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Appalling lack of IC'ness to learning abilities

Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2016 10:48 am
by Kent
While other negatives to the Generalized Abilities that was rolled out last year have been beefed about already, one glaring negative has gotten off scott-free... Until now.

If a character wants a lesson in first aid or something, he has to ask on ESP and meet up with a player to teach him a lesson, or head into some infirmary or shop and buy a lesson...the lesson being delivered with a roundtime that adds a credibleness to it. To learn a specialized guild ability, he has to meet with his guild trainer and learn it there. .so far, so good.

Yet should the same player want to go from not knowing the herbalism ability or blacksmithing or tracking or whatever, to knowing it, all he has to do is stand out in the middle of the road anywhere, (and make a wish?) and poof! He magically has that ability, instantly. This is starkly too OOC for the game environment.

This is actually a terrible degrade to the IC experience in CLOK. .. We really must have it changed so that players need to go to an expert in game and ask for the ability and have a roundtime associated with learning the ability...say 100 seconds to maintain a sense of proportion with teach accept?

Possibility a couple of general abilities, eg. elemancy aptitude, make more sense being left as they are (no expert involved in acquiring) but not the vast majority of the abilities.

Re: Appalling lack of IC'ness to learning abilities

Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2016 11:35 am
by Bryce
Kent wrote: one glaring negative has gotten off scott-free... Until now.
Kent Gunderman ... CHAMPION OF JUSTICE!

Technically, you have to work your way up to learning the abilities by achieving the skill requirements. I just assume that as part of those hundreds of skill points being trained, you learn or come up with a few nifty techniques (abilities) involving said skills.

Re: Appalling lack of IC'ness to learning abilities

Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2016 12:03 pm
by Kent
Bryce wrote:
Kent wrote: one glaring negative has gotten off scott-free... Until now.

Technically, you have to work your way up to learning the abilities by achieving the skill requirements. I just assume that as part of those hundreds of skill points being trained, you learn or come up with a few nifty techniques (abilities) involving said skills.
Yes but many (most?) of those Abilities have no such progression...take Blacksmithing for example, you can start your character, and he can with zilch go from knowing nothing to learning four Abilities, Blacksmithing plus heavy heads, blades, and armor in as much time as it takes the player to type it in.

Same with the four Bushcraft Abilities... Zero to four in ten seconds if you can type fast enough.

As far as the others, does it really make sense that your character can, for example, over many weeks build up his riding until it is over 250, all the duration he can do absolutely nothing in terms of charge and trample, then in one epiphany, he excels in it? No, he really needs an expert to show him what techniques to do and not to do before he can ride into a joust.

Re: Appalling lack of IC'ness to learning abilities

Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2016 12:22 pm
by Bryce
Character backstory: presumably your character picked up some basic knowledge of those things at some point in the past. Or perhaps they were just born with the potential or the knack. Or you could RP going up to an NPC who trains associated skills and asking them to show you the basics or something, if that's your bag. Or sure, require asking an NPC and add a long roundtime. Whatever makes people happy.

I'm just sad that you omitted my favorite part of my previous post from the quote.

Re: Appalling lack of IC'ness to learning abilities

Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2016 12:25 pm
by Jaster
Bryce wrote:I'm just sad that you omitted my favorite part of my previous post from the quote.
Not cool, broKent. Not cool.

Re: Appalling lack of IC'ness to learning abilities

Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2016 2:22 pm
by Akila
I picked up blacksmithing. It took me ages to make anything other than malformed lumps. I rped Akila being frustrated, taking blacksmithing lessons to get better and learn more. Same with mining. Same with carpentry. Akila foraged for a long time and skilled her herbalism up, bought the herbalism book to learn the basics of poultice making, then started experimenting with new recipes. She has made herself wounded several times to test these. All IC.

I don't see why we have to add a mechanic to something that encourages self-rp and takes a while on it's own to really start to shine.

Re: Appalling lack of IC'ness to learning abilities

Posted: Fri Apr 29, 2016 5:22 pm
by Kent
Akila wrote: I don't see why we have to add a mechanic to something that encourages self-rp and takes a while on it's own to really start to shine.
I could say, I don't see why we have to do a lot of things, but we do. ..the fact is, there is a need to go up to a trainer to get a lesson or a quest or a tutoring, instead of just getting them by telepathy, and for consistency we need to not have a magical infusion of knowledge in the middle of nowhere to be able to perform these oh-so-hard to acquire abilities.

Re: Appalling lack of IC'ness to learning abilities

Posted: Fri Apr 29, 2016 5:33 pm
by Skjotur
Learning something on your own isn't telepathy. It's also not telepathy to learn an ability eventually from the hundreds or thousands of times you got training in a skill.

I would tell you to give it a rest, but you'll just move on to something else to say is appalling or terrible or OOC just because you don't like how it works.

Re: Appalling lack of IC'ness to learning abilities

Posted: Fri Apr 29, 2016 6:20 pm
by Kent
Skjotur wrote:Learning something on your own isn't telepathy. It's also not telepathy to learn an ability eventually from the hundreds or thousands of times you got training in a skill.

I would tell you to give it a rest, but you'll just move on to something else to say is appalling or terrible or OOC just because you don't like how it works.
Why don't you give it a rest, then.

Your comments misrepresent my suggestion, the current in-game reality of learning things clearly spelled out above, and, more significantly, are intrinsically hateful. I will be reporting them.

Re: Appalling lack of IC'ness to learning abilities

Posted: Fri Apr 29, 2016 6:26 pm
by Skjotur
The result would be an appalling lack of someone calling your crazier complaints out. You do bring up plenty of good points from time to time, Kent. I find myself agreeing with you sometimes. I think those moments would be a lot more recognized and productive if you toned down your more over the top complaints and phrasing though.

Re: Appalling lack of IC'ness to learning abilities

Posted: Fri Apr 29, 2016 6:28 pm
by Skjotur
Intrinsically nasty. Thank you, that's what I was looking for. Cut back on the intrinsically nasty complaints you make and stick to the more productive and civil ones.

Re: Appalling lack of IC'ness to learning abilities

Posted: Fri Apr 29, 2016 9:51 pm
by Skjotur
First I was intrinsically nasty, now I'm intrinsically hateful. Are you done editing your post after I've responded to it so my responses no longer make sense?

I don't hate you man, get a grip. I do get annoyed at the way you phrase many of your complaints to be so caustic. It's not only rude, but counterproductive. You could have a valid point and a sound argument but you throw it all away with your attitude when you come across as over dramatic, accusatory, and bitter instead of just stating what could otherwise be a solid point.

Re: Appalling lack of IC'ness to learning abilities

Posted: Sat Apr 30, 2016 3:15 am
by Vitello
I can kind of see where you're coming from Kent, but I think you are over dramatizing. Also I think it's a small problem in comparison to things on staff workload atm.

Re: Appalling lack of IC'ness to learning abilities

Posted: Sat Apr 30, 2016 3:28 am
by mercer
If someone doesn't like a post or the way it's worded why even comment on it? it kind of goes off topic of the original post.
the thing with adding extra roundtime is people just like in real life, take different time to learn things so it wouldn't be fair to give people roundtime and for them to be a faster learner than someone else.

Re: Appalling lack of IC'ness to learning abilities

Posted: Sun May 01, 2016 5:05 am
by Jirato
While I agree that this suggestion could have been posed better. I actually find the tone set by calling it "appalling" rather humorous and was going to make light of it in my original reply several days ago, but decided meeting it with snark wasn't a good idea. However, lets please keep things civil here. I'm unsure exactly what happened since it seems some posts were edited, but I think I get the general idea.

At this time, we will not be changing initial skillgain mechanic as a whole. Though it is definitely something to consider for "specialized skills". I'll keep it in the mind for the future.