Only because this sentence particularly irks me
>Leave the fighting classes alone, some of us enjoy not using mana and all that crap.

Let's see - recall back to the initial practicing changes to defense some two (three?) years ago. How many non-battle hero warriors did you ever see around? Today it's pretty regular to see several uncaballed hero warriors at once. That alone indicates to me the class has been strengthened, not weakened.

Since then:
- Minor tweaks to practicing (level caps)
- HP bonus for hero levels
- Maledictions affecting shifters
- Legacies
- Throw Down command
- HtoH upgrades
- Dagger spec upgrades
- Change to speccing at 80% profficiency
- Weapon skills improving with spec moves
- New changes to practicing

I'll take the changes thank you very much, even if some of them mean I need to come up with different ways of doing things.

Suppose I find a high-leve mob that can be easily tanked at lower
levels, like a level 51 mob that gives no problem at all to level
40 fighter.

Suppose I practice on this mob.

Suppose you notice it.

What do you do? Options:

1. Leave it as it is.
2. Tweak the mob so that after reboot it tears me a new one.

I mean, do you think it is normal that several such mobs exist, or
would you be interested in finding an eliminating all of them? Shall
I treat such mob as a bug that mustn't be exploited, or as an
exploration reward?

Same way we handle NPCs that are too easy/hard for ranking. Some of it will come down to author intent. If they typo'd the damroll, it will get fixed. If the NPC is designed to be weak for a good reason, no. If the author isn't presently on staff, a higher-up will make the call.

If the NPC is weak for its level on purpose, we do have mechanisms to address that without necessarily making it the same as other NPCs of the same level. For example, some are worth more or less experience points, as you've probably seen in ranking.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

This is primarily the case when either of these specs is your second choice.

Skills such as impale and the dagger spec skills, where the opponent gets in some free hits (harder than normal) when you miss are much more difficult. Trying to impale an elite storm giant and getting a nice Mangle or ***DEMO*** each time you miss is not going to be very condusive to learning the skill.

On the other hand, I suppose you could learn on level 40 mobs at level 51, but a) you would do this alone. No one is likely to help you and you will be resting quite a bit and b) according to the change, you would learn much much slower than normal.

Just a thought or two.

The only warrior I've played recently was a pole/mace, where polearm already had these restrictions and mace was good to rank with at 40+

Nivek

I agree. Also, there are skills that you can rarely use in leveling, like offhand, retreat, dent, etc, and there are skills that are extremely unlikely to ever get to 100% during the normal course of playing 400 hours, like concealed on a low dex race (i.e. my gnome without Harvest learned something like 7% in over 300 hours of playing using daggers). That is kinda why I suggested using the character hours in the formula. If you start getting in the hundreds of hours, it would be nice if it became dramatically easier to learn your skills. Unless you want to keep poor gnomes from getting 100% in concealed.

Then again, maybe concealed will go up quicker under this new system.

Hutto, the Sleepy Nitpicker

"Alot of people don't whine about practice (me included) So who cares if we enjoy the edge. "

Why should those who have a life, a job, and a few friends, not be able to enjoy cf like you do? I mean, I mean, what I mean is... I have multimonitor on my computer. It would be easy to set up triggers, and watch a movie on one screen, and spam on the other. But I don't very much. I mean if I roll a thief I do hide and sneak. I do word, stuff like that. I dont have more than two or three skills at 100 at level 10. Ever. I have better things to do. The few characters I HAVE perfected defenses on, when I was level twenty, they were mid nineties, and I know this will be hard for you to believe but, I DID FINE! Fortunately I have some insight as to how to actually PLAY that I don't need to depend on the skill I want to use maybe failing once or twice before I realize I probably should use it, if it's that important. Dirt kick on the other hand? let it slide. Unless you are fighting a lich, who cares about offhand?

It's a real bummer they are evening the playing field for NORMAL people...

I have run a warrior in eregion leveling, an evil, with staff at 69. Wasn't so bad.

wow, you're just... a weenie!
incedentially...
I have been working under the assumption this is how it was, since I kinda assumed it was gonna happen.

look out, I bet money will actually WEIGHT something soon!!!!

duh.

...you get increased skill improvement while ranking. I mean nobody ranks on mobs that are perfect match, you rank on hooded and razor. I think that should give you an INCREASED chance to improve while ranking then you currently have. Perfect match should be the same as it is, and lower rank should be worthless or close to it. I am alright with that. After this many years the grueling rank rank rank rank up to hero has started to wear on me but if I am seeing improvements galore in skills I will gladly skip spam practice at lower ranks (Which I Do take part in as it DOES affect the ability of my character. I dont care what anyone says, perfect skills make a tough tank char. I will not buy your bridge in Brooklyn, thank you.)

POSTER'S DISCLAIMER: "Of course....I don't play anymore, but its just my 2 cents."

{Caveat: if things have changed such that the following is no longer valid then feel free to disregard.}

I'm okay with skills taking longer to perfect. I'm okay with skill percentages being tied to rank, hours played, etc. What bothers me, and what I think may represent poor design, is that there are certain skills for which the "ease" of practice varies *drastically* depending on when the skill is practiced.

Defenses are one example. Say you're a non-tanking class, but one for which defenses are useful in PK. Maybe you're a healer or a warrior with two offensive specs. You have a choice. Spend 2-5 hours at 15 in a contrived fight with tons of puny mobs or skip that and take your chances. Suppose you hero and feel like going back to practice. You're screwed. It's much harder to tank a reasonable number of "easy kill" mobs at 51 than it is at 15. We're talking about stuff you ranked on at approx. lvl40. Even if you're a combo that tanks well, it's hard to have more than 2-3 such mobs on you for any extended period of time.

Another example is disarm. Either you're cheap and get a PC buddy to train with or you need a certain type of mob. It needs to have a weapon. It either needs to last a while in combat or you need there to be lots of them. Also, you need it to not damage you so much that you have to rest all the time. It's fairly easy to find mobs like that at rank 15. Not so much at 51.

Even worse is unarmed defense. Not so bad to master at 15. Nasty, if not impossible, at hero. Also throw in backfist. Cutoff and parting blow also come to mind.

My idea: level the playing field. Either raise the required mob strength at lvl15 or lower the required strength at lvl51. Ideally it would be a linear change so there aren't "sweet spots" where people would be motivated to stop and practice. If the strength were dropped down one level from "easy kill" at lvl51 we'd be talking about things like arial prisoners. That doesn't seem so unreasonable.

You make those lvl 15 mobs drop a lvl and your mage is never getting past rank 25. Its a fact warriors need perfected parry/dodge/hth to tank well, otherwise your resting after each kill. Stop making worse ideas for already bad ideas.

Its a fact warriors need perfected parry/dodge/hth to tank well, otherwise your resting after each kill.

No, it isn't. We've discussed this internally, and we're not going to balance things as if every character must have a list of perfected skills as soon as they get them or else be useless.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Shapeshifting trannies ahoy, invokers ahoy, necro's ahoy!
It will be so exciting spamming trip while ranking - SO WONDERFUL!

I rolled up a lowbie to test out some stuff. He's got a max int of 21, so nothing special.

Just by ranking with groups, my dagger is 88% and trip too. Most other skills are in the mid eighties.

It seems to me that practicing just got easier, not harder.

Surely you are not suggesting trying something before pre-emptively complaining. That's just madness.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Who would have thought.

ranking?

Oh yeah, and i've ranked to 11 as a fire giant constantly on razor sharp or hooded mobs and guess what. 0% skill gains.

Yeah, now who's making ####ing assumptions.

Oh yeah, and i've ranked to 11 as a fire giant constantly on razor sharp or hooded mobs and guess what. 0% skill gains.

Then I suggest reading that I didn't touch ranks 1-10.

Yeah, now who's making ####ing assumptions.

Not I. You should read what was posted instead of assuming it works the way you think it does.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Re: Offhand disarm (mentioned in the subject title).

We didn't forget about it (or a few other skills that realistically, you might not get much chance to use on your way up).

The people making the changes in question play warriors now and then. They're not stupid people and they're not interested in making warriors unplayable for themselves.

>No, it isn't. We've discussed this internally, and we're not
>going to balance things as if every character must have a list
>of perfected skills as soon as they get them or else be
>useless.

Out of curiosity, what are you balancing them as if? What level of expertise are you thinking a character should have? If the staff wants everyone to have sub-perfect skills, what is the ideal state for practicing in terms of the result (rather than how you get to that result: eg spam practice).

>You make those lvl 15 mobs drop a lvl and your mage is never
>getting past rank 25. Its a fact warriors need perfected
>parry/dodge/hth to tank well, otherwise your resting after
>each kill. Stop making worse ideas for already bad ideas.

I've had zero problem leveling, and often tanking with, my non-defensive spec giant warriors with all their skills in the 60s and 70s. Sometimes I had to use a shield in lieu of a dual wield (and wield a sword for my dagger spec), and feint a lot, but thems the breaks.

It helps to have at least one other person in your group to help with your tanking (healing, protection, slow/haste, etc) or to tank one or two themselves (orc, a-p, necromancer, thief, etc). Having 1.5 tanks will make the benefits of stuff like berserk, bandage, and herbs go a lot further with your tank, as you continue fighting while their timer ticks down. Then again, I don't mind mobs in the 150-250 xp range that I can kill in 2-5 rounds of fighting. I think most people spend too much time looking for the perfect tank rather than just plowing though for a little less xp with whatever they got. Yes, you don't want two mages for groupmates until the mid to upper levels, but having one groupmate that contributes very little is really easy to compensate for. You just have to think outside of the strict "ideal" tank/damage/healer characterizations and force your groupmates to play multiple roles. Kick that giant axe spec in the shin. Tell him to quit pincering, wear a shield, and feint. Then shove him at the next mob. Don't ask him if he can tank first, or if he's perfected his defenses.

Hutto, the Sleepy Nitpicker

I had a thirtyish duergar. My spec was perfected, a few other major weapon classes were past 85, being sword, hand to hand, and mace. I did fine tanking for my groups. As an axe spec. I had to spam feint, but not much.

Maybe I'm scewed, because I have been a healer for so many IDIOT warriors. But it isnt really that bad. The last char I spammed d's on was the one I use for my handle. That was like, three years ago? And they changed it so it wasn't so easy right after him? No wait, they changed it on the previous char, so I didn't even spam way back then...

Why is wasting your time for an infalted advantage against your peer so important to you?

My idea: level the playing field. Either raise the required mob strength at lvl15 or lower the required strength at lvl51. Ideally it would be a linear change so there aren't "sweet spots" where people would be motivated to stop and practice. If the strength were dropped down one level from "easy kill" at lvl51 we'd be talking about things like arial prisoners. That doesn't seem so unreasonable.

This seems reasonable. I can think of an easy way to make the relative-level scale slide so that it's more 'friendly' at higher ranks and less 'friendly' at lower ones in a continuous manner. I'll discuss it with the appropriate people.

Part of the design you're seeing is that ranking intentionally becomes tougher as you gain levels. It's why solo-ranking is easy for an experienced player in the 1-20 range, and very difficult in the 42-51 range. Incorporating this fact into the practice end of things could even this out some without touching ranking, which is balanced more iteratively, and hard to do straight off the numbers.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Would it be hard to throw in the hours age of the character into the mix somehow? I realize it wouldn't be realistic for an older person to learn something more quickly than a young person, but from a game balance standpoint, it may work well to do just that. So this, with the changes you've already implemented, and Isildur's idea above, you'll get:

Character's most likely to have perfect skills are those who have:
- Highest intelligence and wisdom
- Fought the most challenging fights
- Advanced furthest in their guild
- Lived the longest

... which is basically how the skill system would have originally worked had so many people not stopped to get 100%'s.


Hutto, the Sleepy Nitpicker

Would it be hard to throw in the hours age of the character into the mix somehow?

Nepenthe threw this at me yesterday as well. I'll lob it on the table.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

For the record, I don't like including hours-played. It punishes people who are extremely time-efficient. I would hate to have my learning stunted as I rank from 11 -> 20 just because I was able to rank from 1 -> 11 in a single hour.

It could be handled as just a bonus for old characters, i.e. when you get old enough you start learning skills a bit easier. Along the same lines there are SO MANY different skills/spells/supps for most classes that using and improving all of them during ranking is not feasible (besides, many abilities don't lend themselves well vs. mobs, but are key in PC combat), so I think heroes should be exempt from the level restrictions and be able to improve skills by fighting even low level mobs (though at a somewhat slower rate than against tougher mobs... basically how it was before this change).

By the way, if it's not in already, you should outline the system in a helpfile somewhere (help practice maybe?).

Who cares if you have to spam practice, it should be the players choice. Alot of people don't whine about practice (me included)

You can still do this. However, you'll have to do it with NPCs that are roughly your level.

Have you ever tried ranking in say Eregion as a sword spec without having staff perfected?

No, but I've done it with less ideal tanks than a sword spec and it was fine.

So who cares if we enjoy the edge.

Specifically, the other players you have the edge over. It's one thing for that minor edge to be built up by surviving challenges and exploration. It's another for that edge to represent who has the most hours of a riskless, boring activity.

As an analogy, let's say we added a "study" command. The "Study" command could be used in any guild, and gave you 20 XP. It also lagged you for a tick. Would you approve of ranking like this?

If you care for nothing I've written, at least read this.

Well, the account you are posting from has only one post to it. Nonetheless, we try to keep up with them all.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Is there something in the practice and improvement system that hinders improvements in skills and spells when you are in groups? The bigger the groups the less the chances of your skills going up. Or so it seems to me. Maybe im shooting blanks again or maybe not. But if you guys don't want endless hours of mundane skill spamming why do things like this exist? If anything you would think being in a group would allow your skills to improve faster.
I only ask this cause of something smoeone told me when I was bitching about going through hell twice with the same char. Using pretty much 3 spells that were not perfected and getting NO improvements what so ever. Since then i've also noticed practicing slows way way way down when xping. Compared to mudane spam killing anyway. Just wondering if im wrong you can just laught it off.

Much Love

With questions of faith and thirsting ideals
they might call me a priest if I wasn’t a drunk

While doing this, I did a fair bit of testing in a way that just put the numbers on my screen, and also combed over the improvement functions very carefully. Couple of general truths:

1) Ability improvement is somewhat easier at higher levels.
2) The incentives dealing with being grouped and fighting bad-ass hell beasties are positive.

As for those spells not improving: Could have been bad luck. Could have been a fight where one party could not harm the other directly. Etc. If you want to email me with more specific details (spells in question, etc.) I can comb for whatever.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

A dagger spec will have a hellva time perfecting his skills at lvl 40. Cause we all know at 40 those mobs are tough, and his skills are going to miss. And playing a game more should give you an edge. I'll go put in halo for the first time and then play someone who has had it for a year, is it his fault that he played longer? I take it you want a level playing ground, which to me is pointless, all this does is encourage the mentality of " Hell, my bash skill sucks, might as well find two others to help me do this pk" Then we get the ganging full loot whine. Things should be kept simple, its a game. Spam practice is simple, and WAS effective. Now we will have mages owning those warriors cause cranial is 75% and fighting that tough ass mob is not worth perfecting it. Damn, I don't care about how many are playing what, but the mages should get a deathblow up their ass like the fighting classes just did. This is jumbled, but writing on the fly does that. This will be my last rant, cause I know it won't get changed back. Just sucks to have to be medicore cause some newbs haven't found the mists.

- Using these abilities against higher-level opponents will have an increased chance of improving them.
- Using them on opponents of your own level will be the same as it was.
- Using them on opponents of lower level will be less effective. The chance of improvement doesn't go to zero, but bashing kobolds to death as a level 15 warrior is not practical for becoming a master of bash.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

In my head I'm picturing this as something like invoker's affinity
where your "affinity" for learning the ability rises and all falls
depending on your level relative to your opponent.

1) Is there more of a.. hmm.. gradient(?) than <mylevel, level, >mylevel (-1, 0, +1)? That is, does my 'affinity' for whatever increase against a hooded mob over a lucky blows mob or it's higher level and that's just it? The same on the low end?

2) Does this change affect the basic weapon_type abilities?

It will be interesting to see how this affects magicians to say the least.

1) There is a significant gradient with an eventual cap on both ends.

2) It hasn't yet. We may do something there to judge the skill of the NPC with the weapon and incorporate it as well, along the lines of what Krivohan and others have suggested. Internal discussions along that line have been positive.

Essentially, the previous version of the code didn't "know" anything about the target of the skills. This one does, so we're free to incorporate that sort of thing more easily.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Do a who on normal hours, and you will notice that warriors is BY FAR the most popular class(Only that come close is shifters). Warriors is also one of the most powerfull class with the new legacies, and they can lag anyone. Yes, it is a point that warriors should be more of than say..shamans or invokers, but as many as all the other classes combined. With the new practice system adjustments, you can master the skills that you use regularly from use while ranking, and the rest from the bonuses. It is a very fine system, props to the imms for thinking it up.

ATK

I think the ones that are really hurt are the dumber races. With a race that has 20 int or above you can master all of your weapons simply by ranking alone for the first 25 ranks which is incredibly easy to do. I was trying to get a warrior put together for Empire. I went fire giant with the first, ranked to 16th and couldn't help but laugh at the fact that nothing besides bash was 90% or better (I only practice up to 90%). I deleted. Next I rolled up a duergar and ranked to 21. I had 3 things at 90%. I deleted. That's ranking alone (except for 2 ranks with the duergar) and spamming whatever I had to spam as I learned.

The recent change involving skill increase upon ranking helps some, but if I've read correctly wiser raises get bigger increases. Well, that's fantastic if you're one of the smarter raises (who also tend to be wise) or a minotaur, but the orcs, duergar, and fire giants of the world are getting shafted again (2% here, 3% there).

If you're going with this newfangled harder=better learning system change the skill increase upon level system to be rank based:

1-10 = 3% increases.
10-20 = 5% increases.
20-30 = 7% increases.
30-42 = 10% increases.
42-51 = 13% increases.

This also adds a little extra incentive to rank up rather than sitting at 36 or 42 or whatever. That's the one thing I like about the harder=better learning system, it almost forces some type of exp gains.

Perhaps have a skill go up if you''re defending against it, ie. when parrying or dodging staff, sword, dagger, hand to hand and what not.

If that were implemented, however, I would expect to see some sort of cap on it. The immortals could deny its plausibility based upon the fact that you could probably only learn less than 75% of what there is to know about a given skill by watching it in use so practicing it in your guild would be the same thing. I certainly wouldn't expect it to be possible to master a skill by defending against it, maybe up to 85% max.

I'd love to see it happen, but I doubt they'd throw us a bone that size.

I don't think they ever said HIGHER wis made for better gains on level, they just said gains were dependant on unmodified wis. They never said more wis makes for better gains.