Player to player skill training

[Zeldryn]

HAI!

It's ya' boy, funny talking island man. Here with another one of those suggesteroos.

Bigtime shoutout to the man, the myth, the legend, Squeak. This one's courtesy of one of those casual voice chat realizations that we tend have here from time to time.

Okay. So.

Back in the days of old, players used to be able to give each other lessons. If memory serves-- as long as a player had a higher skill level in the applicable skill than another player, they could teach them. It would offer the same lesson benefit obtained from NPC trainers.

This was a great feature. It encouraged people to interact. It encouraged higher level players to group up with lower level players to offer lessons, and RP, and help with that initial grind, and give them something to do.

The problem was-- it was easily abuseable. It had no cost. Players ended up endlessly training each other and avoiding all of the NPC riln expenses completely. So, here's my proposed solution.

Suggestion: Let the teacher spend an RPA to offer a lesson to the student.

Why?

A: It insentivises value exchange. People don't want to give up an RPA for free. They either have to really like you-- or there has to be something in it for them. This encourages people to wheel and deal, still. Sure, it might not be so significant an expense as the NPCs, but that's the point!

B: It insentivises RP. If people spending an RPA to help someone else learn-- odds are, they are going to want to RP to earn another RPA somehow. Perhaps, through a nomination.

C: As a result of the above factors, this insentivises people to group up more, regardless of skill level. If you exchange something with someone for a lesson, that fee might include their services in helping you learn more effectively, too. Or keeping you safe while you learn. Or showing you the best places to train, or the best strategies, etc. etc.

D: It can't be as easily abused as the old system. Again, an RPA has value. Spending it on someone else is a gesture that takes forethought, and you have to sacrifice your own boosted skillgain to boost someone else's. In addition to that, you can't "grind" or "spam" the system for RPAs. They're granted through nomination, or by the staff, and the staff still have to approve and distribute nominations. They aren't automatic, so far as i'm aware.

How do I invision this working?

Player A wants to teach player B about swordsmanship.

"teach player b swords"

If you have an RPA to use: "Are you sure you wish to teach player B more about the swords skill? This will cost 1 RPA (Roleplay award) to accomplish. Consider carefully! It can't be taken back! Repeat the command in the next 30 seconds if you wish to do so."

If you don't have an RPA to use: "You don't feel inspired enough to teach anyone right now. [No RPAs available to spend! Get out there and roleplay!]"

Upon Success: Player B recieves the identical effect they would recieve from an NPC trainer giving them a lesson. Perhaps with more length dependent on the teacher's skill?

Possible Additional Effects:

-Teacher also gets an automatic, but small amount of skillgain in the associated skill for spending an RPA

-Perhaps both teacher and student are given a free lesson in the associated skill? Simulates the teacher learning more from teaching?

-Perhaps grant the teacher a period of time equivalent to a lesson that allows skillgain on lower level mobs until the lesson is complete?

BONUS SUGGESTION

One on one Tutoring used to be a thing. We've talked about this before.

What tutoring was: Teacher tutored student. Teacher had to be higher skill than student to do so. While actively tutoring, the teacher's skills exactly mirrored their student's-- E.G: if the student had 100 sword skill and the teacher had 1000 sword skill, while tutoring, both teacher and student had 100 sword skill. This applied to the -entire- skill list. The teacher could then benefit from lower level areas again as long as the student was present and learning from them, and the student experienced double the rate of skill gain while being actively tutored.

Why this was good: Legacy players could enjoy lower level areas again and grind in them, experiencing the same level of risk that they used to but also the same level of benefit that they used to. New players boosted their gains, theoretically got RP with someone to learn the ropes, establish their character, and potentially make attachments to move them through the rest of their life in the game. It was a great system that really felt good to be a part of.

Why it was bad: It was very easily abuseable. People just stopped RPing and interacting with the game systems as they were intended. They would lock up in a safe area or a safe room and grind skills off of each other until they were maxed with virtually no riln cost because of the lesson system being free, and no risk because of the tutoring system being the way it was and players being able to gain skill off of each other. There was also no limit on how long you could tutor someone, or how often you could give lessons-- so there were situations were characters were piggybacking each other to max WAY. WAY too fast.

Suggestion: Bring this system back, but only let individuals tutor someone for a single half-hour period at a time with a 3-6 hour cooldown. Alternatively-- let them tutor for 1 hour in total with a 12 hour cooldown.

Why it's better: It encourages all of the same benefits, with none of the costs. Lessons are no longer free-- they would cost an RPA. Tutoring can no longer be done infinitely, so neither can infinitely benefit off of it. Most importantly-- players can't gain skills off of each other anymore. So gone are the days where you can simply lock two players in a room, tutor and train each other endlessly for free, and walk out masters of swordsmanship without peer in a week's time.

Potential Additional suggestion: Make this system also cost RPAs.


I know this is a novel, but-- the first part, at least, regarding lessons? I think it's HUGE. even if the tutoring part was disregarded entirely, I think that lessons suggestion should absolutely be considered for implementation.

Definitely interested in thoughts and feedback on this one. Thanks for time, curiosity, and patience. Enjoy!

[Squeak]

Bigtime shoutout to the man, the myth, the legend, Squeak. This one's courtesy of one of those casual voice chat realizations that we tend have here from time to time.

Lol, not entirely sure how true that is, but I appreciate the shout out.

Suggestion: Let the teacher spend an RPA to offer a lesson to the student.

Why?

A: It insentivises value exchange. People don't want to give up an RPA for free. They either have to really like you-- or there has to be something in it for them. This encourages people to wheel and deal, still. Sure, it might not be so significant an expense as the NPCs, but that's the point!

B: It insentivises RP. If people spending an RPA to help someone else learn-- odds are, they are going to want to RP to earn another RPA somehow. Perhaps, through a nomination.

C: As a result of the above factors, this insentivises people to group up more, regardless of skill level. If you exchange something with someone for a lesson, that fee might include their services in helping you learn more effectively, too. Or keeping you safe while you learn. Or showing you the best places to train, or the best strategies, etc. etc.

D: It can't be as easily abused as the old system. Again, an RPA has value. Spending it on someone else is a gesture that takes forethought, and you have to sacrifice your own boosted skillgain to boost someone else's. In addition to that, you can't "grind" or "spam" the system for RPAs. They're granted through nomination, or by the staff, and the staff still have to approve and distribute nominations. They aren't automatic, so far as i'm aware.

An alternative thought:
- What if one could use an RPA to tutor someone for a specific skill (Tutor <so and so> on <skill>). The pupil and teacher must stay grouped for it to work, it lasts for a thirty minutes, and the teacher must have a higher skill than the pupil (duh!). For the thirty minutes that the tutoring is going on, the pupil receives passive skill gain, we'll say 10 points for the sake of argument. At the end of the 30 minutes, the two can part ways, and both teacher and pupil receive extended skill gain on the taught skill for an additional 5 points. In theory, it would let newer characters benefit from Legacy characters, especially in those harder to train skills (looking at you perception), and, with the cost of an RPA and a time investment, be a resource that couldn't be readily abused. It also encourages Roleplay.

To me, it'd look something like:
Pupil comes up to teacher and they get to talking about leatherworking. Teacher says they are a fair hand at the skill and agrees to teach the pupil for a fee, or barter, or for free (if they're Templars and Monks).
The two then go off to the good ol' Ferdinan's place and settle down with material. Teacher spends an RPA and tutoring officially begins for thirty minutes. When an RPA is spent in such a manner, it flags staff so they know what's going on and can a) monitor the situation or b) join in on the fun!
As the thirty minutes proceed, the teacher and pupil roleplay making something from scratch. Giving pointers and guidance and whatever else. (Additional thought: Perhaps for crafting purposes, the pupil receives an additional partial reroll on their project???). During this time, the leatherworking skill of the pupil passively (i.e. without having to mechanically expend resources to make something) increases until it hits 10 points, even if not specifically working on a project. Hopefully, they both have a fun time for thirty minutes and nominations are made. Or staff makes Ferdy come alive and interact with the two and additional RPAs are granted.
After the thirty minutes is up, the teacher and pupil go their separate ways, each feeling enlightened by the session, giving them increased gains for a limited time (up to 5 points, for instance), but actively requires them to go out and practice. Everyone's happy, people sat down to enjoy themselves and others.

I know some people (myself included) would enjoy teaching other characters and having a periodic mechanical benefit to doing so. With the limitations involved, it doesn't seem like it would be easily abuseable. Even if the characters did such a thing and sat around with no roleplay involved, the bonus they'd receive are less than what a full RPA would grant. And, you know, it'd flag staff anyways so they can berate you later if you did just use the system outside of it's intended scope.

[Ninetales16]

I believe this is a fantastic idea. I personally had a good experience when the old one was around, and that would incentivise a lot of rp, which makes me happy!

[Dean]

I don't dislike the idea on principle, but I don't think the execution needs to be this detailed.

Couldn't you just RP with someone, an in-character training scene that lays out the things abstracted by NPC trainers - tips, tricks, advise on stances, whatever - and then nominate them for RPA?

RPA lasts for longer than a single training session does (roughly 20-25 levels, by my approximation) and has the same multiplier as a training session. It goes by pretty quick.

I don't know about y'all, but I don't walk around with multiple of these just lying around unspent to begin with. I use them, pretty much right away, because they usually get approved by a GM while I'm in the middle of training something anyway. I don't see a situation where I'm going to stop what I'm doing partway-through for this, myself, but I acknowledge my experience and style-of-play isn't the default.

-

I like the alternative idea more, because I think it'd provide opportunities for more organic sorts of group activities. One-on-one training is cool - but you could give an Elemancy or Sorcery lecture in their respective schools, have an arts-and-crafts workshop or a sewing circle, wilderness survival training with your local Ranger, or your very own miniature Shadgardian boot camp experience, too. Training thus becomes a guild- and community-driven exercise.

I don't know about you guys, but I think the Shadgard "Everyone should have a gun" mentality would do well to include an "and everyone should know how to use it" on the end, and this would facilitate that.

That said, I don't think it needs to "consume" an RPA in this way; I don't like the idea of turning them into a currency when they're not really intended for it. That feels off to me.

This can just be a thing people can do with skills they know, and so long as you limit it in some way (say, to a maximum value of some fraction of the teacher's skill, for starters) and skill is only gained for a short duration after the teacher and student(s) emote (to prevent AFKing it, which, let's be real, people would definitely try to do at some point), say, five to ten minutes per emote (to allow for detailed emotes that really get into the thick of it.

On another game I play, Teaching itself is a skill that can only be gained by teaching others, and it contributes to how quickly your students learn from you. We could have some general abilities with a Teaching skill prerequisite to improve the aforementioned fraction, for those characters who choose to be mentors to others more than personally excel alone. In that game, it works great for fostering RP, especially within guilds and other organizations who are designed to provide a mentor-to-pupil relationship to organically teach people about the game world and the OOC mechanics beyond 'read the helpfiles' and word-of-mouth. In said other-game, teaching the skill also gives you a very small practice in said skill yourself!

But, uh, I might be biased, given I'm one of said mentor-figures on said game and love doing it! Just food for thought.