A Minor Suggestion for Skill Improvement

[niltrias]

I know that the developers have stated that they don`t want to have leveled skill increases. I think I understand why, and if so, I agree with them completely. The sort of silliness that comes from reaching level 100 swordmaking or whathaveyou in most games is pretty unappealing to me.
That said, there already are levelled skills -- the combat skills. And because the tech tree is fairly small, this pushes everyone to eventually gear up into powerful warrior sooner or later. I think its really important to let bakers miners and TANNERS also improve. (BTW why don`t we get any xp for tanning hides? we get it for picking APPLES, fer chrissakes.)

So, that said, here is my minor suggestion. I`m going to do my best to make a chart that is legible, but bear with me.

Have all the skills level. Levelling a skill does NOT grant any extra ability. As a matter of fact, the higher you increase your skill, the more it costs to further increase the skill, and the LESS you gain from it. Not more, LESS.

Take a look at sample skill progression chart: (maybe for basket weaving)

lvl rnge (approx) Stm cost Fail rate Break rate (on fail) Other
1-3 150% 75% 50%

4-8 120% 50% 25%

9-15 100% 25% 10% - unlock next skill in progression

16-20 100% 10% 5%

This would probably be the point where most people would say "enough is enough!" and move on to another skill. But for those who wish to continue mastering the skill, each progressively expensive upgrade would result in a smaller and smaller benefit. 1% knocked off here or there each level, or something like that. But you COULD do it if you wanted to be the best miner/baker/tanner there were.

Another advantage to this is that it allows relatively painless early game spamming. People at a low level are going to fail a LOT, and break a lot of branches or mangle a LOT of clay. Fails will still give xp, same as success. this will result in much less "litter" from spamming. On the other hand, the high stamina cost of beginners doing this will prevent it from simply becoming a click-fest forever.

Yet another advantage is that it will promote apprentice ship, and low level characters cooperating with high level characters. For example, if the agriculture skill has low level characters harvesting 2 seeds per plant, and high level ones harvesting 4, the high level characters will essentially ban the low level ones from practicing on their fields -- it costs them food. If, on the other hand, the RESULT is the same but the amount of effort put forth to ACHIEVE the result is what skill changes, then you will simply see the experienced characters laughing at the new guys who are exhausted after only planting half a row.

Also, new forge workers would be doing tasks with the cheapest available material -- if they screw up with a piece of pig iron and break it, no problem, but screw up with a bit of mithril and destroy it and...well, you get the picture.

Last point, most characters will not use this level up system past 10 or so....the results diminish, it becomes more expensive, and they can move on to the next step in the tech tree already. But some people WILL keep going, and that means you will have a population where there are a few newbies, a wide number of people who are competent, and a very, very few masters. Which is a pretty good model of the real world, innit?

Let me know what you think. Ive tried to avoid any radical or innovative ideas in the post.

[shockedfrog]

This kind of specialization actually sounds quite good to me, but I'd rather not see ridiculous random failures added to the current system (keep the luck elements limited to things like the smelter). Changing the stamina cost, or the time things take (within reason), or slightly reducing the materials required for particularly large builds could work.

[niltrias]

This kind of specialization actually sounds quite good to me, but I'd rather not see ridiculous random failures added to the current system (keep the luck elements limited to things like the smelter). Changing the stamina cost, or the time things take (within reason), or slightly reducing the materials required for particularly large builds could work.

Let me respond point by point.

1) no failures -- the point of the failure system is mainly to allow people to learn without spamming the game with 100 stone axes. Or 800 wicker baskets, for that matter. As you increase in skill, the failure rate becomes vanishingly small..and then vanishes.
2)Changing the stamina cost is actually one of the main points. I agree completely. It should cost more than normal for a newbie, normal for a normal user, and SLIGHTLY less than normal for a master. 90%, or so.
3) Time taken is a great idea, altough again, it should go UP a large amount for people learning to do it, stay roughly the same for skilled users, and drop slightly for masters.
4) if the amount of resources changes, then lower skill individuals will find themselves barred from practicing, and thus not be able to practice without going solo. Which I realize is a great motif of yours. However, I feel it is equally important not to penalize people for being in groups, and having situations where newbies cant learn skills because they would waste resources would definitely put a damper on groups recruiting new members.

[Devour]

I approve of this idea. Once a proper durability system is put it, the higher skill users could make items with a much higher durability, or something.

[shockedfrog]

I understand the purpose of the failures, but the item spamming is going to become less of a problem once items are destroyable, and if an alternative is still required then I would rather see the addition of the previously suggested practising option that uses resources and earns LP but does not produce an item. Thanks for bringing up the point that giving higher skilled people a chance to use less resources would make it hard for lower ones to practice, though I must point out that giving failures a 'break rate' would have the same or worse effect. Even without that breaking chance, though, I still think failures would end up just being frustrating - I realise that is kind of the point, but there are different levels of frustration, and I think that which would be caused by the stamina and time increases would be just enough to encourage people to progress rather than encouraging them to quit.

(btw, it's 'reward teamwork, don't penalize solo players.' I love seeing good teamwork in action, but people awesome enough to be compatible with the way I work are rare.)

[niltrias]

I understand the purpose of the failures, but the item spamming is going to become less of a problem once items are destroyable, and if an alternative is still required then I would rather see the addition of the previously suggested practising option that uses resources and earns LP but does not produce an item. Thanks for bringing up the point that giving higher skilled people a chance to use less resources would make it hard for lower ones to practice, though I must point out that giving failures a 'break rate' would have the same or worse effect. Even without that breaking chance, though, I still think failures would end up just being frustrating - I realise that is kind of the point, but there are different levels of frustration, and I think that which would be caused by the stamina and time increases would be just enough to encourage people to progress rather than encouraging them to quit.

(btw, it's 'reward teamwork, don't penalize solo players.' I love seeing good teamwork in action, but people awesome enough to be compatible with the way I work are rare.)

The point would be that the initial levels would be VERY fast to get through...kind of like instant gratification. For example, the current pottery skill would be the equivalent to about pottery 10 in this system...and getting to pottery 10 would cost about as much LP as the current pottery skill. Players would see a constant, gradual increase in abilities, instead of "Hey, I woke up this morning and I can make pots!"
I dont really see a difference between trying and failing, and practicing. It will all come down to the same thing, and the fail rate quickly becomes negligable. Maybe the rates I posted in the first post dont drop quickly enough.

(btw, it's 'reward teamwork, don't penalize solo players.' I love seeing good teamwork in action, but people awesome enough to be compatible with the way I work are rare.)

Having seen "The way you work" first-hand in Bottleneck, I find it very unsurprising that you find it hard to find compatible people.