Research, Skalds, and Learning Fires

[BWithey]

Proposal Abstract
As the game, Haven and Hearth, referred to hereafter as H&H, can be observed to be a game based in the growth of civilization and development society, and as education serves as a major component of a successful civilization, and further, as it is set loosely on Germanic and Slavic myth and legend, I propose the following modification to the existing system of acquiring skills and education.
In brief, the proposal introduces the idea of having to 'research' new skills, rather than them immediately being available upon achieving the prerequisite skills.
Research would take place one of several different ways, depending on the skill being researched, and the Skill Stage of the skill in question. Once a skill is researched, LP would still have to be spent to 'learn' the skill. Once a skill has been researched, it can be taught to another character, eliminating that characters need to research the skill independently, and earning the student some LP towards learning that skill once fully 'taught'.
Students and Teachers (Called Skalds from here on) can get together, even when one or the other is offline, via the use of educational buildings. Skalds can log off in these buildings to be available to teach students, and students can log off in these rooms to learn skills from the aforementioned teacher.
The purpose of this proposal is to foster community by: providing another way for individuals to contribute to the community; increasing the value of belonging to a community by providing another benefit; to slow the advancement through the tech-tree to give achievement of each stage more meaning; and to foster more meaningful relationships between individuals and their community.

Concepts in this Proposal
1. Research - Rather than having skills immediately become available upon getting the pre-reqs, you gain the ability to research that skill, or learn it from from someone who already knows it.

2. Instruction – A new incremental skill that indicates the skill of passing on knowledge from one person to another. A formula of the teachers incremental skill, charisma, and intelligence, in conjunction with the students intelligence, will determine the rapidity that Skald's Wisdom tokens are generated (See below).

3. Skill Stages – Skills will be separated into different 'ages' of skill. For the purposes of this proposal, they will be called 'Stone Age' 'Bronze Age' and 'Iron Age'. These are simply designations to separate the types of educational building needed to teach the skills.
1. Stone Age – These include the starting skills: Oral Tradition, Primitive Weapons, Wilderness Survival, as well as Hearth magic, Ancestor Worship, Stoneworking, Fishing, Cooking, Baking, Pottery, etc.
2. Bronze Age – These would include such skills as Mining, Metal Working, Basic Mechanics, etc.
3. Iron Age – This would include skills such as Locks & Bolts and others.

4. Instructional Buildings – In order to teach, instructors must either be online, or log out in an educational building. Each type of building comes in three tiers. The 'small' can only accommodate one teacher, the 'medium' two, and the 'large' three. Each teacher can only have one student at a time. More advanced skills require more advanced buildings, as indicated below.
1. Skald's Fire – The first instructional building, capable of teaching 'Stone Age Skills'
2. Skald's Hut – The second instructional building, capable of teaching 'Stone Age Skills' and 'Bronze Age Skills'
3. Skald's Hall – The third instructional building, capable of teaching all previous skill levels, and 'Iron Age Skills'
4. Etc.

5. Research Buildings – Certain skills require researching by more than one individual, simply due to the daunting amount of work needing to be done to discover the secrets of the new technology. For these skills a research building becomes necessary. In these buildings multiple characters may contribute resources and research time to discovering the new skill.
1. Farm Lab – Used for researching advanced agriculture related skills.
2. Ranch Lab – Used for researching advanced Animal Husbandry related skills.
3. Textile Lab – Used for researching advanced textile skills.
4. Etc.

Full Proposal
H&H is a game of the growth of community, the building of civilization, and the coming together of individuals against a harsh wilderness to build a haven of safety in an otherwise hostile world. One of the most important benefits of civilization is the ability to trade skills and pass them on to younger generations. In the oldest days these lessons were taught via an oral tradition, and in the Slavic regions, the carriers of this knowledge were known as 'Skalds'.
In these days, knowledge, especially technological knowledge, were closely guarded secrets. A civilizations advancements were one of the chief things that gave them an edge over other civilizations, and helped advance those cultures even further as they were passed down to their children.
The intent of this proposal is to foster that element in H&H by putting some effort not just into learning skills, but into researching and getting them to begin with, and then passing that knowledge own through social elements and civilization structures.

Ages
The first element of this proposal is categorizing the skills into 'Ages'. These ages are used to determine what form of educational building is required, and to a lesser extent, what form of research buildings may be required for certain skills. Some rough examples were provided above of which skills would fall into which 'Age'. As the game is still in Alpha, and new skills are likely to be constantly added, further clarification on these would provide little benefit.

Research
When the prerequisites for a new skill are learned, the ability to research that skill become available. At the earliest stages researching a skill is accomplished through taking the tools and materials required for that skill and attempting to accomplish that skill. For the purpose of this example, we'll start with the proposed skill 'Spear Fishing'. This skill allows someone to stand in shallow water and catch fish using a stone spear, a new item available with 'primitive weaponry'.
Uthgar has just started the game, and has exhausted his starter bread, and has been subsisting on apples and other fruit at this time. He's decided it's time for him to vary his diet a bit, and so crafts himself a 'stone spear' out of a chip of stone, two branches, and some tree bark. He then goes down to the nearest river, and goes to the 'Research' button, and selects 'Research Spear Fishing'. His character then begins attempting to spear a fish in the water, and as a result starts incrementing the 'research' counter on the skill 'Spear Fishing'. In the process, his spear breaks several times, and he has to craft a new one and return to fishing. After he produces enough research he receives the notice 'Spear Fishing Research Complete', and can now spend LP to learn the skill. Thankfully, the process of attempting to research Spear Fishing has generated LP as well, and using this, along with LP earned in other activities, he buys 'Spear Fishing'. Up to this point, he hasn't been able to actually CATCH a fish, but having succesfully researched and learned the skill, he can begin fishing to feed himself.

Instruction
While Uthgar is standing on the river bank using his new skill, Rorik comes along and sees him fishing. Rorik is new and hasn't taken the time to research Spear Fishing, and so can't learn this skill on his own. But he's in luck! Uthgar is there, and offers to teach him this new skill, allowing Rorik to skip the step of 'researching' Spear Fishing on his own. Uthgar hands Rorik a spear, stands next to him, and selects his 'Teach' menu, and selects Spear Fishing. Rorik starts attempting to spear a fish with Uthgar looking on, and begins incrementing his 'Research Spear Fishing' meter. It increases much faster than Uthgars did, because Rorik has instruction! Both Uthgar and Rorik gain LP for this process, Rorik for studying a new skill, Uthgar for teaching.
Once Rorik has been taught Spear Fishing from Uthgar, he can 'Buy' the skill with LP to have access to it.

Education Buildings
Rorik has a friend named Hrorir who wants to learn Spear Fishing from him, but they aren't on at the same time. To solve this problem, Rorik builds a 'Skalds Fire', and the next time he logs off, he logs off at it the same way one logs off at a bed. Hrorir comes by the next time he's around, and right-clicks the Skalds Fire, and is presented with 'Learn Spear Fishing', if Rorik had any other skills to teach that Hrorir didn't have, they'd show up as well. Hrorir selects 'Learn Spear Fishing' and is asked if he wishes to log off, or remain logged in to learn. Hrorir is ready to log off, and so chooses to do so. Passersby would see two figures seated at the fire, but attempting to interact with them would produce the same result as if they were in a bed.
Hrorir will remain visible seated at the fire for as long as it takes him to learn the skill, and will vanish from the spot as soon as he's completed, clearing room for the next student. Each type of Education building can only accommodate a certain number of teachers, and each teacher can accept a number of students that is determined by a formula involving his 'Charisma', 'Intelligence' stats, and his 'Teaching' Incremental Skill. Even in educational buildings, students and teachers earn LP for teaching and learning skills.
Each type of building has different sizes, and the size determines the number of teachers that it can accommodate. (Say 1 teacher for a Small Skald Fire, 2 for a Medium, and 3 for a large, for example).
A teacher cannot just log off and gain LP by teaching students indefinitely, he must spend active time logged in and earning LP to be able to teach students while logged off. How much time must be spent logged in, to teach how many students while logged off, is something I won't even speculate on, but leave it up to the developers. When a teacher can't teach any more students, his spot in the building will be cleared so another teacher can take his place.


Research Buildings
Research buildings are used for researching particularly involved research projects. Multiple people can work in a research building, researching the same subject. Research buildings, like Educational buildings, have several 'sizes' of each type. The larger a research building, the more people can work on the project at once. Research buildings have a number of settings available, including 'minimum contribution', which will allow only those who have contributed a certain amount of the total research to get the skill unlocked when it's complete. This amount can be set from 0% to 20%. If noone obtains the minimum required amount (which can happen with a high minimum amount, and multiple researchers) then everyone involved gets the skill, regardless of how little they contributed (Unless that amount is 0%).
Research is produced whenever the players either log off, or spend online time in the building. Researchers, like Educators, must spend a certain amount of time active and generating LP before logging off in the Research facility to continue producing research. If online and in the building, the player must take resources to a 'research table' and select “research (skill)”, which will then have them generating research. If offline, the resources are consumed automatically.
When the minimum amount of resources have been submitted and processed, the skill becomes unlocked. In some cases additional research will be necessary beyond simple resources. (Sparring, for instance, to unlock the Military skills).

Research Buildings and Education Buildings
The person who owns the claim on the property where the building lay, or has similar rights (as in the case of villages) can kick one or more educators or researchers from the building to clear up spots for new educators or researchers, for whatever reason they deem appropriate.

[Sarge]

Very interesting and well thought out.

I think you are going to get a number of "not even more grinding please" comments, but I actually also agree that it is far too easy to aquire most of the skills.

Even though there are one or two things in the detail that might not work perfectly or may be exploitable, I'm not going to mention them since I quite like the principle of your idea, which is most important... I believe.

[loftar]

Most of the skills are, indeed, far too easy to acquire. That's something we're currently working on, however (and which is the main reason why there have been few updates lately). :)

[DatOneGuy]

I like this general idea of having to actually research skills.

Most of the skills are, indeed, far too easy to acquire. That's something we're currently working on, however (and which is the main reason why there have been few updates lately). :)

Oooh~ :)

[juhubert]

Most of the skills are, indeed, far too easy to acquire. That's something we're currently working on, however (and which is the main reason why there have been few updates lately).

good to hear. while it is always nice to have to do some new stuff and to push it to the limits, i gladly wait some weeks without new stuff for some bigger tasks. as there are still a number of things in line for an overhaul. like the combat system - while interesting with all the possible combinations, the village management - maybe extend it also to a certain point, fit for alliances or empires, or its smaller equivalent. or as mentioned above, the learning system.

[SacreDoom]

-1

[DatOneGuy]

-1

Makes sense to just +1 things that you agree with because you have nothing to change, but do you have anything to say towards the -1? Why don't you like it? What don't you like about it?

[BWithey]

Most of the skills are, indeed, far too easy to acquire. That's something we're currently working on, however (and which is the main reason why there have been few updates lately).

I see. I'm curious what direction you're planning on going with it.

I'm not quite done with this concept, having only just started tinkering with it. I intend to continue expanding upon the base idea, including a more structured representation of the idea.

[Sarge]

@OP: I just noticed that it was your first post too, so seriously well done man. I can't remember my first post, but I'm sure it was likely something typically noob like "OMFG! Help a boar!" or some shit.

[Bumbar]

This is just terrible. Whole system seems oriented towards spending more time doing something, than it's necessary. Want to learn a skill? Just go sit at that fire. No, don't do anything, read a book, watch a movie, but do check in every couple of minutes, so you don't get logged off. Oh, you don't find that interesting? Go make stuff you don't need and use it for no purpose whatsoever, other than increasing some progress bar that tells you how stupid your character is. Once that bar is filled, do it some more, so you actually get something from your new skill. Do come back when you want to learn something else.