Cantr II Discussion Forum

It seems that most of the "skills" have now been implemented, according to the Wiki, where they were previously listed as "not yet implemented".
http://www.cantr.net/mwiki/index.php/Skills

Given how terrible our experience of the hunting and combat skills was, I have the following questions:

a) How extreme is the range provided? Will some characters only farm 25% of what other characters can achieve, as in the case of hunting skills?

b) How does a character know whether he is skilled or not? Have messages been implemented yet?

c) Why on earth separate out these skills listed below?

* Drilling: This skill affects how fast you can dig for oil, or use a drilling machine.
- Why have something so limited? There is hardly any roadbuilding going on, certainly since the combat system was wrecked and the empires fell to bits.

* Fishing: This skill affects how efficiently you can fish, and is trained when you are fishing.
- When last was anyone seen fishing, except for roleplay purposes? Fish is worthless.

* Gardening: This skill affects how good you are at gardening for flowers and herbs.
- Flowers yet? And none of my charries have ever seen "herbs" or do you mean fruit?

* Manufacturing machines: Comes into play when manufacturing different types of machines.
- The game is not developed enough for anyone to specialize in so limited an occupational skill.

* Manufacturing vehicles: Used when building land vehicles.
- Same as above.

* Refining: This affects your ability to refine ores.
* Smelting: This skill affects your skill at smelting some metals.
- Separating out these two is nonsense.

If the new system is to see randomly assigned genetic skills with vast discrepancies in result, and with nobody able to see what is going on, then the last shreds of economic rationality will collapse. I sincerely hope this will not be the case.

Fish is worthless.

Fish are worthless.

But everything else you said is correct. I hadn't any of this stuff yet, but I sincerely hope it's someone just jumping the gun on listing stuff that hasn't been implemented yet.

In particular I find the idea of things like smelting and building vehicles being genetic skills completely ridiculous.

I always thought skills were going to be like a character's strength effecting gathering, or something like manual dexterity which could effect manufacturing items or weaving cloth. Too close to a MUD for my liking, but definitely better than some completely nonsensical "gene" for flower gathering. What if there are no flowers where my character lives?

I'd really like to know the answer to question A. If I suddenly find my chars take a week to gather 800 potatoes or carve a bone knife I don't know what I'll do.

I'm all for encouraging specialization, but if it's now being enforced by the code in a way that doesn't make a lick of sense I'd rather do without, thank you. I don't think it's asking very much to let me have at least some control over my own characters' lives...

In my opinion, Charries should start off with fairly average abilities, which will increase as they practice those particular skills... for example, say each charrie starts off doing 3 points of damage with his bare fist, after a while he'll become more skilled at puching and start doing 5,6,7 points of damage and so on.. theres probally plenty of arguments against this, it just seems to make sense to me, here and now...

Is there a crowbar skill?

Is there a "not turning this into a skills-based game" skill?

The Sociologist wrote:It seems that most of the "skills" have now been implemented, according to the Wiki, where they were previously listed as "not yet implemented".
http://www.cantr.net/mwiki/index.php/Skills

Given how terrible our experience of the hunting and combat skills was, I have the following questions:

a) How extreme is the range provided? Will some characters only farm 25% of what other characters can achieve, as in the case of hunting skills?

b) How does a character know whether he is skilled or not? Have messages been implemented yet?

c) Why on earth separate out these skills listed below?

* Drilling: This skill affects how fast you can dig for oil, or use a drilling machine.
- Why have something so limited? There is hardly any roadbuilding going on, certainly since the combat system was wrecked and the empires fell to bits.

* Fishing: This skill affects how efficiently you can fish, and is trained when you are fishing.
- When last was anyone seen fishing, except for roleplay purposes? Fish is worthless.

* Gardening: This skill affects how good you are at gardening for flowers and herbs.
- Flowers yet? And none of my charries have ever seen "herbs" or do you mean fruit?

* Manufacturing machines: Comes into play when manufacturing different types of machines.
- The game is not developed enough for anyone to specialize in so limited an occupational skill.

* Manufacturing vehicles: Used when building land vehicles.
- Same as above.

* Refining: This affects your ability to refine ores.
* Smelting: This skill affects your skill at smelting some metals.
- Separating out these two is nonsense.

If the new system is to see randomly assigned genetic skills with vast discrepancies in result, and with nobody able to see what is going on, then the last shreds of economic rationality will collapse. I sincerely hope this will not be the case.

This is EXACTLY what I was wondering

Spider wrote:Is there a crowbar skill?

Crow bar skill? ... for like attacking and stuff?.... Its a tool But iv seen alot of people using sledge hammers and crow bars as weapons theese days, what kind of damage does sledge hammer do any way?

*sighs* The crowbar is for breaking locks, not attacking.

Its certainly much more humorous to hit someone with a crowbar though.

Can a char have more than one skill?

Kinvoya digs guys with skills... computer hacking skills, nunchuck skills...

The Sociologist wrote:a) How extreme is the range provided? Will some characters only farm 25% of what other characters can achieve, as in the case of hunting skills?

The range is from 45% of before the skills to 145% of before the skills, with the average skill level being 55% and the minimum 10% (thus, overall, the average level of skill has not changed).

The Sociologist wrote:b) How does a character know whether he is skilled or not? Have messages been implemented yet?

No, but it's high on my priority list.

The Sociologist wrote:c) Why on earth separate out these skills listed below?

To get some variation

west wrote:Is there a "not turning this into a skills-based game" skill?

1) you can play the game quite well without noticing the skills, imho
2) and yes, I don't want a skill-based game, and always opposed skills for a very long time, but then people kept asking and asking for it, and now we have something that is not *too* bad, I think. It doesn't alter the game into a skill-based game, I think.

Jos Elkink wrote:

The Sociologist wrote:a) How extreme is the range provided? Will some characters only farm 25% of what other characters can achieve, as in the case of hunting skills?

The range is from 45% of before the skills to 145% of before the skills, with the average skill level being 55% and the minimum 10% (thus, overall, the average level of skill has not changed).

The Sociologist wrote:b) How does a character know whether he is skilled or not? Have messages been implemented yet?

No, but it's high on my priority list.

The Sociologist wrote:c) Why on earth separate out these skills listed below?

To get some variation

west wrote:Is there a "not turning this into a skills-based game" skill?

1) you can play the game quite well without noticing the skills, imho
2) and yes, I don't want a skill-based game, and always opposed skills for a very long time, but then people kept asking and asking for it, and now we have something that is not *too* bad, I think. It doesn't alter the game into a skill-based game, I think.

I think Cantr is perfect and I dont think adding skills would hurt a bit
But I would work on the skills page thingy where it shows you your skill levels bla bla bla etc. if I where you

Jos Elkink wrote:

The Sociologist wrote:a) How extreme is the range provided? Will some characters only farm 25% of what other characters can achieve, as in the case of hunting skills?

The range is from 45% of before the skills to 145% of before the skills, with the average skill level being 55% and the minimum 10% (thus, overall, the average level of skill has not changed).

I don't understand. Let's get this straight. You have now implemented "genetic skills" for all those things listed in the Wiki. That has happened, right?

According to the above, some characters will only do half as well as before (45%), others will do roughly half again as well (145%). Now, I presume you are saying that the average is 55% of the new skill level range of 45%-145%, since you say the average level of skill has not changed. But then I don't understand your reference to "the minimum [is] 10%".

Jos Elkink wrote:

The Sociologist wrote:b) How does a character know whether he is skilled or not? Have messages been implemented yet?

No, but it's high on my priority list.

I'm sorry, but it should have been much more than merely "high on your priority list". It should have been done before this was implemented. You have just struck a further blow at anything resembling economic rationality in the game.

Jos Elkink wrote:

The Sociologist wrote:c) Why on earth separate out these skills listed below?

To get some variation

I regret I lack any sense of humor with regard to this topic and, lacking a sense of humor, I cannot process what you just said.

Jos Elkink wrote:

west wrote:Is there a "not turning this into a skills-based game" skill?

1) you can play the game quite well without noticing the skills, imho
2) and yes, I don't want a skill-based game, and always opposed skills for a very long time, but then people kept asking and asking for it, and now we have something that is not *too* bad, I think. It doesn't alter the game into a skill-based game, I think.

If nobody can see what they're skilled at, then all it will do is lower productivity and progress in the game yet further.

Also, can't we at least have a modicum of physiological rationality here? Are you telling me that characters I've selected to be my police commissioners in Akypor Forest South because they are good hunters and potentially good fighters and who are thus presumably physically strong, and who have therefore been selected to stand outside and chop wood, might suddenly find out (by a long and laborious process) that they are hopeless at chopping wood and might be better off indoors spinning yarn and making dresses?

Because if so, then you have just ruined the game for me....utterly and completely and finally.

And as for the "you can play the game quite well without noticing the skills" statement, well I've no doubt that those who merely stand around in large towns like Drojf and farm carrots all day will indeed not notice the skills. But then they tend not to notice anything else either.

The Sociologist wrote:But then I don't understand your reference to "the minimum [is] 10%".

Ok, the skill of a character can vary from .1 to 1 ... Since this is done purely randomly, the average is .55. Now, to calculate how well you dig (or whatever), you calculate:

old_dig_rate * skill + .45

In other words, the minimum is 55% of the old rates, and the maximum is 145% of the old rates, with the average being 100% of the old rates. Does that explain it?

The Sociologist wrote:

Jos Elkink wrote:

The Sociologist wrote:b) How does a character know whether he is skilled or not? Have messages been implemented yet?

No, but it's high on my priority list.

I'm sorry, but it should have been much more than merely "high on your priority list". It should have been done before this was implemented. You have just struck a further blow at anything resembling economic rationality in the game.

You're seriously exaggerating here ...

The Sociologist wrote:

Jos Elkink wrote:

The Sociologist wrote:c) Why on earth separate out these skills listed below?

To get some variation

I regret I lack any sense of humor with regard to this topic and, lacking a sense of humor, I cannot process what you just said.

Ok. What I meant is that I'm not going to argue for ages about exactly which skills I implemented. It's a fairly arbitrary thing. That nobody is born in real life with machine engineering skills, I understand. I don't care. This is not real life, it's Cantr. I didn't want almost all projects to have the same skill. So, I made up a bunch of skills so that there was some variety. However we set those skills, it will always be a fairly arbitrary set. So I'm not going to discuss it and just wanted some variety, as I said.

The Sociologist wrote:If nobody can see what they're skilled at, then all it will do is lower productivity and progress in the game yet further.

How will it lower production if the average is the same?

And I'm working on the limited progress issue.

The Sociologist wrote:Also, can't we at least have a modicum of physiological rationality here? Are you telling me that characters I've selected to be my police commissioners in Akypor Forest South because they are good hunters and potentially good fighters and who are thus presumably physically strong, and who have therefore been selected to stand outside and chop wood, might suddenly find out (by a long and laborious process) that they are hopeless at chopping wood and might be better off indoors spinning yarn and making dresses?

I think it's more similar to real life than that. You're not always doing what you're good at - strong motivation is at least as important. In Cantr, I'd rather have a motivated and just police officer, than a strong one. There is much more freedom and roleplaying possible than simply checking what you're good at and then play that role. In fact, that's the last thing I want to stimulate, and that was the reason I held off skills for so long, and that's why I only implemented it on the condition that it was 1) random and 2) invisible.

The Sociologist wrote:And as for the "you can play the game quite well without noticing the skills" statement, well I've no doubt that those who merely stand around in large towns like Drojf and farm carrots all day will indeed not notice the skills. But then they tend not to notice anything else either.

I play without noticing my chars skills and I definitely play more interestingly than just farming carrots. If I were only to farm carrots, I would pay more attention to my farming skills. The *real* game of Cantr is in the notes and conversations, imo. Not in the production skills. It's about building societies, companies, drawing maps, trading, writing newspapers, competing politically, fighting wars, steal goods, solve murder cases, etc. etc. - it's not about digging efficiently, building, skilling, etc. At least, not for me. That doesn't mean I'm ignoring the game.