One thing that has always bothered me in games, even Theme Park ones, is that my characters learn many simple things many orders of magnitude slower than a real human does.
The normal person learns how to function at 80% efficiency in a non-knowledge based activity very quickly, and then gains less and less proficiency after that so that it could potentially take years to fully "master" something.
Allow me to elaborate:
1) My sister had never fired a gun until February or so. She went to the firing range 3 times, I went with her the third. She rarely missed the target's vital areas and could proficiently take the gun apart, clean it, and reload. Now, she's no Roland of Gilead, but she took to the activity naturally and she's good at it.
2) If you have never rode horses before, you could go out today and ride horses, with about 10 minutes of instruction. Now, you probably couldn't handle the situation well if the horse spooked, and you'll probably end up with raw thighs; but you can do it.
3) If you are willing to do back-breaking labor you can go help farmers in your area during harvest season. It takes about 10 minutes of instruction for each crop type. It's unskilled labor. After about a day of doing it, if you're not a slacker, you are just as fast as someone who spent 30 years doing it every day.
4) Most all mining of gold and diamonds is done in Africa. Look it up, it's completely unskilled labor. There may be some engineering skill that goes into digging a hole in the ground and making sure it doesn't collapse, but actually using a pickaxe to dig ore out of the wall takes a bunch of sweat and labor, not "skill".
5) If I grab a botany book, I can go out to the woods and harvest anything I see. If I had an instructor on how to best get at and find what I was looking for, within a matter of hours I will be 80% as efficient as the instructor at harvesting plants. Even without knowing anything, no magical force exists in the wild that would keep me from picking a rare or distinctive looking flower.
6) As a teen I did construction work one summer. While the architect and foreman may have been skilled labor, I wasn't.
It makes sense that an archetype could take 30 months to master, yeah? That's about how long Navy Seals get training in reality. That training turns a regular guy into an elite soldier.
It also makes sense that it might take 30 months to become a master swordsmith (if not even longer if we're being realistic).
However, it doesn't make sense that it would take even a week to become an extremely proficient farmhand, or berry picker, or medieval style miner, or rider.
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One of the things I expressed concern about in another thread is a lack of activities for characters to do because of specialization time sinks.
Well, lets go back to a low-tech world and ask what "skills" do every non-aristocrat already have just by virtue of having grown up? They know how to ride a horse, operate a plow, drive a wagon, barter for goods (not as well as a merchant), etc.
I guess the point of this thread is to brainstorm about no-brainers. If an activity in the real world takes less than a day or hour of training to efficiently engage in it should not be a skill handled by the skill system. It should just be something any player can do by figuring out what to do.
Rationalizing the skill system in such a way would allow developers to maintain tight control over character progression without making characters feel very limited as they do in Eve.
Unskilled labor in a world without mass production is very economically viable. Incorporating it into a game would also allow newer players to quickly become involved in sandbox activities because the unskilled labor needs of settlements would always exceed their skilled population.
So, what are your thoughts? What should be unskilled labor? What types of activities would you like to see in a game that can be economically viable but require no "training time".
/edit: As a side note, as the game matured the economics of unskilled labor would automatically make it more valuable since all the "mature" characters would be inclined to be doing more profitable things, easing the entry for new players who can immediately jump in and make money and a difference in the game world.
Goblin Squad Member
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I'm no master chef but when I went out camping in high school with our FFA group I was still pretty capable of taking on the role of cook.
Like you said, I know how to ride and groom a horse and the only reason I do is because I went to one week Bible camp with horses for a couple summers and did a three day trial ride at the end of those summers.
I know how to harvest potatoes and carrots because I was in an agriculture class around harvest season. Not only that but I knew how to harvest them before I got there because my mom had a garden a couple summers.
And at what age did you all learn basic reading and writing? After how much instruction???
I entirely understand what you mean. Like a basic soldier of this time is likely going to know how to build a basic fort. Why? Because their commander has probably had the whole unit fortify a position before. It doesn't take too long to learn how to sharpen logs and stick them in the ground. They probably won't be building any grand cathedrals anytime soon but...
This is logical. You might even make it easier to learn certain skills based on your class. A wizard will learn how to scribe scrolls faster while a ranger will learn how to skin a kill faster, a rouge would learn how to build a trap faster etc. I think certain skills should even give each-other bonuses. I mean, do you really want a "mastercraft" sword made by someone who doesn't know anything about swordplay beyond that they need to hit the opponent with the sharp edge?
You could reserve certain skills for the more dedicated crafters such as, I don't think I am merely a week away from making bows and arrows that fire straight with any kind of real force. I don't think I'm a week away from learning how to make jewelry from metal and gems, or etch the metal with engravings. And learning to shape steel with hand-tools sounds somewhat difficult.
Exactly. The give a man a fish/teach a man to fish proverb completely falls apart in existing MMO's because if the man is in a higher tier of content it could take him weeks to learn how to fish those "high level" fish. Nevermind that you can see them swimming abundantly right under the surface of the water.
Stuff like that is taking the carrot and the stick principle way too far, it pulls you right out of the game world and shoves the timesink aspect in your face.
A sandbox feels like a sandbox when you can do a ton of stuff right out of the gate. If logically by virtue of growing up in the setting; you'd know how to do something already... or that a real human could learn to do whatever in no time at all; it shouldn't be a skill. It should be an activity.
These activities that anyone can do could very well be financially rewarding, or rewarding in other ways. Just like in the sandbox we call earth.
A fish isn't worth much usually, but taking a wagon full of cured fish into a resource starved settlement would be pretty dang lucrative.
Picking flowers isn't going to make you rich, but supplying components to an alchemist in town could turn a nice profit. Supplying the ingredients needed to make healing potions to a settlement at war could be quite profitable and exciting.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Well and the nice thing with a system like what you are suggesting is in most games it is just too damn difficult to go out in the woods, clear some trees, build a cabin, put up some fences, plant a farm, get some horses, a couple dogs etc.
Even though this is incredibly viable in real life, it isn't in most games because that is a LOT of different skills at work. But if we adopted a system like you are suggesting you COULD do that. And people who wanted to specialize could still plant acre after acre of farmland, or learn how to clear-cut much faster, or raise prize warhorses and purebred hunting hounds or whatever.
It wouldn't stop you from building a little farm by yourself that is productive enough to be fun/worth your time.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If the proposal is that players should get to pick some early environment skills, that's ok. But people back then *really* specialized, and they learned by word of mouth, usually working as an unpaid apprentice for a couple of years.
If you worked for the castle huntsman, that's the skill set you got. You weren't working for the groom, or training at arms, or for the cook. You're going to either have to spend time learning those skills, or group with someone with those skills who can do it for you.
Yeah, there should be no-brainer skills, like picking apples. Ok, finding mandrake among a hundred other weeds? Doubtful, unless you spend time training with the village herbalist. Can you catch a fish, sure. Can you catch enough fish to survive on? Maybe not.
Life is hard - back in the olden days people starved to death in bad years, even when they sort of knew what they were doing. I think that we as 21th century (western) humans, can greatly underestimate how complex things are and how much work it takes to live in a different time or place.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The normal person learns how to function at 80% efficiency in a non-knowledge based activity very quickly,
I agree about diminishing returns, but 80% of what exactly?
Hitting baseball homeruns 80% as often as the pros? Jumping 7m long jump? Playing Bach 3-part inventions (arguably much less than 80% of the difficulty of the 4-part fuges)? Or did you mean "good enough for 80% of everyday situations" ??Your main point seems to be that many (important) tasks require no (or minimal) special skills to do, and that should be reflected in the game. I agree in principle, just not with some of your examples.
*So, your sister has a talent for shooting. I know others who after 9 months of military training couldn't hit the target reliably enough to pass the minimum test on the first 2 tries. This is more about people having different aptitudes than about task requiring no skill.
*Sitting on a running horse without falling off is not the same as riding! Try playing polo, racing or jumping hurdles if you don't see the difference. I took riding lessons as a kid for about a year and could stay on a spooked horse, but becoming a decent rider takes much more than that.
*Picking carrots is simple. Harvesting with a schythe on the other hand is very dependent on technique.
*Using a pickaxe requires mostly effort. Using it all day and be ready for more the next day requires good technique. Knowing where to dig, and telling a good vein from a bad one requires skill.
*Most medieval "non-aristocrats" would be serfs and not own a horse, although they would likely be good at sowing, harvesting, milking, woodchopping etc. Most fantasy medieval characters (presumably freemen/yeomen) have basic riding and bartering skills though.
Becoming a proficient farmhand (at least on farms with animals) or a decent rider in real life takes a few years, not a week.
If I grab a botany book, I can go out to the woods and harvest anything I see. If I had an instructor on how to best get at and find what I was looking for, within a matter of hours I will be 80% as efficient as the instructor at harvesting plants.
No!
Example: mushrooms. Armed with a book and 2 hours of instructions, people will not even find 80% of the mushrooms the instructor sees, will spend a lot more time collecting them, and will either leave a lot of edibles behind and/or pick up some poisonous ones.Unskilled labour should mostly be gathering and hauling materials, including courier services.
Some tasks should possibly be stat-dependent (strength, constitution) rather than skill-dependent (profession:lumberjack, heavy axes)
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Goblin Squad Member
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If the proposal is that players should get to pick some early environment skills, that's ok. But people back then *really* specialized, and they learned by word of mouth, usually working as an unpaid apprentice for a couple of years.
If you worked for the castle huntsman, that's the skill set you got. You weren't working for the groom, or training at arms, or for the cook. You're going to either have to spend time learning those skills, or group with someone with those skills who can do it for you.
Yeah, there should be no-brainer skills, like picking apples. Ok, finding mandrake among a hundred other weeds? Doubtful, unless you spend time training with the village herbalist. Can you catch a fish, sure. Can you catch enough fish to survive on? Maybe not.
Life is hard - back in the olden days people starved to death in bad years, even when they sort of knew what they were doing. I think that we as 21th century (western) humans, can greatly underestimate how complex things are and how much work it takes to live in a different time or place.
I think that is mainly what we are going for. That it would take almost no time to train how to do things like groom and ride a horse, catch fish with a fishing pole, build log cabins and palisade walls, or raise a hardy crop potatoes. That mostly any character would be able to do things like that efficiently enough that it wouldn't be like "Well I'm not a master architect who went through the grand royal academy of architecture for three years. Guess me and my buddies can't build that little settlement of log buildings with palisade walls or else they will have such low health a stiff breeze will blow them down."
You would still require more specialized training to ride a horse into the middle of a raging battle, run a fishing boat, build a grand cathedral with pillars, arches, and stain glass windows, or raise a crop that is very susceptible to weather, disease, or easily choked out by weeds like perhaps tomatoes and strawberries.
The game should still assign some value to the salmon we catch in the streams or the potatoes we raise on our humble farms. We should still be able to go to market and sell them for a price that makes them worth our time. It's just that the more specialized architect is the only one they can go to when they are building that extravagant temple or cathedral. And when you are making those browned potatoes they have a greater effect if you mix in the tomatoes.
If the proposal is that players should get to pick some early environment skills, that's ok. But people back then *really* specialized, and they learned by word of mouth, usually working as an unpaid apprentice for a couple of years.
Not quite, the proposal is a sanity check on what is and is not a skill.
Absolutely there should be skills, but those skills should be to do things that require a ton of knowledge or practice in reality, or would theoretically require the same (magic is a good example), but it should align with logic and plausibility.
The illegal immigrants harvesting crops do not have associate degrees in agriculture. The hundreds of illiterate fisherman in the pacific islands who do manage to feed their families do not have an associate degree in aquatic biology. The serfs in Africa working diamond and gold mines for pitiful handouts are not licensed geologists. The kid that made your shoe in china is not a master tailor...etc.
It doesn't make sense that a fantasy sandbox meant to be an escape from reality would be more restrictive in action than the real world. Maybe we're on the same page to some extent?
Your main point seems to be that many (important) tasks require no (or minimal) special skills to do, and that should be reflected in the game.
Exactly, if my examples are poor I apologize, but I'm sure any of us (or all of us) could think of a ton of stuff your average person could pick up in no time at all, or not need any training by virtue of having a little life experience or common sense, that are fun, meaningful, or both.
/edit: One of the reasons skill based CRPGs can be so off-putting to people is that everything is not just a skill, but a very specific skill. Often there are hundreds of skills. I blame the programmer mentality. P&P RPG's tend to be more fun because they have a much smaller list of skill and attribute checks leaving room for roleplaying and interpretation.
If your average DM wouldn't require a skillcheck on a character performing a certain action neither should a CRPG, but they almost always do. You could even tie attribute checks to mundane general life stuff and while more restrictive than what I'd envisioned, it would give characters the latitude to do a variety of different things without additional time sinks.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The illegal immigrants harvesting crops do not have associate degrees in agriculture. The hundreds of illiterate fisherman in the pacific islands who do manage to feed their families do not have an associate degree in aquatic biology. The serfs in Africa working diamond and gold mines for pitiful handouts are not licensed geologists. The kid that made your shoe in china is not a master tailor...etc.
Sorry, just to take one example - let's say you took your one week to work in the fields and got to 80% of the output of one of the field laborers. First of all, like you point out, he's not a farmer - he's just harvesting this week. Ok, you can harvest crops in a field, when the actual farmer tells you the crops are ready. It's backbreaking work and you go to bed exhausted at the end of the day. At the end of the week, you're up to 80% of output and your muscles have adapted and settled in.
Oh - you didn't train your swordsmanship that week, did you? And after 1 week you're up to 80% in Pick Low Crops.
I have no problem with people doing manual labor, picking crops, etc., at some disadvantage to trained labor. (50% to start?) I think it takes time to get good at most tasks, even labor, and I think most of our adventurer types have probably spent most of their young lives doing other things. I just think that this suggestion hand-waves away a lot of skills as 'not worth playing - to some people'.
The illegal immigrants harvesting crops do not have associate degrees in agriculture. The hundreds of illiterate fisherman in the pacific islands who do manage to feed their families do not have an associate degree in aquatic biology. The serfs in Africa working diamond and gold mines for pitiful handouts are not licensed geologists. The kid that made your shoe in china is not a master tailor...etc.Sorry, just to take one example - let's say you took your one week to work in the fields and got to 80% of the output of one of the field laborers. First of all, like you point out, he's not a farmer - he's just harvesting this week. Ok, you can harvest crops in a field, when the actual farmer tells you the crops are ready. It's backbreaking work and you go to bed exhausted at the end of the day. At the end of the week, you're up to 80% of output and your muscles have adapted and settled in.
Oh - you didn't train your swordsmanship that week, did you? And after 1 week you're up to 80% in Pick Low Crops.
I have no problem with people doing manual labor, picking crops, etc., at some disadvantage to trained labor. (50% to start?) I think it takes time to get good at most tasks, even labor, and I think most of our adventurer types have probably spent most of their young lives doing other things. I just think that this suggestion hand-waves away a lot of skills as 'not worth playing - to some people'.
If you spend hours a day training to fight in full plate with a maul picking crops probably isn't back breaking labor to you, it's probably relaxing. By the same measure a thief extremely skilled in fighting with short blades and picking locks would probably take to fishing like a ...fish to water. He'd be good at it in minutes.
If it's not skilled labor it's not something that's should be a "skill" in a game, it might have attribute checks, but calling it "skill" is a stretch IMO. It never fails to amuse me that the peasants you start with in an RTS are many orders of magnitude more competent than your average newbie in an MMO.
Conan could probably plow the fields without a horse. He'd start more productive at the task than the portly fellow who owns the farm.
You do realize that there are actual degrees in the agricultural and other food production fields?
Farming is not a simple matter, even though Pathfinder and its predecessors handwave it away with as little as a single Profession skill.
The complaint about taking a few minutes to pick up the basics of a skill - level 1 in EVE terms - is ironic given that the example time frames are longer than almost any skill in the game will likely take to train.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Sorry, just to take one example - let's say you took your one week to work in the fields and got to 80% of the output of one of the field laborers. First of all, like you point out, he's not a farmer - he's just harvesting this week. Ok, you can harvest crops in a field, when the actual farmer tells you the crops are ready. It's backbreaking work and you go to bed exhausted at the end of the day. At the end of the week, you're up to 80% of output and your muscles have adapted and settled in.
Have you ever harvested any sort of crop at all? You learn pretty-much nothing after the first five minutes. It's like chopping an onion. I didn't learn how to chop them fast from chopping a bazillion onions. I learned how to chop onions fast because my aunt saw me chopping onions and said "Here do it this way, it's much faster." I instantly started chopping onions way faster, I have not improved in speed much since then even though I've chopped many onions since thin.
The main things that determine speed at tasks are strength and just the general speed you operate at. For instance I was never as fast as making sandwiches as my co-workers when I worked at Subway. Why? I hadn't made enough? No. Because I'm 6'7" and I'm just not that fast at doing things with my hands.
However I was naturally good at throwing hay bails onto a truck. Was it because I threw hay a ton? No it was because I was a 6'7" guy who did wrestling and football. I was just freaking strong.
For certain tasks you should be able to complete the training with 24 hours or even 2 hours. The only major thing that should effect low skill labor is attributes.
So certain players will have no interest in picking potatoes or helping put up a palisade wall around the settlement. Who cares? Just because you have a skill or can easily train it doesn't meant you will have to use it. Personally for me this game is going to be just as much about being a part of a community as it will adventuring or fighting. If I can go back to the settlement at the end of a day and build fences or chop trees or do SOMETHING other than kill mobs it will increase my enjoyment tenfold.
The fact is 90%+ of the characters who do nothing but fight:
A. Are alts of people that have a character that does nothing but craft.
B. Will not be playing in two months.
We shouldn't have to make a second character to have some variety in our game play or forced to get rofl-stomped by people's pure combat ALTS. It's not realistic, it's not fun, and it's bad game design.
I want to be able to play my main 100% of time without being told, "You can do nothing but fight." Like he said, I'll belt Conan would make a pretty good farm hand if he wanted to stop killing things long enough. Hell I remember at the beginning of some of the Hercules: The Legendary Journey's episodes he was building things.
I want to play this game as Andius. Not Andius, and non-important crafting slave 1 and 2. I would even be willing to pay the price of 2 characters to do so.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The acquisition of complex cognitive, motor and perceptual skills requires deliberate practice, and it takes about 10 years to move from novice to expert practitioner*. So gaining mastery over the structure of the planes, mounted combat, alchemical recognition of rare reagents, etc. should take a long time.
If skill acquisition is gradual, so that when you start out you can perform at a novice level, move slowly to intermediate levels of performance, and then finally near the 2.5 year mark of 20th level fully achieve mastery level of performance, wouldn't that work? It would make sense, and reward players for deliberate practice.
Either something is a skill, or as Decius points out, it's just labor, and shouldn't have a skill mechanic.
* For any that are interested in a good overview of this subject, see "The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance." Ericsson, K. Anders; Krampe, Ralf T.; Tesch-Römer, Clemens
Psychological Review, Vol 100(3), Jul 1993, 363-406.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Won't there be players who are interested in specializing in these activities? Depending on how the skill system is paced exactly, what if becoming mostly trained in the unskilled labor skill/activity took a few hours, but fully specializing took a week? Wouldn't that work?
Performing unskilled labor requires little training, but becoming really good at it requires some practice.
Won't there be players who are interested in specializing in these activities? Depending on how the skill system is paced exactly, what if becoming mostly trained in the unskilled labor skill/activity took a few hours, but fully specializing took a week? Wouldn't that work?
Performing unskilled labor requires little training, but becoming really good at it requires some practice.
That's not usually true. Remember back to when you did a bunch of unskilled labor as a teen. I did everything from hanging movie theater screens, stocking store shelves, helping at my uncle's farm, building fences, mowing lawns, and flipping burgers. As an adult just last week I put up a playhouse in the backyard for the kids. It's structurally sound but not very pretty.
My productivity at these tasks began at higher rates than other unskilled labor because of my work ethic. Meaning, I want to get done with this sort of stuff as quickly as possible so I can get back to doing something entertaining.
Essentially if you can hire random people off craigslist or random day laborers from Home Depot to help do it, it's not a skilled task, not if you look at it realistically.
If something was purely attribute based and someone wanted to do it all the time nothing is preventing them from doing so. Whether or not there is an artificial skill construct attached to the activity/unskilled labor.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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My opinion is that "unskilled labor" tasks in general should be done by laborors, not player characters. Architecture and engineering are player character roles, as is construction manager and mine foreman.
I think they work best as character roles rather than player roles. The player's ability to manage people shouldn't be a factor in the character's. The player still needs to handle decisions about the trade off between speed and cost, should one be implemented.
My opinion is that "unskilled labor" tasks in general should be done by laborors, not player characters. Architecture and engineering are player character roles, as is construction manager and mine foreman.
I think they work best as character roles rather than player roles. The player's ability to manage people shouldn't be a factor in the character's. The player still needs to handle decisions about the trade off between speed and cost, should one be implemented.
While such a design decision could also be rational it sort of defeats the purpose of adding a bunch of activities players could do that were worthwhile that did not require timesinks.
Although I could see splitting them out into fun and not fun piles and NPC'izing the definately not fun ones.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I guess I just don't see a major difference between activities that are economically viable that require no training and gathering/labor skills that can be economically viable after twenty minutes of real time training.
Removing those activities from the list of trainable skills would make it easier for new players do dive into some areas of the game. Reducing the complexity of the skill system would be a benefit in that regard.
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Goblin Squad Member
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This conversation makes me wonder if there's not a simple game mechanic that makes sense and might solve a lot of the specialization/diversification problems as well.
Consider the assertion that it will take about 10 years to fully master something: That's not really 10 years dedicated to doing that thing only. During those ten years, even a strongly motivated student of that particular skill will still be learning other things.
I propose a mechanic that requires a certain amount of Cooldown after a skill is trained, during which time the character is fully integrating the new skill training, and during which time that skill can't be trained further. I would recommend the Cooldown be some multiple of the training time.
This conversation makes me wonder if there's not a simple game mechanic that makes sense and might solve a lot of the specialization/diversification problems as well.
Consider the assertion that it will take about 10 years to fully master something: That's not really 10 years dedicated to doing that thing only. During those ten years, even a strongly motivated student of that particular skill will still be learning other things.
I propose a mechanic that requires a certain amount of Cooldown after a skill is trained, during which time the character is fully integrating the new skill training, and during which time that skill can't be trained further. I would recommend the Cooldown be some multiple of the training time.
The "10,000 hours (5 years)" thing is accurate enough for a character's "class". The hobbies and miscellaneous dooflichies that are also learned besides one's "class" in PF terms warrant a "side bar of interests". Most of the extra time/year is spent on sleeping, liesure time, personal basics [eating, hygiene]. However, I would not be surprised if there were "non classed" stuff training at half, one-third or one-quarter speed asides from a "class" (that trains at full speed).
These hobbies must not be anything related to the 11 archetypes, but it would follow a reasonable expectation for side interests being developed.
Interesting ideas Turin and Nihimon, I like them both. Esp Turin's, given really that's how I've gotten all my video game skill, and picked up reasonable competence in a few different languages. I never focused on those things, and I might have been spending most of my time learning other things; but I still ended up with the "skills".
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Marou_, Turin's idea is basically the same thing I've been proposing about multiple training channels, isn't it?
I actually think being able to train other skills "on the side" has a lot to recommend it. It certainly accomplishes the goal of allowing characters to diversify without making them feel like they're gimping their main line of advancement.
If the different channels train at different speeds (half-, third-, quarter-speed) then that should also solve the problem of pure crafters feeling like they're losing ground to adventurer/crafters who can craft just as well as they can.
The problem I see remaining is to make sure that the separate channels can't be used to double up on either adventuring or crafting skills. If the skills are categorized into Domains (Adventuring, Crafting, Other), and you can only train a particular Domain in one channel at a time, then that should solve that problem as well. Although, it should probably be possible to train Other in more than one channel at a time.
@Marou_, Turin's idea is basically the same thing I've been proposing about multiple training channels, isn't it?
I actually think being able to train other skills "on the side" has a lot to recommend it. It certainly accomplishes the goal of allowing characters to diversify without making them feel like they're gimping their main line of advancement.
If the different channels train at different speeds (half-, third-, quarter-speed) then that should also solve the problem of pure crafters feeling like they're losing ground to adventurer/crafters who can craft just as well as they can.
The problem I see remaining is to make sure that the separate channels can't be used to double up on either adventuring or crafting skills. If the skills are categorized into Domains (Adventuring, Crafting, Other), and you can only train a particular Domain in one channel at a time, then that should solve that problem as well. Although, it should probably be possible to train Other in more than one channel at a time.
Yeah, it makes sense. The ultimate sandbox would incorporate many of these different ideas I think. Hobbies/sub training, unskilled activities, training synergies, etc.
Then instead of incentive's for pigeonholing as happens in EVERY SKILL BASED MMO EVER (sorry, it irks me), you'd have a bunch of people that could do a bunch of stuff. Meaning, they wouldn't get bored and they'd play the game more. Meaning they'd spend more money on the game and tell more friends about it. Long story short, everyone is happy.
Well, I'm sure someone isn't happy, but someone is always not happy. In this case though it would probably be the guy who had 3 subs/ultra specialist chars, it doesn't really benefit him at all.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The problem with trying to be realistic is it isn't as fun. There's a reason why I play games: Because reality bites. I'd prefer to have it like in other games where over time, you will gain access to more and more items. If we had it realistically, it would only take a couple of days to obtain a large amount of skills. In turn, people may lose interest just as fast.
I hope Goblinworks doesn't aim for realism like everyone else. The market seems to be stagnant with it, and I'm tired of it. Also remember this game is FAR from realistic.
If it were to be realistic, a lightning bolt would kill or greatly injure you. A fireball with how they describe it would annihilate any normal person or give severe burns.
The problem with trying to be realistic is it isn't as fun. There's a reason why I play games: Because reality bites. I'd prefer to have it like in other games where over time, you will gain access to more and more items. If we had it realistically, it would only take a couple of days to obtain a large amount of skills. In turn, people may lose interest just as fast.
I hope Goblinworks doesn't aim for realism like everyone else. The market seems to be stagnant with it, and I'm tired of it. Also remember this game is FAR from realistic.
If it were to be realistic, a lightning bolt would kill or greatly injure you. A fireball with how they describe it would annihilate any normal person or give severe burns.
As far as I know there hasn't been a sandbox styled MMO out there that hasn't gated off most *all* worthwhile activites with grinding or time sinks. The single player sandboxes out there (Minecraft, Skyrim, GTA series, Saints Row, Terraria) all have ultra high hours played compared to normal games, and amusingly compared to MMO's.
I think I have more hours sunk into Minecraft and Skyrim than the last 3 MMO's I played combined.
I agree that realism in combat is of dubious entertainment value (remember Bushido Blade?). However, realism in skill training is something I haven't seen done in a sandbox styled MMO. Yes, some things require intense training over long periods of time. That is plenty of activities, but not all of them, or perhaps even most.
All of the existent MMO's have been prone to turning unskilled labor or ultra-simple tasks into multi-hundred hour timesinks. Which, on some level is kind of insane, given that a *normal human* that does a menial task in a video game for hundreds of hours just to get proficient at it is gonna get bored REAL fast when the end reward they were aiming for was reached and it wasn't as exciting as they'd hoped.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I have to say i'm not too big of a fan of injecting too much realism into my games just for the sake of doing it. I'm always going to look at it from whats fun for gameplay before I look at how close it is to a real world example. Too many variables for the real-world can be applied (learning rates, teaching tools, even basics as physicality), where as the game system has to be rock solid and consistent every time.
It seems the real dislike is too much menial timesinks in a skill system, just for the sake of eating up subscriber time. Yes, we want to play, and no not everything is going to be insta-cake from the magic microwave, but if we can avoid huge timesinks with our characters standing on an anvil while I go make dinner, do the dishes, and take a nap before getting back to actually playing the game, I think that'll be great.
If skill training "feels" like i get a good reward for a X amount of time trained, that's a win.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The problem with trying to be realistic is it isn't as fun. There's a reason why I play games: Because reality bites. I'd prefer to have it like in other games where over time, you will gain access to more and more items. If we had it realistically, it would only take a couple of days to obtain a large amount of skills. In turn, people may lose interest just as fast.
I hope Goblinworks doesn't aim for realism like everyone else. The market seems to be stagnant with it, and I'm tired of it. Also remember this game is FAR from realistic.
If it were to be realistic, a lightning bolt would kill or greatly injure you. A fireball with how they describe it would annihilate any normal person or give severe burns.
I take strong objection to that comment as someone who has been looking for a good realistic MMO, with engaging combat for a LONG time (EVE, Mortal Wurm, all fail on the 2nd criteria.) Exactly which MMOs are you describing here because I would sure love to play one of these masses of realistic MMOs the market is stagnant with as opposed to the mass of the theme-park WoW clones that market is ACTUALLY stagnant with.
The fact is having a large variety in non-combat gameplay allows for newbs to not waste their time making valueless items for their first few months in-game, and it allows fighters who don't have crafting alts to contribute to their village in a way that doesn't specialize smashing things. It's something that improves game quality dervived from realism, it isn't just realism for realisms own sake. Wouldn't you rather have newbs and people who aren't primary crafters generating useful items rather than copper daggers that will just get thrown away or melted down into scrap? In real life people who have no skills are put to work doing unskilled labor. Why is this such a bad idea for a game? Especially given we KNOW that skills are trained separate from their usage if you don't give people meaningful tasks to do while their character advances, WHY WOULD THEY EVER LOG ON? It's like EVE. There isn't much point of doing anything other than logging on to switch skill training for the first month or two of being subbed.
If you want to RP a candle maker, fence builder, or potato farmer then you need to just deal with the fact that your professions are things your general newb can do too. If you want to be a skilled laborer who produces things that others can't then there should be plenty of opportunities to do so.
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IMO they should have generic skills that cover a wide variety of simple stuff that starts out as doable but can be lvled up and then take specializations. IE have a gathering skill, everyone can do it but some people might do it alot and then specialize in gathering herbs.
Also, they shouldn't limit me by saying I can only learn 1 or 2 skills of a certain type nor should they require me to spend time doing useless things, I played wow for a week but I could not make an item that was helpful to me cause I already had better everything just from completing quests. that is very bad.
You should look at Mabinogi, it is an older game but has the best skill system I ever used on or off a computer.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It sounds like most of this unskilled stuff won't be done by novice players, or even any player, it will be done by NPC's.
I'm talking from the future, where the new blog is out, and it sounds like there won't be a plant-harvesting skill. There will be a skill to direct and manage the plant-harvesters. So, for example, your Herbalism merit badge won't be about just picking plants, it will be about finding as many plants in an area as you can, and managing the plant harvesting camp you constructed while NPC's do all the plant-picking.
And this whole 80/20 thing is one of the cores of EvE Online. Skills have 5 different levels of training, with each level becoming exponentially longer. Put it this way: Training from level 0 to level 3 in a given mid-rank skill takes about 3 days. Training the last two levels can take 30. So you do get pretty good at the skill pretty fast, but it takes a long time to master it.
My one issue with that in EvE is how many ships and skills require level 5 in other skills as a prereq. So you have to spend all 30 days training the other skill just to even BEGIN to train the skill you were actually looking at.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As Arbalester hints, the latest blog has made much of this discussion redundant (for the purpose of PFO design, it is interesting enough in itself).
To harvest grain in PFO you don't work as a farmhand, you hire one. (Who likely works at 80% efficiency unless you know improved techniques you can teach him). Essentially GW will not let you play a commoner, that's what NPCs are for. However it may be economically viable for the unskilled adventurer to just stand around watching the commoners work!
As Arbalester hints, the latest blog has made much of this discussion redundant (for the purpose of PFO design, it is interesting enough in itself).
To harvest grain in PFO you don't work as a farmhand, you hire one. (Who likely works at 80% efficiency unless you know improved techniques you can teach him). Essentially GW will not let you play a commoner, that's what NPCs are for. However it may be economically viable for the unskilled adventurer to just stand around watching the commoners work!
Indeed, I like where they are going with many of the ideas behind the game. If this aspect ends up being entertaining I could easily see myself enjoying it for a few weeks at a time every once in awhile.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yeah I can see where 80/20 is no longer super relevant. Even managing a McDonalds takes much more learning than things like harvesting potatoes. I kind of hope that the mini-games that motivate your workers can be done individually OR as a community effort, and that some of them can be done by less skilled players. But I definatly agree owning and running camps and crafting facilities, shouldn't be a free skill anymore. Some might only take a week but nothing like... "You train two hours! You can now run 5 candle-making stations!"
Yeah, the blog post and Ryan's clarifications in the other thread sort of brought me full circle to where I began.
I started this thread out of a desire to get longer lasting entertainment out of Pathfinder by brainstorming a variety of activities that could potentially be included anyone would be free to engage in; while still investing all training time in a competitive character within a specialized skill-set.
Having had unskilled labor and gathering ruled out by the recent update I'm at a bit of a loss as to what sorts of activities could be logically included that would be diverting, beneficial, and not require time-sinks to participate in.
Since I don't enjoy that other time based sandbox, but love the ideas behind it; it's obviously a real issue to me. My wife was chatting with a buddy of ours earlier and was talking about PFO and the blog entries. He cut her off with, "The time-based advancement system is a killer to me. If I want to do something I want to have fun doing it now, not in 2 months when it's actually viable." Nobody has fun killing gray con mobs in a theme park. It's not beneficial in any way other than meager coin. Starting a new activity in Eve's sandbox feels very similar to grinding gray con mobs. The only benefit is meager coin.
So, in many ways I share his sentiment. I'm in the odd position of looking forward to seeing what takes shape in Pathfinder but being pessimistic based on experiences with past implementations of similar systems. Perhaps a future blog post describing all of the non-training based activities planned for the game will take me that last few steps into full blown enthusiasm, from interested but uncertain it will hold any lasting appeal (to me).
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Goblin Squad Member
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He cut her off with, "The time-based advancement system is a killer to me. If I want to do something I want to have fun doing it now, not in 2 months when it's actually viable and fun." Nobody has fun killing gray con mobs in a theme park. It's not beneficial in any way other than meager coin.
Killing goblins is not fun? It's only fun when its orcs? In that case, how do you manage to grind to 80 in a themepark game, that is boring and pointless play *that still takes time*. Would you rather GW set it where it takes 2 months of boring grinding to get where its fun, or 2 months training where you can try to go find something fun? Areas where you can make some coin, but not so much to draw attention from higher level players?
He cut her off with, "The time-based advancement system is a killer to me. If I want to do something I want to have fun doing it now, not in 2 months when it's actually viable and fun." Nobody has fun killing gray con mobs in a theme park. It's not beneficial in any way other than meager coin.Killing goblins is not fun? It's only fun when its orcs? In that case, how do you manage to grind to 80 in a themepark game, that is boring and pointless play *that still takes time*. Would you rather GW set it where it takes 2 months of boring grinding to get where its fun, or 2 months training where you can try to go find something fun? Areas where you can make some coin, but not so much to draw attention from higher level players?
Grinding refers specifically to doing a highly repetitive activity that shows very little progress towards a goal. You're not really grinding in any of the modern theme parks until you hit level cap. You're earning new abilities and unlocking more advanced gameplay.
When I think of grinding, I think of the EQ days and some of the asian MMO's, that want you to sit on a hill and kill the same 4 repopping mobs for 4 months to gain one level. Or the often tedious process of itemizing and gearing a level capped character for PvE or PvP in a theme park.
Leveling up in SWTOR for example was plenty of fun, too bad it was the only good part of the game. Good stories, interesting dialogue systems, fun relatively balanced PvP, finite end. Just like a ride in a theme park, it was fun while it lasted, and I don't regret the money spent. Had they developed interesting sandbox styled PvP end-game to keep me playing, I would be.
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Goblin Squad Member
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...I'm at a bit of a loss as to what sorts of activities could be logically included that would be diverting, beneficial, and not require time-sinks to participate in.
It may have taken me a very long time to understand where you're coming from (my apologies), but with that line things seem a lot more clear. It would be a disappointing prospect for there to be no beneficial content beyond your intended goals. There will be plenty of things one can do, but without access to certain abilities and equipment, will they really be worthwhile from an entertainment/resource standpoint?
Theoretically, if you're not going to process/craft, you can always harvest. If you don't want to do that, you can take up shipping or bounty contracts. If not that you can explore to find resource content and sell/trade the information. If not that then there's always PvE nodes/encampments to go hunt down.
Overall, I think that unless you are working with a consistent group to accomplish shared, long-term goals, then you'll be constantly struggling to make ends meet, whether it be fun or profit.
For now, I'm just going to hope that GW will make a game that allows all kinds of characters and playstyles to flourish.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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He cut her off with, "The time-based advancement system is a killer to me. If I want to do something I want to have fun doing it now, not in 2 months when it's actually viable and fun." Nobody has fun killing gray con mobs in a theme park. It's not beneficial in any way other than meager coin.Killing goblins is not fun? It's only fun when its orcs? In that case, how do you manage to grind to 80 in a themepark game, that is boring and pointless play *that still takes time*. Would you rather GW set it where it takes 2 months of boring grinding to get where its fun, or 2 months training where you can try to go find something fun? Areas where you can make some coin, but not so much to draw attention from higher level players?Grinding refers specifically to doing a highly repetitive activity that shows very little progress towards a goal. You're not really grinding in any of the modern theme parks until you hit level cap. You're earning new abilities and unlocking more advanced gameplay.
When I think of grinding, I think of the EQ days and some of the asian MMO's, that want you to sit on a hill and kill the same 4 repopping mobs for 4 months to gain one level. Or the often tedious process of itemizing and gearing a level capped character for PvE or PvP in a theme park.
Leveling up in SWTOR for example was plenty of fun, too bad it was the only good part of the game. Good stories, interesting dialogue systems, fun relatively balanced PvP, finite end. Just like a ride in a theme park, it was fun while it lasted, and I don't regret the money spent. Had they developed interesting sandbox styled PvP end-game to keep me playing, I would be.
It's fine if you don't want an open ended sandbox game set in the River Kingdoms. PFO is intended to appeal to a narrow market segment that isn't interested in the endgame of most existing MMOs.