Old School Skill Gain

[Hemperor]

Accuracy.

Many changes have been made to this shard that have made it harder than in the past to do certain things, to become a more accurate shard.

Well said, and I understand. Still, I don't know if "slow skill gain" was a feature throughout T2A start to finish or if it was implemented part-way through. I know that when the staff here can choose between two options they try to maintain the integrity of the shard while enhancing gameplay and for the reasons I outlined later in my post, I strongly encourage them to keep skill gain as it is. I could be wrong, but I think implementing super-slow skill gain would make "accurate" and "unoccupied" into synonyms.

I don't see this as being a slower skill gain, in certain skills at certain times at may be, but it could also be true for the opposite that some skills would gain faster. I'm sure it would work with the base rate of skill gain we have now and decrease or increase change to gain slightly based on the "pool".

[Caranthir]

There never was a skill pool, that is just a myth. If i don't see documentation then it never happened.

Well, it was fueled by the fact that when the European shards opened, skills were rising extremely fast.

[Caswallon]

Crippling hard skill gain is not the way forward for this shard. Accurate or not its going to discourage new players if a weeks solid play has yielded +23.7 on swords & tactics and +10.1 on healing.

Most of us spent have 3-6 months GMing the insane hard skills on OSI, forward stop, server switching, eating, and all those other rumoured skill gain helpers and, frankly, i have no wish to do it again. This is a free server, i would not be prepared to put as much time in to GM smithing as i did back in 99, because i dont 'own' my accounts here, server could go AWOL at any time, i know it wont, but its still a physoclogical thing, i wont put 4 months into somthing that is not 100% secure in the same was OSI was.

By all means implement the skill pool system, i never had problems with any gains via that system, but making skill gain hard for the sake of it is a bad idea in terms of population growth. The gain rate is perfect as it is imo, really no need to mess with it, sure its a little quicker than OSI but it should be, this is a free shard mirroring a 10 year old window of a specific time, personally i dont want to be 16 again, nor do i want to spend 8 hours macroing for .3 anatomy gain.

Summery: Current skill gain good, potential to harm future population by making it insane slow/hard. This is one area where 100% accuracy is not a good thing imo.

[Faust]

Caswallon,

That same argument was made several months before multiple skill accuracy issues were fixed that slowed skill gains significantly.

This was when the population had < 150-200 clients(not uniques, clients).

[Slaygrim]

Such a bad idea... it still takes a lot of damn dedication in resource-gathering, macro-setting, and overall time to GM crafting skills (if you aren't part of an elite group) and some non-craftings like resist are every bit as hard. Was it harder in 1999? Could have been. If so, do I want it that way again? Hell no.

Listen, 7x-everything guys are already running around. Not everyone is one of those people, but I imagine most of the members of large guilds are pretty well done with character building and there's probably a fair amount of independent players who've maxed out their characters under the current system. Now if you change it to make it harder for new guys, how is that going to play out? I'll tell you - new guy wannabe miner/smith will have to mine four times as long as BeenHereForeverGuy did.... and maybe he's willing to do that - maybe he won't be sore that those before him had it easier and maybe (strong maybe here) he can find the time to work, have a relationship with a real living being, and still mine his arse off night after night after day ad infinitum. The problem is, maybe he won't or can't, too. More than likely not, I think. And even if he can, BeenHereForeverGuy and all his buddies are suffering from ennui - they GMed everything a long time ago, they're bored with it all, and now they feel the only fun thing left to do is pk. I don't think I need to tell you what that means for wannabe-miner other than he gets at least four times as much chance of getting pked while mining.

I'm NOT saying everyone should be handed everything they want on a silver platter. I AM saying that as a working man with a live-in girlfriend who lifts weights and goes out occassionally, it takes me a long time to GM skills now, and I think I probably represent the average player in terms of lifestyle. There really is no silver platter for most. The bored veterans already make it harder still for the newcomers. You make it too hard and something will have to give.... and it probably won't be what you wanted.

Maybe it's just me... but backin 1999 I WAS one of those guys, and I didn't mind it all that much. Sure I had to work harder than those who came before me... or maybe I just didn't have as much time to do it, but it was cool because of that. It gave me pride in what I was able to GM.

I am not saying this server needs to change anything. I was more or less just talking about how it was back then. I wish I had the time, money, and computer savvy to make my own server. I'd love to make one that has SUPER hard skill gain, and no more than 2 houses per IP. Maybe that would turn off more players than it would bring in, but to me that is how I'd like to see it. Because the way it is... it's not too hard. I was on a week starting from nothing and fighting skeles to get armor and gold with only about 3 hours to play every other day and I still managed to get a large brick house placed in 10 days.

Everyone has their own play style and what they like, and I do not suggest that my personal taste is better than anyone elses. All I am doing is remarking on what I personally prefer... and to me building a character is the most fun part of a game. If it took months for people to earn a Tower that would be badass IMO. If it took 3 months of hard work to make a 7X mage, that would be SWEET IMO. That way when you actually do finish him, you have accomplished a character that few else have, and then your character means more. Instead, on shards like UOGamers where everyone was 7X, I spent time trying to become "accomplished above others" in different ways, like amassing Murder Counts. I personally LOVE the game when it is hard to accomplish something. In my perfect UO world I would not only like to make it SUPER hard to 7X a character, but also would up the price of regs and houses 3X while making gold from monsters change. No gold off of stupid kills like rats and skeles that make no sense, up the gold you get from dragons and balrons, etc. A SUPER hard server for skill gain is what I'd love to see.

BUT, again I am not suggesting this one change nor am I dissing on this server. I'm just rambling my thoughts.

[Slaygrim]

Maybe it was just me, but I fondly remember hitting 70 swords for the first time, and then hitting 80 and I thought I was a BADASS. Then came 90 and ultimately 100 and I thought I was the SHIT.

Anyone else remember GMing their first combat skill? How long did it take you? I think for me it must have been a month, and I played about 6 hours a day back then as I had just graduated high school and worked part time. I even remember turning my friends down who wanted to go to a party so I could play UO. I was addicted!

[Caswallon]

Still significantly quicker than T2A OSI though, at the curent rate they are not Hybrid quick, but nor are they era accurate cripplingly slow, if skill gain ever did get to that point i just dont think it would be beneficial to new players.

Does not really affect me or anyone else whos established or well on the way to it, my concern is more for newbs who log in and find skill gain super hard/slow, i dont beleive it would encourage people to stick it out, i just dont. You can say 'oh we had this before, didnt happen' but there is a huge gap between our current gain rates and era accurate one, i cant comment as i was not here, but surely the jump to accuracy would be bigger than when this last came up in terms of gain rate?

Its a hard balance to find, to quick and there is nothing to strive for, to slow and its to time consuming and unrewarding. This is one of a few areas where accuracy should be flexible to a point for the good of the shard imo[Same as events, trophy system and rares, they're not strictly era accurate but they dont effect gameplay and enhance the shard so this is a good thing].

I just dont think many people would be willing to go through that kind of skill gain rate for a second time, assuming a large % of our player base have already played UO previously, particualy this time period, for an extended time. Anyone that does actually want to spend 4 months to GM smithing...i can recommend a good S&M club in London since you like pain so much .

But meh, just means more macroing really doesnt it?

[Batlin]

A nice article I found that's somehow related with this topic : http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/07/18/use-based-systems/.