Goblin Squad Member
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One of the great things about SWG was the ability to teach other players skills you already know. I would like to see a similar system in all skill based advancement games.
What I propose is this:
- Teaching speeds up training for another player.
- Along with a skill queue, players can form 'teaching schedules'
- As with skill training, you can only teach one skill at a time.
- To teach a player, you form a contract that says that your teaching schedule will be dedicated to them for the duration of their skill training.
- Teaching can be scheduled ahead of time, and automatically activates unless the contract is cancelled (Termination penalties are up to the contract). I feel that the system should be very flexible, and not interfere too much with skill training, all you should have to do is find someone with an open schedule when you are set to train that skill.
-The teaching bonus is based on the difference between the attributes, the teaching magnitude is as follows:
Magnitude = Teacher's Attribute - Student's Attribute
The more positive the number, the more the benefit, so if you are at 2 strength and being taught by someone with 20(making the mag=18) you receive a huge bonus, but if you are a 20str being trained by a 2str, you receive next to no bonus.
Teaching could even be linked to merit badges that increase the teaching magnitude to offset negative effects, and increase the higher bonus', and maybe a 20th that allows you to teach 2 at once(not a capstone).
Final note: If PFO will be representing negative benefits from low attribute scores, I would suggest making the teaching impossible, or just for fun, slow it down(a fun statistic to laugh about at office parties).
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Goblin Squad Member
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Not as a bypass, just to lessen the effects of a low attribute score, and provide a new type of player interaction. Getting taught from someone with a lower attribute shouldn't give you much of a bonus to training time, and learning from someone with a higher attribute should only grant you a portion of the difference between your training time, and the teachers.
So if you are a 18 being trained by a 12, you would be training as a 19, and if you are an 13 being trained by a 20, you would be effectively a 16. The bonus is mainly seen when the teacher has a higher attribute
I wouldn't mind doing away with training from lower attribute characters, if the time increase is a problem.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Generally speaking, I love the idea of player to player teaching. It would be great if certain teachers became famous and much sought after.
I also like your idea of a contract between teacher and student, as this would have the added effect of promoting roleplaying interaction, or the potential to. In other words, a teacher would be more inclined to teach another player who is ICly interesting. Not all teachers will care, but if the majority do, it could be a great way to enhance the IC environment.
I like how this could help new players to catch up to longer played characters AND be a part of the community pretty fast, so they will be more likely to stay when they first try it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It seems to fall into the "maximizing human interaction" bucket, but it's hard to say for sure.
That's what I'm thinking. There's something about this idea I potentially like. I know in Ryzom, there were things top players learnt which they jealously guarded the secrets of (at least from what I've been told when I tried it). That has some real appeal in a game. I'm not sure about "speed training", but the idea that teachers/exemplars in particular fields hold the keys to the top learning perhaps sounds interesting from a community pov.
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Goblin Squad Member
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IMO it kind of negates a large point of the game, in a way it adds to human interaction, but IMO it primaraly is just a designed 6 man exploit. At least assuming that the teacher isn't hindered on his own personal training time, then you just will find the going for max power charters/kingdoms, require their members to have whatever stats maxed, and everything else as dump, and each person set to teaching at all times. IMO taking 2 seconds to pick someone off a forum and do one set action to keep everything in motion as "maximizing human interaction" is roughly the as the MMO's that consider increased XP bonuses for party size, but still has enemies faster to kill solo (IE the best way to take advantage of it is everyone shouts for an invite to the party for the map, then branch off and solo just as if they weren't in a party).
IMO the whole concept is false interaction and a blatent attempt to negate any meaning at all to the attribute system (now whether the attrib system is a good idea or a bad idea on it's own is valid discussion but if it's a bad idea, then the arguement should be that it should be scrapped, not that we should intentionally put a loophole to go around it).
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm somewhat concerned by this proposal. Seems rife for abuse, and at the same time putting later players in a much better position to advance than early adopters. If there's one thing I think should be as consistent as possible, its the speed with which people train skills. I see this "teaching" as being more of a social consolidator rather than an interaction maximizer. Quickly aggregating people to specific "teachers" for a skill bump...
Also, I'm not sure if this jives or how it would interact with the (preliminary, subject to change, etc) reveal by Ryan that stats more or less only affect the rate of training. Essentially; High STR, faster rate of training STR based skills. If I can piggy back my low STR player via "teaching" to someone else's high STR player, doesn't that somewhat muddle the whole point in the choosing in the first place?
This type of late entry favored status mechanic also has an unintended consequence of giving early adopters a sense of being punished. Maybe not a rational opinion, but if you spent 10 days training to be Awesome 1, and someone else only has to train 4 (and its an off-stat training on top of that) its not going to feel fair, no matter how you skin it as Apprentice/Master.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The devil's in the details. I can actually see it being a fairly cool system if certain special abilities are regularly added to the game and the first X players to maximize those skills become Masters. But there are a lot of potential problems. I'd find it extremely daunting to try to balance such a system.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Rather than reducing training time for a skill, it could act as an optional prerequite to qualify for a merit badge. You need to train for x hours with a master in skill X to qualify for an advanced merit badge.
There could be other ways to achieve the merit badge (kill x number of difficult critters). This would allow for lone wolfs to attain the merit badge as well as someone who wants to be mentored.
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Goblin Squad Member
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In what way do you 'train with a master'. Is that grouping with them? Providing them with payments for some abstract service? Is it just a matter of contracting with someone who has a "Master's Merit Badge"? How does the first person get the requisite skill level, if you have to train with a master to get the skill (chicken/egg paradox)? Can you train more than one person? Is it abuse or expected behavior to have effectively exclusionary and "pyramid scheme" style mechanics?
See, lots of problems to be resolved there.
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Goblin Squad Member
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My first thought is how can I use this to gain an advantage over other players... then that turned into "how can we..." which eventually brought me to "can this be implemented in a way that doesn't break the progression timeline GW has set?"
If it can, then great. If not, put it on the back burner until its feasible to revisit it.
oops, sorry about that. I didn't mean to post that last (blank) post.
What I was intending to attempt was this: I really like the idea of being able to train other players and whatnot. If I get started in the game, I want to eventually introduce friends to the game. If I do so, I don't want to be forced to a) create a new character just for playing with them, or b) carry them because I am significantly more advanced.
A con, however: I'm not sure how, but it seems like there would be SOME way just to create a farm for skill points, that would allow a hoard of angry people to run around, far more powerful than they really should be.
*Shrugs* Or not. Who knows.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Why does the Noob get a faster rate of training? Just because he knows someone with more time in the game? How do you prevent that Longterm player from just using that longtime character to train his alternates faster?
The big problem with this system is the sort of logical analogy between time spent training, and XP gained in other systems. In other systems, its huge perk and a gateway to rapid advancement in levels, which allows you to compete in "end-game" stuff and compete in PvP more effectively. A very basic level of training should allow players in PFO to compete, so there's less of a power gap found in XP/Level based systems. Arbitrarily advancing some people due to some arbitrary relationship just doesn't seem like a good mechanic.
Everyone in this type of system should have a static rate of advance. Time. For every minute spent on a skill training, you should earn a minute of a skill. I don't see the advantages for the overall populace if some people advance faster, solely on some social structure.
In the place of more rapid advancement, I'm in favor of a system more like EVEs where access to new skills is gated by those capable of training them. This might translate to; to train past Basic Melee 4 into Great Axes (which requires bm4 maxed), you need a training manual to even get started on Great Axes 1. And so, Someone has to write that manual, and it thusly becomes a commodity to be traded or sold. In this way, social structures can build up allowing the teacher/apprentice, and you also get some extra economic pressures on the markets (trust me, a good thing).
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Goblin Squad Member
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In the place of more rapid advancement, I'm in favor of a system more like EVEs where access to new skills is gated by those capable of training them. This might translate to; to train past Basic Melee 4 into Great Axes (which requires bm4 maxed), you need a training manual to even get started on Great Axes 1. And so, Someone has to write that manual, and it thusly becomes a commodity to be traded or sold. In this way, social structures can build up allowing the teacher/apprentice, and you also get some extra economic pressures on the markets (trust me, a good thing).
Sounds awesome. I like the idea of people being able to help other's out with training, but I personally think if you start playing the game 3 months after your friends, and each of you keeps your skill queue's going, you should never be able to catch up. That's the beauty of this type of system, while your still a viable part of the universe, you'll never be as learned/skilled or what have you as someone who's been her longer. I really like the idea that those who put in the time get a lasting reward like that, instead of theme park games where within a month everyone's maxed out, and everyone's always the same.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Think what Gruffling says comparing to what EvE does makes sense from the teaching idea. IE "gated" vs "speed-training". +1. At some point trust on how things run is the ultimate decider it seems to me, on any level of creating a system for players to interact within.
On the subject of "1st come, 1st served", speaking purely for myself, I've never really felt overly concerned too much about this. SOMEONE/SOME PPL have to get the world turning to begin with and the way I see it those players just become dynamic parts of the "world" not especially different from "Settlement A" is located at Location X is a "fact" of the game world's geography. I know the problem can expand to 1st to move into a new emerging market niche then has dibs for the next 50yrs when the market becomes mature and saturated (apparently according to Malcolm Gladwell, this is sorta what happened with the drugs scene in N. American city (can't remember which one now)!). But in terms of a sandbox that is dynamic, it's adding context and content, so all good for a new player to experience these organic stories, imo?
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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It works in Eve just like it works in the world: when you first start you lack the ability to be productive, rapidly acquire the ability to do one thing passably, and then continue to improve.
The key is that within a few hours or days of joining you can have a character who can contribute meaningfully to a group; high-time characters are then REQUIRED to take on new tasks to stay competitive with other corporations. A similar dynamic happens with new corporations-they start filling one role and then broaden their capabilities over time.
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Goblin Squad Member
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To follow up on the "first come, most powerful" topic; This is somewhat avoided by skills deeper in the skill trees costing more time, and naturally slowing down older characters as they specialize more and more.
Additionally, as per the EVE model, there are significant tiers or plateaus of efficacy. Once you've been in game a little while, feet properly wet, you should be able to have a couple of combat capable moves available to you, and not just compete with your own age group, but also take that one good skill (spear thrust, dagger tosses, etc) By 3 months training, you should be more than capable of working a 2-5 move set of combos to fight and so on. A 6 month character might have 8 combos, or 3 combos that work great in PvP, and 5 that kick ass in PvE content. Or 1 killer combo devoted to a surprise attack, 4 to rapidly retreat, and a couple to loot fallen foes faster. Or being able to harvest and process 3 common but disparate resources (metal, wood, faerie dust) and efficiently move these resources to market, and barely be able to swing a mace at someone else's head....
Anyway, hypothetical examples aside, I have faith that I'll lose fights to newer characters and to older ones, and that i'll be effective and efficient in my wins. I'd like to believe I'll win more than I lose, based on my own skills and ability to coordinate with my team, but chances are I'll get tanked into the floor as well.