Age and skill

[Trenidor]

As of yet skills are not affected by age.

When are skills going to be affected? I've been waiting for this to happen because I see a great benifit for players that don't join houses. As I see it now, your average start off character is pretty wimpy (compaired to trained) The best way to train is join a house right? but what about those people that don't join houses? I'm sure they get trained fairly well elsewhere depending on their background.

I've composed a way how to accomplish skilled characters:

1st, after a character is accepted, (or after they select a hometown like the game has most statics currently I believe) a random skill will be applied to each skill and assigned to them on the character. Boost for classes and guilds are added in for guilds and classes.

After this, a breif screen is displayed saying their general skill around each area [weapons, stealth, crafting etc.] obtaiining this could be average the skills in each catigory and decide weather it's in a range like the stats currently (good, very good, exceptional, etc.) for example, if a character had skills in Weapons, all four (guys a warior), bludgen, piercing, slashing, stabbing; and pretty wimpy at them:

(i) is for whatever type of system is currently used I'lll just state a max for the heck of it and for explaining purposes....75 is most points or whatever
Bludgen--16i
Piercing--15i
Slashing--18i
Stabbing--18i

now adding them up the average is  16.75.... now 1-10 is horrible, 11-20 is very poor 21-30 is poor 31-40 is average 41-50 is good 51-60 is very good 60-70 is exceptional 70-75 is very exceptional

that means this guys skills at weaponry lye in the 11-20 range or very poor

With that, you can create a reroll for this: reroll skills self, and then the stats one would be reroll stats self, and normal reroll self will bring up some error message telling you you have to specify more.

That will allow people to get a skill for around their background.

There could be some limit to how high you get in age that will alow you to be skilled in it, like the 90 year old that's excelent in swordsmanship when in fact he quit swordsmanship 45 years earlier and lost some of that valuable memory.

There could also be a limit to how much skill is possible to obtain, we don't want super warriors given out to those n00b chars just so they can screw things up...maybe including it in -a- karma like system?

Trenidor's preposed skill karma-like system:

every character gains 1 point further increasing the max they can obtain from a start up skill. It will eventually level off when the player obtains a character strong enough to beat up those baddies when they step out the gates.
(optional) There is a downfall however---the more you have, the more likely you are to get a lower statistic, this could prevent people from creating ten BadA chars in a row and demolishing the mantis population in Luis.....

These are just some ideas, I don't care if they are used, but I'd like to see this code at least implemented due to the fact that hardly any of my chars end up joining houses.

[Gilvar]

The game doesn't emphasize skills. They are an aide to role-playing and making things more believable, they are typicall not a priority, and how they've been has been fine for the most part. I don't really think there is a rush to make things more complicated and adding another couple days to the learning curve.

Its well thought out though, but I just don't see it happening. It places unneeded attention on skill-levels and the want to get good ones. (i.e. your idea to be able to reroll intial skill levels).

Plus I think this would effect a great deal of already in set standards for skills, plus characters who have trecked through the normal system, not to mention how it may influence people's abilities on animals etc... which if drastically different would require further changes.

Feel free to discuss though, people seem to like discussion.

[Lasakar]

Feel free to discuss though, people seem to like discussion.

:lol:
Till we die or Sanvean locks up the thread!

To the thread:

It is a lot of safer to be in a house but it helps me not to train my skills. I played some freelancer, mostly rangers. I trained my skills faster as if I would be a member a house. Cause I had to be very careful and must do all alone. To be a clanmenber has for me only RP reasons.
But it is advisable to every newbie of this game to join a clan or find some comrades. They taught me so much ICly about this game, like riding, avoid certain creatures, what I have to take with me while traveling and so on. It is only a advise for newbies.

[spawnloser]

I agree that age should affect stats...but not so much that there is a huge advantage to starting at a higher age.  Personally, I try to start my characters young because that explains why they can't successfully do anything.  If they could start just a little bit better with age, I'd be happy.  Still, it should never be so much that anyone will start with skill levels higher than they could get by practicing them in game over the same amount of IG years.

[Forest Junkie]

No.

[jmordetsky]

I don't like it either. While I do think skills should be affected by age, it should just be a general boost that would depend on guild.

[Trenidor]

I agree that age should affect stats...but not so much that there is a huge advantage to starting at a higher age.  Personally, I try to start my characters young because that explains why they can't successfully do anything.  If they could start just a little bit better with age, I'd be happy.  Still, it should never be so much that anyone will start with skill levels higher than they could get by practicing them in game over the same amount of IG years.

This is basically what I ment by them...I didn't mean they should be better than those people that put the effort forth to train IG. The Main point of my idea was for people to have skilled characters starting from the begining. It's a bore to start out and walk out the gates a few steps just to be eaten by a lone gortok. It's even more boring when people find your body, after bragging about your skills, and laugh at your dead body by the road.

[number13]

As it stands, if you start an older character, I think it's better to explain away why your guy doesn't have uber-skills in his background.

Maybe he's a spice addict who just recently cleaned up.  Maybe he's a warrior who suffered a bad injury, and so can't fight well anymore. (a excuse good if your taking the merchant class, for example)  Maybe your character's just supernatually lazy, and hasn't done much with his life up till a turning point.

In otherwords, don't roleplay as if your character has mad skillz until he actually has mad skillz.  (although you could be playing a braggart who overestimates his own abilities....)

'Course, I'd prefer that older characters start with higher skill levels by default, even if it means making older ages a karma required choice.

[Callisto]

It's even more boring when people find your body, after bragging about your skills, and laugh at your dead body by the road.

Hahaha, newb!

But seriously, I would not want to see more random rolls to the character creation process. The random stat roll is already spit in the eye of an otherwise RP intensive game, the last thing we is more random code allocation that could very well be a throw in the face of the base character concept.

[Lazloth]

Hide stats from players.

[Anonymous]

Hide stats from players.

No.

[Jacques]

The best way to train is join a house right? but what about those people that don't join houses? I'm sure they get trained fairly well elsewhere depending on their background.

I'm going to have to disagree with this, conceptually. While the occasional person may just figure things out on their own, having an established system that has been in place for a long period of time inevitably produces better people, as a whole, than letting people just find things out. It's certainly possible to receive training in combat outside of one of the existing organizations, but I'd have to think that it's much more difficult. Simply being older doesn't necessarily mean you've been ABLE to find someone who is willing to put the time and effort into teaching you, and neither does it mean you've necessarily gotten any GOOD at what you've been doing.

Just my 2 'sid.

[Summer]

I think once you have some idea of what you are doing, it is fairly easy to train solo. You can however get bored, and do something stupid, or you can get scared and not leave your comfort zone and become stagnant.

I say don't let people get better skills just because they are older. If they want, they could do a special app right?