Yeah, transing a skill is just way more time consuming than it should be. I've always wanted it so we could learn a lot more at a time.
One thing I've seen in at least another game is that you can't learn from a skillset until you have enough lessons for the next ability, and if you do it automatically takes all those lessons in one go. So you always feel like you've accomplished something in one sitting. Of course, the tutor would need to have a way to tell you how many more lessons you need until the next skill.
This even opens up the ability to have more customized learning messages for each new ability learned, though you don't have to.
But yeah, even bumping up the lessons learned per session would be a great, simple solution.
Please do keep the guild tutor though. I think they're pretty important to guild RP now.
+1 for letting people learn more than 15 lessons at a time. Beyond it being boring for us old timers transing skills, its really off-putting to newbies that want to get out there and actually -play- the game, when they have to spend all that time learning skills. Sure some newbies like interaction then, but a lot just want to explore/do their own thing and circle around to player interaction later.
If you wanted to encourage RP, I could see something like allowing the tutee to specify any number of lessons they want to learn from the other player, then every few seconds have a handful of lessons move into the skill with an unobtrusive message like "As you discuss [skill] with [tutor], you feel your understanding grow." until the lessons learned hits the total they specified. This way, the two players are able to RP the learning process freely, and as they go through their RP the learner will find their skill increasing over time automatically.
Doesn't make it any shorter though? Sounds like it makes the process longer?
That's why I said it would be okay keep the tutor NPCs in for those people who just want to get it done; they can still get the flavor messages, and can learn more rapidly through some of the other changes suggested in the thread.
However, for learning from other players, the current system and all of its proposed derivatives actively inhibit RP. This defeats the main reason to seek out another player to do the learning, which is something I think that my suggestion fixes. As for making it longer, that would depend entirely on how fast the lessons siphoned over, and if the goal of learning from other players over NPCs becomes trying to foster RP opportunities, then having some length wouldn't be all bad.
We've actually discussed doing something like Aetolia (whereby you could see how many lessons to the next skill) but it would require rewriting every skillset display as well as a lot of under-the-hood code. It'd be a massive project and I've never thought it would be worth the amount of work it would require (but maybe I'm wrong?). I think it may be easier to show all the skills, though if we would want to indicate which skills you don't know yet rather than just give a list is another large project requiring tweaking every skillset. Would it really be worth the amount of effort that would require? Could we just provide an mxp link to the wiki where the skill is? Hrm.....
I can't find my suggestion, but how about also adding in a way to ask a denizen how many lessons to a certain skill?
ASK MELERIS PLANAR TELEPORT Meleris tells you, "You require 89 lessons more to learn that skill!"
ASK JEZEBEL GEOMANCY FIREBALL Jezebel tells you, "There isn't a skill in Geomancy called that!"
Everiine said: The reason population is low isn't because there are too many orgs. It's because so many facets of the game are outright broken and protected by those who benefit from it being that way. An overabundance of gimmicks (including game-breaking ones), artifacts that destroy any concept of balance, blatant pay-to-win features, and an obsession with convenience that makes few things actually worthwhile all contribute to the game's sad decline.
We've actually discussed doing something like Aetolia (whereby you could see how many lessons to the next skill) but it would require rewriting every skillset display as well as a lot of under-the-hood code. It'd be a massive project and I've never thought it would be worth the amount of work it would require (but maybe I'm wrong?). I think it may be easier to show all the skills, though if we would want to indicate which skills you don't know yet rather than just give a list is another large project requiring tweaking every skillset. Would it really be worth the amount of effort that would require? Could we just provide an mxp link to the wiki where the skill is? Hrm.....
Would it be possible to make it to where if you have a truefavour, the skills you've gained due to the TF are shown in a different colour?
Everiine said: The reason population is low isn't because there are too many orgs. It's because so many facets of the game are outright broken and protected by those who benefit from it being that way. An overabundance of gimmicks (including game-breaking ones), artifacts that destroy any concept of balance, blatant pay-to-win features, and an obsession with convenience that makes few things actually worthwhile all contribute to the game's sad decline.
Information in-game is preferable to information out-of-game where possible.
It wouldn't be possible to just have a flag on AB *SKILLNAME* that checks to see whether or not you can actually use the skill yet, and if not, makes it a different colour? Just like right now if you try to use a skill higher up in the skillset it says "I don't know what you mean" since you do not have access to it.
As far as this goes I do think simpler is better. Learning more lessons at a time is the absolute best solution. Giving a little more information to the newbies in-game would be great, but putting a lot of resources into it might not be the best use of time (since I do think there are more important things to look at).
Would it really be worth the amount of effort that would require? Could we just provide an mxp link to the wiki where the skill is? Hrm.....
At least personally, I despise MXP and keep it disabled on general principle. I know at least a good portion of the other people I've asked about it feel the same way, and still others use clients that do not support it. In this case, I'm not convinced that something on an optional subprotocol is sufficient (especially since there are places where the wiki still remains out of date).
Information in-game is preferable to information out-of-game where possible.
It wouldn't be possible to just have a flag on AB *SKILLNAME* that checks to see whether or not you can actually use the skill yet, and if not, makes it a different colour? Just like right now if you try to use a skill higher up in the skillset it says "I don't know what you mean" since you do not have access to it.
As far as this goes I do think simpler is better. Learning more lessons at a time is the absolute best solution. Giving a little more information to the newbies in-game would be great, but putting a lot of resources into it might not be the best use of time (since I do think there are more important things to look at).
Of course, it's possible, but it would require rewriting every skillset AB list in the code, which is hundreds and hundreds of lines.
Huh... wait... why aren't skills in a DB that can get queried every time you check AB <skill name>? That sounds a much easier way to go about it... and can probably stick everything regarding skills in there. I kind of think it should've been done that way from the get-go.
The one thing that really irritates me is when you have a favour and ask a teacher NPC about a skill... and they go... "But you has a favour!" Pretty sure the exact amount that is increased by the favour is already known by the code, so why not take that into account rather than them being derpy that way?
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
Yeah, I always assumed it was database driven. If it isn't, then it should probably be moved to that even if you disagree on the issue of visibility... Though you feel any individual one of the changes you mentioned doesn't justify the effort to completely redesign it, it sounds like there are a lot of little changes which are all made impossible because the AB lists are currently hard coded. Once you separate model and view (which is good design anyway), then you'll be able to very easily make any changes to the view that you want in the future.
It's not in its own db because we followed some legacy code when we were first founded. That's what I've been trying to say! Anything we need to do would require rewriting the entire under-the-hood system, which is not a small project.
Yes, I agree that it would be preferable to use a db system, but the question is whether or not we should derail other projects (including IRE-mandated projects) to focus on such a project. So far, I think no, not at this time.
It's not in its own db because we followed some legacy code when we were first founded. That's what I've been trying to say! Anything we need to do would require rewriting the entire under-the-hood system, which is not a small project.
Yes, I agree that it would be preferable to use a db system, but the question is whether or not we should derail other projects (including IRE-mandated projects) to focus on such a project. So far, I think no, not at this time.
The longer the rework is put off, the longer the project will take when it is started. Each new skillset adds to the amount of skills that will need to be redone and moved to the database. I'd say better slow down other stuff (Yes, I know @Celina will hate me for this) but take care of this now rather than a year or two down the road when you'll have double the amount of work to do.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
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Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
Wait, out of curiosity... I suspect other IREs have already moved to a DB-driven system, or done a very good job faking it. Is there any chance your AB code and theirs is still similar enough that you could take one of their solutions and patch it for Lusternia?
Really, I would *love* to see more sharing across IREs for things like this in general. I know both Imperian and Lusternia had to do complete re-writes of the way messages were stored and accessed a few years back, and they ended up both coding similar systems rather than sharing the same solution.
Wait, out of curiosity... I suspect other IREs have already moved to a DB-driven system, or done a very good job faking it. Is there any chance your AB code and theirs is still similar enough that you could take one of their solutions and patch it for Lusternia?
Really, I would *love* to see more sharing across IREs for things like this in general. I know both Imperian and Lusternia had to do complete re-writes of the way messages were stored and accessed a few years back, and they ended up both coding similar systems rather than sharing the same solution.
Considering I have yet to see another IRE that has the lesson pools thing, never mind the skillchoice select thing.... I doubt it'll work. Probably be even more work to take something from them and try to alter it to work for Lusty.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
It's not in its own db because we followed some legacy code when we were first founded. That's what I've been trying to say! Anything we need to do would require rewriting the entire under-the-hood system, which is not a small project.
Yes, I agree that it would be preferable to use a db system, but the question is whether or not we should derail other projects (including IRE-mandated projects) to focus on such a project. So far, I think no, not at this time.
The longer the rework is put off, the longer the project will take when it is started. Each new skillset adds to the amount of skills that will need to be redone and moved to the database. I'd say better slow down other stuff (Yes, I know @Celina will hate me for this) but take care of this now rather than a year or two down the road when you'll have double the amount of work to do.
I really doubt we'll have doubled the number of skillsets in the game in the next year (or five).
It's not in its own db because we followed some legacy code when we were first founded. That's what I've been trying to say! Anything we need to do would require rewriting the entire under-the-hood system, which is not a small project.
Yes, I agree that it would be preferable to use a db system, but the question is whether or not we should derail other projects (including IRE-mandated projects) to focus on such a project. So far, I think no, not at this time.
The longer the rework is put off, the longer the project will take when it is started. Each new skillset adds to the amount of skills that will need to be redone and moved to the database. I'd say better slow down other stuff (Yes, I know @Celina will hate me for this) but take care of this now rather than a year or two down the road when you'll have double the amount of work to do.
I really doubt we'll have doubled the number of skillsets in the game in the next year (or five).
You'd still have added new skillsets to the mix. Whether it's 10% more or 100% more... it's still extra work that could have been avoided by looking into redoing the system now rather than later. That's usually the conversation I have with my boss every time we discuss redoing the coding on our website... and we say we need 2 months of no patches/new crap/etc to be able to make it happen. And things just keep getting messier and more complicated to work on every time it's put off.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
Sure - though I'm not convinced the threat of having to do one or even five more skillsets in the conversion is really worth putting everything on hold to do the conversions (especially all the stuff IRE has mandated needing done).
Eventually we will run into an affliction type situation where there will be a ban on new skillsets. Might get around it some with new specializations or reworking old sets but we will reach a critical mass at some point.
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Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
Of course, we've spent over a year trying to move our afflictions to a db system and still aren't finished with that project! And, yeah, I think afflictions are more of a priority in the long run, though it'd be even less noticeable to players. (It always sucks doing necessary under-the-hood things that will never be appreciated and aren't really announce worthy.) But I'm the one that has to make the priority decisions and while I understand why people may think this or that should take precedence, someone has to make the call and stick to it...
Comments
"But paradise is locked and bolted...
We must make a journey around the world
to see if a back door has perhaps been left open."
-Heinrich Von Kleist, "On the Puppet Theater"
That's why I said it would be okay keep the tutor NPCs in for those people who just want to get it done; they can still get the flavor messages, and can learn more rapidly through some of the other changes suggested in the thread.
However, for learning from other players, the current system and all of its proposed derivatives actively inhibit RP. This defeats the main reason to seek out another player to do the learning, which is something I think that my suggestion fixes. As for making it longer, that would depend entirely on how fast the lessons siphoned over, and if the goal of learning from other players over NPCs becomes trying to foster RP opportunities, then having some length wouldn't be all bad.
ASK MELERIS PLANAR TELEPORT
Meleris tells you, "You require 89 lessons more to learn that skill!"
ASK JEZEBEL GEOMANCY FIREBALL
Jezebel tells you, "There isn't a skill in Geomancy called that!"
It wouldn't be possible to just have a flag on AB *SKILLNAME* that checks to see whether or not you can actually use the skill yet, and if not, makes it a different colour? Just like right now if you try to use a skill higher up in the skillset it says "I don't know what you mean" since you do not have access to it.
As far as this goes I do think simpler is better. Learning more lessons at a time is the absolute best solution. Giving a little more information to the newbies in-game would be great, but putting a lot of resources into it might not be the best use of time (since I do think there are more important things to look at).
HELP <skillname> SKILLS [ability] for a syntax.
HELP PLANAR SKILLS shows the full skills list for Planar.
HELP PLANAR SKILLS TELEPORT shows the AB file for teleport.
The one thing that really irritates me is when you have a favour and ask a teacher NPC about a skill... and they go... "But you has a favour!" Pretty sure the exact amount that is increased by the favour is already known by the code, so why not take that into account rather than them being derpy that way?
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
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Yes, I agree that it would be preferable to use a db system, but the question is whether or not we should derail other projects (including IRE-mandated projects) to focus on such a project. So far, I think no, not at this time.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
Really, I would *love* to see more sharing across IREs for things like this in general. I know both Imperian and Lusternia had to do complete re-writes of the way messages were stored and accessed a few years back, and they ended up both coding similar systems rather than sharing the same solution.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
I really doubt we'll have doubled the number of skillsets in the game in the next year (or five).
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.