PlaneShift
Support => Complaint Department => Topic started by: ouch on January 29, 2008, 11:57:39 pm
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well first things first, some anoying bugs that need to be addressed:
1. clicking through the menu system to the ground is highly anoying. you know your trying to eat all those apples and then are off by one pixel and click the ground causeing your guy to run off a cliff and die is not amuseing...
2. while mineing, if there is lag and the animation finishes and you sit down, if you happen to get an ore then your guy will stand back up. The actual status of your character is in limbo then as "z" will no longer make him stand or sit as he is already doing both according to the game... the only fix seems to be /stand forcing him to re-stand.
The economy is another problem. Seeing all the hatred for gold, I stayed away from it untill I hit level 5. why now? quite simply you need trias in bulk once you hit 5. Everyone blames gold, but I think the problem is that leveling is FAR too expensive. you have absolutely 0 alternative for getting that kind of cash before you die of old age in real life... Take crafting a sword... to go through the effort of createing a longsword you know, battleing your way to get too an iron mine, mining 36 iron and 4 coal. (which you likely have to make 2-3 trips for) smelting the ores creating 10 steel ingots for handles, 3 steel stock and then heating the stock and pounding on them to shape them 3 times, heating again, cooling, heating once more, cooling again, then finially sharpening the blade. and then heating 2 ingots, pound on them at an anvil, then, finally assembling the 2 at an table to create a sword worth... wait for it.... under 300 tria to npc's... Yes the player just spent all afternoon (3-4 hours) obtaining a little under 300 tria.
now how many levels can you buy with for under 300 tria? pretty much 0... maybe a couple un-implimented level 0 skills perhaps... you need 1000's to make 1 level at level 4. I can't even imagine leveling to 20 this way which I hear you need around 20k per level.
As a result the only choice a player has is too obtain money through the way that returns the most, we know it as Gold. I spent those same 3-4 hours mining gold and now have 15k in the same amount of time. So now we are faced with the extremely difficult decision... do we spend our 4 hours of work on 300 tria, or do we spend it on 15,000 tria... Hmm... decisions, decisions...
what makes all this worse is that there are usually more people in one gold mine than all the taverns in the game at all times... But what choice do we have? how can we develop our characters and help out the newbs on a budget of under 2k-4k a week? At the current prices for training that's impossible.
how do we fix this though? well I'm not entirely sure but what I am sure of is makeing people huddle at gold mines longer isn't the answer. without a doubt gold needs a serious price cut, in half or more at least. the returns for gold is quite ridiculous. I mean seriously, put all the worths of the ores (and then thier stock equivlents) in the game on a line graph and the point on the gold one will be so pointy it will hurt your eyes just to look at it. Next up, the cost of leveling needs to be sliced severely, again by half or more. Or make it so that training is completely optional and only boosts the experience gained for that skill when doing it physicly.
anyway just my 2 tria...
actually.. no, I need those 2 tria train with...
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First off, you should sell those swords to players, not NPCs. I agree though that NPCs should pay more for them than just 300 trias (or training must go down).
Secondly, it's true the Economy isn't perfect. Far from it in fact.
The problem is that it's very hard to balance since "the damage has already been done". Best thing would be to come up with a good balance based on a) a theoretical model and b) tests on Laanx and then just to Wipe the entire database. Reset the whole world.
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As you can see if you search in the bug tracker, both the bugs you mentioned have already been fixed. These problems will be gone in the next release.
About the inbalance in economy, there are several thread about that, it is a known problem, and not as easy to solve as just cutting the price of gold. If you want more people in the tavern, go hang out there and have a beer. They only cost virtual money to RP.
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it's good to know those bugs are fixed, thanks.
But I think the economy problems might be as easy to fix as cutting gold and training prices. I mean think about it, what drives us to need 10's of thousands of tria? Training. What is the only way to get 10's of thousands of tria? Gold.
Unless I'm overlooking something that is.
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and then just to Wipe the entire database. Reset the whole world.
I like the way this man thinks. :detective:
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Press the red button, I know you want to!
:D
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I have metallurgy at level 27, and swordmaking at level 12...trust me, the training gets both expensive and extraordianrily tedious at higher levels!
I think, though, that having crafting skills be so expensive and take such a long time to advance is a good thing. It will make players specialize in certain crafts, and keep crafters from overrunning the place later. A good, high level swordsmith should be uncommon, not found on every corner.
I think that there needs to be a way to make crafting rewarding for player as he practices his craft, instead of just making him waste endless hours and tens of thousands of tria without any sort of compensation. A beginning or medium level swordsmith cannot sell their swords...they just don't sell, noone wants to buy them, what with all the cool swrds you can loot.
As for the gold, I do hope to see a more progressive way of obtaining income from refining other metals, such as copper and silver...but right now, for the time and effort, gold is the only reasonable choice.
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Many chars are buying gold for 400 trias each. So where is the problem to earn money in the game? Listen, ouch: You can't win the crown of Yliakum within one day. That's quite normal for RPGs. Stop crying and start working.
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Isn't this really an issue with the fact that PS is still incomplete?
As an example mining gems is almost useless as no-one can cut then and make jewelery because those skills are not implemented yet, the same for bow making and leather working and so on. As more skills are implemented that can create useful (or desirable) items the opportunities to make money from other sources will expand and gold will become less important (think about the cost of cut, polished & set diamonds vs their raw cost to dig up).
Agreed, the economy is not well balanced, but then it is probably fair to say that it will change in future releases once other, more pressing, issues get resolved. As it is, there *is* an economy and whilst it is not perfect it does function. How many perfect economies do you get in RL?
I also agree that training is rather expensive and maybe the cost per level curve needs to be addressed so that the lower levels are reasonably cheap (after all, you are only learning the basics of a skill aren't you?), with mid levels being a bit easier to obtain as well. However the high levels *should* be costly as you are trying to learn the fine mastery of a skill and this can, and should, take a great amount of time and effort which should be reflected in the cost to train. Indeed, after certain levels you sholdn't be able to train any more (you are the best there is), and it is only through practice that you can improve your skills.
This gets onto Baron Samedi's point about rewarding a player for practicing their craft, but only rewarding the skill being used - maybe by having general PP's earned from experience and skill specific PP's that are worth say 5 general ones earned from using the skill (actual formula to be worked out later :) ). That way the fastest way to train a skill (no addressing getting the money to pay for training) is to use it.
There's my 4 tria (2 given to ouch to cover costs :) )
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Set all quests to be repeatable. Wipe the characters back to start stats every MONTH. Manage server like a test server, instead of TRYING to manage it like a finished game. Have the GMs become testing managers, granting ability bonus for testing higher level combinations, such bonuses would only last a month. The pace of life and events for true players does not have to change. Only the hardcores that love PS and roleplay will stay, development will increase in pace and efficiency, troublemakers will get bored and leave, exploiters will not be able to benefit very long. And that is the crux, characters that benefited from bugs in the past are still carrying those bonuses. Perhaps we could make an exception on books and maps, though. Yes: I have four or five high level characters that I have spent a couple of years working with. WIPE I say, and wipe OFTEN! [laughs maniacally and disappears in a puff of sulfurous smoke]
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Many chars are buying gold for 400 trias each. So where is the problem to earn money in the game? Listen, ouch: You can't win the crown of Yliakum within one day. That's quite normal for RPGs. Stop crying and start working.
That's the point. There is no way to earn money crafting (until you reach mega levels), and looting and digging gold are the best, and realistically, only way to do it.
I think that's fine for now, but for crafting it kind of sux, that's all.
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Okay, first off I am playing this game only for a couple of month and not years, so I don't have that long of an experience with the game.
Manage server like a test server, instead of TRYING to manage it like a finished game. Have the GMs become testing managers, granting ability bonus for testing higher level combinations, such bonuses would only last a month.
Simply: no. Not because I am afraid of the wipe. It's not like PS will be a complete game within 2 years only because of such intense testing. There also is lots of development to be done. I would guess it is important for most people involved, that you can actually play this game somewhat in the many years it is still in development. I also don't think that it would be to the point to grant higher level abilieties only through a GM. This would need a lot more coordination with all the testing players. I guess it IS done with the (real) testers, but to watch a game evolve and to watch chars evolve for a longer time helps the development.
I am not against wipes at all, but I am against scheduled wipes every month. A wipe is only needed when there are serious changes and many things can be planned without an trial and error method every month..
@economy:
In another game I made lots of tables and calculations for the whole economy of the game. That was about 20 different ressources and another 200 completely different "items". For every item you can make or get you have to find out the amount of "gaming ressources" you need to get them (recursively and with some fixed point calculations and so on) and the "value" this item has.
The other game (it was ritterburgwelt.de) was turn based (so gaming time was not a ressource) and the important "gaming ressource" was space, because there was a fixed limit in space for every player. In PS the "gaming ressource" would be the time spent to get and/or produce the Item (PLUS the time spent for the items needed for this item)
The Value would be mainly Tria. This value is related to the items which need this item or at the far end what this item is "worth" to a player (in order to get more ressource through fighting, mining and so on). For some items you need to set a value (a golden ring can't be used, but should be worth some amount of gaming equivalent) And you might have to iterate the model because there are some loops which have to be approximated until they match.
Of course this would also be a constant change as game mechanics and more items get introduced. Even if the game would be complete the prices need to be changed due to changing amount of items being wanted or produced (I an item isn't bought by anybody, the price should go down)
You can do all this in a spread sheet or build your own program with a database with all the recipes an mechanics. It helps to test some things out, but you can develop most of the economy without testing everything InGame. (Still testing that IS important though)
I guess there is somebody in the development who is doing this right? Of course an InGame guild could also do this task and try to enforce some prices, since big parts of the economy are done through players, but it takes a long time to investigate all the game mechanics without knowledge of the exact rules becaus you have to do a lot of testing vor EVERY skill, item and way to produce or get anything.
If this is done, so it must be clearly evident, that some "interesting" parts of the game just don't make any sense because of the way the economy works at the moment.
Like I said, I don't have years of PS experience and don't know any developer personally. This is just based on my experience with the economy in games.
PS:
If somebody is wondering how "professional" my comments are: I DON'T study business (which doesn't help a lot anyways) and I also don't study economies. My major is computer science and my minor is math, so the methods I use are out of that area and the rest is only logic and gaming experience ;-)
PPS:
Training has to be expensive in order that you can constantly train and get better without reaching the maximum in a couple of weeks..
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I 100% disagree with training having to be expensive to limit the 'maxxing' time of a character. Money should not be a factor in training at all if you do not wish it. The only thing that should limit training should be training stamina. Simply put, you can only learn so much in a day. Run out of physical training stamina and your body starts doing damage to itself (reverse training). Run out of mental training stamina and you simply will not learn any more. Run out of magic training stamina, and you mess up a practice spell and your head explodes. That is both realistic and limiting.
Adding money to the equation should do two things: Give you better resources to train faster and use your training stamina more efficiently. Second is to access special training you could not learn otherwise.
Edit: Also DEATH TO PP! Hate them. Kill them. Not needed. Not wanting. Unroleplayable. Pointless. Unrealistic. What are they anyways?
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well in my opinion haveing to pay for training courses in order to learn something is complete BS anyway. I know plenty of people that do what they do just based on them doing it most of thier life. And they still havn't entered a classroom for training on that task, and they usually know all the tricks that the ones fresh out of a school don't even know.
in short, to me it's like your paying someone to turn your brain on which doesn't even seem right in a magic fantasy setting...
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In some trades learning can happen with practice only, but other fields can be much more complex and even dangerous if not taken on under the guidance of a proper mentor. Not to mention that those things one might learn alone can be mastered much faster and with more proficiency if there is someone there to show us the ropes.
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Faster, yes. Needed? No.
A mentor is never needed, just helps move things along faster.
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yes, one thing to keep in mind is that someone, at some point in time, came up with the skills/techniques to make that craft all by them selfs.
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But the skills and techniques one might develop in their time would constitute the only existing knowledge if not passed on to someone else, who in turn, would have the chance to expand it. Mentors help their students surpass them and that is how a craft, in terms of collective knowledge, evolves. You can learn anything on your own but you won't achieve nearly as much.
Self-training should be available but it should only allow you to reach so many levels.
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Adding money to the equation should do two things: Give you better resources to train faster and use your training stamina more efficiently. Second is to access special training you could not learn otherwise.
That is exactly what I stated. Money= paying a 'mentor' (trainer). One can not learn 'Harnquist's Special Hammer Technique' without a Harnquist, or someone who knows such knowledge. However, with enough practice, one can become a very good smith without ever having met a smith.
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If you don't have a mentor close by you, than you still need a book or something similar. You need some type of knowledge how it was made in the first place. You can't tell me, that you can make a sword without ever seeing anybody doing it and never hearing anything form people who do it. Sure, OOC you KNOW what needs to be done (roughly, but I guess all of us would fail doing it really), but IC you need to gain the knowledge from somewhere. There is a reason why human beeings started out with clubs and didn't know how to make atomic bombs rightaway..
One could implement learning from books, learning from other players etc., but this generic way (just giving a NPC money, whatever they do with that) is okay for now.
There is an issue with posting multiple "complaints" in one thread, but I don't get why nobody picks on the economy and everybody is talking about getting knowledge from the air that we breeze..
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Part of the problem with the economy -is- the cost of training. A large part. In my opinion, it is the main problem.
The high cost of training requires a method of gaining vast sums of money. The method of gaining vast sums of money devaluates or inflates the price of everything else.
Gold is not the root of the issue. It is the need to mine gold to support your training. No other method can compare. The need for vast sums of money for each level of higher training means there is an incredible (insane) amount of money in the system at a time. That amount of money can be gained whether you are training or not. Remove or reduce the price of gold (or other 'cash' crops such as looting certain NPCs), and you undercut training rate by forcing players to go slower methods or grind longer. You also make lower level crafting virtually worthless, as money will be horded to feed to NPCs for training. Bad, bad, and bad!
Now, on the other hand, if you reduce or eliminate the cost of lower training, and level out the medium and high instead of charging at an exponential rate, you no longer need the 'cash' crops. Ore and raw materials then go into the crafting system at lower costs, making items more affordable for all levels of players. Lower forms of money making then become a viable source of income.
In conclusion, training IS the main problem with the economy. It is the only main form of money consumption, and all it does is suck that money out of the economy.
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I agree with you utm to a point but training has been reduced in price this still has not helped much what needs to happen is anything that can be made by players should not be sold by or looted from npcs prices will work out in the long run by supply and demand the lower crafters could make money and use that for training
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Well, no.
The cost of the training has nothing to do with the fact that it is not worth to do crafting and the only thing you can do is mine for gold. Yes, you need money for training and yes, this amount is really high, but what I get out of your posts, is that changing the amount of money needed to train solves the economy issue. This doesn't work. Even if training would cost only a tria per level, everybody would still need tria to buy stuff (or at least something valuable to sell, which is the same economy-wise) and you would still use the fastest method to get something valuable, which would be mining for gold.
If we have a near balanced economy (or at least somewhat near), than adjusting how fast you can level is another issue. A balanced economy would mean: as long as you do something sensible, you get a good amount of money/training material out of it, if you invest some time. Of course there can be differences, but not that some technically important parts don't make sense to do, becaus you don't get any value out of it.
short:
We have two issues:
Balancing economy
and
Adjusting the amount of time to level up in skills and stats
Of course the the amount of time is related to the economy, but it isn't depending on HOW you get the ressources out of a balanced economy (mining, fighting, crafting)
@tadill:
Yes, moving the economy in the hand of the players is an option and then the regulation would be in the hand of some thinking merchants. Parts of the economy are still fixed in NPCs and can't be changed by players.
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No, you find that I am right. Remove the high cost of training and you can remove all of the easy money, leaving crafting and jobs as the main sources of income, and mining become just another job that needs to be done instead of the main source of income for half the playerbase.
Training is the main consumer of money. That makes it the base of the economy. Everything else branches off that need for vast sums of money.
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Ah now I understand what you are trying to say (even if I don't understand that logic..):
In your opinion the efficient gold mining was exactly added because of the high cost of training and is needed because of that.
Well still, what I am trying to say: There is NO reason why it has to be a SINGLE source of income that is connected to the cost of training. You can balance the economy on whatever level you wan't to. You can get more money in other skills or less money in gold mining. If you decide, that there is a huge income needed because of the training, then you raise the income for other skills. If you decide the other way around.. do it the other way. Balancing the economy has nothing to do with the level where you do that. If the economy is balanced you can just multiply everything by whatever number you want to, in order to Adjust the amount of time you need to gain ressource for a certain amount of training. (Or change the training cost, which is äquivalent)
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I have to say that there are many people who just like to accumulate wealth. Not every person mining is training their stuff. Some are padding their guilds accounts to pay for a guild house others saving just in case something really cool comes along that costs a bundle.
If you want to alter the training costs you could always build up a set of "quests" from the trainers thay=t can be performed in lieu of cash payments. Blacksmith training could be bought, for example, by level specific tasks starting with x number of molten ingots in the beginning and later stocks and then stocks of specific quality or material, whatever it is that the player gets practice from. Mining could require specific types and amounts of ore. Fighter skills could require specific types of level dependent loot. Magic is a little more problematic but something could be developed to allow its inclusion.
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I still stand by my suggestion from before, implement a training system where paying a trainer is not 'necessary' but only boosts your skill gain. Training at higher levels will obviously go extremely slow without hiring a teacher to help train you but it is still optional to pay for skills to be increased and not necessary for the low level characters at all.
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My one concern about self-training is that, realistically, some disciplines don't leave much room for empirical trial and error. How many patients would you fail to heal in order to learn how to use a spell or concoct the right potion, maybe even causing their death? Not to mention there may be flaws in your fighting style simply because you didn't know any better. You might find out the flaw was there when your opponent strikes you down or cuts off a limb. The cost of self-training can be much higher. Now, self-training is less risky in many other disciplines but some would not only be slower to learn without a mentor but straight up dangerous too.
And, steering back to the economy thing, yes, training is the most important factor when determining the price of things. A "valuable" asset like a guild house, for instance, has to be above a good couple of million trias because that is what constitutes a lot of money right now. Not hundreds of thousands, millions. And that is due to the cost of training since in order to max a skill you need to acquire a few hundred thousand trias. However, I don't think it's as easy as lowering "tuition" or making it easier to make money, but reevaluating the skill system: the balance between practice and theory, the worth of every single progression point, the time needed to gather experience and the different alternatives to do so, etc. Item prices and how characters acquire money are the tip of the iceberg.
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Dajoji: About your fist point, I completely agree. Self training should be slow as well as dangerous to the untrained. Casting spells you just within your limits would have a higher chance of failure. Trying out moves you have just learned can lead to mistakes and even self injury.
I support that 100%, and would find that method of training very appealing. Paying a trainer... I hate it, and do not do it. The way it is done is not even realistic to what it is supposed to be representing. Are we -really- getting trained by the NPCs? No! Not at all. You give them money and they say "Ya, this is how you do it. Now go figure it out on your own." What you are getting is payed for SELF training. If an NPC follows me to the arena or the forge, and points out what I am doing wrong and makes suggestions, then and ONLY then are they worth paying a damn for.
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Are we -really- getting trained by the NPCs? No! Not at all. You give them money and they say "Ya, this is how you do it. Now go figure it out on your own." What you are getting is payed for SELF training. If an NPC follows me to the arena or the forge, and points out what I am doing wrong and makes suggestions, then and ONLY then are they worth paying a damn for.
Common, only because there are missing animations and no video explaining that you are sitting in a room while the NPC explains something to you, you are saying they do nothing for the money? Yes, you don't see anything, but you have to have a little imagination here.
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From UtM:
I 100% disagree with training having to be expensive to limit the 'maxxing' time of a character. Money should not be a factor in training at all if you do not wish it. The only thing that should limit training should be training stamina. Simply put, you can only learn so much in a day. Run out of physical training stamina and your body starts doing damage to itself (reverse training). Run out of mental training stamina and you simply will not learn any more. Run out of magic training stamina, and you mess up a practice spell and your head explodes. That is both realistic and limiting.
Adding money to the equation should do two things: Give you better resources to train faster and use your training stamina more efficiently. Second is to access special training you could not learn otherwise.
Edit: Also DEATH TO PP! Hate them. Kill them. Not needed. Not wanting. Unroleplayable. Pointless. Unrealistic. What are they anyways?
This touches nicely on several of the issues, and UtM brilliantly clarifies it more later as well.
My initial instinct was to simply say that money isn't the only way to limit leveling and in fact creates more issues when it is. I had considered simply making leveling take that much longer in general, more practice from theoretical to practical to obtain levels, etc. The idea of training stamina is brilliant however. It is both realistic and automatically provides limits on how quickly one can level. Training with a trainer should mean you spend time practicing your skill WITH the trainer, not him telling you stuff and then you going to apply it on your own which is (as UtM pointed out) still a type of self training.
And of course I can't do anything but agree wholeheartedly with the Death to Progression Points comment. I don't know what someone was smoking at the time they were conceived but its completely unrealistic in any sense. I should be able to train my axe skills without killing 9000000000 rats first, and in fact, killing 9000000000 rats should do nothing other than give me some sort of arm strain hindering my mining and rat killing ability. It should also have a devastating effect on the rats mental state causing them (hopefully) to question whether respawning is really worth it. In any case the two are unrelated so killing rats shouldn't be useful as a means of learning other skills. At most it should be a minor source of income and a chance to practice low level skills involving killing and skinning.
The final system should be simpler than the PP,Trainer,Theoretical,Practical debacle. Use an ability and your skill improves albeit slowly. Go spend an hour with a trainer practicing and your skill goes up more quickly. You might also use a trainer to gain the knowledge or skill of certain techniques (this is realistic as well, I'm certain I could play guitar my whole life and not know some tricks some other guitar players know simply because they never occur to me).
Common, only because there are missing animations and no video explaining that you are sitting in a room while the NPC explains something to you, you are saying they do nothing for the money? Yes, you don't see anything, but you have to have a little imagination here.
I think the fact that the training NPC's give you is called "theoretical" is indicative that it has nothing tangible and is only "here's how you do it". It also takes only moments depending on how fast you can click a mouse to spend your OOC PP's.
Yes real trainers ALWAYS ask if you have enough progression points from ray slaying to spend on training. Who cares if they are actually nothing at all? He WANTS them </sarcasm>
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I think the training and prgoression points are fine....Great, in fact. It SHOULD be harder and more expensive to train as you advance in level. It SHOULD take longer and be more expensive to go from level 20 to 25 as it does to go from level 1 to 5.
What are you all bitching about? You can't advance fast enough? I don't get it...
The only change I would like to see is the potential for a player to train another, in some form or fashion. Try training yourself in karate or boxing for a year, and then challenge someone who has had a trainer for a year, and see how that works out for you. Just because you can change a light bulb or power outlet in your home doesn't mean you can train yourself to install a breaker panel in a new building.
Without a trainer to teach you how to do things and HOW NOT to do things, you will never reach any level of proficiency. You an get a gym membership and train your body on your own, but the results will be far less than if you have a trainer there to teach you technique, what exercise program and diet to practice.....in fact, you may very well injure yourself through poor form or technique.
As far as upper levels being expensive, it SHOULD be expensive! Anyone who has gone to college or put kids through college can tell you how expensive things can be....training in skills is the Planeshift equivalent of higher education. Why would a master swordsmith waste his time training eveyone in Hydlaa without compensation?
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The problem being that in world where a commoner's salary does not go far above 250 trias a month, having trainers making millions and players spending them every day is not right. The system needs to be reevaluated as a whole. Yes, training should not be easy and it should not happen over-night but that does not mean the current system is perfect neither that there can be other ways to make it happen in a more realistic way.
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I think the training and prgoression points are fine....Great, in fact. It SHOULD be harder and more expensive to train as you advance in level. It SHOULD take longer and be more expensive to go from level 20 to 25 as it does to go from level 1 to 5.
What are you all bitching about? You can't advance fast enough? I don't get it...
That is not it at all, and your assertion that we're upset because we can't advance fast enough suggests that you didn't read what I wrote at least, nor what others wrote. I could be wrong and you just misconstrued what was said but I doubt it. In any case no I don't think we should be able to level faster. In fact I think you can still level too fast. The complaint here, or at least what the discussion has evolved into is wholeheartedly different. The problem is that making it so that training ALWAYS requires money and eventually LOTS of it forces the entire base of the economy to revolve around that. This is a problem and forces people to spend lots of time making money if they want to advance their character using the game mechanics.
The problem with Progression Points is that they are really nothing. They are used as a form of currency to spend on training in conjunction with trias (wtf?) and are gained by killing things. Sure you get a few mining but not enough to do anything worthwhile. This forces progression at the moment to revolve around killing creatures for PP's then using that to train mining and then using that money to train other things again in turn. If you want to be a simple miner you should be able to increase your skills in mining without spending time scrounging for progression points by killing things.
To requote in order to respond to a more specific portion:
reat, in fact. It SHOULD be harder and more expensive to train as you advance in level.
This I agree with to a degree. As you get higher in level then paying for training should get more expensive and training in general more difficult. In fact I think its too fast as it is. What I'm saying is that 1.) You shouldn't HAVE to pay using PP's and Trias to advance a skill. Practicing it should do the same thing just much slower than if you paid someone to help you train. 2.) You don't need progression points to limit the speed with which people level. UtM already outlined how it could be done with training stamina which is a great idea and completely realistic. PlaneShift has goals of making things as In Character as possible so trainers refusing to train you because you haven't got enough OOC Progression Points is lame and stupid and completely OOC and thus flies in the face of their own goals. The system should (and likely will) go away. This is a good thing. There are few if any positive arguments in defense of PP's. Perhaps there are some but I have never heard them.
Without a trainer to teach you how to do things and HOW NOT to do things, you will never reach any level of proficiency. You an get a gym membership and train your body on your own, but the results will be far less than if you have a trainer there to teach you technique, what exercise program and diet to practice.....in fact, you may very well injure yourself through poor form or technique.
You can definitely reach a level of proficiency. Your progress will be slower true, and carry more risk (injury in your example) but it doesn't mean you can't do it. I trained up to do a competitive marathon and did well, and I did so without any trainer or gym membership. This is not an easy task if you have ever tried it. Throughout the years there have been many upon many upon many master craftsman who have learned their trade on their own. Near where I live is an older gentleman who makes hand made marbles. He is well known now and has been featured in many magazines. He is also completely self taught. The notion that training is required to reach proficiency is rubbish. You might go slower but the real key to success in anything is persistence and a will/desire to accomplish something.
As far as upper levels being expensive, it SHOULD be expensive! Anyone who has gone to college or put kids through college can tell you how expensive things can be....training in skills is the Planeshift equivalent of higher education. Why would a master swordsmith waste his time training eveyone in Hydlaa without compensation?
I still don't see where in any of mine or UtM's comments where any suggestion is made that trainers train people for free! I won't argue that high level trainers can and should charge well for their services. Nor have I made such an argument in the past, so I don't know who you are arguing with. Trainers charging for their service is common sense.
If I'm reading into your comments incorrectly and you were not responding to anything I said then I apologize for overreacting. It just seemed so strange because the arguments made were against stuff no one was suggesting or at least that I and UtM weren't suggesting.
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Well, it seemed to me that the overall suggestions were headed toward not needing trainers if you simply perform a task for long enough.
I agree wholeheartedly that a "miner" should be able to advance in mining skill by mining, and not by killing, and that there is a tremendous imbalance toward killing and it's rewards versus working or crafting for it.
As a character, I have spent a lot of time killing just to gather the PP's necessary to advance, and a lot of time digging gold to pay for it. I am currently level 27 metallurgy, level 11 mining, and level 12 swordsmith, and believe me, it's expensive to advance!
On top of all that, I have to spend an hour or so at the anvil just hammering to advance in swordmaking. I have no problem with that, however, or the cost of advancing.
I guess my thinking was more along the lines of making sure that good craftsmen should be fairly uncommon, and the only way to do that is to make it expensive and require a lot of time and practice.
I think that, if and when the economy develops, a craftsman will have other sources of income besides wanton slaughter, and a miner should be able to mine and develop without needing to go on a killing spree. I hope so.
I also think that to maintain the economy without runaway inflation, you need to have a means of desposing of money from the game regularly, since it is generated regularly,and training with NPC's serves that purpose.
I think the PP system is a pretty good one, and have no objection to it. My only objection is that I would like to see how many PP's and how much money will be required to advance a level before I start "clicking". :)
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I think the PP system is a pretty good one, and have no objection to it.
What is good or realistic about it?
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One of the premises is that anyone can learn multiple trades but also be a master at them all. Whatever training system is used, a character should be able to train and max only so many skills. It makes little sense to have a master miner/warrior/healer/mage/craftsman all in one. The number of skills one can master should be determined in character creation. There should be few masters around and spending tons of money and in-game time camping mobs or entering the same command over and over don't have to be the only factor in their scarcity. The character's vocation should be by far more important and it should be possible for them to get both experience and money by following the path they chose.
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One of the premises is that anyone can learn multiple trades but also be a master at them all.
That is another problem with the current skill system in PS. The easiest and most realistic way to counter this imo is a skill depreciation system. We recognized this could be an issue for our game and thus outlined an explanation here:
http://wiki.peragro.org/index.php/Skills#Skill_Depreciation (http://wiki.peragro.org/index.php/Skills#Skill_Depreciation)
Its pretty simple to pull off in a pretty fair manner, people will still be able to maintain high levels in multiple things but maintaining it in too many things would simply be too much time and effort on a constant basis. The implementation link near the bottom also includes some example code implementation of such a system.
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Good idea. I like it! \\o//
I may differ on the game time required to lose ability, but that's about it.
As an aside, I think a small adjustment to swordmaking should be made...I think a player shoould get a lot of XP when the sword kit is combined to actually make a sword, rather than just hammering away at the anvil for a little each time. It would be more fun, and require more mining, and create more swords for other players to use...maybe even encourage a market for iron and coal.
Such a system would almost eliminate the need to buy weapons from NPC's.
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I guess my thinking was more along the lines of making sure that good craftsmen should be fairly uncommon, and the only way to do that is to make it expensive and require a lot of time and practice.
Perhaps a more interesting approach would be to make the crafting system very complicated and based on many forms of equipment or resources, the latter which spawn in different areas regularly. Excellent craftsmen are therefor required to obtain the highest quality tools and be supplied with the highest quality resources. I find that a lot more interesting than excellent craftsmen requiring to grind endlessly ... which also means only people with loads of free time can be good.
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I think we should just abolish training, tria, and anything else that people don't like.
Who's up for a crystal hunt? :detective:
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Who's up for a crystal hunt? :detective:
Gems and emeralds sell for practically nothing... Diamonds are not bad though at 80 tria.
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Sounds good. I miss my crystal routes :(
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The easiest and most realistic way to counter this imo is a skill depreciation system.
[...]
http://wiki.peragro.org/index.php/Skills#Skill_Depreciation (http://wiki.peragro.org/index.php/Skills#Skill_Depreciation)
Well. This is realistic, but it will be VERY frusttrating for Players. Why should I play a game if it's as frustrating as real life. You spent many hours training a skill and only because you are doing some questing for days or just something different you loose these points again. The 4 hours in the example are WAY to low of a limit for that (but this is not important, because the 4 hours refer to a completely different game..)
Anyways, this could be implemented, but like I said: You should be very careful on the limits. Combined with a mechanism that lets you train very fast until you are at the former point this can be interesting.
But I think another thing would be more important: There are skills that need more practicing and ones that don't. That's fine. but the practical part of all of the skill should be raised a lot, because that is the only thing that has to do with the actual skill at the moment. Spending a day to get money and PP and then getting the practical part for a certain skill over in 10 minutes doesn't seem right. The repair skill is actually the only skill I had to do a lot and a longt time of practising to gain a level. For the other skills the practicing itself wasn't a big deal.
Thinking about PP:
What they do is that: everytime you do something you get XP, like in many other RPGs. The PP are a way to actually use this PP, because (unlike in other games) you don't gain stats just through an overall level or amount of overall XP. If we get rid of PP, then we don't need overall XP points either and everything where you gain XP you should gain a very special mixture of skill-XP or similar.
Think about getting 1 k XP in a quest, which must be changed to gaining some Intelligence or Will. In other situations you would have to think a lot about what kind of XP it is you actually get. Is it purely swordskill-XP you gain if you kill a big monster with a sword? Do you get more Will, if you see your first assembled sword?
So this is why I think the PP are there at the moment.
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Perhaps, but it still feels like a stopgap measure to me.
Well. This is realistic, but it will be VERY frusttrating for Players. Why should I play a game if it's as frustrating as real life. You spent many hours training a skill and only because you are doing some questing for days or just something different you loose these points again. The 4 hours in the example are WAY to low of a limit for that (but this is not important, because the 4 hours refer to a completely different game..)
Well thats why its just an example. Obviously values need to be tried and tested, feedback listened too and balance adjusted accordingly. I'd personally set it a bit higher myself, let it take a long time to kick in but then drain a little faster.
Anyways, this could be implemented, but like I said: You should be very careful on the limits. Combined with a mechanism that lets you train very fast until you are at the former point this can be interesting.
Definitely I agree that the limits need to be carefully tuned. Its something that I think is a good measure to implement however getting it right will be hard. That said I think the effort is worth it.
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I did a lot of reading today and I found two links that are somewhat interesting for this discussion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultima_Online_game_mechanics
UO has a overall skill limit to avoid players doing too many different skills in high profession. You can also lower some skills in order to be able to gain points in others.
http://www.mine-control.com/zack/uoecon/uoecon.html
This is a paper on the economy of UO about a year after it started.
Interesting is that UO had several mechanisms that restricted selling and buying items to and from NPCs and at some time a "closed system" where ressources only spawn, when others get drawn out of the system.
This is not intended to be a general advice to switch to an old UO model, but to consider different possibilities in order to find a solution suitable for PS.
That last economy link is not that much about balancing economy over the different skills (which needs to be done in PS), but more about inflation and deflation overall.
I don't expect everybody reading this topic to read all of that and more. I just give some links for interested readers.
PS:
Yes, both is about Ultima Online. This is only because it really is a very big and long term project that has seen lots of research and was one of the first really big games. I guess most of the guys developing PS know a lot of that, but maybe some of the readers don't have things in the back of their head at the moment.