Quote from: Trevalyan on September 16, 2023, 05:32:41 AM

Quote from: Nacria on September 15, 2023, 07:54:41 PMLike do I really need to blow 500 hours on dummy training just to survive the grey forest?

Dummy training is aptly named. Your improvement would be much more dramatic with sparring against PCs, never mind actual combat. You should only be using training dummies as part of guard drills, or when your character is justifying solo training with no one else around.

I'd like to point out that new players have no way to know that sparring against dummies doesn't do anything for you. It's a little silly. Also, europeans don't always have he same opportunity as americans to spar on a regular basis. I do not like the sparring meta as it encourages gamey experiences over doing what is more natural to your character.

Quote from: Kavrick on September 16, 2023, 05:47:07 AMI'd like to point out that new players have no way to know that sparring against dummies doesn't do anything for you. It's a little silly. Also, europeans don't always have he same opportunity as americans to spar on a regular basis. I do not like the sparring meta as it encourages gamey experiences over doing what is more natural to your character.

That's why I'm pointing it out here (and it would nice if there was a combat guide somewhere). Dummies can best be used for specific advantages in game, like improving flee/ rescue/ guard. Personally, I think bashing dummies is far less conducive towards combat RP, but then I also think most people are going to see diminishing returns on sparring at the higher levels too.

The only way to get truly good is either do a lot of risky fighting, or have at least some people in your sphere who are as interested in perfecting combat as you are.

Hi, I'm Fredd and I smoke to much weed, but here's an idea.

What if being offline accrued passive xp that then gets dumped into skills when they would normally rank up.

1: This simulates your dude actually doing shit when you're not around.

2: This lets people who have a life keep up with doofus' like me who are life-adjacent.


Thoughts?

Quote from: Fredd on September 17, 2023, 10:49:14 AMHi, I'm Fredd and I smoke to much weed, but here's an idea.

What if being offline accrued passive xp that then gets dumped into skills when they would normally rank up.

1: This simulates your dude actually doing shit when you're not around.

2: This lets people who have a life keep up with doofus' like me who are life-adjacent.


Thoughts?

I like the idea of something that respects people's time but I also want it to be something that encourages people being logged in not offline. I think if passive xp were to accrue, maybe every day you're logged in for 30 minutes, or every week you're logged in 3 hours or something instead. Something which has a 'casual player' level low window of time investment 'a half hour or so once a day, or an hour or two once or twice a week'. I'm not opposed to the idea in theory but with all ideas that aren't theme breaking, it comes down to best implement it in a way that encourages the type of game play that is preferred or encourage buy in on the established game loop and works in harmony with it.

Quote from: Fredd on September 17, 2023, 10:49:14 AMHi, I'm Fredd and I smoke to much weed, but here's an idea.

What if being offline accrued passive xp that then gets dumped into skills when they would normally rank up.

1: This simulates your dude actually doing shit when you're not around.

2: This lets people who have a life keep up with doofus' like me who are life-adjacent.


Thoughts?

I'll elaborate more on this idea on how i invision it.

Offline time gives you a stored 'value' of a bonus, up to a certain limit.

While you have a pool of this bonus, any activity you do is both gauranteed to gain some skill up, but the skill up is higher than normal.
Rokal fails x craft! instead of gaining 1 point, gains 2, or maybe 3!

It doesn't take long to 'use this up', its just a little bit of an 'edge' towards helping progress.

Quote from: Rokal on September 17, 2023, 04:37:18 PM

Quote from: Fredd on September 17, 2023, 10:49:14 AMHi, I'm Fredd and I smoke to much weed, but here's an idea.

What if being offline accrued passive xp that then gets dumped into skills when they would normally rank up.

1: This simulates your dude actually doing shit when you're not around.

2: This lets people who have a life keep up with doofus' like me who are life-adjacent.


Thoughts?

I'll elaborate more on this idea on how i invision it.

Offline time gives you a stored 'value' of a bonus, up to a certain limit.

While you have a pool of this bonus, any activity you do is both gauranteed to gain some skill up, but the skill up is higher than normal.
Rokal fails x craft! instead of gaining 1 point, gains 2, or maybe 3!

It doesn't take long to 'use this up', its just a little bit of an 'edge' towards helping progress.

that is exactly what I thought. It would enhance the IC training.

The way this is put forth, it would encourage people to /return/ to play. Amount of IG time is enhanced, because people have a legitimate reason to 'check in and do something' each day.

You can hit high tiers of combat within an IG year if you have a mentor. It really doesn't take that long. That's a RL month of your time

Quote from: Doublepalli on September 18, 2023, 07:56:46 AMYou can hit high tiers of combat within an IG year if you have a mentor. It really doesn't take that long. That's a RL month of your time

I mean, that's a big, big 'if'. Not everyone has a high-skilled pc to spar with them every ic day. Possible and probable are two different things, the average player wont be able to do this, so it's not really a good standard in my opinion.

Quote from: Doublepalli on September 18, 2023, 07:56:46 AMYou can hit high tiers of combat within an IG year if you have a mentor. It really doesn't take that long. That's a RL month of your time

This is partly true, how I see it. This is the literal reason all the clans USED to have a "you can't leave the walls for 1 IC year" rule. But even Troopers were dying dumb unskilled deaths back then.

You can get yourself into shape in an IC year, for sure. But 1: Your skill is still only going to be just passable to ride around. (i'm honestly fine with this, the world should be dangerous)

and 2: This still assumes you are training 2-3 times a RL day. Not everyone has that time.

If we wanted to push things back to mundanes, we could make this available ONLY if you are mundane. No Magicks or whatever.

Quote from: Fredd on September 18, 2023, 08:21:52 AM

Quote from: Doublepalli on September 18, 2023, 07:56:46 AMYou can hit high tiers of combat within an IG year if you have a mentor. It really doesn't take that long. That's a RL month of your time

This is partly true, how I see it. This is the literal reason all the clans USED to have a "you can't leave the walls for 1 IC year" rule. But even Troopers were dying dumb unskilled deaths back then.

You can get yourself into shape in an IC year, for sure. But 1: Your skill is still only going to be just passable to ride around. (i'm honestly fine with this, the world should be dangerous)

and 2: This still assumes you are training 2-3 times a RL day. Not everyone has that time.

If we wanted to push things back to mundanes, we could make this available ONLY if you are mundane. No Magicks or whatever.

Honestly this is something that I would be fine with and like. It doesn't create an artificial penalties for magickers which sucks for people who like playing magickers, it creates a genuine boon (a mild, reasonable one) for people playing mundanes which incentivizes play of mundanes.

Quote from: dumbstruck on September 18, 2023, 01:51:25 PM

Quote from: Fredd on September 18, 2023, 08:21:52 AM

Quote from: Doublepalli on September 18, 2023, 07:56:46 AMYou can hit high tiers of combat within an IG year if you have a mentor. It really doesn't take that long. That's a RL month of your time

This is partly true, how I see it. This is the literal reason all the clans USED to have a "you can't leave the walls for 1 IC year" rule. But even Troopers were dying dumb unskilled deaths back then.

You can get yourself into shape in an IC year, for sure. But 1: Your skill is still only going to be just passable to ride around. (i'm honestly fine with this, the world should be dangerous)

and 2: This still assumes you are training 2-3 times a RL day. Not everyone has that time.

If we wanted to push things back to mundanes, we could make this available ONLY if you are mundane. No Magicks or whatever.

Honestly this is something that I would be fine with and like. It doesn't create an artificial penalties for magickers which sucks for people who like playing magickers, it creates a genuine boon (a mild, reasonable one) for people playing mundanes which incentivizes play of mundanes.

That was my thought. It would be an incentive. And a thematic one. Mundanes are/were supposed to be a bit more capable physically.

Quote from: Fredd on September 19, 2023, 09:50:04 AM

Quote from: dumbstruck on September 18, 2023, 01:51:25 PM

Quote from: Fredd on September 18, 2023, 08:21:52 AM

Quote from: Doublepalli on September 18, 2023, 07:56:46 AMYou can hit high tiers of combat within an IG year if you have a mentor. It really doesn't take that long. That's a RL month of your time

This is partly true, how I see it. This is the literal reason all the clans USED to have a "you can't leave the walls for 1 IC year" rule. But even Troopers were dying dumb unskilled deaths back then.

You can get yourself into shape in an IC year, for sure. But 1: Your skill is still only going to be just passable to ride around. (i'm honestly fine with this, the world should be dangerous)

and 2: This still assumes you are training 2-3 times a RL day. Not everyone has that time.

If we wanted to push things back to mundanes, we could make this available ONLY if you are mundane. No Magicks or whatever.

Honestly this is something that I would be fine with and like. It doesn't create an artificial penalties for magickers which sucks for people who like playing magickers, it creates a genuine boon (a mild, reasonable one) for people playing mundanes which incentivizes play of mundanes.

That was my thought. It would be an incentive. And a thematic one. Mundanes are/were supposed to be a bit more capable physically.

I disagree with the notion that mundanes are just supposed to be more capable physically, if that case I think the case for Muk Utep to be an 8ft tall warrior king, and Templars regularly facing physical training in addition to spellcasting would make no sense (I feel like the notion conflates Zalanthas with a generic fantasy setting's default of 'wizards should be frail compared to warriors physically, in a way that doesn't necessarily pan out). However, I also understand that magick is supposed to be somewhat rare, and feel like this is a gameplay/design option that empowers people to choose design options which aren't magick by empowering options which aren't magick rather than penalizing options people are enjoying playing currently, which is good and feels like a step in the right direction.

Quote from: dumbstruck on September 19, 2023, 01:08:18 PMI disagree with the notion that mundanes are just supposed to be more capable physically, if that case I think the case for Muk Utep to be an 8ft tall warrior king, and Templars regularly facing physical training in addition to spellcasting would make no sense (I feel like the notion conflates Zalanthas with a generic fantasy setting's default of 'wizards should be frail compared to warriors physically, in a way that doesn't necessarily pan out). However, I also understand that magick is supposed to be somewhat rare, and feel like this is a gameplay/design option that empowers people to choose design options which aren't magick by empowering options which aren't magick rather than penalizing options people are enjoying playing currently, which is good and feels like a step in the right direction.

I do want to point out that comparing PC gicks to templars and the sorcerer king isn't quite a decent standard. Templars are given their magick by the templar king and the templar king is immortal.

Skills increase just fine if you have opportunities to use (and fail) them. The problem is with the handful of skills that are unrealistically hard to fail, or where code gets in the way of access to proper training in a manner that is unrealistic, as is the case with the sparring skills. If you get to spar regularly against someone who's highly skilled, your combat skills will go up at a perfectly suitable rate. It's just that in far too many cases, you don't actually get to spar against someone who's good enough to make that happen, even in roles where that should be a thing. Instead, those with the freedom to roam the world and do what they want become better at combat than those who spend their whole lives ostensibly training to be the best soldiers in the land. That's the only real problem.

Quote from: Roon on September 19, 2023, 04:25:38 PMSkills increase just fine if you have opportunities to use (and fail) them. The problem is with the handful of skills that are unrealistically hard to fail, or where code gets in the way of access to proper training in a manner that is unrealistic, as is the case with the sparring skills. If you get to spar regularly against someone who's highly skilled, your combat skills will go up at a perfectly suitable rate. It's just that in far too many cases, you don't actually get to spar against someone who's good enough to make that happen, even in roles where that should be a thing. Instead, those with the freedom to roam the world and do what they want become better at combat than those who spend their whole lives ostensibly training to be the best soldiers in the land. That's the only real problem.

My man. Stop hitting nails so squarely.

Skills raise just fine, if given the right circumstances. I know how to train combat skills. I very much know how to do that. Unfortunately, I am not always in the position to request the right training from available PCs or the right PCs are not available at all.

If you could only advance to Master Armor Making by creating ... lets say ... roc feather armor. And the Roc only spawns once per reboot in a fly room only wind-witches can reach. It becomes very hard to master, even though the CRAFTING may be easy as hell.

Combat skills take a while because a good sparring session takes ... call it 5 minutes with the trainer. With a BAD trainer? 20 minutes. With no trainer? Dead to the fire ants.

Quote from: Riev on September 19, 2023, 04:41:57 PMCombat skills take a while because a good sparring session takes ... call it 5 minutes with the trainer. With a BAD trainer? 20 minutes. With no trainer? Dead to the fire ants.

A good trainer can easily knock you out of the fight before you seriously branch defensive skills and Defense itself. Which you need much more than the offensive skills everyone wants. While having a top-ranked trainer is ideal, you also want mid-ranked fighters to help manage the 0 RPP inflow and share the teaching burden.

In short, if you want to git gud, you ideally need a healthy clan or a way to make friends. And that's very possible, if you ask around.

Quote from: dumbstruck on September 19, 2023, 01:08:18 PM

Quote from: Fredd on September 19, 2023, 09:50:04 AM

Quote from: dumbstruck on September 18, 2023, 01:51:25 PM

Quote from: Fredd on September 18, 2023, 08:21:52 AM

Quote from: Doublepalli on September 18, 2023, 07:56:46 AMYou can hit high tiers of combat within an IG year if you have a mentor. It really doesn't take that long. That's a RL month of your time

This is partly true, how I see it. This is the literal reason all the clans USED to have a "you can't leave the walls for 1 IC year" rule. But even Troopers were dying dumb unskilled deaths back then.

You can get yourself into shape in an IC year, for sure. But 1: Your skill is still only going to be just passable to ride around. (i'm honestly fine with this, the world should be dangerous)

and 2: This still assumes you are training 2-3 times a RL day. Not everyone has that time.

If we wanted to push things back to mundanes, we could make this available ONLY if you are mundane. No Magicks or whatever.

Honestly this is something that I would be fine with and like. It doesn't create an artificial penalties for magickers which sucks for people who like playing magickers, it creates a genuine boon (a mild, reasonable one) for people playing mundanes which incentivizes play of mundanes.

That was my thought. It would be an incentive. And a thematic one. Mundanes are/were supposed to be a bit more capable physically.

I disagree with the notion that mundanes are just supposed to be more capable physically, if that case I think the case for Muk Utep to be an 8ft tall warrior king, and Templars regularly facing physical training in addition to spellcasting would make no sense (I feel like the notion conflates Zalanthas with a generic fantasy setting's default of 'wizards should be frail compared to warriors physically, in a way that doesn't necessarily pan out). However, I also understand that magick is supposed to be somewhat rare, and feel like this is a gameplay/design option that empowers people to choose design options which aren't magick by empowering options which aren't magick rather than penalizing options people are enjoying playing currently, which is good and feels like a step in the right direction.

Not trying to sidetrack the convo. Because we have good things here for Staff to consider. But...

You are comparing literal god kings and their hand selected specially trained military and administration forces to the average Plebian that talks to rocks.

My point was more an OOC one, honestly. Back in the days of just full mages and such the mages had scary amount of power, sure. But they likely didn't have 2 years of byn training, and they didn't have a combat main guild. So mundanes were physically stronger back then. And this helped the numbers stay more mundane. It takes a while to "git gud" at magick, and you had to know how to use your spells to not die.

Now they kinda just buff themselves. This proposal would help shift the power back into Mundane hands, without nerfing the mage play we got. (but we both agree to that, i'm just bringing things back to my original point is all)

Quote from: Fredd on September 20, 2023, 10:37:33 AMNot trying to sidetrack the convo. Because we have good things here for Staff to consider. But...

You are comparing literal god kings and their hand selected specially trained military and administration forces to the average Plebian that talks to rocks.

My point was more an OOC one, honestly. Back in the days of just full mages and such the mages had scary amount of power, sure. But they likely didn't have 2 years of byn training, and they didn't have a combat main guild. So mundanes were physically stronger back then. And this helped the numbers stay more mundane. It takes a while to "git gud" at magick, and you had to know how to use your spells to not die.

Now they kinda just buff themselves. This proposal would help shift the power back into Mundane hands, without nerfing the mage play we got. (but we both agree to that, i'm just bringing things back to my original point is all)

I also wanna point out that there really is a reason why in pretty much every TTRPG, mages tend to be bad with weapons and armor, along with being squishy. Arm really is in a weird spot where for some reason Wizards are also Fighters.

...
I also wanna point out that there really is a reason why in pretty much every TTRPG, mages tend to be bad with weapons and armor, along with being squishy. Arm really is in a weird spot where for some reason Wizards are also Fighters.
[/quote]

This is still (new?ish) since the change to subguild mages. Full mages lacked certain things, but the change was made to make "mages feel like people first" and I will say that magick being elementally incarnate in zalanthians against their will...one could be a dwarf that rejects all their magick to continue focusing on the mundane...and it should not -limit- one in any way because their eyes also glow. While it is not the way, I could see a sorcerer who must develop studying, learning, etc, to be 'unable to focus as much' on swordplay but...this is not the way it is.

It used to be that way. There was some massive pros and massive cons to that. Again though the mages this is a sidetrack.

I literally replied with an alteration to this below instead of altering it on accident, when altering it to fix it was the intent.

Quote from: dumbstruck on September 20, 2023, 02:28:59 PM

Quote from: Fredd on September 20, 2023, 10:37:33 AM

Quote from: dumbstruck on September 19, 2023, 01:08:18 PM

Quote from: Fredd on September 19, 2023, 09:50:04 AM

Quote from: dumbstruck on September 18, 2023, 01:51:25 PM

Quote from: Fredd on September 18, 2023, 08:21:52 AM

Quote from: Doublepalli on September 18, 2023, 07:56:46 AMYou can hit high tiers of combat within an IG year if you have a mentor. It really doesn't take that long. That's a RL month of your time

This is partly true, how I see it. This is the literal reason all the clans USED to have a "you can't leave the walls for 1 IC year" rule. But even Troopers were dying dumb unskilled deaths back then.

You can get yourself into shape in an IC year, for sure. But 1: Your skill is still only going to be just passable to ride around. (i'm honestly fine with this, the world should be dangerous)

and 2: This still assumes you are training 2-3 times a RL day. Not everyone has that time.

If we wanted to push things back to mundanes, we could make this available ONLY if you are mundane. No Magicks or whatever.

Honestly this is something that I would be fine with and like. It doesn't create an artificial penalties for magickers which sucks for people who like playing magickers, it creates a genuine boon (a mild, reasonable one) for people playing mundanes which incentivizes play of mundanes.

That was my thought. It would be an incentive. And a thematic one. Mundanes are/were supposed to be a bit more capable physically.

I disagree with the notion that mundanes are just supposed to be more capable physically, if that case I think the case for Muk Utep to be an 8ft tall warrior king, and Templars regularly facing physical training in addition to spellcasting would make no sense (I feel like the notion conflates Zalanthas with a generic fantasy setting's default of 'wizards should be frail compared to warriors physically, in a way that doesn't necessarily pan out). However, I also understand that magick is supposed to be somewhat rare, and feel like this is a gameplay/design option that empowers people to choose design options which aren't magick by empowering options which aren't magick rather than penalizing options people are enjoying playing currently, which is good and feels like a step in the right direction.

Not trying to sidetrack the convo. Because we have good things here for Staff to consider. But...

You are comparing literal god kings and their hand selected specially trained military and administration forces to the average Plebian that talks to rocks.

My point was more an OOC one, honestly. Back in the days of just full mages and such the mages had scary amount of power, sure. But they likely didn't have 2 years of byn training, and they didn't have a combat main guild. So mundanes were physically stronger back then. And this helped the numbers stay more mundane. It takes a while to "git gud" at magick, and you had to know how to use your spells to not die.

Now they kinda just buff themselves. This proposal would help shift the power back into Mundane hands, without nerfing the mage play we got. (but we both agree to that, i'm just bringing things back to my original point is all)

I'm really not. You and @Kavrick have just lost yourself in assuming I'm making an extra point. My point literally is 5 (a warrior) is not as strong (big) as 7(5+2) a warrior plus magick, and nothing in this game's setting (using setting specific roles, which is what I was doing) suggests that adding warrior stuff makes magick weaker or that magick stuff makes warrior weaker. Ya'll are both lost in the forest for the trees. Elementalists aren't setting limited, but the same applies there. Socially yes, weaker, but that's absolutely not what I was talking about.

Quote from: dumbstruck on September 20, 2023, 02:30:12 PM

Quote from: dumbstruck on September 20, 2023, 02:28:59 PM

Quote from: Fredd on September 20, 2023, 10:37:33 AM

Quote from: dumbstruck on September 19, 2023, 01:08:18 PM

Quote from: Fredd on September 19, 2023, 09:50:04 AM

Quote from: dumbstruck on September 18, 2023, 01:51:25 PM

Quote from: Fredd on September 18, 2023, 08:21:52 AM

Quote from: Doublepalli on September 18, 2023, 07:56:46 AMYou can hit high tiers of combat within an IG year if you have a mentor. It really doesn't take that long. That's a RL month of your time

This is partly true, how I see it. This is the literal reason all the clans USED to have a "you can't leave the walls for 1 IC year" rule. But even Troopers were dying dumb unskilled deaths back then.

You can get yourself into shape in an IC year, for sure. But 1: Your skill is still only going to be just passable to ride around. (i'm honestly fine with this, the world should be dangerous)

and 2: This still assumes you are training 2-3 times a RL day. Not everyone has that time.

If we wanted to push things back to mundanes, we could make this available ONLY if you are mundane. No Magicks or whatever.

Honestly this is something that I would be fine with and like. It doesn't create an artificial penalties for magickers which sucks for people who like playing magickers, it creates a genuine boon (a mild, reasonable one) for people playing mundanes which incentivizes play of mundanes.

That was my thought. It would be an incentive. And a thematic one. Mundanes are/were supposed to be a bit more capable physically.

I disagree with the notion that mundanes are just supposed to be more capable physically, if that case I think the case for Muk Utep to be an 8ft tall warrior king, and Templars regularly facing physical training in addition to spellcasting would make no sense (I feel like the notion conflates Zalanthas with a generic fantasy setting's default of 'wizards should be frail compared to warriors physically, in a way that doesn't necessarily pan out). However, I also understand that magick is supposed to be somewhat rare, and feel like this is a gameplay/design option that empowers people to choose design options which aren't magick by empowering options which aren't magick rather than penalizing options people are enjoying playing currently, which is good and feels like a step in the right direction.

Not trying to sidetrack the convo. Because we have good things here for Staff to consider. But...

You are comparing literal god kings and their hand selected specially trained military and administration forces to the average Plebian that talks to rocks.

My point was more an OOC one, honestly. Back in the days of just full mages and such the mages had scary amount of power, sure. But they likely didn't have 2 years of byn training, and they didn't have a combat main guild. So mundanes were physically stronger back then. And this helped the numbers stay more mundane. It takes a while to "git gud" at magick, and you had to know how to use your spells to not die.

Now they kinda just buff themselves. This proposal would help shift the power back into Mundane hands, without nerfing the mage play we got. (but we both agree to that, i'm just bringing things back to my original point is all)

I'm really not. You and @Kavrick have just lost yourself in assuming I'm making an extra point. My point literally is 5 (a warrior) is not as strong (big) as 7(5+2) a warrior plus magick, and nothing in this game's setting (using setting specific roles, which is what I was doing) suggests that adding warrior stuff makes magick weaker or that magick stuff makes warrior weaker. Ya'll are both lost in the forest for the trees. Elementalists aren't setting limited, but the same applies there. Socially yes, weaker, but that's absolutely not what I was talking about.

We're saying the same thing. Just two different ways.

Maybe, I just wanted to be very clear that when saying that magickers in this setting 'can be anything' and aren't all coughing wasted Raistlin Majeres like in Dragonlance, I wasn't just talking about Templars and Sorcerer kings, when I had 2 different people try to tell me I was.

So a couple things. 

I don't think making the mundane/mage dichotomy is about incentive.  When you address those issues in this way, you're building a weird mmo-like balancing system that is more based on playtime and microtransactions than what we're here for, which is roleplaying; when we need less mages, it's either an enforcement doctrine of documentation, or a roleplaying perspective on it as far as as that incentive/downside relationship.  Probably the worst thing for mage population is to make them easily independent (except for sorcerers and the long lived who already have their story to tell).  I don't think making mundanes 'level up' faster is really the way to go in this regard, despite that being kind of a return to the old power curve gain.  But that has less to do with mages, and more to do with combat skills and THEIR role in the game, rather than the mage role in the game.

Non-combat skills level up pretty fast here.  Stealth skills, manipulation skills, everything outside of combat levels up pretty quickly.  Crafting can take awhile, but that has less to do with the code and more to do with the availability of things to craft for those skill gains, at least as far as I've been told indirectly.  I could be misunderstanding those conversations, but the 'grind' of crafting was about finding capable people to consistently bring the hard-to-find materials you needed, and less to do with 'I've made this really hard recipe 400 times without a skillgain'.  These are the skills that are generally role-defining, or at least that's how they've behaved in the past.  Often, mastery/advancement in these skills is when the character story truly begins because they can behave in the ways they're supposed.

Combat skills have been bumped up, souped up, spread out so that almost everyone now has the combat grind as a main part of their character, and have had various tweaks making them easier to increase.  But they are also the skills where their impact is so profoundly high that by the time you're at mid-journeyman, you are actually very well equipped to deal with most things in the in-game world.  Increasing combat skills is an over-time endeavor that advances during your character story, rather than to define it.  Mastery in those skills is a rarity not because it's depriving you of mastery, but because having a large portion of the characterbase with very high skills throws the danger levels of the game out of whack (see Mansa's post on scaling).

This is a perspective brought about by many changes, then thrown to forefront by making all classes much more combat capable than their traditional 'role-based' counterparts were, both out of the box and in terms of full potential.  Mercenaries who train a lot as a daily-life part of their character's story will always be far more capable than those of similar playtime who do not include that routine in their story, and this is, I believe, intended, but that does not mean that the story of the character should hold off for 20-30 days of playtime until you feel like you're an actual warrior.  While mastery of combat skills is often difficult, middling combat skills are generally not, making a good pool to pull from as far as setting the 'average fighter vs great fighter' scale.  Likewise, chasing hard fights to advance those skills is something that can and should put you in the way of danger, danger that will not exist if we simply make it so you can train in the Byn for 10-15 days and then nothing frightens you anymore except other players, where we will then give rise to issues of how people play and how mechanics interact.

I can't say if changes are coming to this or not, but this is a large perspective deal given what the difficulty of 'the world' actually is as far as those combat skills go and their grind.  Every character isn't set to hit the point of their narrative that they are fully equipped to deal with combat scenarios that come their way; those are the exact situations that promote fear both IC and OOC, feed betrayals because of that fear, and set a standard as far as what mastery in combat actually means; you're way above the norm, you've survived ordeals time and time again to get here, your story is filled with great tales for bards to tell.

I don't think making combat skills level up faster actually adds anything to the game, and very possibly actually detracts from it.  I think combat skills, and the combat grind, need to take a backseat as far as how players view it in terms of priorities of the game.  You aren't supposed to suck; we just think suckiness lasts way longer than it actually does.