Patch 2.7 | Skill System 2.0

[Rhisereld 317]

I feel as though Casamir has labelled all players against the patch as whining children who refuse all and any change, who live in the wilds self-sufficiently and want to be jacks of all trades. Players who do not value roleplay. This is downright slander and a lie. At no point has it been said that players want to be self-sufficient; in fact, the opposite has been stated. At least twice. I feel as though I am being ignored and my words twisted into their opposite meanings, and this is the most frustrating sensation.

And for someone who lives in the middle of nowhere with the skills tailored for living by yourself, I'm wondering what authority you have to talk about jacks of all trades. The patch doesn't hurt those who are self-sufficient anyway. They can get by, provided they have 30 or so points in cooking, farming, mining and lumberjacking. Especially lumberjacking. It's the people who specialise who are absolutely useless at doing anything but their profession.

The point is that this patch makes it mind-bogglingly difficult to get even the smallest task done. An inordinate amount of gameplay is dedicated to the pursuit of material goods, things that we would normally just skim over to get to what we really want to spend our time doing. Roleplaying. In the past, we would have simply crafted that bucket and say it was crafted by the local blacksmith. That blacksmith would be offline at the time, but in roleplay, they don't simply disappear off the face of Asulon. It saves time. This patch cripples our ability to skim over certain parts of roleplay to use our common sense when it is necessary. Between waiting for people to get online, running around Asulon and posting on the forums, it can take days to get what you need. That isn't fun; it's just plain frustrating.

Let's say I wanted to craft some stone bricks. I grab a stack of cobblestone and coal, put it in the furnace and walk away to do some mining-...

Oh wait, I have to be right in front of the furnace. That's okay, I'll just have to put aside some more time to go mining. I guess I'll just do some roleplaying instead.

So Breva fires up the furnace and carefully begins to heat up the slab of stone, occasionally wiping her sooty fingers on-...

Oh wait, nobody can hear me because I'm alone. Why am I emoting? Then I also realise that stone bricks would be carved, not smelted like iron ore and all realism goes out the window.

So I AFK for 10-15 minutes while waiting for the stone to smelt and then craft some stone bricks by clicking repeatedly, as shift-click crafting is also temporarily broken. Then I decide that the mine would be about 20% safer if it had a trapdoor. I grab some wooden planks, click six down on the crafting bench in a roughly trapdoor-ish shape and-...

Oh wait, I need X lumberjacking skill to make a trapdoor. I'm not quite sure what cutting down trees has with crafting trapdoors, but it's not a big fuss.

So Breva hikes up out of the mines into the fresh air (yuck) in search of Tom the carpenter, but wait!

He seems to have disappeared into thin air. In fact, he logged out about two hours ago and actually has a real life job, so we most likely won't see him for another twenty hours. Okay, no biggie. There has to be another carpenter around somewhere.

So Breva wanders out to the Cloud Temple in search for a carpenter. The only soul in sight is what appears to be a man in a fish suit. That's weird, but it's GM approved so OK. Breva walks to Renatus. Not a soul. Breva walks to Hanseti. Likewise. Breva retraces her steps and goes up north to Alras. Absolutely deserted. Breva does not walk into Krugmar, because she would probably get cut up into tiny little bits by the orcs. Breva swims out to elf lands (conveniently forgetting her phobia of water), and finds nothing. I don't know if you've played around 3am-5am, but it's frustrating. The five players online at that time are probably in their dinky little town charters (which is the only way to survive thanks to land permissions).

Advertising on the forums produces more or less the same problem. It will take a very long time to get a response and when you do, communication is clunky and borders on metagaming. Did I mention that I detest telepathic messenger birds with a passion?

So what can I do to solve this? Move to that Australian town? I thought this patch was meant to centralise the community, not segregate us into timezones. It achieves the opposite of its purpose. Hang, on let me just message the owner of the town for some co-ordinates. After I have those, I'll just do a little bit of metagaming as I trek through the wilderness and appear at the doorstep of a town Breva has never heard of before. After all, there will be many more skilled carpenters in dinky town #132 than in the centre of Asulon.

So what's the solution to this skill system? The solution certainly is not to just dump this mess of game mechanics on the players and expect them to deal with it. I've dealt with poor choices for LotC time and time again and this time I will complain. Making the game difficult and frustrating will not make it more fun, and it is not the player's responsibility to duck and adapt every time a game-destroying patch comes in.

The skill system needs to be completely abolished and replaced with a stat system based on character traits and aptitudes, such as strength, intelligence, dexterity and luck. Limitations would be much more broad and all grinding for skills would be eradicated. All crafting and excavating restrictions need to be lifted, allowing players to actually build. The responsibility of good roleplay would rest on the player's shoulders. There will be poor roleplayers out there. But guess what, sunshine? They are always going to be poor roleplayers, no matter how much you limit the playerbase.

If this is too extreme to swallow, then players should recieve a full skill reset as well as at least 25 more skill points to allocate. Essentially, new skills and constrictions have been added and players have been needing to spread their skill points too thinly. New players should be able to allocate all of their skill points immdiately. There is no reason for their character to be any less skilled than another. The purpose to these changes is to eliminate all the screwing around necessary just to get the skills required for RP. Any skill/stat system should be aimed at rewarding players with higher skills/stats in one area, NOT limiting everybody else.

[Casamir 42]

snip

First you have me wrong, I'm simply saying from the looks of things people refuse to meet in the middle, second I am focused solely on farming, archery, and cooking (I'm /deleveling everything else due to lack of skill reset) I have never found a time I needed stone bricks to RP, or a bucket. The material items are not needed for RP, unless you are RPing building homes for people, in which case whats wrong with having the skill to do so? I don't understand your association of items with RP. not every character should be seeking to obtain material wealth, My knight, previous before my dwarven merchant didn't care about wealth, I cared about defending people. I didn't need armor or a diamond sword to RP the "just Knight" scenario either, I did what I could. My merchant, All I really have to sell is food, and the items I get from mobs. But even still with out being able to make all these items I am still able to RP.

So I ask you, why do you need to have these items to RP? Thats what I never understood about any of your posts, you keep saying "I have to sit and smelt and sit and grind crafting to RP" Explain a bit better and then maybe I can better understand what you are trying to say like brokencrowe did.

Also you seem to think that all information is meta gaming, You can find IC ways to find the location of towns and such, plus as many have mentioned shops. A timezone thing is a bit hard for anyone to "fix" anyways, and no one said go live in that town, but maybe communicate, find a way to find people from there, and then visit, trade. If you have to, to get people to work with, and it's Needed, then I'm sure it's not as bad as "I know where this evil bad guy is guys lets go kill him and take his loot and land and such cause he's been hiding for months on end but I read some whee on the forums ooc that this is where he is so lets get him guys not meta at all serious bro" You seem to be too much on the extreme side of things "only 5 people online" I highly doubt that there is only five Australian players. Maybe your character is just a bit too sheltered to have met them? If I was in a low pop time zone, I'd make the best of it and try to group up with people from my time zone instead of complaining that no one is around for me to do stuff with, other people from your time zone reached out, and said hey.. but you keep refusing to chose a solution already provided to your problem. obviously no one wants to play lotc alone, so I highly doubt gm's would be "lawl ban how dare you use information to find a group of players with thou hast been casteth out of asulon!"

Edit: Like I said I don't understand your items = RP thing, they added this for a hint of realism, I cannot perform operations, for I didn't go to medical school, makes sense. So why should a carpenter be able to craft iron armor and blades? why should a farmer know how to bend and shape and heat steel to form a bucket? The only way I can see not being able to craft something, affecting RP, would be if you where a lumberjack but couldn't make planks, but this isn't the case as you'd obviously have the lumbering skill to do so.

[fatwampa 25]

I feel as though Casamir has labelled all players against the patch as whining children who refuse all and any change, who live in the wilds self-sufficiently and want to be jacks of all trades. Players who do not value roleplay. This is downright slander and a lie.

So wait, you're not whining and offering no good suggestions?

You say you don't whine but you've written over ten paragraphs just now complaining. You also say you're not childish or unwilling to compromise yet I haven't seen you present one decent counter-proposal. All you do is go on and on about how this makes YOUR char's life more difficult. You also say you want to be able to make everything. Is that not a jack of all trades? So far, Casamir is right.

Stop playing the martyr and start playing the game.

[Brokencrowe 111]

She is not whining. She is trying to make a point. One you misunderstand, or didn't read closely enough to get. Items do not equal roleplay. The journey to seek these items simply should not hold you back from roleplaying the way you want to. Clearly if this were real life, which it is not, she and I would not be having any of these problems. Given, the smithy would just be down the street. He is not however, because he or she is logged off at the time we get on. (Just an example, not a real one.) She doesn't want to move because she is settled where she is. She enjoys the people she roleplays with there. She doesn't want to rearrange her stats in a way that doesn't make sense for her character, but she also does not want to be limited by ooc conventions.

[Casamir 42]

She is not whining. She is trying to make a point. One you misunderstand, or didn't read closely enough to get. Items do not equal roleplay. The journey to seek these items simply should not hold you back from roleplaying the way you want to. Clearly if this were real life, which it is not, she and I would not be having any of these problems. Given, the smithy would just be down the street. He is not however, because he or she is logged off at the time we get on. (Just an example, not a real one.) She doesn't want to move because she is settled where she is. She enjoys the people she roleplays with there. She doesn't want to rearrange her stats in a way that doesn't make sense for her character, but she also does not want to be limited by ooc conventions.

I understand needing to see a blacksmith for a tool for your trade, or a carpenter to make you something. But how does not having say, a hoe, stop you from conversing with your neighbor? unless you are a warrior, and your RP is fighting others, then yeah I can see why you'd need a sword, but even then I don't see why you would need to RP with the sword out all the time. What I am saying, is how does not having wooden planks, stop you from RPing with others? I have never needed an item to RP, only words. to straight up say, it ruins and breaks my rp, confuses me, what kind of rping are you doing that is so reliant on having items? As I said, I've only ever had to use my words to RP, not have a wooden plank or stone stairs in my hand to do so.

[fatwampa 25]

Okay, how does not having a bucket destroy your rp experience? Because I'm still waiting for someone to answer that one. I mean, how many buckets do you really need to have an enjoyable experience on this server? She keeps saying she doesn't want to move yet gets mad when accused of being uncompromising. Really? I've moved so many times in my char's life. It's not that bad.

And do you need to have maxed stats on your char's profession? Why not just delevel a stat and get a little farming? I mean, that way you can still do your job but you can also do the basics. I didn't misunderstand her point, I don't understand the need for items. Food. That's all you need. If you can't acquire it through trade, grow it yourself. Problem solved.

One more thing. If nobody's on the server at the same time she is, who's she role-playing with?

[Rhisereld 317]

So wait, you're not whining and offering no good suggestions?

Sunshine, I've written quite a lot of suggestions and how the skill system should be set up. Do pay attention and try to keep up.

As long as people refuse to accept that this is detrimental to the game, I will keep attempting to prove it. That is how a debate goes. Once the problem has been established, maybe people will start considering or even reading (God forbid) my suggestions.

The material items are not needed for RP, . . . I don't understand your association of items with RP. not every character should be seeking to obtain material wealth,

You completely misunderstand, and are now saying that I only care about material wealth. Wrong. I'm saying that this patch destroys storytelling-type roleplay to make way to in-game wealth RP. Roleplaying is imagination; it's story-telling. You should be able to gloss over the smaller details to get to the story.

This new movement only makes material wealth more important than RP. Players want to spend more time roleplaying a circus than tracking down the lumberjack to make their tent.

We are here to have fun. This is not fun.

So I ask you, why do you need to have these items to RP? Thats what I never understood about any of your posts, you keep saying "I have to sit and smelt and sit and grind crafting to RP"

You didn't actually fully read my posts, did you? I am again getting the feeling that you have skimmed and then twisted my words to mean the opposite, such as the deluded illusion that I think that items=RP.

Also you seem to think that all information is meta gaming, You can find IC ways to find the location of towns and such, plus as many have mentioned shops.

Not all information is metagaming, it's true. I think it just makes no sense in Breva's overall storyline to turn up at somebody's doorstep for no apparent reason whatsoever. It's not about getting the information. It's not the 'how?' that concerns me, it's the 'why?'. Breva is perfectly settled where she is, and far too lazy to move.

A timezone thing is a bit hard for anyone to "fix" anyways, and no one said go live in that town,

Actually, you did. Rather strongly. As if I had no right to give any feedback unless I tried solving the problem by completely uprooting my own roleplay.

I highly doubt that there is only five Australian players. Maybe your character is just a bit too sheltered to have met them?

I don't know if you're aware of this, but you can actually see how many people are online by holding down the tab key. Just saying. There are times when there are literally only five players online. Not all Australian players are online at the same time on the same day.

I highly doubt gm's would be "lawl ban how dare you use information to find a group of players with thou hast been casteth out of asulon!"

Now the problem. I don't abuse the boundaries of what I should be doing, simply because I can't get banned for it. It's not about not getting banned. It's about the integrity of my roleplay. It's "why would Breva do this?". It's common sense. If I cannot roleplay freely, then I will find somewhere else.

[Brokencrowe 111]

Because she needs to get things done, before she can roleplay. You've lived in a town haven't you? You've had to work to get things done. Sure you can roleplay. But, you can't work on the things that need to be worked on. What if you needed to build a building for a roleplay event? And you didn't have the skills to do it on your own, but in the roleplay context of the world you'd have the whole town helping you? That is what she is talking about. The roleplay that needs to take place, often times can't, because the people are there for a short time, and when they are there great! When they are not, she can't get what needs to be done, done.

[Casamir 42]

okay so you say things like "I'd rather leave than compromise my RP to get in game wealth" yet you keep talking about how you need these items, See I do read your full posts, but you kinda go in circles and lose me part way, you kind of contradict yourself in some ways and it really confuses me. All I'm saying is compromise a bit, but you clearly don't want to leave your own dinky little town #145 to go visit or trade with dinky town #132, so clearly maybe these dinky little towns should be wiped out all together, clearly the population of LOTC is too far spread, I think Towns and the such should have their charters revised to prevent the spreading of these dinky towns popping up, that seems to be more the problem than these skills, is people are too spread out, maybe even shrink the map size again to push people closer.

"You completely misunderstand, and are now saying that I only care about material wealth. Wrong. I'm saying that this patch destroys storytelling-type roleplay to make way to in-game wealth RP. Roleplaying is imagination; it's story-telling. You should be able to gloss over the smaller details to get to the story." who says you need to go get wealth then to role play? you keep mentioning your inability to get items is detrimental to your role play.

"This new movement only makes material wealth more important than RP. Players want to spend more time roleplaying a circus than tracking down the lumberjack to make their tent.

We are here to have fun. This is not fun." Why not get a lumberjack before starting a circus? It adds realism, plus RP in preparing for said circus, they don't just appear out of no where and happen over night, the ringleader isn't also the guy who builds the stages and sets the tent.

"Not all information is metagaming, it's true. I think it just makes no sense in Breva's overall storyline to turn up at somebody's doorstep for no apparent reason whatsoever. It's not about getting the information. It's not the 'how?' that concerns me, it's the 'why?'. Breva is perfectly settled where she is, and far too lazy to move." If you need an item, there is your why

"So speaking purely Rp, if you found yourself (pretend you are your character) Unable to live in the area you are, no smiths, no cooks.. you wouldn't uproot to a place where this would be provided for you? you would be stubborn and sit around talking to people about how awesome it would be if the town had food instead of doing something about it? My character was like oh, I need stuff, guess grumpy old dwarven me needs to actually get a bit social with some random nobodies and see if I can get the goods I need. In any situation if you need something and it's not readily available, you do something about it. I have no food in my home for supper, hmm maybe I should walk to the nearest store and buy some? If anything this as planned should encourage RP, you now how to seek out people you normally wouldn't talk to, converse with them, make nice, trade, barter, and then either establish a trade deal or say hey, could you stop by this town once in so and so time to supply us? Instead of complaining about how it's ruining the server, take a pro active stance on it, and actually traverse the server, interact. "

Note the no actual go live in this damn town, I stated why not uproot? and then finished with the compromise of setting up trade. giving you a range of options to chose from.

"Now the problem. I don't abuse the boundaries of what I should be doing, simply because I can't get banned for it. It's not about not getting banned. It's about the integrity of my roleplay. It's "why would Breva do this?". It's common sense. If I cannot roleplay freely, then I will find somewhere else." cause why the hell would anyone go get food if they are hungry? You make claims that no one is online to provide you with the goods you need, yet you can't seem to think of a valid "why" would I leave... really?

As I said you kind of have a circle logic that confuses me, it's hard to make out your meaning when you clearly state I could... but why? I might.. but why would my character? When you clearly state in your complaints that you cannot get the items you need in your current local.

[fatwampa 25]

Sunshine, I've written quite a lot of suggestions and how the skill system should be set up. Do pay attention and try to keep up.

As long as people refuse to accept that this is detrimental to the game, I will keep attempting to prove it. That is how a debate goes. Once the problem has been established, maybe people will start considering or even reading (God forbid) my suggestions.

Your "suggestions" are not really compromises nor are they even close to realistic. "Strength, intelligence, dexterity and luck." Really? That's your solution? Talk about an unbalanced game. If you think the system is bad now, wait until you have everyone using your grand idea. So what would this intelligence stat do? Hmm?

So far all you have done is convince me this patch was pretty good. It forces players to work together.

It's not detrimental, you're exaggerating. You don't accept change because you're too caught up in your own little world. You want a book. You don't want a community or a challenge, you want your own little story. Great. Like I said, go write a book.

Roleplaying is about seeing a world through the eyes of another. Not story-telling.

[Rhisereld 317]

In roleplay, I would have access to these items. There is a carpenter, a blacksmith, a cook nearby, but they can't always be online. The constrictions are only OOC ones. If everyone is expected to uproot their roleplay because of the patch, then it by definition destroys roleplay. You can't have it both ways.

I won't continue to explain again and again my reasonings when you read what I say and take out a completely different meaning. The only reason my argument seems like "circle logic" is because you are putting words in my mouth. You are clearly a lost cause.

By the way, intelligence is for magic. I thought it was obvious.

[Brokencrowe 111]

That's just the thing. Roleplaying is storytelling. It's about joint stories, and ideas. If you take the story out, you would only have mindlessly PvP. There are other servers for that, if that is your tastes. But, this is a roleplay server. I want to actually roleplay, thanks.

[Neri 3590]

Please remember, we've already taken all opinions into account and mindlessly restating them isn't going to make a difference.

No one opinion is greater than the other, so please stop trying to prove each other wrong.

[fatwampa 25]

That's just the thing. Roleplaying is storytelling. It's about joint stories, and ideas. If you take the story out, you would only have mindlessly PvP. There are other servers for that, if that is your tastes. But, this is a roleplay server. I want to actually roleplay, thanks.

Words in my mouth.

Never said I wanted this to be a pvp server. I said story-telling is not the only thing that matters. You two go on and on about how everything is limiting you "creativity" and such but that's life. We can't all be master [insert all skills]. If you want that, get on a creative server.

Stop being unwilling to compromise and embrace Vaq's hard work.

[Brokencrowe 111]

I am more than willing to compromise. And I was simply stressing a point. In your fiery posts you have also put words in Rhisereld's mouth, due to a misunderstanding. She doesn't mind the change. And you also took her bucket example to an extreme.

The point being we don't want to be a master of anything. For example my stats were as following prior to this patch:

blacksmithing: 80

Mining: 50

Excavating: 60

lumber jacking: 30

Swords: 50

Farming: 5

Levant isn't a master of anything, but he is far from a jack of all trades. I changed up my stats recently to more fit my roleplay due to this patch. But, they are more or less in the same standing.

You sir are putting words in our mouths. I am grateful for Vaq's work as a coder, but this patch has problems. Problems we are trying to weed out and discuss, and I'd do kindly without you attack Rhisereld and I for simply having opinions that go against the patch. You should aim to be more civil, and understand our wants and needs more, because we only want to do the same for you. You are the one who is turning this discussion into an argument based around misunderstandings. And I am also in the wrong for letting it get to me, and fire back.