Skill Knowledge - Degrade over time if not in use

[Hesara]

I'm all for the second part of your idea (bucketthing), but I have a problem with skills being degraded if they're not used. Not every player in this mud, comes here to constantly kill mobs, but come here to socialize, keep in contact with friends, or do other things that doesn't involve skills or spells.  And now you'll 'reward' those people by lowering their knowledge of a skill because they prefer to focus on other things instead of spamming skills and spells all the time?

[Molly]

Hesara does have a point there, I didn't think of that myself. Trading and Questing are for instance time consuming activities that we promote as an alternative to hack'n'slash.

So maybe it would be better to go for Erwin's idea instead; actively 'forgetting' the skills you don't use. The rest of the concept would still be good.

[Kvetch]

Aww.... they can make a second character to talk.  

The reason I like this idea is because in real life (yeah, I know, this ain't real life) if you don't use a skill constantly, you're going to be worse at it than someone that does.  As you use skills less, you tend to forget certain little things about the skill that made you better at it than someone else.  Just so this "forgetting" process is only during online time and not offline time, I have no problem with it.

Kvetchy

[Mordecai]

So even though, you just need to use the skill to keep it 'active', once a week or so, that would be over the top for some people you think?

It is a hardline measure, but my feeling is that it would increase the activity of some people just a little.
- Move them from afk at recall to go mount a horse, or find a tree to woodsing, or manifest a weapon.
- Have people log in to the game at least once a week to do these things, to maintain their character, and as a side effect, see what is happening on the game and perhaps stay a little longer then they would have normally.

Maybe a longer period, like 2 weeks, before it degrades, and have a smaller percentage loss, like between 1 and 4%.

Even so, I don't think using a skill or spell once per week is 'spamming it all of the time' hehe.
But you do make a good point, what ideas could you offer towards a comprimise in this, towards the goal of:

Flushing out unused skills
Having people use skills they don't use that frequently, to become more familiar with them, and perhaps increase their popularity.

[Mordecai]

The other thing that could happen is, your ability to get better at a skill through use of that skill could be made more frequent.

So if for example your backstab skill was at 1%, and you somehow made a successful backstab, you could suddenly gain like 12% in that skill.
But as your level of skill increased, the % gain would drop, and become far more infrequent.


Also, for skills that involve a victim, if you are the victim of a skill or spell, that you have the ability to learn, then based perhaps on your INT, you could have a chance of increasing your level of knowledge in that skill or spell.

For example, if you where a thief and you had 1% in backstab, and a mob backstabbed you, you might gain 5% in backstab.

Or if you were a priest with 1% in heal, and someone healed you, you might gain 5% in heal.

[palathas]

If wisdom will now determine losses in skills, my wisdom is so low that I'll lose huge percentages in skills EVEN if I use them regularly.  This seems to be giving an advantage to magical classes who would probably chose and equip themselves with int and wis stuff, and to experienced players who know to make a more balanced skill set between con, int, wis, dex, str to start with. 

Simple
     if skills then dexterity
     if spells then wisdom

OR

Advanced
     if skills then (strength+dexterity+constitution==x) [where x ==> 68-71, 1%; 64-67, 2% etc. Let 22/20= 23, 22/40 = 24 etc.]
     if spells then (intelligence+wisdom==x) [where x ==> 43-44, 1%]

[Fizban]

If wisdom will now determine losses in skills, my wisdom is so low that I'll lose huge percentages in skills EVEN if I use them regularly.  This seems to be giving an advantage to magical classes who would probably chose and equip themselves with int and wis stuff, and to experienced players who know to make a more balanced skill set between con, int, wis, dex, str to start with.

I have no clue where Iwku got this idea. Your wisdom wouldn't determine how frequently you had to use the skills, it'd determine how fast hey would lower WHEN you didn't use them.

[Virisin]

Now that we have the choose command in, it will lower the pressure on this issue of having chosen the wrong stats to start with, as older players can help newer players to choose their stats. But I wouldn't mind being able to pay something to change base stats whenever..

[Mordecai]

Now that we have choose in, it should semi-sort out this issue, as older players can help newer players to choose their stats. But I wouldn't mind being able to pay something to change base stats whenver..

We have talked about allowing everyone to rechoose their stats.

Now the other thing is, it could even be set to be adjusted again after every 2 masteries, or something.
What's your ideas on that folks, especially imms?

[Molly]

I'm OK with allowing players to change their stats, as long as they are kept within a total limit.

I think it should only be allowed at certain occasions however, for instance at Tire 4 of a Class, and there should also be a fee for it in TPs. (We can discuss the amount later). I'm also not sure whether they should be allowed to change stats more than once for each char. That's another thing we should discuss.

Ideally it should work like this, to avoid the imms getting spammed with requests for stat changes:
1. The player type a command, for instance 'change stats'.
2. If the player is too low Tier, this returns a message saying 'You need to be tire 4 to change your stats'.
    Otherwise it brings the message: 'The fee for this is X TP', and deducts the amount from their account, if they have enough, otherwise sends a message that they need more TP to do it.
3. If they have enough TP they get sent to a room or prompt similar to the way they choose their stats in the Chargen.

[Virisin]

Yeah, it'd need a command. Like players being able to use the choose code to alter their stats at certain times, providing they paid. I think it'd be better while at tier 1 of a class, so you can customise yourself to that class before you start mastering it.

[Iwku]

Yah, I'm not sure where I got that idea either Fizban.  I see now that you only have to practice each skill once a week and there will be a mechanism to let you know if you haven't practiced enough - rather than the skills just slowly dissolving and disappearing.  I guess my concern was if I went on vacation for 3 weeks, or whatever, and couldn't log on, I'd lose 21% of my skills with such a low wisdom.

I've been re-reading the posts and I'm starting to warm to all the ideas. I like things how they are, and don't really like change...but you all put so much thought into it, that I'll trust your judgement.

[erwin]

Come to think of it, will 'passive' skills like parry, hand-to-hand, advanced melee, melee decrease as well?

If I remember what Mord said earlier back on, some passive skills like hand-to-hand has a chance to increase if the skills that are dependant on it increases, else it won't increase at all.

That way, what happens if let's say, for example, your backstab is maxed, and the hand-to-hand skill 'degenerates' in a week..does that mean hand-to-hand doesn't get a chance to increase at all, because your backstab is already at maximum level, hence no chance for it to rise back?

I'm not sure, my backstab has dropped to 90+ percent, and doesn't seem to be able to increase, I guess that would be due to hand-to-hand's level, since that is the only precursor skill that hasn't been maxed at 97. But my hand-to-hand isn't increasing, is that because backstab (which has hand to hand as a pre req) can't be increased without hand-to-hand being increased which leads to backstab not being able to increase which leads to ......? Not very sure.

[Mordecai]

Come to think of it, will 'passive' skills like parry, hand-to-hand, advanced melee, melee decrease as well?

If I remember what Mord said earlier back on, some passive skills like hand-to-hand has a chance to increase if the skills that are dependant on it increases, else it won't increase at all.

That way, what happens if let's say, for example, your backstab is maxed, and the hand-to-hand skill 'degenerates' in a week..does that mean hand-to-hand doesn't get a chance to increase at all, because your backstab is already at maximum level, hence no chance for it to rise back?

I'm not sure, my backstab has dropped to 90+ percent, and doesn't seem to be able to increase, I guess that would be due to hand-to-hand's level, since that is the only precursor skill that hasn't been maxed at 97. But my hand-to-hand isn't increasing, is that because backstab (which has hand to hand as a pre req) can't be increased without hand-to-hand being increased which leads to backstab not being able to increase which leads to ......? Not very sure.

You bring up two good points Erwin which I have paraphrased below for clarification:

Q: Would passive skills (Like parry, and hand-to-hand) degenerate over time, since there is no set way to 'use' them?
A: Parry isn't a passive skill, it is an automatic skill, and therefore gets used randomly but automatically.
Hand-to-hand is a passive skill, and would be 'used' when any of its child skills, such as backstab were used.


Q: My passive pre-req's have stopped increasing since I maxed out the active child skills, how will this work with the new system?
A: What I will need to do, is have skill pre req's continue to be checked, even after the skill has been maxed, and maybe at a slightly more favorable rate. (I think at the moment the chance is 1 in 10000).

[Mordecai]

So you are all aware, the skill level you see in your practice lists is governed by prerequisites.

For example:
If you backstab skill is at 97%
but your hand-to-hand was at 80%

The total percent that shows up for backstab in the prac list is the average of the skills:
((backstab + hand-to-hand) / 2) = ((97 + 80) / 2) = 88.5%

So if you increase your pre-req skills, your other skills that use those pre-req's will increase too.