A skill learning bonus should be taking effect when you're grouped similar with exp bonus.

That will incentivize ppl to rank up in group instead of grinding skills solo.

kkthx

Training skills and gaining levels has never been easier, and like Jormyr said, we've given numerous gains in those areas over the past few years.

Overall ease aside, I'm okay with the fact that getting those 100s is a bit more efficient when alone. There are trade-offs to "solo skill spamming", like being vulnerable, that players get to balance between the safety and other factors that come with choosing not to do that.

And some other poor soloing classes.

I know a lot has been done to improve lowbie mage ranking potential, especially solo. I'd even argue that with the right knowledge its not even that bad.

However, the watchout is new players. Mages are probably the most exciting classes a new player is likely to choose and if they join, don't know what specific gear to wear where exactly to rank/quest and no one is willing to rank with them its extremely difficult to level up and probably a major turn off.

Some classes can solo easily but it is still a better game experience if they can group.

Almost all players opt for solo ranking which makes the game less fun for all.

That's what needs addressing rather than the overall difficulty of skill gains.

This is not about learning becoming easier, this is about incentivizing group play.

Ever heard the classic "I'm too busy learning skills" when you invite someone to gorpu?

Like I don't group if I don't have skills perfected, and it is a common behavior for powerplayers. And boys suffer without my great skills and power helping them rank up.

So by increasing learning in groups you don't help skillspammers, you help people who need groups.

nt

> Like I don't group if I don't have skills perfected, and it is a common behavior for powerplayers. And boys suffer without my great skills and power helping them rank up.


How exactly does making it easier to get skill ups in groups help with this? Powerplayers are still going to stop and master at the optimal times to do it even if things can work themselves up while being in a group. You won't suddenly have people not stopping at lvl 15 to master defenses when its the simplest just because they can learn it slightly better in a group with other people.

What he's saying is make it so that groups are not inferior if you want to hone skills on the way up.

Sure, they might stop to perfect defenses but that's about it, with a few exceptions. Whereas presently people stop to do weapons etc and that could be done grouped if group expected could be toggled to much lower amounts.

That then makes these players able to participate in the social side of the game.

But it's only 0.5-3 spamming hours out of dozens.

There are a lot of level tiers where ppl stop and spam skills, they are much less critical than 15 level mark, so it becomes a fair trade.

It's only .5-3 hours FOR YOU, not for everyone. I like what you're trying to do, but like they've already said this won't accomplish more group play and could potentially be something that powergamers abuse. Giving a slight skill learning bonus is NOT going to be enough to persuade those soloists who LOVE their list of 100%s in their skills/spells/supps list to start grouping. They will still need more time to perfect skills and will still go off on their own to be all "no time to gorpu now, busy honing skillz bra. Gotta get swol bra."

We've continued to slowly increase the rate of return on nearly
everything over the years, often with continued player request.
Easier levelling? Well, now that means you're levelling faster and
oh look, skills aren't moving up as quickly as levels. We're already
at a point where people are hero'd, and deleting, in under 50 hours.
Honestly, I tend to believe that a good bit of this problem is the
fact that there's no need to invest in a character, since you can
roll a new one, get caballed, hero, etc all so quickly.

I'd honestly be more interested to reduce the overall exp amounts vs
speed up learning rates (which also had been improved for low
intelligences). When everything is trivia, nothing has value anymore.

It's about incentivizing group play at the expense of sociopathic powerplayers.

Like there is a code in place which creates learning bonus when there are more than 60? people online. How useful is that? And the original idea was to allow for better learning when you're not able to solo spam.

CF as it is today, I think, should discourage solo spam because one solo spammer takes 5-10% of the online players. And two solo spammers make for a graveyard silent online.

What if we allowed people to toggle the experience bonus you get from being in a group to the inverse of it?

If I want to rank fast, a group is optimal still, being I don't choose to nerf the experience bonus.

If I want to perfect skills, I can turn the experience bonus into a penalty, group with people, killing tougher mobs since I'm in a group, but not getting more exp, because I've applied the toggle to reduce exp. Thus allowing more time at each rank to work on skills, without forcing me to avoiding grouping in order to buy that time.

This means grouping becomes viable no matter what your objectives. And involves just a flag to say to divide exp instead of multiplying it, when grouped.

Skills can be perfected much faster, but you are capped at certain percentages until you reach specific level tiers.


Main problem is balancing for this would be difficult seeing as some classes rely on 100% to be effective, so certain skills
might not be restricted like this. Also level advantage would kind of #### this up too I guess.

Additionally any class with hide/sneak/camo starts with it perfected
because spamming hide 300 times at level 1 is gay.

nt

Others have offered various insightful replies, but I want to touch on a point here:

50 hours to invest in a character seemed laughable to me in 2002.
A char would be 200 hours, a solid char would be 400 hours and a leader material would be 600+ hours.

I was also in my 20's then.

I am in my 40's now. The days of 200+ hours characters are gone. Maybe -- maybe -- you get the fresh blood from college with time to invest (and making it more interesting to rank/skill learn should help towards that) -- but you will be hard pressed to get that out of the player base that is in their 30's and 40's. Not to mention that most modern games have a playtime where 50 hours is considered damn good -- and you play through once, you don't re-roll to come back for more, the way that CF sucks you in.

Most modern games would kill to be able to attract people to multiple play-throughs of 50 hours each.


I get that this is a struggle for the soul of CF.

It is not pleasant to "water down" the hard-earned reputation. All those great memories from our youth, all the yearning to be like your idols, all the shock and awe when a powerful nemesis is coming down on you, all the satisfaction when we really get that area explore fully done...

It's a rush, no point arguing it. But, the real life wins. We've got jobs, careers, spouses, kids. We've got to adult, whether we like it or not. I feel slightly filthy arguing my point, but I have to do it regardless. Sadly, 50 hours might have to become the norm -- and hey, maybe we recapture some of the feeling again.

It's also quite possible that I'm an old fart. Maybe you'll get the high-school/college kids hooked up and 200+ hours become the norm. If that is the case, more power to them. They put in more time, they should have this victory. I shouldn't be as good as them, on 1/4 of investment. But, what happens if that doesn't work out?

I'll still grind. I'll still play, from time to time. But that CF won't be our CF and we won't recapture those feelings again.

Encouraging grouping should help the experience for someone new to the mud. It's a lot easier to learn how the mud works when you have the relationships that come from ranking together. And that makes it more fun for the new blood.

I like the changes that were made to help people that can't find a group. But it would be nice to be able to group without drawbacks, when that's an option

To an extent this happens because you can face tougher mobs. But I think giving more skull learning bonus to group ranking is a good idea. Even if Imperial scum benefit more than scarabs.

I've got to say, this would solve so many grind/boredom issues.

Every melee class grinds alone from 1-30.
To other players (mages or casuals), this is infuriating.
To the grinders, this is skull-numbingly boring... but you have to do it, otherwise you'll get chewed up by some bastard who took the time to perfect their own skills.

Net result: lots of boredom for everyone. I have made a few come-back characters and not one of them got out of 30's ... because by the time I was done grinding, I was bored. The only exception is my one and only currently active character, who did not grind (and is now regretting it, because post-40 range seems to be full of foes who mastered their skills).

Net result: I feel that this change would benefit everyone.
Grouping would be fun again -- imagine being excited again to seek to group with someone? Since I don't play mages, I didn't have that feeling in years. There would be less mindless boredom for everyone involved. And I'm willing to bet Galadon pies to gold coins that the player happiness would shoot upwards.

I know I'd be playing more, for one.

Now on top of grinding skills players need to grind explore and observation points.

Don't speak for other people. I enjoy the skill learning time. It's not a grind for me. I know others feel similarly.

Have some simpathy.

If grinding in a group was a viable solution?

That sounds pervy but you know what I mean.