I know there are situations that make it impossible to learn skills. Being in a shrine, fighting a mob that's invulnerable to your attack type, etc.

My question: are there other situations that don't make learning impossible, but slow down the rate of learning?

If so, my request: make this explicit to the player at the point he improves at a skill. Maybe something like:

"Despite generally unfavorable conditions you manage to improve at {skill}!"

Feel free to ignore if there's no code that specifically retards learning rates. My rationale:

If you're slowing down learning because a player is doing something particularly cheesy, then presumably you want him to not do that cheesy thing. This is more easily accomplished by communicating to him that the cheesy thing he's doing is also less likely to achieve the effect he's going for (i.e. skill learning).

There is code in place that lowers learning rates when you spam the same commands over and over.

Throw in a random emote/tell/etc here and there and you'll be pleasantly surprised.

When I said drunk and dopey was it, I meant it.

If you want to perfect hide or fireball then spam it over and over and before you know it Bob's your uncle. I promise.

But if throwing a moo in there once a while makes you feel like you've outsmarted the game then knock yourself out, just don't prescribe your crazy to others. That's how misinformation spreads. Well, that and promiscuous kissing ಠ_ಠ.


Muh-OOOOO!

YMMV. I'll definitely continue to throw in a random moo.

Also there was a code change to stop people leaching off others along the lines of "If you are not part of the tank's group, you don't get to learn". This was implemented to stop level 20's learning from tagging along behind hero range ranking groups. I don't believe it was ever publicly announced. I am sure there are more stealth changes that I am not aware of that fall into this skill-learn category.

I've tested that on multiple characters. One time I came across a level 45 using a well known practice mob and i was like oh great someone to tank this beast. Hours later I had improved one skill one time.

If it's misinfo then it's reinforced with a #### ton of bad RNG.

Some players say it is "100% proven" that you gain more hp per level if you have less max hp at the moment. Which led them to never invest their trains before they reach 51.

Also if you gain more mana/moves, then you gain less hp, which had led players to dress for int/dex penalty before gaining a level.

You can only get a limited amount of skill improvements per level. (I think this one came from CircleMUD, where it is true.)

If you are not getting skill improvements, all you need to do is complain loudly and you will see a +1 shortly after. (This one is more of a rule of funny, but subjectively it works for a lot of ppl.)

The only thing that meets your criteria besides the Dopey flaw is being drunk.

I'm not sure that justifies its own echo, and it's certainly not tripping many people up, but if it's not in the helpfile(s) already it certainly could be.

Every time I've read that xyz nerfs learning rates it's been false and if "Skill Improvement" were a category on Players Say the Darndest Things there would be a loser in every episode.

Makes me happy to hear you say that. The reason I think people imagine so many bogeymen related to skill learning is that I can see plenty of valid game-play reasons why you might want to make it hard for someone to max out stuff in certain ways, or at a certain rank.

>The only thing that meets your criteria besides the Dopey
>flaw is being drunk.
>
>I'm not sure that justifies its own echo, and it's certainly
>not tripping many people up, but if it's not in the
>helpfile(s) already it certainly could be.

Updated the helpfile for help DRUNK to reflect this.

From help skill improvement:

"Generally, the skill improvement system favors real use of a skill over cheesy methods. For example, you can't learn anything (even while not in combat) while wielding a weapon you don't know how to use or while fighting an opponent immune to your attacks."


A lot of the myths revolve around what constitutes cheesy. Some very established players still believe that sitting in guilds/cabals have lower rates (despite clarification from Daevryn otherwise). Can you give us any examples of what else is hindered? A recent example I ran into was someone saying that if someone a higher rank than you is tanking a mob that you can't master spells/skills on the mob at that time.

An example would be a level 25 invoker walking up to Kiadana and spamming spells on elite storm giants while a group in the 40's were heroing.

Is there any truth to this?

I'll mention some of the things I used to think might be in effect:

1. A system where improvement rate is tied to the delta between a character's rank and the rank at which he learned a given skill. In other words, you improve slower-than-usual if you try to master a skill at the same rank you receive it.

2. A system where there's an "improvements target" based on hours played and if a given player's total number of improvements is higher than that target then his learning rate is throttled.

3. Learning rate higher when morale is higher.

The other two made me lol.

Guess I was wrong!

What about practicing a skill/spell on a low level mob?

doesn't that lower the chance that the skill/spell improves?

I don't know if that is for all skill spells or if its a specific type.

-J

'Hostile' skills (weapons, defenses, things that cause combat, etc.)
take into account the power of your opponent. Fighting challenging
battles sharply increases your chance of improvement.

I suppose it doesn't specifically state it, but I was pretty certain this does work to some degree in reverse w/ slower on (possibly only GREATLY) weaker opponents.

I remember reading about being in a berserk offsets your learning ability as well.

You'll figure out what I'm talking about.

It doesn't really offset it, btw. It actually makes skill learning easier in a lot of situations, for the exact reasons I outlined above.

PS I once mastered all my spec skills in a 2 hr ranking session with berserk + Gold mail from HLK. If you've ever had the mail, you'll know how I did that.