DISCLAIMER: This would be a HUGE change to cf overall

Just an idea I started kicking around a while ago, after having a conversation about practicing. Now, two things I think the playerbase generally agrees with:
1. skill spam is quite boring, and tiresom to do.
2. skill spam will give players who have the patience to do it an advantage (the significance of the advantage can be debated, in my experience it makes a huge difference to land an 8 hit flurry or a 5 hit one)
3. spamprac is frowned upon, and changes have been made to make it harder and less rewarding

So, we have a problem. Making spamprac harder and more time consuming will discourage a large populace of doing so, but we will always have the people who still do it standing out, especially so in the mid-level range, and with classes that do not get a lot of practice to crucial skills while ranking.

My bold suggestion to fix the situation, is a complete revamp to the practice, or should we call it skill improvement system. Ditch improvements via use gains completely. Introduce skill gains recieved at level, PKing, and aging.

Since the intelligence of races is a balancing factor, int should definately play a factor in how fast you learn skill.

So, how I thought it would be, each time you rank up, you get a chance to improve in your skills, perhaps 1-2% or 0-2%, based on your int, where the usual gain would be 1% and races with 20+ int would recieve occasional 2 pointers.

Aging would make your skills better. This can be viewed odd in a roleplay sence (sitting, doing nothing and your skills go up). But it can also be viewed as the gradual increase of prowess while living the bloody life of a cf adventurer.

The toughest nut to crack is figuring out a way to have PK improvements for gills, without the system being highly exploitable. First I though about having a counter that counts time in PK and gives gains based on it, but ditched this idea as way too abuseable. Then I came up with making it go up with each time you kill someone, but this would be too rewarding to low level PK spam, and also abuseable by rolling chars and having your buddies roll low level chars. So, what I decided might be best, is have a level cap at 30ish. After that with each player is DEAD, you get a chance to increase 0-2% in every skill/spell you used in the fight.

Now, I know that this system would be a huge change and has a lot to improve, but it is just something I thought about. I realise it has some inherent folly, but it also has merit. The main reason I believe it would be good for cf in general, since it would remove silly speculation on which and which hidden stat affects learning rate and how, aswell as endless argument over skill practice. Also, it would solve the problem of 'mindless spam practice' being necessary, profittable or even possible.

P.S. A lot of other, related things would need a bit of tweeking with such changes, and I doubt such a drastic change being implemented. But I would like to at least hear what you think of it.

Since the intelligence of races is a balancing factor, int should definately play a factor in how fast you learn skill.

It already does.

So, how I thought it would be, each time you rank up, you get a chance to improve in your skills, perhaps 1-2% or 0-2%, based on your int, where the usual gain would be 1% and races with 20+ int would recieve occasional 2 pointers.

We have a system for this, and it's around the strength we're comfortable with.

Aging would make your skills better. This can be viewed odd in a roleplay sence (sitting, doing nothing and your skills go up).

Older characters learn more quickly as is. It's intended to reflect maturity and greater life experience, and also to favor long-lived characters, who tend to be better-developed RP-wise on average.

But it can also be viewed as the gradual increase of prowess while living the bloody life of a cf adventurer.

The current system does this, except it's only helpful if you're using the skills in question. You don't get better by sitting in a dark corner somewhere.

The toughest nut to crack is figuring out a way to have PK improvements for gills, without the system being highly exploitable. First I though about having a counter that counts time in PK and gives gains based on it, but ditched this idea as way too abuseable. Then I came up with making it go up with each time you kill someone, but this would be too rewarding to low level PK spam, and also abuseable by rolling chars and having your buddies roll low level chars. So, what I decided might be best, is have a level cap at 30ish. After that with each player is DEAD, you get a chance to increase 0-2% in every skill/spell you used in the fight.

Generally speaking, there are plenty of incentives to PK as is. We're not exactly experiencing a shortage.

Also, this is a 'rich get richer' method- newer players won't benefit much from it, but players near the top of the power curve will reap more rewards, thus moving slightly more up the power curve.

The main reason I believe it would be good for cf in general, since it would remove silly speculation on which and which hidden stat affects learning rate and how, aswell as endless argument over skill practice.

I wrote 'help skill improvement' a while ago while looking at the (surprisingly simple) skill improvement function. It was comprehensive at the time. Looking it over, I think now the only thing to add would be the bonus we give to characters that have been around a long time. (This was announced publically when it went in, but never made it into the helpfile. It'll get added next time I have a chance.)

Our method of handling skill improvement is much simpler than people often claim. People make up crap all the time about how things work. Some people make up so much highly inaccurate stuff (which they post as rigorously tested fact) that I have to doubt either their sanity or their sincerity. The game needn't, shouldn't, and won't make policy based on the existence or absence of 'silly speculation'.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

I can't remember the help file off the top of my head (and this may be covered in it already) but, statistically speaking, I find it hard to believe that a skill has an equal chance of improving the first time you use it and the 1000th time. It seems to me that each time I start a run(*) I will be quite likely to get an improvement really early in the run and next to zero improvements towards the end. Anti-spam practice catcher?

(*) - A run can be a practice session against another player, or a practice session against a mob(s), or even a pass of ranking.

Improvement checks are independent events.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Let's take two warriors as an example. One's a svirf. One's a giant. These warriors will have different fighting styles.

Does it make much sense for the svirf to end up as good at bashing as the giant, when he never realy bashes?

Also, if you think that those that will get help from their friends stop at 30, I have to say I suspect it would not.

Dialogue and ideas on how to improve the game is always appreciated. That said...

> The
>main reason I believe it would be good for cf in general,
>since it would remove silly speculation on which and which
>hidden stat affects learning rate and how

There's int and... uh... int. Anyone who tells you otherwise is wrong.

Furthermore, I'll tell you that how fast you learn skills based on your int is proportion to how much gain you get in a skill from spending a practice on it. These are numbers that are pretty much transparent to everyone.

I don't really see how a new system where people could make up non-existant factors would be an improvement over the current system where people could make up non-existant factors.

>
>P.S. A lot of other, related things would need a bit of
>tweeking with such changes, and I doubt such a drastic change
>being implemented. But I would like to at least hear what you
>think of it.

I think you're trying to fix something I don't think is broken.