Goblin Squad Member
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Currently training is instantaneous upon spending gained xp at a trainer. How will training be sold as a commodity if there is an unlimited supply? I do understand that every settlement will not be able to train every role. But once built that doesn't limit the number of people training.
If there is a scaling training time for each feat and a number of "slots" at each trainer this would make training a commodity. However players would be double taxed with time. Once to gain the xp, and once to train the skill. IMO this is undesirable.
The solution as I see it is to make training take a scaling amount of time. But players would be able to start the training at zero xp. Training time would equal the time to accrue the xp requirement.
"But we want players to be able to keep ALL the xp that they paid for." A fine and noble goal and one that I agree with. That is why you would still be able to bank xp as before if you were not online to start a training. In this case you would be able to use more than one trainer at a time until said banked xp was gone, at which point the skills would queue in the order they were started.
You could even one up the whole commodity theory, by putting a second valve on the training system. You could adjust training slots available based on the number of players gaining xp.
players x 1.33 = training slots / number of trainers in game
Each trainer would have X slots available adjusted by in game population.
This would need be adjusted on a regular time frame ( daily or weekly).
This second idea is more of a thought experiment and has MANY flaws. Please dont dismiss the first idea because the second one is bad!
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Goblin Squad Member
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How will training be sold as a commodity if there is an unlimited supply?
I recall the original design called for Trainers would be limited in how much training they could offer before needing to recharge, but I'm not sure this is still part of the plan, or part of a Minimum Viable Product.
It would make sense to me, though, if the Trainers had a maximum XP value of training they could offer that would be depleted by the XP value of the Feats they sold and would recharge over time.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I can think of several possible ways they could meter out training. I believe training facilities will be tiered and cost the community similarly scaled costs in terms of DI. In my concept, wherever it came from, higher tiered training facilities will have greater capacity as well as more capable trainers offering higher levels of training to those who qualify. Qualification is key and may have several factors involved at least some of which will likely be set by the settlement leadership. This all suggests there will be a finite amount of training available. Yet 'first-come, first-served' does not appear to be well suited for a sensible community leadership to set, since the more important characters may not be the first to arrive. A system like that would result in critical training shortages if the trainer is swamped early in the day by strangers. So there will most likely be some sort of hierarchy set with those the leadership favors getting priority. That would mean that those who have the means to gain priority will likely be older players.
This schema suggests that one of the advantages Chaotic may enjoy over Lawful is that the Chaotic could maybe bribe the community to allow greater prioritization where that would be seriously frowned upon in a lawful community.
But that doesn't mean Lawfuls will find it difficult to 'monetize' their training like a commodity. The value may be set in terms of community service, specialized membership, factional standing, or what have you.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I can imagine entering a settlement where I am unknown, a community dominated by a faction I haven't curried favor with, and the trainer might lift his eyebrow at my request for training and respond "Do I know you? I think not. I might know you better were you freshly in from the forest beating the devil out of our settlement's escalations."
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Goblin Squad Member
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I envision the simplest solution as a tax rate that you can set based on where that character is from. You could even exclude certain settlements form your facilities with the same mechanic regardless of there individual rep level. Kind of like a reverse tariff.
"Oh, so you want to buy from us? That's gonna cost you."
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Goblin Squad Member
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The solution as I see it is to make training take a scaling amount of time. But players would be able to start the training at zero xp. Training time would equal the time to accrue the xp requirement.
This effectively makes it twice as long to utilize the experience. Someone (Nihimon, I remember, but I have weak memory) quoted time to gain exp for some higher sills and training as 10s of thousands of minutes. after accumulating for more than a week, the character has to wait another week to learn the skill/feat. This is just not feasible.
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Goblin Squad Member
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This effectively makes it twice as long to utilize the experience. Someone (Nihimon, I remember, but I have weak memory) quoted time to gain exp for some higher sills and training as 10s of thousands of minutes. after accumulating for more than a week, the character has to wait another week to learn the skill/feat. This is just not feasible.
The solution as I see it is to make training take a scaling amount of time. But players would be able to start the training at zero xp. Training time would equal the time to accrue the xp requirement.
No it would take exactly as long as currently. You would be able to train starting at zero xp, instead of the full xp amount.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Training as a commodity, and settlements being able to adjust price (within reason) is fine. Capping out training availability (requiring a recharge) would serve no purpose but to frustrate players, especially the casuals who can't check every 10 minutes, I hope they don't go there.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Someone (Nihimon, I remember, but I have weak memory) quoted time to gain exp for some higher sills and training as 10s of thousands of minutes. after accumulating for more than a week, the character has to wait another week to learn the skill/feat. This is just not feasible.
The highest XP Cost I see in the Achievement Feats spreadsheet is 79,452 for the level 20 Gathering and Refining Skills. That works out to a little over 33 days just to go from 19 to 20. If I did the calculations correctly, it takes 437,714 XP to get all 20 ranks, which works out to a little over 182 days (about 6 months) not counting any other Feats you'd need to buy to get the attribute requirements.
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Goblinworks Game Designer
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The plan is, indeed, to have trainers "run out" of training and have to get more over time. And to let settlements assign a coin cost to training at their building that they receive when someone trains. But that's not super high priority to get in right now.
I suspect that Tier 1 training will always be functionally unlimited and extremely cheap in coin cost, because we want the starter towns to offer it and not have new player N get the last of something and new player N+1 not understand why he can't get what the tutorial is telling him to buy. But I'm not sure exactly what we'll settle on for that.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The plan is, indeed, to have trainers "run out" of training and have to get more over time. And to let settlements assign a coin cost to training at their building that they receive when someone trains. But that's not super high priority to get in right now.
Such as a tier 1/2/3 trainer has 20,000/50,000/80,000xp pool? With a 500/1000/2000 xp per hour regen?
If so then I think training will have enough value to the owners of a settlement to actually have to make a choice on whether or not to sell training as it takes away their own resource. This is good, Thanks Steve.
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Something came to mind.
The settlement priceing the training for outsiders (maybe a quest, reputation, gold or any other condition) is understandable and desirable while thinking in meaningful Players relation.
But if training become a rare commodity (thinking on higher levels or specialized ones), why should a settlement let an outsider using it at all? The political issues, alignment, reputation, settlements incapable of providing all roles training, won't narrow the options where to train enough?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Something came to mind.
The settlement priceing the training for outsiders (maybe a quest, reputation, gold or any other condition) is understandable and desirable while thinking in meaningful Players relation.
But if training become a rare commodity (thinking on higher levels or specialized ones), why should a settlement let an outsider using it at all? The political issues, alignment, reputation, settlements incapable of providing all roles training, won't narrow the options where to train enough?
For the same reason you trade anything. To get something you want more. High level training is unlikely to be sold to random outsiders, but may be part of inter-settlement trade agreements, or traded in exchange for rare or valuable resources. Particularly if the settlement has no internal need for it (because everyone internal and eligible has already gotten the training they need)
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Goblin Squad Member
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But if training become a rare commodity (thinking on higher levels or specialized ones), why should a settlement let an outsider using it at all? The political issues, alignment, reputation, settlements incapable of providing all roles training, won't narrow the options where to train enough?
They will have to make meaningful choices:
Is keeping on so-and-so's good side worth locking up my trainer, or is it more important to keep them free for our own people?
How many people will I lose if they can't get training because so-and-so is using it?
Can my Rogue get training somewhere else if I refuse to let their Wizard train here because my own wizards are lobbying to use all the available time?
Will so-and-so take my POI in the mountain hex if I don't let their Wizard train here?
I think at higher levels the number of people needing the training will be lower and the number of locations with the training will also be low, which might allow the provider to demand a pretty penny for access to their tier 3 trainer.
The time it takes to earn the experience to purchase the skills is the time you spent training it. In the pen and paper game the time you spend training is the time between game sessions, it doesnt make sense to make people have a down time in a real time game.
Earn the xp, get the ability, use it.
Some abilities are going to be on rarer trainers or something to that effect, so that is how to keep some rare.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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The plan is, indeed, to have trainers "run out" of training and have to get more over time. And to let settlements assign a coin cost to training at their building that they receive when someone trains. But that's not super high priority to get in right now.
I suspect that Tier 1 training will always be functionally unlimited and extremely cheap in coin cost, because we want the starter towns to offer it and not have new player N get the last of something and new player N+1 not understand why he can't get what the tutorial is telling him to buy. But I'm not sure exactly what we'll settle on for that.
Perhaps the first few levels of training don't deplete the trainer resource at all? The NPC locations will already have to provide literally infinite amounts of what they do provide.