the victim of PvP or PvE. If it's really that much of a problem that you feel the game needs to change, maybe you should look into why it keeps happening to your characters? Because I can assure you, it's not happening to mine so it can't possibly be the game. If it was the game, everyone who strives to play long-lived characters that take risks (including myself) would experience the same thing.

People who don't take risks - no they wouldn't be experiencing these problems. But the ones that do - would. If it were the game causing it and not the individual player talking about it. So ask yourself - what is it about YOUR characters that is attracting so much PvP and/or PvE grief that you are sick of having to skill-grind just to keep up?

Remember, you don't have to be able to duke it out with a duskhorn to survive as a ranger, warrior, thief, etc. etc. If the only goal you set is "survivability" that's easy: Find a spot to forage that's within 1 room of a fairly safe spot. Forage for whatever - rocks, artifacts, mushrooms, food, kindling. Sell off whatever you don't need to eat, and use the sids you earn from selling it to buy more food and water. Boom. Instant "survivable." Boring as hell, but that seems to be your only criteria here.

Quote from: Sephiroto on June 19, 2016, 09:39:12 PM
If I could easily start every new character with the skills of a 30-40 day warrior (or class equivalent), I might play this game again.  I don't have enough time to dedicate to this game to enjoy a mostly social role.  I want to hop into the thick of it and get some shit done without worrying about dying to scrabs or 10-day-warrior-twinks.

Have you tried skill bumps?  Zoltan, an Extremely Casual Player, had a lot of good things to say about them with his last(? I can't even keep track anymore) combat-oriented PC.

QuoteBoring as hell.

That's basically it. Because every time on the last handful of characters I've tried not to be bored as hell, I've been punished for it. And not really in ways that were really deserving of punishment, it's just that players can't figure out what to do when they have an I WIN button on hand.

Quote from: Jingo on June 20, 2016, 11:02:35 AM

QuoteBoring as hell.

That's basically it. Because every time on the last handful of characters I've tried not to be bored as hell, I've been punished for it. And not really in ways that were really deserving of punishment, it's just that players can't figure out what to do when they have an I WIN button on hand.

Then the solution is easy: stop trying to win. When you win, you get bored. You don't like being bored. So stop trying to win.

Uhh no. I'm not playing to win. And that's why I keep getting shit on.

Quote from: Jingo on June 20, 2016, 11:33:26 AM
Uhh no. I'm not playing to win. And that's why I keep getting shit on.

I am a proponent of the solitary multiplayer game life sometimes.

On the pvp front, I have never been involved in pk here except for when some unknown guy shot an arrow at me. Didn't kill me and I wasn't skilled enough to know what to do to try and chase him down, so that's been my sole experience.

I do not like the curve though where you look at someone, gauge their potential prowess by their equipment, and then decide how to respond to them in game. "I'm going to be polite until I see at least journeyman on all my combat skills, then I'll be a dick." You know that's a thing here.

On my last couple of characters, I decided to start out just being an ass. Rude, gruff, or whatever fit the character. And I kept thinking, "Someone is going to kill me. I can't even handle a tregil yet and here I am mouthing off." Nobody did though. So I don't think pvp is really all that rampant in this game as you are led to expect from the trash talk going on here in the forum.

I am not attached to any one character. I play Arm like a roguelike game. A character is fun to play for about a week and then I get bored with that character and I'm ready to start a new one. Which is about the point where I start trying to see new things and explore anyway.

It's a fun game if you don't take it so seriously.

Quote from: Miradus on June 20, 2016, 01:23:40 PM
It's a fun game if you don't take it so seriously.

The truth about Armageddon, here.  Every time I've tried to take it too seriously, try too hard, accomplish some kind of legacy, or pretty much anything that wasn't in the spirit of having a little fun on the internet ...  Every time I've met with grief.  The kind of stuff that sours you on the game, and people, in general.

I suppose that's played a big part in me becoming a more casual player.  I went from the die-hard, three hours a days player, to maybe three hours a week.  And I'm not asking anyone to cater to me.  But I think it'd be cool if casual characters were more relevant.

Then again, if your goal is to get gud, there are so many superior outlets in our modern world to cater to your desires.

PVP?  Much better gaming options available.
PVE?  Much better gaming options available.

We play this game because there is no parallel, no greater option for roleplay.

RP?  We got that shit.

So, if our goal is to create a story together, well ...  Yes, skills are cool, and all.  But ultimately, they don't matter.  They're more or less tools to meet an end, just like equipment, or other characters.

This thread has encouraged me to stop giving a shit about my skills. I'll see how it goes and get back to ya'll. Need a new character though, because Gruff McWarriorson isn't a very good character to try not having good skills on.

Quote from: RogueGunslinger on June 20, 2016, 03:05:15 PM
This thread has encouraged me to stop giving a shit about my skills. I'll see how it goes and get back to ya'll. Need a new character though, because Gruff McWarriorson isn't a very good character to try not having good skills on.

I've had very good experiences raiding without skills.  Of course, it means I really only have a PLAN B (flee) if the other end doesn't play along (including NPCs).

ETA: I had a lot more fun raiding with skills.

I would just like to be more a part of the saga than some random ranger corpse out in the desert with a mindless mobile footprint on its head.

Quote from: Jingo on June 20, 2016, 11:33:26 AM
Uhh no. I'm not playing to win. And that's why I keep getting shit on.

You're not getting shit on.

Getting shit on implies your character isn't responsible for people looking to ruin their day. You're the one choosing the type of character you play, you're following through with the actions you've deemed appropriate for your character and your characters are paying the price for those actions. There are no 'lamer twinks' out to victimize you, you're doing things to draw attention and ire that your characters are in no way equipped to handle.

If you're not willing to face the potential consequences, consider a character who doesn't throw rocks at sleeping lions.

http://armageddon.org/intro/about.php

Quote from: Vwest on June 20, 2016, 05:03:04 PM

Quote from: Jingo on June 20, 2016, 11:33:26 AM
Uhh no. I'm not playing to win. And that's why I keep getting shit on.

You're not getting shit on.

Getting shit on implies your character isn't responsible for people looking to ruin their day. You're the one choosing the type of character you play, you're following through with the actions you've deemed appropriate for your character and your characters are paying the price for those actions. There are no 'lamer twinks' out to victimize you, you're doing things to draw attention and ire that your characters are in no way equipped to handle.

If you're not willing to face the potential consequences, consider a character who doesn't throw rocks at sleeping lions.

http://armageddon.org/intro/about.php

If you don't think there are any lame twinks in Armageddon you are deeply confused and I have a shitmug to sell you.

Also it's pretty rude to condescend with that about link. People in this thread aren't complaining about IC unfairness. They are complaining about the OOC disparity from playtime and character power. Your side is pretty clear - you have a shitload of playtime and want to maintain that disparity. That's fine. I can totally understand that. I can also play a lot and I too enjoy the feeling of chopping the helpless casual masses with bone swords. But you have to recognize that you might end up playing with only a handful of other people in the future if you want to maintain that power disparity.

Quote from: Vwest on June 20, 2016, 05:03:04 PM

Quote from: Jingo on June 20, 2016, 11:33:26 AM
Uhh no. I'm not playing to win. And that's why I keep getting shit on.

You're not getting shit on.

Getting shit on implies your character isn't responsible for people looking to ruin their day. You're the one choosing the type of character you play, you're following through with the actions you've deemed appropriate for your character and your characters are paying the price for those actions. There are no 'lamer twinks' out to victimize you, you're doing things to draw attention and ire that your characters are in no way equipped to handle.

If you're not willing to face the potential consequences, consider a character who doesn't throw rocks at sleeping lions.

http://armageddon.org/intro/about.php

#skillshaming

I mean, should people not play their PCs to the hilt, just because you play a long lived whatever? If they're an asshole and would throw stones at a sleeping lion, should they not? I guess you are saying people shouldn't be surprised if they do, that the lion eats them. That, I do agree with.

And I agree with Yam -- If you don't think there are lame twinks on Arm, maybe you are one of them?

There's no need for the finger pointing.  This isn't a trump rally.

Quote from: SuchDragonWow on June 20, 2016, 06:27:59 PM
There's no need for the finger pointing.  This isn't a trump rally.

Does that make Twinks Trumpers and Casuals Feel the Bern?  ;D

Uhm.

This is only degrading further away from the point, which was iterated many times and even -somewhat- supported by a staff post...

Increased skill gains will not help the casual player.  They will likely harm the casual player.  This is in terms of player against player, which is what Jingo seems to have a perpetual problem with (along with the constant assertion across threads that veterans are somehow out to get him and that most of them are twinks controlling the game to keep their advantage).

I would tell you that there are more twinks concerned with what their skill levels are at than twinks who are not concerned with it.  But people saying they like a long progression, complete with a period of weakness for your character to deal with and overcome, does not 'out them' as a bitter vet trying to keep you down, or a twink who's trying to manipulate things to kill you because you don't skill up.  It seems to me that the people telling you to be patient and that skills stop mattering very quickly are the opposite of twinks...those are people telling you that as long as you -do- play the game, you'll progress in whatever arena you want.

There is nothing quite like having a 100 day character killed by simple violence that if you'd twinked up, you wouldn't have died that way.  Sure, it's really unsatisfying.  But that doesn't somehow degrade what I accomplished with my 100 day character with apprentice dual wield and apprentice piercing weapons.  Just because some dude got up to journeyman and whooped my ass didn't make that character not worth playing.  This is a permadeath game.  Not a permalive game.  Death is what fosters the paranoia, fosters the intrigue, fosters the fight, and fosters the idea that -yes-, you should be suspicious of other players.  This is not all of us banding together to go out and make tons of coins; that requires a lot more trust than most characters earn from mine.  That is not cutting down on interaction, either.  I'm interacting whenever I need to, and being wary when I need to.  So I can empathize, I really can, but I also think when you guys go off on skills needing to be revamped because of a rampant twink problem, you're coming from a very out of touch perspective drowned out by misgivings of yours.

But can't 100 day whatevers be killed by simple violence anyways, regardless of skill level?

Quote from: Reiloth on June 20, 2016, 07:14:54 PM
But can't 100 day whatevers be killed by simple violence anyways, regardless of skill level?

Yes.

That's why the whole 'not twinking screws me over' is one of those things where I'm not sure what you expect the game/code to do about it.  Yes, it's a shitty feeling.  No, it's not something about the game that needs to be changed/fixed, because it's not a fault or something that's broken.

Quote from: Reiloth on June 20, 2016, 07:14:54 PM
But can't 100 day whatevers be killed by simple violence anyways, regardless of skill level?

A meteor strike doesn't care how many days played and how master your 'slashing weapons' skill is.

... but more seriously, I understand why people want to have more skills.  Everyone wants to be competent so that they can have fun, being incompetent is rarely as fun unless you're doing it on purpose.  But there are skill bumps now that help address this and are specifically targeted at more casual players, and from the brief osmosis experience I've had with them, it sounds like they help a fair bit.

Quote from: Armaddict on June 20, 2016, 07:20:18 PM

Quote from: Reiloth on June 20, 2016, 07:14:54 PM
But can't 100 day whatevers be killed by simple violence anyways, regardless of skill level?

Yes.

That's why the whole 'not twinking screws me over' is one of those things where I'm not sure what you expect the game/code to do about it.  Yes, it's a shitty feeling.  No, it's not something about the game that needs to be changed/fixed, because it's not a fault or something that's broken.

Because i'm not talking about PvE, i'm talking about PvP. The ability to enter plot lines / be involved is stifled by the fact that 'you aren't skilled enough yet'. This is the culture of skill shaming that I am talking about.

I don't think it's a problem to involve day 0 assassins to try and off some nobody merchant. You don't need the uber talented to get things done. Sure, you want them to be somewhat competent, but i've been shut out of plots for not having grinded enough training. That's the culture i'd like to see shift, and with it, you will find casuals more willing to be around.

Quote from: valeria on June 20, 2016, 07:25:11 PM

Quote from: Reiloth on June 20, 2016, 07:14:54 PM
But can't 100 day whatevers be killed by simple violence anyways, regardless of skill level?

A meteor strike doesn't care how many days played and how master your 'slashing weapons' skill is.

... but more seriously, I understand why people want to have more skills.  Everyone wants to be competent so that they can have fun, being incompetent is rarely as fun unless you're doing it on purpose.  But there are skill bumps now that help address this and are specifically targeted at more casual players, and from the brief osmosis experience I've had with them, it sounds like they help a fair bit.

Yes, but skill bumps are now special applications, not the regular old 'Extended Subguild' sort of app/turn around. I personally have no interest in applying for special application like apps, due to the wait time. When I get the itch to play the game, I prefer to just play the PC I got, or apply for a regular old joe as far as options go, because I don't want to sit around for up to 30 days. Until the system becomes more automated (much like the Ext. Subguilds are now, magicker sub guilds) i'm not really going to bother with special apps (unless something special comes to mind).

http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,50840.0.html

3 skill bumps isn't going to make or break anything, really. It's nice, and in one or two skills, you might feel the effect, but without a more broad sweep (The Jman at some, with advanced caps, and no master caps, things discussed in this thread), I don't think it helps casual players much.

Casual players also don't want to create undue paperwork for Staff, because they don't feel like they are worth the extra time I know that. I don't really want to bother Staff to do X Y Z for me, because I might not be around enough to justify it. The more casual and easily streamlined a system is, the more you will appeal to a casual player. Case in point is extended sub guilds -- I applied for these, especially when I had more time, but when I had the itch to play and no PC, I would more often then not just app a 'whatever'. So I might even app for a tailor rather than master tailor, just because I could get in game that night and get my casual fix. Now that I can app for extended sub guilds via the character tool, and not the request tool, for sure I use them more.

In essence -- The easier it is for a casual player to make a PC, log in, and have fun, the more they will be around/stick around I think. I don't think it's about holding casual players hands -- I'm a vet of many years, I have no problem with spending time on backgrounds or doing the request tool or whatever. But I think the more hurdles you have, the more a longtime vet or simply a casual player will be like "Ehhhhh...You know what...I think i'll just play Dragon Age: Inquisition instead, it'll give me my 20 minutes of fun and I can go do something else". Not to say that's the type of player best suited to ArmageddonMUD, but the demographic i'm most interested in keeping around is the Vet who simply doesn't have enough time to be the same awesome Vet they are anymore, so they'd like to be casually involved with Armageddon.

Hope that makes sense. There's been some great discussion and answers here, and i'll step away from the troll button station to better facilitate that.

Quote from: Yam on June 20, 2016, 05:05:36 PM
If you don't think there are any lame twinks in Armageddon you are deeply confused and I have a shitmug to sell you.

Not really my place to make the call.

If I feel like someone is doing something they shouldn't be, I mention it in one of my character reports.

Quote from: Yam on June 20, 2016, 05:05:36 PMYour side is pretty clear - you have a shitload of playtime and want to maintain that disparity. That's fine. I can totally understand that. I can also play a lot and I too enjoy the feeling of chopping the helpless casual masses with bone swords. But you have to recognize that you might end up playing with only a handful of other people in the future if you want to maintain that power disparity.

You missed some moderated content so I'm going to ignore some of your post, as well as snip it from the quote.

There is no benefit to the casual with a blanket increase in skill gains. If the casual gets it, so does everyone else. There is nothing to be gained from that but power creep.

If this was really about equality for the casual, we would be discussing slowing down skill gains.

Think about it:

Let's assume we gain a skill up an hour now.

Now, let's increase it to three per hour. If the casual can only invest 45 minutes a day, they're missing out on a chunk of those gains that the average player, who can invest the full hour or more, is going to benefit from.

Now, let's lower it to once every six hours. Now, unless you can commit over six hours a day, it doesn't matter if you play an hour or two or three, you're on the same footing as most everyone else.

If someone can invest more than six hours into the game per day? They still won't be able to pull away as far or as fast as they can with things as they are now.

Quote from: Reiloth on June 20, 2016, 05:15:54 PM
I guess you are saying people shouldn't be surprised if they do, that the lion eats them.

That is exactly my point.

I, personally, have had no problems getting into plots straight out of the gate, assuming I get exposed to them.  This happens with 'rinthers and bynners alike, and I've never been told 'You're not good enough'.  Maybe that's because of how I carry myself as a veteran player, or what-have-you...but this is purely anecdotal and I don't expect you to change your mind on this matter.

I think skillshaming, where it exists, is likely out of the drive to help you survive as a character, rather than a 'you can't do this'.  I'm not sure the current leadership atmosphere is very supportive of 'send people off to die', even though that's how things once were and it was a blast, particularly for criminals.

QuoteThat's the culture i'd like to see shift, and with it, you will find casuals more willing to be around.

This is a really interesting digression from this particular topic, but one really worth exploring.  I know I (and I think Majikal?) talk about risk-aversion a lot...maybe we need to look at the entire hubbub to directly promote PvP as a whole?

I've been under the impression for a few years now that the community as a whole really frowned on PvP unless it was part of some big plot.  I willingly engage in it, if there's a reason (some characters have more reasons than others), but if what you say above is true, we kinda need it to be a lot more common as a whole so that someone -failing- to kill someone else is not such a tremendous deal that it leads to uber-assassins all over the place.

I like Reiloth's place here, even though I think I misunderstood it at first.  I thought he meant something else by skillshaming, but it appears that he's talking about low-skill characters being made irrelevant as a whole...and I would say, indeed, that a large part of that has to do with people waiting to start anything until they're capable of killing off others with confidence.

This should likely be a new thread, though.

Quote from: Reiloth on June 20, 2016, 07:46:42 PM

Quote from: Armaddict on June 20, 2016, 07:20:18 PM

Quote from: Reiloth on June 20, 2016, 07:14:54 PM
But can't 100 day whatevers be killed by simple violence anyways, regardless of skill level?

Yes.

That's why the whole 'not twinking screws me over' is one of those things where I'm not sure what you expect the game/code to do about it.  Yes, it's a shitty feeling.  No, it's not something about the game that needs to be changed/fixed, because it's not a fault or something that's broken.

Because i'm not talking about PvE, i'm talking about PvP. The ability to enter plot lines / be involved is stifled by the fact that 'you aren't skilled enough yet'. This is the culture of skill shaming that I am talking about.

I don't think it's a problem to involve day 0 assassins to try and off some nobody merchant. You don't need the uber talented to get things done. Sure, you want them to be somewhat competent, but i've been shut out of plots for not having grinded enough training. That's the culture i'd like to see shift, and with it, you will find casuals more willing to be around.

Part of the reason why new characters are cautioned to be patient, is because sometimes these are played by new players. New players need to learn the syntax. They need to learn the combat system, they need to learn about flee and ep/etwo/es. They need to learn to type stat score skills inv eq once in awhile, to keep track of the "full list" of their character data. They can't do that if they're being dragged out on a Byn mission on their first RL day playing the game.

So for you, Reiloth, and any other longer-playing player, there are skill bumps you can request, to give you that initial boost necessary to be capable of riding from the Nakki west gate to the shield wall without falling off your mount more than once. Or being capable of getting at least one solid hit on a rat that scurries along Stonecarver road, before you have to flee.  Or make at least one successful pair of linen scarves within the first 3 tries. That's what skill bumps are for.

For the rest of us, we don't worry too much about competing in a PvP contest, and spend more time playing the RP game and let the skillups occur instead of chasing after them.

Right, I guess i'm saying 3 skill bumps does not make a significant difference, especially because one 'bump' in a category like weapons skills doesn't push it from Apprentice to Jman, necessarily, nor a bump in non-weapons skills push it from category to category. This is especially true of skills in your main guild that aren't pushed to apprentice if you don't pick a relevant sub guild. So, an assassin who does not pick a sub guild with sneak and hide will start at (novice) sneak and hide, still.

Taking a sneaky type by example, bumping hide doesn't help if you don't bump sneak. So if you bump once in hide, once in sneak...And then I guess once in piercing weapons, you aren't much better off than a 0 day 0 hour Assassin at the end of the day. It's nice, it's swell, but it isn't like it was before. While it was more liberal before (Add your karma + 3) it actually made a significant difference for the casual player. This is more of a middling effect, and not worth the paperwork for me (personally).

I felt the whole point of skill bumps was to allow people who had karma to spend it in a more interesting way. It was expressly designed so that vets who don't have time to grind, can put their karma to good use and bump skills up to let them play the game and not necessarily spend the grind time to get to the point where you can play the game.

Now that karma has nothing to do with it, it's of no real importance to me to spend the time to put in the app, wait for the app to be approved, have to set up a time to have the character get 3 skill bumps, and then go into the game. It's a bit of a buzzkill, for the casual vet. While I appreciate that Staff are working on a guild revamp and solution, it would have been nice to keep the old system in play until those changes were rolled out.

I personally don't understand why weapon skills are so vaunted in comparison to other skills.  You can cap any other skill in a reasonable timeframe.  Weapon skills take like, ten times that or more, in effort.  Frankly, it seems retarded.

Quote from: Reiloth on June 20, 2016, 08:03:21 PM

I felt the whole point of skill bumps was to allow people who had karma to spend it in a more interesting way. It was expressly designed so that vets who don't have time to grind, can put their karma to good use and bump skills up to let them play the game and not necessarily spend the grind time to get to the point where you can play the game.

It's not just veterans who are turned off by the infinite cycle of starting out failing 8/10 times at things you're supposed to be decent at (to the exclusion of being able to do anything else at all). I've seen more new players walk away over this than veterans, frankly. So I'm fine with the revamp that was done. It's not like people who get karma, which is awarded sporadically or not at all if you don't know you have to ask for it (thus already a vet or on the road to it), don't already have a shitload of cherry options that make them "just plain better" than others, without adding to it.

RE: Wisdom Stuff

I will say I have noticed a MARKED difference in this respect. Kudos to Staff for tinkering with that, and further tinkering ahead!

Quote from: nauta on June 14, 2016, 11:54:08 AM
There is, I believe, one option on the table: you can special app a skill increase.  However, when I went to the main web-site to pull down a link, I couldn't find too much information on it.

So the help file for Special Applications (http://www.armageddon.org/help/view/Special%20Applications) mentions this:

Quote
We are also currently testing out extended subguilds and skill increases using the same process for special applications. See the helpfiles on both of these subjects for details.

But when I went to the Skill Increases link there's no mention of it (http://www.armageddon.org/help/view/Skill%20Increases)

Just by accident I found the appropriate help file:

http://www.armageddon.org/help/view/Skill%20Bumps

My "take more risks" strategy is not working out well. :)

Quote from: Miradus on June 20, 2016, 11:05:12 PM
My "take more risks" strategy is not working out well. :)

Oh, I dunno, reading that post just cracked -me- up and made me wonder what kind of awesome I just missed.

I didn't read most of the thread. The only input or feedback I have to offer is that no, we aren't looking at changing the skill gain system to make it easier or faster.  What we have indicated in the past, that we will be looking to implement is changes within the guild system that will offer options for those that don't wish to go through the grind. These will eventually replace the skill bump concept entirely.