Has any thought been given to limiting by race how high a character's physical stats can go, similar to how they are set at character creation?  For example, maybe a Lemur's max strength is 200 while a Stonehammer can reach 400, a Kran's max agility would be 200 compared to an Enkidukai's 400.   Ylians get capped at 300 for all three stats, etc.   The Starfire Tourney has an interesting method for determining how the participants' physical stats are set.  I have a harder time making the argument that mental stats should also be limited, but it might work over a smaller range.

Another option would be to let the player decide what the character's max in each stat would be.  Give the player 2000 points to distribute among the six stats.  The character would still start at the levels currently applied at creation and would have to work its way up to whatever cap the player set.

Harnquist seems to have several different requests to satisfy his hunger, but I don't know what all they are.  It seems to depend on the skill of the individual.

 I think all the cooking quests  have the player make something as part of the quest.  I don't know if you could just give the completed item and bypass all the intermediate steps. 

As for harvesting, various quests require apples, lake mushrooms, night mushrooms, carrots, barberry root, juiceberries, wragberries, lavender, devil's claw, kingsfoil leaf, wyn reed, red mangrove, sicklepod, hops, white oak bark, blackbush stem, carp, trout.

You have a strange growth between your ears.  Since it doesn't appear to do anything useful and is causing you pain, it's probably best to have it removed.

I certainly can see the convenience of no longer having to find a trainer for skills, but to be honest I think I would like a compromise between the old and the new system.  Perhaps something like only needing to see a trainer every 10 levels, or something similar.  To me, it seems like our characters may be self-teaching themselves a bit too much in some cases, and it would seem reasonable to have the trainer be more involved in teaching them. 

Also, there is somewhat of a side-effect of this new system, whereas the players can't "freeze" their character's skills to a certain level anymore.  That is, if we do an action, we automatically level the associated skill, whether we wanted to or not.  If I may, I would like to request the ability to slow down (or perhaps even stop) the leveling of a given skill for players that don't feel as though they are ready to level up for a given reason.  I would also understand and accept if there was a reasonable penalty to progression points gained if you slow down/turn off leveling.

That would be my two trias worth. ;-)

Celroc Amaul

I agree with both of Celroc's points. 

Needing to periodically visit a trainer, especially at lower levels (<50?  <100?), to learn new skills makes sense.  Maybe the spacing could increase as you advance beyond this threshold.  This exists to some extent with some of the crafting skills already since you need to do a quest to get the next crafting book.  Cooking, baking, herbalism, and alchemy are all like this. 

This would also give player a chance to stop leveling a skill.  The most IC reason I can think of is a mage not wanting to get too advanced in the opposing Way (since all the archmasters say this can be dangerous) but still wanting to be able to use a few low level spells. 

Regarding the armor training issue, maybe give the mobs a physical stamina drain when they attack just like players have.  After a period of time (less for weaker mobs, more for stronger mobs), they get tired and stop attacking.  This would at least require the player to periodically attack the mobs to get them moving again.  If the mob hadn't fully recovered, the time until it got tired and stopped attacking would be shorter.

Reviving this thread in light of the new combination formula.  Is there a plan to add making axe handles to the axe making book?  I just tried making an axe and had to attach my Q239 blade to a Q50 handle, leaving me with a Q145 axe kit.  Without the ability to craft axe handles, the best anyone is going to be able to do is a Q175 kit, and I suspect improving this to finest quality in the final assembly step is going to be a real challenge regardless of skill.  Shield making may be even worse since it requires adding a purchased core and handle to the shape right before the final assembly.

I suspect things like alchemy and cooking will face similar challenges with items that only go through 1 transform before being combined in the last or second-to-last step.

I also can't imagine why Blue Way practitioners would need this spell. They already have control of water, cold, and ice. That's a great amount of power right there. And they also have the ability to neutralize poisons and cure diseases.

I've wondered about this "ability to neutralize poisons and cure diseases."  Unless it requires the poison glyph, which I have yet to find a way to obtain in game, this seems to exist in concept only.  The only Blue Way healing spell I've found is Healing Rain. 

To those of you complaining about how hard it is to level, please answer this:  Why do you want to level up, especially to the max?  Is it just a desire for completeness, or do you have a plan for using your skill?

Obviously, some quests require a certain level of skill or the money to buy the needed item.  There have been a couple that I've found a bit of a grind (I've had the Forging Platinum Steel Blades quest open for months and still have a long way to go).

I've gotten to the point with my characters where I'm not sure there's much value in continuing to level up.  I haven't made it past adept in any Way, I only have two crafting skills above 100, and my highest combat skill is only 32.  I can already kill all the mobs I want to with magic, so there's little reason to level up combat.  There's not much of a player market for crafted goods, and making stuff just to sell it to an NPC seems pointless.  I've done most quests a couple times, so there's no strong pull to run a new character through them. 

It's at the point where I feel I either have to get more involved in RP or quit.   Perhaps this is the goal of the devs and they're just hoping I choose RP over quitting. 

Looks like time has changed to 2000 GMT on 1 Nov.