Skill LP Values

[Crow]

I just wanted to share my opinion on skills. While most of the skills are very fun and interesting its far too easy to become a master of all trades in this game. I have almost every skill and I've only been playing for about 5 days. Most people in my group feel like their roles have been marginalized because anyone can do it. If you really want to breed interdependence and community in the game, you have to make skills HARD to get (emphasis implies a great amount). I suggest start by doubling all of the LP requirements for skills. The idea is to force a character down one path if he wants to truly help his group (and thus spend a large amount of time gaining those skills) and also to make sure that "jack of all trades" characters are not anywhere near as good as a specialized characters unless the former spends an absurdly large amount of time playing.

I imagine a good amount to raise skills by will end up being between four and ten times higher than they are now, but two times higher will be a good start. I think ten times higher will achieve the goal far better. The other option is to create about 20 more skills and make the various trees much more extended and difficult to obtain the highest levels.

[Erik_the_Blue]

The devs have said they'd like to revise the LP system and expand the tech tree significantly, so they're already aware of this issue and will try to fix it eventually. In the mean time, it's still possible to specialize somewhat by adjusting one's nature/industry personal belief.

[sabinati]

yeah i think the problem here is that there is only one kind of LP. digging clay shouldn't really teach me how to murder. maybe there should be three kinds of LP for the three main branches of the skill tree? i don't know how well that would work though because there are a couple skills that require two branches and there are several actions that are so general that i'm not sure what branch they would fall under. but i think that it's worth discussing because i'm sure other people could add a lot to this line of thinking.

[sami1337]

They are trying to force us into specialisation by giving us large new updates like beer and cheese.

[niltrias]

I agree with the concept behind this OP, but not the details. Grinding is already a pain, if we double it...we arent going to get more players.
I think they need to get split up...basic baking giving bread, intermediate baking giving more, advanced baking giving some cool stuff we havent seen yet. That way newbies can work and make basic stuff, while advanced people can make the really good recipes.

[Crow]

I agree with the concept behind this OP, but not the details. Grinding is already a pain, if we double it...we arent going to get more players.
I think they need to get split up...basic baking giving bread, intermediate baking giving more, advanced baking giving some cool stuff we havent seen yet. That way newbies can work and make basic stuff, while advanced people can make the really good recipes.

Right. That was my second idea as well, but I think skill values will still need increases. Grinding really isn't that bad right now, as I said I have almost all of the skills and I'm only about 6 days into my character. That's pretty damn quick.

[Hamel]

I'd prefer to see a proficiency based skill system.

[kobnach]

I just wanted to share my opinion on skills. While most of the skills are very fun and interesting its far too easy to become a master of all trades in this game. I have almost every skill and I've only been playing for about 5 days. Most people in my group feel like their roles have been marginalized because anyone can do it. If you really want to breed interdependence and community in the game, you have to make skills HARD to get (emphasis implies a great amount). I suggest start by doubling all of the LP requirements for skills. The idea is to force a character down one path if he wants to truly help his group (and thus spend a large amount of time gaining those skills) and also to make sure that "jack of all trades" characters are not anywhere near as good as a specialized characters unless the former spends an absurdly large amount of time playing.

I imagine a good amount to raise skills by will end up being between four and ten times higher than they are now, but two times higher will be a good start. I think ten times higher will achieve the goal far better. The other option is to create about 20 more skills and make the various trees much more extended and difficult to obtain the highest levels.

The game already favours working as a group in subtle and not so subtle ways. Moreover, getting all the skills is just a prelude to getting the combat skills up and/or growing a decent sized claim, both of which can absorb a lot of LP. Also, the personal belief system forces specialization. Given all this, those who don't have a reliable group to play with, prefer not to play with a mob, or simply want to experience everything themselves are ALREADY playing multiple alts. I'm not sure whether anyone (except JTG?) has formed a village where all the yeomen were his own alts, each on a different account - but I see that as likely, given the way the game is going. I'm not sure that this is a trend to be encouraged.

Obviously increasing prices won't encourage pseudo-interdependence by alt creation - but it's not that hard to gain LP, particularly if someone high level is protecting you, so you can survive in unspoiled terrain. (It's much harder for a true newbie, with no trees to be found within miles of the ROB, as far as I could tell yesterday when trying to help a new player get his first LP; one normally makes axes, fires etc. - but in this case I finally resorted to killing foxes for him to butcher. (And this was a real new player, NOT an alt; if he'd been an alt, I'd simply have taken him to my village, where there are plenty of trees inside the palisade, and more being planted.)

I wonder whether your issue may be either (a) a far too large group trying to play together, so there will be half a dozen or more of each current specialization (nature person, miner) (b) people that feel a need to be unique rather than merely specialized. (Thus we have the person who plants trees - one of several nature people ; the person who tries to outfit everyone in top-of-the-line armor - one of several miners; the person with the silk project; the person who makes the town look pretty - decorative borders by roads, etc,) We also work together even without specialization - it's more fun that way.

[kobnach]

I'd prefer to see a proficiency based skill system.

My favourite games, of the skill based ones, have had a skill system where using a skill increases it, and allows learning the basics of the skills beyond it in the skill tree. If yuo don't use a branch, it never progresses.

These can be hard to balance, because the basic level of a skill needs to be usable. One can't learn combat at all if a person with minimal combat can't reasonably expect to defeat the wimpiest animals/monsters/whatever in the game Likewise, skills that are expensive to use - and there should be some - tend to be next to impossible to learn. And if you correct that - pretty soon skills are too easy, and any idiot with a macro can max any skill they want in little or no time.

[Peter]

Well, let's see; it takes (20+19+18...+2)*100 points to get 20 levels of any normal skill- that's 20900 LP to get up into "decent" level. You need to get up into 50 skill points, costing 127,400 points, in order to BEGIN to be considered high-level.

Meanwhile, it costs, what, 2,000 points for the biggest crafting skills?

I'd like to see it cost 100 points to learn any one crafting skill, 1000 for the second, 10,000 for the third... that'll get some serious specialization going on. Or at least a lot of alts...