In Game Rules Improvements!!

[Gilrond]

After some tests with magic skill boosting items (bracers, rings, magic weapons etc.) I concluded that they don't improve practice in any way. I.e. they don't decrease spell casting time (even though your effective magic skill level is increased), and even when you cast spells from higher realms (like when the boosters give you access to realms beyond your current one), practice gained from those spells is the same as from the spells of you current realm. IMO this makes these skill boosting items more decorative, than really useful. Please consider using the effective level of the skill (i.e. base + boosters) for measuring practice gain, and speed of casting. I.e. if you get some amount of practice points for your current realm, you should get more for higher realm spells enabled by the booster, while having the total amount of practice points for that level the same. It will give some real value to these items, since they'll really improve your practice.

[weltall]

when you use a booster you are automatically in the higher realm while you use it so it's like having ranked to that point.

[Gilrond]

If that so, it also means that you don't get practice gain. I.e. for higher realm you need more practice, and in result - you'll need the same (or more) actual time to level. Boosters can be considered a benefit / a bonus, if they decrease the time needed to gain a level, comparing to when you don't have those boosters. This can be achieved by affecting the casting time (i.e. boosters should decrease it), and by measuring the total needed practice to level up according to the base level (not according to the boosted one), while allowing to gain practice according to the realm given by the booster. Those 2 considerations can give practical decrease in time needed to gain a level in the skill. And this will make boosting items actually valuable.

[weltall]

so if I'm doing an exam and I take a boosting item called "stolen exam from the teacher" do i get a boost on my knowledge of the topic? maybe this is a bit extreme as in most countries that's a penal offense but delivers the idea
If you consider boosting item then you consider also the opposite of the medal. If you are under a debuff you shouldn't get more experience at trying to do things which have become more difficult to do due to your current status. If I cannot move a leg don't I get some different and additional experience at walking with only one working leg?

[Bonifarzia]

Could it be that raising your magic way skill with bracers etc actually does speed up your casting times, but the effect is simply so small that you don't really see it in your tests, Gilrond?
Either way, I think it is fair when rare-to-find items do not give you an additional significant advantage for ranking up, as they should already make your spells more powerful. I admit, though, in many cases you won't see much of that, as you are far beyond the spells limit to improve any further.
Another important point with spell practice is - once again - relaxing sleep. When the spell comes with a state that renders the character unable to cast or move, mana supplies will enter as a limiting factor and make other aspects less important for gaining spell practice. At least that is my impression for this absolutely critical step towards a better game balance.

[Gilrond]

If you are under a debuff you shouldn't get more experience at trying to do things which have become more difficult to do due to your current status. If I cannot move a leg don't I get some different and additional experience at walking with only one working leg?

Sure, why not, the fact that very few debuffs are implemented is not the problem of the logic above, but again the problem of implementation So for example when under Dakkru's curse practice can be slow as you said.

[Gilrond]

Could it be that raising your magic way skill with bracers etc actually does speed up your casting times, but the effect is simply so small that you don't really see it in your tests, Gilrond

No, I performed a test with a significant boost (2 Laanx Mind Items and other buffs together). That's more than 40+ in the DW skill which means it gives you access to spells 2 realms higher than your own. There was no change in casting time and practice gain whatsoever (you can either write a small mod that would output the casting time to the system message, or simply count the number of castings in a minute or two).

Either way, I think it is fair when rare-to-find items do not give you an additional significant advantage for ranking up, as they should already make your spells more powerful.

As you yourself said, this benefit is very mininal, and in many cases insignificant. The most valuable commodity is the practice time, and special items affecting it would give them value. Looks like devs aren't interested in doing it, so there would be more wall decorations, from rings and "of Ways" items I guess

Another important point with spell practice is - once again - relaxing sleep. When the spell comes with a state that renders the character unable to cast or move, mana supplies will enter as a limiting factor and make other aspects less important for gaining spell practice. At least that is my impression for this absolutely critical step towards a better game balance.

Hehe, do you mean other aspects are already balanced enough, to make Relaxing Sleep a bottleneck now? That will slow down practice even more (after a while, it starts to look like the current system after all is worse than before all these changes in a sense of magic practice time, and the lack of spells beyond realm 5 makes it altogether unusable for levels 100+).

I understood the intention of changes to make practice more adequate for higher levels of skill, i.e. to balance the rate of progression with giving more practice for higher realm spells. If the intention was to make it harder overall - there is nothing to discuss really. I'm sure they'll find a way to make it harder

[Bonifarzia]

Hehe, do you mean other aspects are already balanced enough, to make Relaxing Sleep a bottleneck now?

No, I just wanted to mention the importance of that spell everybody is used to abuse. It is obvious that it will be much less useful once it works the way it should by design. But it makes testing magic convenient in its imbalanced implementation, just like infinite mana cheats would do in other games

[Gilrond]

Yes, in the perfect situation there will be limited use of Relaxing Sleep, and skill progression would work better than now. Plus there will be alchemy around, allowing skilled alchemists to create strong mana potions from various ingredients. All that cumulatively could work more or less. As of now - better to leave Relaxing Sleep as is.

[Symasta]

After those exciting changes, I finally had the time to test them.
First of all: It is really good you work on the whole subject and can run better tests now!

Before listing my observations, I have a, I believe very important, Question:

How are skill-Levels supposed to be converted into ingame RP knowledge?
In magic, being around lvl 100 makes you a full adept. Which I think is probable.
In smithing, lvl 20 I believe is enough to make swords around 200 or more Quality, depending on how much time you spend. So I guess to make 300Q (Perfect!!!) weapons, you might not lvl 200 in weapon making but more or less lvl 50 maybe?
In armor skills, being around lvl 70 is enough to minimize damage done by dlayo Gladiators (!) to about 70 per hit which makes standing next to them using magic really easy atm.
On the other hand it takes around 3-4 hours to skill from lvl 1 to 10 now, costing around 10k trias, which is 40x the income a regular farmer has within a month.
So, is there an overview what skilllevel is which ingame skill? Is any armor skill above 50 or 100 a hero/very very experienced fighter lvl? So that a young character should normally not reach these lvls?

A few things I observed:
Magic:
I have the feeling lvling is at a good pace atm, couldn't notice the difference between high realm spells and others. That seems good, but:
At lvl 45 brown way a stone fist does 91 damage while fist of the vulcano with red way lvl 90 does only 43 damage to certain targets. How is that possible? I like how spells do different damage on different targets, but such a huge difference?

LVLing job skills:
I had to fish around 70-80 fishes to lvl from fishing 2 to lvl 3. While the time spend might be fine as you can already fish many fishes, I wonder if it would not be possible to gain practice points in fishing when not catching a fish. You gain different amounts from different realm spells, wouldn't it be possible to implement pp gained when not catching a fish (as you should learn from mistakes!).

Economy:
I know in the mid ages having a sword was really expensive. But I still think that the system is messed up.

You pay around 5-10 tria for a good meal.
A farmer makes 250 tria a month.
So maybe a cook makes about the same, a little more?
A miner on the other hand gets 250 tria for two ores(!) if he sells those to harnquist.
A delivery boy gets a quest from Harnquist to pick up a weapon part from Trasok has to pay 50 trias to Trasok to complete the quest (how should a delivery boy have that much money?) and gets 3300 trias for completing the task.
A little boy asking to assist Harnquist picks up two apples at a tree infront of Harnquists smithy and gets 120 trias. Now tell me which farmer would choose working for a hard month instead of giving apples to Harnquist?
Next example is someone learning to repair weapons. He pays 100 trias for a repair kit. To get from lvl 0 to 1, he will spend at least 2000 trias on repair kits. How could someone afford that?

I would really like to have more characters who are not just over the top heros but more regular people (and with those lvls you can still enjoy stuff like questing, fighting and stuff without sticking to rats).


I think all comes back to the question which skill-lvl is what knowledge. I would say that the first 5-10 lvls are maybe common knowledge? Things that you learn by living? For example mace and hammer, lvl 5, should be the knowledge of a 15 year old who might have used sticks to fight rats or something? A female at age 20 should have a decent cooking skill?
I like to learn the pp from npcs in just about every skill I see cause I think at those lvls its a learning by doing thing? Wouldn't it be possible to learn skills without a npc to a certain lvl, just that it takes longer?
I would like some other opinions of other players as well, what skill is what knowledge ingame to you? How do you roleplay this?

so much from me.
Greetings,
Symasta

PS: Got a little late, I hope I wrote in a way that is understandable.
PPS: Is more detailed help wanted from the developers on this topic?

[weltall]

obviously the stated values on the site are not up to date with the game state.

[Tzarhunt]

Well I ran some fighting tests and it looks to me like you didn't take account of the fact that mages don't need defensive skills to be able to take down their prey. A good managing of running and casting can keep you safe from being hit, and I won't even talk about standing on a rock. Much, much harder when you're swinging blades / clubs at stuff.

Here is what I tried.

-Fighting a marfusang with a all physical stats at 300, mental stats all under 75, HA, Shield and Weapon skills at 135. This character almost died, was forced to eat enough fish delight to face diabetes and only got 99 xp (and needless to say 0 PPs). Took a while in normal stance. Using a defensive stance I didn't get hurt so badly but it took really long, plus I dealt a consequent number of almost ineffective hits. I used 50/50Q weapon and shield, 45/50 HA.
-Fighting a marfusang by casting Psychic Blast at it while running around. Character has a magic skill of 133, all mental stats maxed. Agi is 100, Str & End about 75. Took me less than one minute and earned me 40PPs, without getting hurt or even risking it.

[valentineaaron]

Tribal and active creatures will solve that issue I think.  Especially if they start implementing ranged and magic attacks for the ones who are sentient.