Naturally Gifted Characters

[Melbourne]

So from what I got, you either learn a certain skill faster or a boost to a certain skill.  I\'m not sure I like that.  Like what Elkindel, Levski, and Setrya said, I like to define what my character is.  Even if it was some thing small like boost in learning speed of boost in skill, it would end up influencing me.  It also has the tendency of causing people to create alts.  If I make a mage and start rping a mage then all of a sudden realize I\'m awsome with a battle ax; it would cause me to move away from magic to take advantage of my natural ability to wield an ax.  While it may lead to more rping in which I move away from magic, but then if I go back and realize I was having much more fun rping this great alpowerful wizard then an ax wielding barbarian.  Sure you could rp your way back to magic, but how are you going to do it when you swore off all magic to become this powerful warrior on a quest to eliminate all magic from this world.  I\'m just saying that we make it what we want, It\'s not just about interfereing with our character builds, it has the potential of getting in the way of backgrounds which we decide.

Originally posted by Sifright
See what i mean? thats exactly what im talking about none of you even got that what grono is trying to say i give up this is pathetic to even watch

Now who\'s spamming.

[Entamis]

Yup, Melbourne, that\'s what I was trying to say too.

[Kazorn]

Yeah sure it be realistic but i always thought games was for fun, not realism.

not being able to choose what you want to be good at will cause people recreating their chars until they get something they want.

i think games should be for entertainment and being able to choose skills i think is one of games advantadges over RL.

i don\'t play games just because they\'re close to reality i play em  cause they are fun!

[FlippySeal]

I am quite pleased with what you said. And you are right, it is partly my fault for not reading it properly.

I\'ve been away for the week and am getting back now so i\'m probably late in saying this.

[Typhorean]

Originally posted by Elkindel
 It\'d be annoying if my gift was casting magic when my character has a strong aversion, distrust, and dislike of magic in general.

On the other hand, wouldn\'t it add an element to your character\'s plot to find out he\'s got the spirit of such-n\'-such old enchanter residing in him, causing him to question his beliefs and himself?

When it comes to a game that is primarily role-playing, then you can\'t always have everything the way you planned it.  That\'s half the fun!  Or at least a good third of it.

[Kiva]

Apparently very few of you people who post here actually know what a natural gift is. I wonder if that\'s because you spend so much of your childhood sitting in front of your computers while distributing your hard earned stat points. But because you\'re all so silly and indoor like, I\'ll explain it very carefully, just for you.

1) You don\'t get to chose where the bonus is, it is random.
Otherwise you wouldn\'t be naturally gifted. You would just have extra stat points. Bad idea.

2) There is no malus, there is only bonus.
You get a few bonus % to each job and skill, or if you\'re lucky, you get a big bonus % to few skills or a huge bonus % to one skill.

3) Noone asks you to play what you get as a bonus, it\'s your choice.
If your character happens to have a big bonus on using the bow, noone is forcing you to go that way. If you are skilled with a hammer and you already were planning on becoming an armorer, well lucky you. If your character happens to be very strong, but you like magic very much. Tough luck.

It is, in plain english, a random bonus that the server choses for you, not a bonus that you or your character choices have any affect on. You do not decide if you\'re good at fighting. It is something you train, or it is something you just happen to be good at from the beginning.

This bonus is to give people a choice to go and look for the things they are good at rather than just treadmilling their way through the skill system. Now, if you still don\'t understand the system, don\'t make your own speculations and say them like you know the idea in your head is the right one. Noone has ever died from asking a question on how something works.

[Zeraph]

Ever since I got my first computer everyone says I am naturally gifted with them?

Anyway, as I said before (in a way) by the time your Char gets to be were it is when you start playing (which is after childhood/teen-years) you will have already known for the most part what you are naturally gifted @, & that is the point of the Advantages/Disadvantages part of Char creation & Char background?

(many people do not like randomly picked bonuses because they feel it gives an unfair advantage to some people?)

[Kiva]

Originally posted by Zeraph
Ever since I got my first computer everyone says I am naturally gifted with them?

Anyway, as I said before (in a way) by the time your Char gets to be were it is when you start playing (which is after childhood/teen-years) you will have already known for the most part what you are naturally gifted @, & that is the point of the Advantages/Disadvantages part of Char creation & Char background?

(many people do not like randomly picked bonuses because they feel it gives an unfair advantage to some people?)

Have you ever tried flying an aircraft? Did you ever try taking care of a forest? Build wooden statues? Make ice sculptures? Make a painting? Make horseshoes or an armor for that matter? Did you, did you, did you... Seriously Zeraph, by the time you turn 18, you have seriously no clue what you are, what you can do and what you\'re going to be. The only reason you know today is because you spent 12 years prior to that in school, learning about the things you can be. In a medieval setting, things are diffrent. You take over fathers business when he gets too old to do it, then you support your family, get married, bury your parents, get children, teach them to take over the business, and you die. I\'d love to see you actually be a role in a world where the settings are medieval fantasy. I doubt you\'d last a week, at least with that attitude. Things are not supposed to come because you want, you mean nothing to the world, so the world chews you up, spits you out and leaves you there on the ground to rot. I doubt very much you would even know how to throw a frisbee if you were living the life you want to live, a life in a medieval world. It\'s not as simple as it might seem.

But of course, it\'s just a game...

[Waylander]

Personaly I love the idea, the only problem is that there are those who have their background all worked out.  And they wouldn\'t like this (I would just change my background but, heh)

[Icefalcon]

IMHO, as long as we are gifted in an area, that is fine. You might be gifted in an area that you don\'t want, but you can still do what you want without penalty. I do not want to be randomly penalized. As long as all you get are bonuses, the idea seems fine by me.

[dfryer]

This is definitely most effective as a \"secret\" bonus to the player\'s abilities - someone\'s interests might line up with their natural talents, or they might not.  I think the bonuses should be fairly small, but noticeable - perhaps they would have a few levels of a \"beginner\'s luck\" or initial proficiency in a few random skills, but not an ongoing accumulating bonus (the idea being that your character\'s actions are more important than heritage, which may or may not be true of the real world)

[Seytra]

Originally posted by Gronomist
Apparently very few of you people who post here actually know what a natural gift is. I wonder if that\'s because you spend so much of your childhood sitting in front of your computers while distributing your hard earned stat points. But because you\'re all so silly and indoor like, I\'ll explain it very carefully, just for you.

Surely I classify as this, no? To be clear on this: I absolutely and 100% understood what you were proposing, I just happen to dislike it, for reasons I\'ll explain later on (and have done so already in my previous post).

Originally posted by Gronomist
1) You don\'t get to chose where the bonus is, it is random.
Otherwise you wouldn\'t be naturally gifted. You would just have extra stat points. Bad idea.

I\'ll come to this later on.

Originally posted by Gronomist
2) There is no malus, there is only bonus.
You get a few bonus % to each job and skill, or if you\'re lucky, you get a big bonus % to few skills or a huge bonus % to one skill.

Riiiiiiight! So please explain why the absence of bonus isn\'t the exact same as the presence of malus?
I have difficulty seeing the difference (besides being labelled differently) between \"You get 30 points but as a malus you get -5 points if you don\'t pick XYZ\" and \"You get 25 points but if you pick XYZ you get 5 bonus points\".

Originally posted by Gronomist
3) Noone asks you to play what you get as a bonus, it\'s your choice.
If your character happens to have a big bonus on using the bow, noone is forcing you to go that way. If you are skilled with a hammer and you already were planning on becoming an armorer, well lucky you. If your character happens to be very strong, but you like magic very much. Tough luck.

Exactly what I meant. The system randomly assigns you a path and if you choose not to follow it, you get a malus.

Originally posted by Gronomist
It is, in plain english, a random bonus that the server choses for you, not a bonus that you or your character choices have any affect on. You do not decide if you\'re good at fighting. It is something you train, or it is something you just happen to be good at from the beginning.

This bonus is to give people a choice to go and look for the things they are good at rather than just treadmilling their way through the skill system. Now, if you still don\'t understand the system, don\'t make your own speculations and say them like you know the idea in your head is the right one. Noone has ever died from asking a question on how something works.

What you described is, as I already said, exactly what I understood it was in your original post. I, however, still dislike it, because it effectively is a malus for the ppl. who don\'t follow the randomly assigned path.

Why do I dislike it, since it is more realistic and usually realism is what to go for in any game? Well, because there are things in our world that plainly suck. These are, certainly, realistic, but I still don\'t want them in the games I play because I play these games to be free from what sucks IRL. So, despite all the randomness IRL, I want absolute control in the games.
I therefore think that if you want randomness there should be an option of \"randomize\". Don\'t tell me that \"giftedness\" isn\'t the same as \"extra stat points\" because, in fact, to me it does not even matter what giftedness is being expressed as, because not being gifted in what I choose to do IMO equates to being assigned a malus in that profession (or any profession besides the randomly selected one(s)). This applies to the randomised distribution of the giftedness percentage as well, if not in a greater way because it creates unfairness even within the \"gifted\" ones. It\'s the same as distributing stat / skill points randomly.
After all, why do we get to choose race at all? IRL, we can\'t do that, can we? Nor can we select what our stats are. Or what we look like. Not even the name! Hell, we don\'t even get the same amount of stat points for each \"RL character\" (which is hardly fair, is it?)! So if you argue that way, the system would need to assign a randomly created char to you. Sure, it would be perfectly realistic but not enjoyable (at least to me).

[snow_RAveN]

The system has to be \"realstic\". Lets say your a enki and some how your gifted in swimming or your a Kran and you are gifted in magic  .....  werid eah or at least its unfitting ?

So the gift system should to follow certain rules about the race you choose. So if your a human you get all the unseen choices as their pratcialy good at anything or if your a whatchacallit \"water elves\" ? you would have a higher chance of being gifted in swimming or \"water based magic\" can you imagine a  \"water elf\" being gifted in fire type magic ? And for dwarfs they would have a higer chance of being gifted in smithing or mineing and they should rarely get stamina/speed type bonous

[Schlaxo]

(I only read the first post =P)

Okay, I just think this is damn unfair.
Planeshift is still a game!! I bet everyone (like 60 or 70%? ) would be happy if this proposal would not get implemented.
And it isn\'t unfair that Ronaldo can play better football than
I can, I think he trained a lot to get that good. Ronaldo didn\'t get \"Random Bonus Stat Points\" or w/e it\'s called. -.-

EDIT: All different Races already have Stat Bonus\' I think you can compare that with your naturally gifted stuff.

[Draklar]

Eh, where exactly is the realism everyone talks about?

Usually people go towards skills they find easy to train. If someone is good at maths, he won\'t go into history.

Plus we usually get to know what we are good in from quite early years, not after many years of training.

Being gifted usually shows in stats. Sure you don\'t pick what you are gifted in, but do you normally choose what race you are?

Ok, that was for myth of realism.

Here\'s for the rp part:

ex char history: I quickly noticed that I\'m very good at using bows, thus I spent many years of training to enhance my skills in it.

But the char was gifted in cooking, not archery...

You know what? Scratch that... People only told me I\'m good at it, it turns out I\'m not gifted in archery at all...

I think he trained a lot to get that good. Ronaldo didn\'t get \"Random Bonus Stat Points\" or w/e it\'s called. -.-

ditto
Or simply trained a lot because he was gifted in the first place.

- Swords