Old School Skill Gain

[Slaygrim]

This isn't so much a suggestion, I am just curious since it has been a good 10 years.

I used to play on Chessy, and I remember trying to gain skill and it was practically impossible in some circumstances. If I remember right, it took me like a whole week of macroing about 8 hours a day to get from the high 80's to GM Eval. Does anyone else remember that?

Or how about Resist? I was never able to get higher than like 82 resist on any non Seige Perilous Shard. Granted I didn't put AS much effort into it but unless I miss my guess I would have bet it would have taken me a couple of weeks of constant macroing to get from 82 to 100 resist.

Am I remembering wrong or was it this hard with some skills back then?

[Kraarug]

Skill gain was rather slow on OSI during most of T2A. If I remember right, there was something of a 'skill pool' that one drew upon per shard.

Somehow it worked out where the more people who were actively training a certain skill at a given time, the slower that skill would give gains.

[Faust]

I would love the see the "skill pool" implemented here. However, there are some problems with this approach. Since there are far lesser people to draw from the "skill pool" gains would theoretically not be as slow compared to the way they were on OSI servers. The system probably would have to scale accordingly based on population in my opinion when this is ever coded.

I made a post here previously discussing the skill pool with a very prominent theory on the pool itself. The information that I based the pool off from were the "advancement rates" listed in the data file on the attributes for skills that OSI used archived in the Stratics web site. For example, all skills used 3 advancement rates. Anatomy for example would be listed as 8000, 5000, and 2000 in the file. This more than likely represents the "skill pool" at specific skill levels. The three numbers are probably the amount extracted from the pool at that particular level. For example, anatomy used at 33.3 or less would use the 8000 advancement rate, 5000 would be the pool for 33.3 to 66.6, and 2000 would be 66.6 to 100. The skill standard skill curve would exist but everytime the skill would gain for anyone it would be extracted from that pool. If the pool is empty no matter what happens the skill won't go up if there is nothing to extract from that pool, etc... All skills are listed in the skill.txt file in Stratics listing each advancement rate.

[Mikel123]

For some reason, I remember this as a pre-T2A thing, and I always thought it was one of those "eat food to gain skill faster" things.

Does it only impact skills by making it harder? Or theoretically, if no one's on practicing the skill I am, would it become easier than it currently is to gain?

[Ryemus]

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

[Charles Darwin]

I want this so bad!!

I would love the see the "skill pool" implemented here. However, there are some problems with this approach. Since there are far lesser people to draw from the "skill pool" gains would theoretically not be as slow compared to the way they were on OSI servers. The system probably would have to scale accordingly based on population in my opinion when this is ever coded.

But as this shard grows larger then it becomes more difficult! In the future it could get even better. Because vets would experience that slower gain pains as well.

I say yes to this!

[Kaivan]

Here is an excerpt from the stat cap page on stratics on the subject of skill gain:

World skill advancement works like this:

The server tracks the # of tests called on each skill since the start of the shard.

It tracks them, however, as a PERCENTAGE of total skill calls.

Also, there's a cap; if some skills look like they are going to dominate the percentages and squeeze out the others, they're not allowed to account for more than, uh, say 10% of the calls each.

The advancement rates are then based on these percentages. The hypothetical average player who plays "typically" would see all their skills advance at exactly the same rate in a given span of play time. Of course, nobody is the average player and nobody plays "typically." The result is that for any given player, some skills seem harder and others easier.

Why do this? Well, it's a given that skill get used at different rates. You therefore need to have differing advancement curves for them. You could guesstimate them. We thought of doing that.

When we guessed, we were off by a factor of SEVERAL orders of magnitude. Meaning, a skill we thought was "slow" was at 100 times slower than the fastest skill to rise (like say, tactics, which is the slowest skill to rise) turned out to actually be called 40,000 times more frequently. A good thing we didn't use guesstimates, or else the game would be totally out of whack.

Now, is this working perfectly? No. Macroing distorts it badly. We've been talking about changing to the following system:

Impose a limit on chances at ADVANCING in a skill; so you might test a skill 100 times in five minutes, but you only get one shot at advancing.

Instead of the table tracking skill tests, make it track only skill tests that can result in advancement.

The result?

Rapidly tested skills all "cap" because you can't advance in them faster than the rate of once every five minutes... and what's more, since you get fewer chances to advance the higher you go in the skill, even that cap may not get hit as much.

The proportions of one skill vs another should be "shortened" leading probably to faster advancement each time you get a skill test, but slower advancement overall. The lesser-used skills would "come up" in the table because they don't normally get tested every five minutes...

And for macroing--well, it makes it more difficult, and possibly not worth it. But since I am not a macroer, I don't know what methods would be used to try to exploit this. Would players sit and macro even more? I don't know.

Designer Dragon

Basically, each skill would be modified based on the total skill checks made and it would be made more difficult based on that skill's checks as compared to the total skill checks. This more or less accounts for the "power hour" that players seemed to experience when logging on at particular times. The problem with any sort of implementation of this system on UOSA is first and foremost a question of the maximum percentage that a skill was allowed to account for. Beyond that, it would be a question of how compatible a system of this kind would be with our current skill gain system. Overall, it may be an interesting addition, but it may or may not be feasible given the actual "difficulty" of gaining here in the first place combined with the other issues as well.

[Mikel123]

What's interesting is that this is a supposed solution to macroing... but macroing is allowed on our shard.

Also, how was Tactics the slowest skill to rise? I don't remember it, or any of the weapon skills, being that hard.

Lastly... are you sure this doc is from T2A? The paragraphs above it talk about uncertainty of what the stat cap is - that it's a range from 175 to 225, and in some cases can get to 235. I don't remember people being this ignorant in T2A.

[Kraarug]

Designer Dragon was the lead developer for UO and T2A. Before that he designed MUDs and Lord Brit tapped him to work for him.

About Tacts, I also remember Tacts not being so slow but what we are seeing maybe a symptom of power gaming and better training techniques.

I didn't know what I was doing when I first trained my OSI characters. I thought sparing another player who was also training was the best way. That's before I learned that ones training target should at least be a GM in combat etc...

[Slaygrim]

One of the cool things about T2A back in 99 was that it was so hard to raise certain skills. I remember taking advantage of the blade spirits trick to raise resist, but I was relatively new and didn't have enough regs to take advantage of it too much. But I remember being excited because after a couple of hours and about 40k it got me from 60 resist to 80. Back then resist was so hard 80 was heads and tails above most people on the server. I think most who had that skill were around 60-70. Part of it was frustrating because it might take you all day of macroing to raise it from 80 to 81.5, but on second thought it was cool because if you focused on it you were probably holding an advantage over a great portion of the players and had a character that was stronger than most.

I think this is partly why we will never experience this again. The people here and who still play UO arent' (for the most part) newbies. Everyone knows how to play and most know that with a little work they can 7X their character. I just seem to recall back in 99 if you were a 7Xer you were a BADASS. Everywhere you went there were tons of newbs who couldn't match your power, even people who had been playing a year.

We won't really see that anymore. In some ways that is good, because it is more of an even playing field and skillful pvp matters more, but in other ways it's less fun because there isn't as much pride in your actual character because he is a dime a dozen.

Right before my brother got my account banned in 2000 for calling someone a fag in game, I had a 6Xer with 82 resist. I really was proud of that character because he was a stronger mage than the vast majority of the shard (or at least I thought so). My dexxer also had in the low 80's resist and he was a badass mage-killer. Good times.

I guess after my rant what I am really saying is that despite our greatest attempts we will never experience UO like we did in T2A when most of us started or where new. Almost everyone here is a vet, we all know the game inside and out, and no one is a newbie walking around at the X-roads not knowing that it is a pk haven. The good ol' days.

[Lajon]

There were certain skills on OSI that seemed way harder to raise than others. Parry, Resist, and Mining are good examples. Does anyone remember Parry raising this fast? I GM'd it before I GM'd Tactics on this shard just fighting mobs in dungeons. During the early days of T2A on OSI, I only knew of one guy that had higher than 80 Parry. His name was Orin Warrick and he was near-impossible to kill in town.

Something else to consider is that several changes were made on OSI that fundamentally changed how fast you could gain skill. Lots of people look at Resist differently because if you had 90+ before T2A came out, you were basically invincible. You couldn't macro casting on yourself because mana regeneration was too slow before Meditation was introduced. Once Meditation was put in the game, Magery and Magic Resist were infinately easier to raise.

The same goes for Mining. Before colored ore, there were very few GM Miners. After colored ore it became much easier to raise your mining.

We have to be careful which era we compare skill gain to. Pre-Meditation vs. Post-Meditation, etc. I think just about every skill on this shard raises faster than on OSI but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

[Kraarug]

There were certain skills on OSI that seemed way harder to raise than others. Parry, Resist, and Mining are good examples. Does anyone remember Parry raising this fast? I GM'd it before I GM'd Tactics on this shard just fighting mobs in dungeons. During the early days of T2A on OSI, I only knew of one guy that had higher than 80 Parry. His name was Orin Warrick and he was near-impossible to kill in town.

Something else to consider is that several changes were made on OSI that fundamentally changed how fast you could gain skill. Lots of people look at Resist differently because if you had 90+ before T2A came out, you were basically invincible. You couldn't macro casting on yourself because mana regeneration was too slow before Meditation was introduced. Once Meditation was put in the game, Magery and Magic Resist were infinately easier to raise.

The same goes for Mining. Before colored ore, there were very few GM Miners. After colored ore it became much easier to raise your mining.

We have to be careful which era we compare skill gain to. Pre-Meditation vs. Post-Meditation, etc. I think just about every skill on this shard raises faster than on OSI but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Parry was very very difficult to raise. My friend and I GM'd it through capturing WISPs and healing each other. There was a major change in 2000 that made GMing Parry super easy. I think I've said this before on this forum that I made my mind up to quit when I saw someone GM Parry with farm animals and a spare 45 minutes.

It does seem easier on this shard to GM Parry but I chalk most of that to knowing how to do it now. Basically, you have a chance to gain parry with each parried attack so, getting something that strikes fast and light, lets say like 17 birds, would get you to gain much faster.

In 1999 we chose WISPs because they struck fast and had mega skill. We didn't know exactly why, we just knew that one day when one of us accidently dbl clicked a WISP we got .3 Parry right before the black screen of death appeared.

[EVeee]

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.

[Hemperor]

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.

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.

[EVeee]

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.