Exponential! I typed \'exponential\', I know it.
And I was a math major, too
/me hangs his head in shame...
As for the skill decline idea:
I don\'t think it would be so hard, at least from a player perspective.
* Skills would not decline immediately upon your ceasing to use them, but only after they had not been used for some time (1 week? 2 weeks?)
* The decrease would initially be slight, but would accelerate over time. Perhaps the rate would double after 1 month, then double again after 6 months
* There would be a minimum level, beyond which the skill level would not fall. Perhaps the average of you base skill level and your highest skill level attained
I honestly have no idea how hard this would be to implement from a programming perspective. It seems to me that it should be fairly easy, but I am not a programmer, nor do I play one on TV.
The idea is not to keep people training so that they don\'t lose stats; the idea is to make the system such that one person cannot train every stat there is. Under the current system, I can train to the max level in swords, then change to axe, then all six magic ways, then all of my physical stats, etc. etc. There is nothing stopping me from becoming Superman if I want to take the time and money. This is nowhere near being realistic.
The point behind skill decline is to ensure that one person cannot train to a high level in an unlimited number of skills. Everyone would need to pick a certain skill set that they want to focus on, and concentrate on improving those skills, at the expense of others. If you want to be the most powerful magician in the world, then you aren\'t going to have too much time to spend bulking up and practicing swordplay. In theory (my theory anyway), this will result in less time training, because you will have a narrower set of skills to train in.