I was wondering if there could be sold forging books with racial templates in them. I'm thinking racial weapon templates like the elven iltesh could be sold in a special book at the barbarians guild hall and racial armor templates like gnomish plate mail could be sold at the paladin guild shop. Perhaps even racial tools, like gnomish pliers or something, could be sold at the Trader guild?

I love everything about StellarMagus last post. All of it. :) As a gnome paladin this one gets me a lot!

<<Kodius-IMO combat is already too easy>>

Gulp and blanches though no one can see it. Combat easy? I shudder to think what you are thinking to doing to combat. Please don't make the critters more knowledge about combat. I have a friend who has been a ranger for a long time and she was bemoaning that each time she gets to a new level of critter, it seems critter combat gets made harder and she has to fall back to previously hunted critters.

But you have done of good things for us barbs so I will trust you. Just remember to breathe, eat and sleep and do stuff that's good for you--and code.

Shinarah

<< I have a friend who has been a ranger for a long time and she was bemoaning that each time she gets to a new level of critter, it seems critter combat gets made harder and she has to fall back to previously hunted critters.

I have actually found the opposite to be true with these most recent changes.

Creatures that used to teach at a given rank now cap significantly earlier, and so I have had to move up the ladder much sooner than I otherwise would have. So yes, combat has been getting harder, but only indirectly due to needing to hunt harder creatures than before. Moving down the critter ladder isn't really possible anymore, since learning falls off much sooner.

This is all with the caveat of applying to low to mid level hunting. I'm not sure what effect the recent experience changes had on high level hunting, although all the posts about high level critters no longer teaching perception makes me suspect it is very similar.

It is also with the caveat of having just stood in snow goblins for a couple hours without a scratch and having all my combat skills locked several times over. So I wouldn't even classify it as 'hard.' Just slightly less easy since we still outclass the monsters, just not by as much as we used to.

>This is all with the caveat of applying to low to mid level hunting. I'm not sure what effect the recent experience changes had on high level hunting, although all the posts about high level critters no longer teaching perception makes me suspect it is very similar.

It gets progressively worse the higher level you are due to the skill set gap widening. The higher level you are, the wider the gap between primary and tertiary skills are, unless you've made it a point to keep your skills close. Since the ranges are smaller, this forces characters to either stop training certain skills while the others catch up, or to bounce around between hunting spots to be able to train primary and tertiary at the same time.

<<Not really, that's the throttling mechanism of skill set placement. Even being in combat for your entire career, if you're survival and armor tertiary you'll have more weapons ranks than evasion and shield unless you purposely preventing weapon training or you're still relatively low circle where the skills will still be fairly even. Time spent learning just exacerbates the gap between skill sets.

I didn't have this issue even with my circle 114 Bard, and he spent a good majority of his time in combat. While true at higher ranks the divide becomes larger, so too does critter teaching ranges. You'd need a hell of a lot more weapon ranks than defence ranks in order to find yourself in a situation where you need to hunt one creature in order to train that weapon and need a separate weaker creature in order to train defences.

There were other skills that reflected that significant of a divide. For example, I couldn't train appraisal on creatures I hunted by a long shot but that was because it was consistently trained outside of combat as well so it's not the same situation.

I didn't realize that this was even an issue with purely combat skills. I guess I've just always trained smart then.

<<It's got nothing to do with training smart, it has to do with experience gains between the three skill sets.

Except the point you're missing is how do you even get them that far apart in the first place, except by training them on multiple creatures? Purposely going out to kill a creature that you can't defend against just to learn more weapons seems like a stupid thing to do imo since you're only shooting yourself in the foot with respect to making it even worse to train. There's a reason why people constantly made fun of that tezirite with like 600 TM and 200 evasion or whatever his actual ranks were. Extreme examples aside, the only way a skill difference gets that high is player decisions about what they train and where. Blaming skill set placement is lazy.

<<At 200 ranks they may differ by 50, in the 1k range they can differ as much as 350-400 ranks

At 200 ranks my defences were still higher than weapons. Nearing 400 ranks it started to even out.

<<Since 3.1 narrowed the exp range

This is something I can understand affecting it. If skill gaps were previously trainable in a single hunting area and the critter ranges were adjusted so that you now fall into this weird middle ground between two hunting areas, that could be an issue. But that is an actual mechanical change resulting in a less than ideal situation rather than player decisions impacting training.

>>this forces characters to either stop training certain skills while the others catch up, or to bounce around between hunting spots to be able to train primary and tertiary at the same time.

I guess my point is this was always the case in 1.0 and 2.0. Players became used to 3.0 where we did not have the experience balanced quite right. I often complained that as a warrior mage my ability to advance through the game was limited by my tertiary skillsets. Guilds like Barbarians, Rangers and Paladins did not suffer from this effect. But, it was a sacrifice for having fun spells. Probably why I liked being a Barbarian better in many ways due to the skillset differences.

Players earn skill about 750 quadrillion times faster since new exp went into effect. Tertiary skills also don't wall-rank nearly as much as they used to. So you aren't spending nearly as long catching stuff up!

What would players have us do? If you have 800 in weapons and even just 600 in defense, that is a difference of 200 ranks. The only way to allow you to safely hunt and learn is by offering absolutely no risk or challenge. Is it even a game at that point?

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"I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts."
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes

<<Players became used to 3.0 where we did not have the experience balanced quite right.

This got me thinking that I should note I pretty much completely missed 3.0 in it's entirety, so my reference point may be based on different assumptions than others are working with.

>Except the point you're missing is how do you even get them that far apart in the first place, except by training them on multiple creatures?

You're missing the point, they get that far apart because that's what skill sets and the pool size/drain rate is for. They're there as a throttling mechanism so that you're not learning 100% of your skills at the fastest rate possible. It's there to slow down progression.

Purposely going out to kill a creature that you can't defend against just to learn more weapons seems like a stupid thing to do imo since you're only shooting yourself in the foot with respect to making it even worse to train. There's a reason why people constantly made fun of that tezirite with like 600 TM and 200 evasion or whatever his actual ranks were.

Stopping primary skill training just so you can catch up your tertiary skill to where you can train them both together seems like a stupid thing to me. Especially since time dictates what your ranks will be. Would you rather spend 4 months getting 300 evasion and 500 TM by learning them in two different places but both at the same time, or would you rather spend 4 months getting 300 evasion and 300 TM so that you can learn them without rank disparity? I'd rather have 300 evasion and 500 TM personally, or else why have primary skill drain to begin with. They might as well all be tertiary?


Extreme examples aside, the only way a skill difference gets that high is player decisions about what they train and where. Blaming skill set placement is lazy.

As I've mentioned repeatedly, skill set placement IS the reason why the difference gets so high if you choose to actively train a primary skill and a tertiary skill at the same rate. If it weren't, why are learning rates different between primary, secondary and tertiary? When/If you get to a high level you'll see this happen for yourself, unless you prefer to slowly but surely keep all of your skills even, in which case, great. That's how you want to train your character, there's nothing wrong with that. There's lots of people that don't want to give up learning some of their primary skills while they wait for their terts to catch up. They don't have to, it doesn't make them a glass cannon, it doesn't make them an ineffective trainer, it actually makes them more effective to be honest.

>This is something I can understand affecting it. If skill gaps were previously trainable in a single hunting area and the critter ranges were adjusted so that you now fall into this weird middle ground between two hunting areas, that could be an issue. But that is an actual mechanical change resulting in a less than ideal situation rather than player decisions impacting training.

This was the case, in 3.0 you were easily able to train primary through tertiary skills on one creature. With the exp range tightening you can't do this any longer, the work around for that is to train on multiple creatures, not to stop training your primaries so the rest can catch up.

I love training 10 weapons (including brawling and offhand). It just makes sense to me for a barb to train a lot of weapons and thus earn the benefit of getting defenses tactics etc higher than weapons. I don't circle as fast as others, but I'm looking at the long run. When I'm circle 120 and someone wants to spar me using my 8th weapon (thinking it is really low) I can stun them and spit em on my stave and be done with it. : D

Shinarah

Okay, this is a cool thread. Why not, at 150th circle, grant along with some sort of neato title a flat 10% learning rate boost to Minors and 15% boost to tertiaries? They are not only representing their guild at that point but adventurer's everywhere, I'd say. In any case, I would in some way look forward to wearing gnomish plate mail even if it had lower protection (thin) but the lowest plate hindrance. I wouldn't mind if it was not on a practical level impressive at all.

>Why not, at 150th circle, grant along with some sort of neato title a flat 10% learning rate boost to Minors and 15% boost to tertiaries?

I can think of no reason to do this. If you hit 150, and suddenly wish you'd trained something else, nothing is stopping you from doing so. If anything, depending on the skill, you'll have the supreme advantage of stats and other skills supporting your endeavor.

My Necromancer at 100th started backtraining locksmithing, and was able to do so with boxes above his range, because of how high his perception is. It also meant he wasn't completely hindered by carrying a backpack full of boxes.

>>The skill gaps, at least when I type out some numbers here, are pretty insane

From the sound of it, that's actually an intentional buffer.

>>I don't see how this is such a bad thing

Because of game balance.

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Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

It sounds like you're advocating for the homogenization of character skills not as a function of characters hard work, but just because they've reached a certain circle mark. I think you're forgetting that what makes characters interesting is strengths and weaknesses. Equal circles, a Paladin should never have more impressive magical skill than a Moon Mage, unless the Paladin has worked crazy hard to do so, just like something is weird when a Moon Mage can out perform a Barbarian with weapons.

I appreciate that PvP balance is a concern of players, and it should be balanced to the best of the mods abilities, but not by removing the variety and more to the point, the weaknesses that make each guild interesting. I think the game is in the best place it's ever been, but I do feel that a lot of players have forgotten that this is a roleplaying game first, and part of roleplaying a character is recognizing and dealing with various weaknesses. No one quits a D&D campaign because you didn't roll all 18s.

Recognize your weaknesses, work around them, or be prepared for a long haul to bring them up to your strengths.

Maybe? I honestly don't know much of how new exp works other than its a trillion times faster than when I used to play, and evokes emotions of acute angst when people complain about it. >:\

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"I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts."
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes

I remember when we all thought if only we could get to 50th, we could finally actually fight in the invasions. :)

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My spathas at hand,
From the ashes I rise,
With resolve in my heart,
And fire in my eyes.

>I remember when we all thought if only we could get to 50th, we could finally actually fight in the invasions. :)

150 is the new 50 :(

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I'm a badger, I be badgerin'

My favorite character is over 2 years old and still under 150th. I play him all the time and love him the most, because the rank rat race is so unfun. Beyond 150th, there's nothing great/impressive about circles, because there is no development that supports incentive to go beyond it.

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"Brace yourselves, Squanto is going to bleh blah fart fart bleh.." -the player of the character formerly known as Pureblade

Hitting 150 is anti-climactic. It's not even necessary anymore if you like to PvP since many regular sparring events usually match participants based on what they hunt. I'd go as far as to say being top dog is probably a burden if you like to participate in organized PvP. Raikage or Gort, for instance, show up regularly and they never have anyone or anyone new to fight.