Some learn by doing...

[Eonwind]

PP is not "learning by doing". It's... There is no way to explain it because there is no real life equivalent.

Seriously, what is it?

experience
and if gaining practice and experience by doing something (crafting, hunting, ...) is not learning by doing I don't know what it is 
now seriously, in my opinion the current system "bottleneck" is having to go to a trainer to continue training the skill, unfortunately it's not something easily solved

[Volki]

What? PP is not experience. Think critically and try again.

[Raxuss]

Experience literally translates into PP. I see no other use of experience other than getting PP.

But then there's that little green bar you have to fill while doing a particular skill that goes along with PP. That green bar is the 'true' practice-to-learn experience thing. Even with PP, you need to use the skill to advance the green bar first; which is, I'm assuming, the 'on-the-job' experience.

[Rigwyn]

I don't get what the confusion is about. As stated, 1 pp is earned for every 200 experience points earned. This is like when you get "points" for making credit card purchases. Those points can be spent on skills and stats.

What is different about Planeshift is that these points are not locked into a specific skill or stat. You can allocate them to unrelated skills and stats if you choose. Its a resource, and like any other resource, if you squander it, you will not have enough for the things you need.

Its odd, yes, but not a big deal.

[Rirenil Masdo]

bad thing or not, just it wasn't the way the system was designed so far, beside this system would give a huge advantage to rich players.

rich players, assuming the economy was balanced, would imply that they got their monies via long amounts of playing either by professions or monster stabbing, which in the current system, means they'd also already have plenty of exp aka PP.

pp is therefore still useless given your reasoning.  if they are rich, they'd still be able to power lvl whatever they want.  but again, is that a bad thing?  they put in hours upon hours of game time to get that much in the first place. why not reward them for their fruits of labor?

my personal issue with the system is the way it is displayed via the user display.  way too crowded and busy, unintuitive, and terrible color choices.

[Volki]

So there is already experience, and yet we have PP. There is already skill-specified experience (the blue bar), and yet we have PP. Too complicated. If people are complaining about it now, imagine when this game has hundreds of players.

If leveling was realistic, you would be able to level up as a you were actively using a skill. Then you would reach a plateau, where you could not level up any further, until you found a trainer to teach you more about the skill. Then you would take that knowledge and continue practice, leveling up once again. Then return to your trainer and so on...

[Eonwind]

If leveling was realistic, you would be able to level up as a you were actively using a skill. Then you would reach a plateau, where you could not level up any further, until you found a trainer to teach you more about the skill. Then you would take that knowledge and continue practice, leveling up once again. Then return to your trainer and so on...

wake up Volki ... you just described the system as it is now, the only difference I see from the current system (aside the way the GUI shows thing up) is you need to visit a trainer once every 10-20 levels instead of every single one.

rich players, assuming the economy was balanced, would imply that they got their monies via long amounts of playing either by professions or monster stabbing, which in the current system, means they'd also already have plenty of exp aka PP.

pp is therefore still useless given your reasoning.  if they are rich, they'd still be able to power lvl whatever they want.  but again, is that a bad thing?  they put in hours upon hours of game time to get that much in the first place. why not reward them for their fruits of labor?

my personal issue with the system is the way it is displayed via the user display.  way too crowded and busy, unintuitive, and terrible color choices.

you completely misunderstood the point of my reasoning. A rich player may create an alt, transfer an amount of money and have this alt maxed in no time, still the character belong to the player that spent a lot of time working and I could even agree with it, but the same thing can happen with other players up to a point where a single player or a small group of players could "monopolize" the server deciding the skill progression of other players and who is left behind.

A system where not only being rich (or having rich friends) is enough to max out skill but the time spent playing the game is rewarded as well seems to me overall better.

This doesn't mean the system we have is perfect, for example I would like a system where the character's stats could be risen by itself while players perform simple game actions like running, walking or chatting (thus eliminating the need of trainers for stats), unfortunately it's not that easy to do.

[Volki]

No, I did not. PP does not exist in reality. There is no equivalent.

I see PP as an ugly mutation of leveling. In many games, when you level up, you are given points to spend on skills, even if you never worked on those skills. But PP allows you to spend points on skills without advancing a level. This means that although we do not have levels, we are subjected to the same concept, which has no basis in reality.

PlaneShift is not unique as long as it holds onto the PP system. It is just as arbitrary as leveling. The only difference is that we don't have a number on display next to our usernames.

[Rirenil Masdo]

you completely misunderstood the point of my reasoning. A rich player may create an alt, transfer an amount of money and have this alt maxed in no time, still the character belong to the player that spent a lot of time working and I could even agree with it, but the same thing can happen with other players up to a point where a single player or a small group of players could "monopolize" the server deciding the skill progression of other players and who is left behind.

A system where not only being rich (or having rich friends) is enough to max out skill but the time spent playing the game is rewarded as well seems to me overall better.

how does someone being maxed stats effect someone who isn't? 

gold sinks need to exist or you have a broken economy as it is now.

[Myna]

PP is a RPG/OOC part, not a realistic or IC one. I think stats/skills should level up when a character use them, not by buying some ranks to a trainer.

But levels aren't realistics too...

[Eonwind]

No, I did not. PP does not exist in reality. There is no equivalent.

Just to be clear, there's no reality equivalent of experience points, practice points, levels and not even skills in the way they're conceived in every game. It's just a simulation of reality. Given that PS system is the opposite of a level based system and that's pretty easy to understand.

I see PP as an ugly mutation of leveling.

Sorry to be a nitpicker but this is truly fun.
PP is experience (1 PP = 200 Exp) it's basically the same thing with a different name, just like dollars and euro are (x$ = y€) so the following sentence stay true:
"I see experience as an ugly mutation of leveling."
which makes no sense at all because in every gaming system featuring experience points, they're the medium used to "trade" levels. So experience can be a mutation of levelling as much as dollars are a mutation of the bread which you can buy with them.

[Volki]

Yes, that was my point.

To be a better simulator of reality, I'd suggest removing PP and leaving players with individual skills. The reasons players have levels in other games are the restriction of lower level players and the display of a player's experience. PS players are given neither of these, so there is no logical reason to keep the mechanic. It is an extraneous complication for both development and new players.

[novacadian]

My wish is simply that while running back and forth across the great expanse of the Dome that all that exercise ends up increasing my strength and endurance. Not to go to a trainer after getting PPs via other means but directly related to the exercise. My boots wear out; why not my muscles get stronger and my endurance increases? That was my wish, not to dis the current system or anything; but simply to add something to it. 

[Cirerey]

My wish is simply that while running back and forth across the great expanse of the Dome that all that exercise ends up increasing my strength and endurance. Not to go to a trainer after getting PPs via other means but directly related to the exercise. My boots wear out; why not my muscles get stronger and my endurance increases? That was my wish, not to dis the current system or anything; but simply to add something to it. 

Would the accrual of exp points for the expenditure of physical and  / or mental stamina be an acceptable alternative to you? It would give noobs another way to gather PP beyond beating rats and kikiri. Even if it was only 20 exp points running from Hydlaa to Ojaveda it would at least symbolically add some training value to exercise. Just a thought...

[Eonwind]

My wish is simply that while running back and forth across the great expanse of the Dome that all that exercise ends up increasing my strength and endurance. Not to go to a trainer after getting PPs via other means but directly related to the exercise. My boots wear out; why not my muscles get stronger and my endurance increases? That was my wish, not to dis the current system or anything; but simply to add something to it. 

This is what I wanted to add since quite some time, unfortunately there is are some issues:

• performing actions (like running/walking) should award practice points but this means to raise stats won't be enough anymore to buy them but some practice will be required
• gaining practice for physical stats can be quite obvious (and maybe not boring as you gain them by doing other stuff) but training mental stats in a continuous (and fun) manner can be a challenge
• the goal would be to make increasing stats straightforward, our training systems is already complicated and I want to avoid adding more difficulties at all cost
• stats could be risen each time another skill is risen, but then there would be no need of practice points for stats (wich is not a problem by itself) and that would make the 'learn by doing' unnecessary
• what about experience spent for traiing stats? should the stats automatically spend the player's exp each time the practice is over and a lavel is advanced? --> I don't like stealing the control from the user, so it must be avoided but then the need of having a trainer (it's the technical step where you can choose if you want to spend your exp to train something or not) is not eliminated

those are just a few problems that puzzles me and I still have to find a decent solution for it (without screwing our training system to the core, which I don't think we have to). Maybe someone can have a good idea or help find some solution...