Beginners trainers seem to be in Hydlaa

[Vakachehk]

Well I thought I might begin this discussion.

When you are a beginner the things you are learning are very simple. Requiring very low levelled trainers to train you. I can understand however higher levels making you go to the capital or to other placing (I don't really understand going to the Bronzedoors for anything but Stats and weapon and Armor training).

So my opinion is, that everything level 50 (skills), 100 (stats) and below should be trainable in every single town and city.

I better give an example to what has changed.
Nearly a year ago. Mining was trainable in Ojaveda, Hydlaa and Gugrontid. I'm pretty sure Harnquist and Trasok stopped training it at a certain level and you had to go to the smithy in Gug to train further. Now all mining training is done in Hydlaa, however I don't know if the trainer in Hydlaa does it to max now (but that is not relevant).

[Sangwa]

Makes total sense. Most towns should have trainers (at least until level 20 / 80) for general skills like sword training, mining (if it has nearby mines), etc. and all stats.

[Tessra]

I'm sure one of the devs can explain this better than I can, but the idea was to set the game up with the lower level trainers closest to the spawning point for new characters, to make it easier for new players to gain skills.  They called it something like a "map" layout, with the trainers moving progressively farther away from Hydlaa as skill levels progress.  From the perspective of New to Game players, I really like the new set-up.  from the perspective of Current Players who are Disgruntled about Having to Search for their Trainers, I can also understand wanting more trainers in the different cities, but honestly... I still support the devs decision to make them more segregated by city. 

[Aramara Meibi]

If I understand Vaka correctly, then I agree with him. I think the current mapping system could lead to certain areas as a 'beginner town', or 'expert town', which would lead to a skill segregation amongst players. Of course, with the size of the game right now it's not too much of a problem... most everybody hangs out where the RP is at, but if the finished product is anywhere in the scope of what I imagine it will be, then this would be a major issue. Think if you had to travel 9 levels just to get training.

Like Vaka said, this is understandable for higher levels of training. You wouldn't expect every town in game to have a lvl 200 Red Way Master, but every town should have a lvl 50 blacksmith.

[Vakachehk]

I'm sure one of the devs can explain this better than I can, but the idea was to set the game up with the lower level trainers closest to the spawning point for new characters, to make it easier for new players to gain skills.  They called it something like a "map" layout, with the trainers moving progressively farther away from Hydlaa as skill levels progress.  From the perspective of New to Game players, I really like the new set-up.  from the perspective of Current Players who are Disgruntled about Having to Search for their Trainers, I can also understand wanting more trainers in the different cities, but honestly... I still support the devs decision to make them more segregated by city. 

Interesting point, but then for example, if Harnquist stops training mining at X level and you have to go to Trasok for further training, then don't you think that Trasok being able to train someone highly leveled up should be able to train someone that is just a beginner?

I can see how the 'hot map' (I think that's what they called it) works now, but what Aramara said I can't see it happening in the future.

[Sangwa]

Vaka's idea wouldn't change the current layout much. It'd just make it possible for an enkidukai, for example, to spend some time at the Oja while he doesn't need a high level training. Hydlaa would still be centralized (since it's the spawn point), and as one progressed in level one would still need to find the trainers throughout Yliakum, therefore fulfilling the layout Tessra mentioned.

[Sarva]

In real life not all teachers have the temperament or training, or desire to work with beginners. some people just prefer to work with higher level people and not with with beginners.Just because somone has advanced skills in a craft doesn't mean they have the ability to teach someone who is unskilled in the craft. There is a different skill set to teach someone who has no knowledge of a subject vs someone who already has a good working knowledge of a subject.

[Elkarway]

In real life not all teachers have the temperament or training, or desire to work with beginners. some people just prefer to work with higher level people and not with with beginners.Just because somone has advanced skills in a craft doesn't mean they have the ability to teach someone who is unskilled in the craft. There is a different skill set to teach someone who has no knowledge of a subject vs someone who already has a good working knowledge of a subject.

Just because it can be rationalized doesn't make it good game design.  What the devs are trying to do is "You're new? here are all the trainers you need!" but, what they are doing is "You're new?  ... Stay in Hydlaa".  I get 'heat map' idea but it's faulty.  It makes Hydlaa the starter town as well as just the most active, and kills activity in the rest of the game.  Why is Oja empty?  Because you have to be a certain level to actually play there, and by the time you are that level you're probably in a guild and helping out newer characters who can't get trained there.  So the other areas become a place that you go to on your mount to accomplish something and then leave and actually play in Hydlaa.

It's bad game design, no two ways about it.  Only plausible explanation is that devs are trying to keep players in Hydlaa, which makes sense due to the low number of players but, then, maybe the number of players is low because the game is so Hydlaa-centric that they other areas feel empty and unfinished so some 75% of the map is just unappealing...  But you still have to run through it to do quests

[Talad]

The map is called "heat map" and identifies which are the areas for low/medium/high rank players. The trainers are following the same heat map.

Hydlaa is the place where everyone spawns (at this moment) and it's the place where low rank trainers are located. The other cities, like ojaveda and gug are considered still low rank, but players will not reach those immediately, so they have a bit higher rank trainers. The most dangerous and high rank area at the moment is bronzedoors.

This distribution will allow players to find other similar ranked players in certain areas, which facilitates groups and discussions.

As for the roleplay aspect of trainers being capable of training up to their max rank, I may agree, but if we apply this means in bronzedoors everyone will train everything from 0 to 400, which will put those NPCs under real stress! They don't want to train a bunch of newbies, they have to look out for invasions and find the best fighters.

When we will have 2000 concurrent players as an average, we will have all racial cities modeled and our cities will be fully populated at all times, then we will probably go back to a system where each major city trains the basics, so enkis can stay in oja, kran in gug, etc...

[Sangwa]

Sounds good. Soon TM it is

[Elkarway]

This distribution will allow players to find other similar ranked players in certain areas, which facilitates groups and discussions.

This really isn't happening.  It's a decent idea for WoW but doesn't fit into PS where people rarely group and constantly talk with people who are lower "ranked"

[Talad]

This distribution will allow players to find other similar ranked players in certain areas, which facilitates groups and discussions.

This really isn't happening.  It's a decent idea for WoW but doesn't fit into PS where people rarely group and constantly talk with people who are lower "ranked"

Progression is present in PS as well, and an heatmap helps to have people explore more remote places. For any rank discussions or roleplay there are always the taverns available in every city, but this aspect I think is not related to progression and trainers distribution has little effect on it.

[Gilrond]

I still think that all major cities should have most basic trainers. RP wise, Enkidukai might want to start in Ojaveda, not in Hydlaa even now. Same thing for Gugrontid and Amdeneir. It doesn't really make sense to be forced stay in Hydlaa to for the training. This would make more sense though, if starting point would be flexible. I.e. not everyone should start in Hydlaa. But presenetly of course Hydlaa has the most resources (like library and etc.) and other cities are second grade in comparison. But that's just settings underdevelopment, not the desirable way of things.

Bronze Doors aren't really cities, they are fortresses, so it's natural to have some special trainers there, but regular cities should have some even distribution for basic ones, and some increasing distribution of more advanced ones. I remember I started smithing in Ojaveda, even as a beginner (of course I had to find the way there first). And I liked Trasok's smithy more. Now new players are forced to go to Harnquist to train. I don't think it's reasonable RP wise that only one smith on the whole first level teaches beginners.

[Sangwa]

Talad said that all the major cities would probably have training in the future. This means that they don't want to go through that trouble now, since they're focusing on other totally amazing stuff.

In PS another problem with grouping people of the same ranks is that ranks aren't taken all that seriously, since all you can do with them is duel... Which (as it was pointed out when fighting was implemented before crafting) is not the main focus of the roleplayers.
Even crafting is currently only useful for battle... And this makes everything feel less interesting, specially when it's basically impossible to keep up in PS.

[scotty110]

yeah right now there's a pretty large gap between skill training and roleplaying, well guess i should say the gap fluctuates at some points, getting narrower whenever someone decides to host an event, either market days (for crafters to show off their weapons/armor/food/etc) or combat tournements (pairing players within skill brackets).

the next obvious step would be to make more quests that are group oriented, or make mobs that require more than 1 person to kill (for example, giving maulberlords more HP or tougher skin that 1 max skill player would not be able to kill it before running out of mana a number of times) of course mobs like that would need give incentives to kill them so increase loot/tria/pp would be another obvious thing to work on.