You do realize this change is multiple years old at this point?
And even before that change, folks hit the plateau, which if anything shifted slightly upwards by this change.
So I am going to turn this around. How do we give you what you want, but keep truly exceptional combat characters exceptional, where it isn't just a matter of putting in the time/effort to become exceptional, from a skill perspective?
Shift the plateau upwards. Currently it's at low/mid journeyman, depending a bit on your stats and whether or not you went out of your way to restrict offense gains (BTW, PLEASE FIX THAT LOOPHOLE). To me, "exceptional" does not mean
vastly superior to everybody but rather just, you know, an edge. So why does the distance from plateau to max span easily half of the skill spectrum? Why isn't the plateau at, say, mid/late advanced? Why isn't <master> what's held as exceptional? Why is everything above "decent" exceptional? That's the whole crux of the issue: you want us to accept that everything above the plateau is "exceptional" and we're not supposed to care about it. But the plateau is too low. If you don't have some special trick or unusual privilege, like being clanned with a long-lived heavy-combat char with high agility who perfectly matches your playtimes and is willing to spar routinely, the point where you get stuck is so low that it's just... absurd. We're talking one skill level above where you start. That's when you begin to need special tricks or rare circumstances to continue gaining.
Olympic records are not 200% above the competitive standard. The best mathematicians are not 200% more knowledgeable than their colleagues. The strongest bodybuilders are not 200% stronger than the other professional bodybuilders. But the difference between someone who has a friend on Discord with a maxed out fighter and someone who doesn't ends up being in that magnitude. The plateau for ordinary play is so low that those who have access to tricks that surpass it can end up with master while others end up stuck at journeyman based on nothing other than that one arbitrary factor. The difference is just too big to expect everybody to accept getting stuck there. It would be much more palatable if it was high advanced vs. master instead of mid-journeyman vs. master. There aren't enough ways to become exceptional. Usually it's down to something completely random like playtimes and clan population, not the deeds of your character. It just doesn't reflect reality in any conceivable way, and it's extremely punitive to players.
Can you imagine a game where 99% of the playerbase is supposed to accept being stuck forever at journeyman sneak, or jewelrymaking? Scan? Anything except the one line of skills that has a whole category of classes and entire clans devoted to it? Clans that very much judge and reward you based on your coded skills. It doesn't reflect reality
and it's bad for gameplay. I'm still waiting to hear what's actually good about that system. Why isn't master backstab exceptional in the eyes of the code, or lockpicking, or fireball? Why is this one line of skills - the "sparring skills" - so uniquely locked down behind insane levels of regulation and anti-player code? Why this misguided notion of exceptionalism that deviates from how life works? It's way easier and safer to train
magic spells than swordsmanship!
I don't need to see <master> everywhere I look, but I certainly take issue with a PvP-heavy game that limits my combat potential to <journeyman> and effectively asks me to cheat to overcome it. All of us know that the things you have to do to get past the plateau are, in most cases (barring being blessed with the aforementioned long-lived agile sparring slave, improbable as it is), things we would literally get punished for if caught. Meanwhile, I can play a crafter, a pickpocket, an archer, a backstabber, literally anything but a heavy-combat class, and get to be "exceptional" at the skills that my chosen class revolves around through simply playing the game the way that makes sense for my character. This is not something you can ask me to accept as the best way for the game to be designed. It just doesn't pass the most basic tests.
If you want there to be a special level of exceptionalism that most players are prevented from reaching, make it follow the same rules that govern other cases of perilous exceptionalism: gate it behind karma instead of nebulous code that works some of the time, and punishes players when it does, but can be overcome if one is willing to weigh the benefits against potential punishment. I don't
want to fight mantis in the dark or whatever, but I have never in years of play enjoyed the privilege of being clanned with someone who had really high combat skills and was actually willing to spar regularly, which is what it takes to do it legitimately. It's not something that can be held as an expectation. The game simply doesn't work that way. One of the most important aspects of Armageddon is the fact that you can accomplish things in a variety of ways as long as it makes relative sense, and this does not qualify. The hoops you have to jump through to surpass the combat plateau are just too weird and illogical, yet simultaneously trivial if you're just in the right place at the right time (with the right friends).
