So I was stricken with an idea for encouraging pvp instead of spamming for skills. When I get a PK or die to a PK, I could get a big skill boost similar to immortal exp.

You land the killing blow on BillyTheElf!
You have become better at bash!
You have become better at sword!

You have died, but Carrion Fields isn't done ruining your life!
You have become better at invis!
You have become better at sword!
You have become better at evade!

Also, awhile back there was an increase in low int learning rates to move them towards 20.

Any chance we could consider making learn rates just be a 20 minimum and scale up from there?

Maybe a loss, or a run of losses, would give a questlike skill increase bonus. I don't see any characters burning through con to get skill increases -- except for ones (gnome) who wouldn't really need it, but maybe a newbie or underdog might benefit from his journey to level 30 condeath.

You get a bonus if the odds are stacked against you. Something like you have someone 1-9 levels higher than you and you get a sliding scale bonus when you die to a pk.

For example, if you die to someone that is 1 level higher it might look like this:

You have died, but Carrion Fields isn't done with you yet!
You have learned from your horrible death.
You have become better at sword!

But if you die to someone that is 9 levels above you it looks more like:

You have died, but Carrion Fields isn't done with you yet!
You have learned from your horrible death.
You have become better at invis!
You have become better at sword!
You have become better at evade!
You have become better at sword!

The opposite would hold true for PK wins:

If you win it is more like if they are 1 level above you:
You land the killing blow on BillyTheElf!
You have learned from the death of BillyTheElf!
You have become better at bash!

If you win and they are 9 levels above you:
You land the killing blow on BillyTheElf!
You have learned from the death of BillyTheElf!
You have become better at bash!
You have become better at invis!
You have become better at sword!
You have become better at evade!

Now the biggest part of this is if you have killed that player before, ever you do not get the bonus again from that player. That way it cannot be abused easily.

Additional notes: This could be adapted in a way that could reward Cabal Defense/PK. It might be a pain to code how I envision it but I think it would be a fun addition.

The biggest flaw I see with this idea is that it would probably lead to multi-killing and borderline griefing of people in order for the more talented pkers to master their skills faster.

I like his idea and I see your flaw as well. Maybe cap it out, like distention, but earlier. You can learn up to three times per title, maybe? That way after 3 PKs, you have to level some to get it again. It would certainly encourage more PK if there was some reward like the OP mentioned.

You already get the other guys gear and loot, and there are also some edge points tied into achieving X number of pks at particular level brackets. I don't think we need to do more to further encourage our PK talented min-maxing players to pk everyone they can at lower levels.

I am suggesting also giving a reward (maybe an even bigger one?) to the one who died.

I would have suggested really high % chance to get a skillup just by fighting other players, but that would further encourage perma grouping to spar.

I am mostly looking to make less the burden of skill spamming alone for hours on end.

I'm not saying this isn't a decent idea, but I also don't think it's going to result in anyone who currently "spams skills" (as some kind of discreet activity) suddenly feeling like they don't still have to do that.

When you have players to refuse to participate in PK until they've perfected eight specific abilities, a random bonus here or there isn't going to make much difference to them. In my opinion, anyway.

That said, I've often thought we should use the "random skill gains" thing more often in general.

nt

Without knowing exactly how edge point totals, only that the more expensive edges appear higher on the list, it seems that apt learner is a pretty expensive edge as there are often a dozen or so other edges further down below the list.

When coupled with skill improving quests.

For the guys that would have yielded more than one charge if their murderer had been an ap?

gnoll tries to bash you or kick dirt, and you can learn the skill? change for improvement, even as an observer in combat with that mob but not the original target.