Would you like to see skills in Cantr?

[Antichrist_Online]

If they are made visible, make them relitive values as has been said before, numbers would just make it another stats game.

[The Sociologist]

I think that it would be really cool to have skills in Cantr. I know it would take major programming, but it would be nice to be able to specialize in something, and would give certain people advantages over doing somethings.

It is rumored that there are skills in Cantr. However, apart from hunting and combat skills, nobody is really able to determine whether they exist or what they are. Small wonder you're confused. A completely daft concept? Yeah, completely daft.

For myself, all my characters tend to ignore "skills" apart from hunting skill. At the moment of course, animals hardly ever attack, but were they to begin attacking again, then characters spawned with poor hunting skill would be unable to survive in animal-infested regions due to their inability to defend themselves. For this reason I killed off most of my characters with especially poor skill and am therefore no longer bothered by it.

It is also rumored that skills improve over time, but I've not seen any really conclusive evidence of this. Generally, the Cantr skills system is one of the worst implementations I've ever seen in an online game, and that's really saying something. I would much prefer that it did not exist.

[kinvoya]

There is info on the Wiki that answered a lot of questions for me about current and possible future skills.

[The Sociologist]

There is info on the Wiki that answered a lot of questions for me about current and possible future skills.

OK, it says there's (1) a hunting skill, (2) a combat skill and (3) a physical strength skill (which isn't actually a skill but never mind). It says they increase every time you hit an animal (1 and 3) or person (2 and 3).

Well, I've seen little evidence that they increase, so the rate of increase must be minimal. Then of course this is just the same old levelling crap as in all the other muds. Log in, hit everything in sight, improve your level. Yay!

Sure...

Meanwhile nothing is said about all the other issues and rumors. Do unused skills decline? If you only hit at 1% of strength, does it produce the same effect? And so on and so on. Of course some people know all these answers through ooc contacts, so that issue isn't cleared up either...

You know, every time I read this garbage it makes me want to leave the game all over again.

Oh well, I suppose Comrade Fran will have to begin the usual boring practice of having all the inactives dragged into the Shelter so that her people can hit away and hit away...

Hey, why bother with the Shelter? Just hit them in public. And if any newcomers ask if there's a war on, then hit them too just for good measure. Why bother to be nice? After all, it's our game.

Newbies = Archery targets. Kill them all!

[west]

There is info on the Wiki that answered a lot of questions for me about current and possible future skills.

Yes but who put it there?

[wichita]

I still insist that I have a character with good farming skills, but ya'll won't friggin' pay attention when I post it. I can pluck at least 900 grams of potatoes nearly everytime he works on a potato project, definitely at the higher end of the +20% yield variable.

And I haven't noticed that any of my characters are horribly abysmal at certain tasks other than fighting, so I don't know where that complaint is coming from at all. And would it be a crime if characters were below average? What kind of messed up statistical averaging is the game supposed to have, a logarithmic decay? It sounds like another societal problem spilling in of the modern phobia that prevents anyone being told they absolutely suck at something and should never ever attempt to do activity X ever ever again in their lives.

[Surly]

On the contrary it is a result oif the current balancing the game has. By making the skilled capable of pulling above the current result, they benefit... but considering those skills were randomly assigned to existing characters, there is a good chance that many characters will go through life never finding their skill. With hematite, modular production, tiredness and now skills the balance of the game is becoming more and more skewed. The amount of time certain tools take to make is becoming worse than a sadistic joke.

And please, please, remember that this is a game not a chore. I don't want to be forced to play a loser if I don't want to.

[wichita]

Um...hello....of course the skilled will benefit if they are only allowed to be above average if they have any skill at all. I don't think you've completely thought this through yet.

Take my potato farmer for instance. He is very good at farming, yet absolutely pathetic when it comes to fighting. There is balance within the character. This will motivate him to stay out of trouble while he gathers food. If someone becomes aggressive, his ass is grass....which he would then be able to farm quite nicely to sod the grave he can rapidly dig for himself.

What this evening out should do is prompt characters to work together so that their skills now complement each other. "Hey, I'll feed you if you can keep me safe from the bad guys or make stuff for me." That is the point. The odds of playing a character that is good at absolutely nothing should be slim if it is statistically averaged at all....AT ALL AVERAGED. Not even accurately, even with I think the 6 skill classes that were listed in the wiki, you'd really have to get the shaft to be absolutely worthless.

And if that were the case, I have one suggestion for anyone with that character....ROLEPLAY IT! Societies need the village idiot to compliment the renowned scholar...if for nothing else just to keep life interesting.


Grnated it sucks that veteran characters had to take a hit, but that is one of the side affects of progress in an ever evolving game. Just try to look at it from the new character perspective and think where the future of the game can go once it is working. I think the skills system is probably the advancement with the greatest potential to disrupt the rather Vanilla Cantr culture that is going around right now, because it should encourage cooperation between characters.

Non-statistical visiblity of the skills will be key to it's success though, because it is true that we are only guessing at what our characters have at their disposal skill-wise, and to thoroughly map it out is a bit too time consuming for most players. We need to know what skills we have to effectively employ them, but we also need to avoid the numbers in order to maintain the unique feel of the game.

[evilhomer69]

Well I think that we should make skills visibal, but put in a few. Strength, agilty, hunting, combat, farming, mining, manufacturing. It would be good if you could get a hunter charecter better at what they do. What I was thinking is that we could give a certain amount of points and spend them when the skills come in, and improve them by doing the specific skill-improving things. So you couldnt have a random skill roll like other games. You could just give them certain skills and stick with that and improve it, but take extremely long to improve skills. Ex.) 100 animals killed=1 stat lvl in hunting. I think it would make a good addition.

[El_Skwidd]

if that happened to Cantr, i think Surly would cry, Homer. it's just not that sort of game. DnD is that sort of game. Cantr isnt DnD.

skills, in my mind, aren't ALL bad as an addition to the game. it's more realistic and forces more cooperation between characters. the fact that it broke up a lot of existing characters is lame, but it's kinda hard to undo.

if skills were made visible at all, i would hope it would be in a roundabout way. i think it was west that mentioned the way i liked best. let's say you start a potato gathering project. it could be like...

"You feel clumsy gathering potatoes."

or...

"You feel like a potato-gathering pro."

fighting could work the same way.

"You attack so-and-so using a steel saber, who loses 1 percent strength. The weapon feels awkward in your hand."

or...

"You attack so-and-so using a steel saber, who loses 54 percent strength. You feel like a strong fighter."

letting everyone see their stats like they see their damage just seems... too easy... to cut-and-dry.

[formerly known as hf]

ok - so visible in terms of written sentence sounds good - just... if there are any more numbers or bars (the health and hunger etc. are bad enough already) I'll... I'll cry...

[wichita]

Agreed. Let's not make Farmer cry. Surly on the other hand.....

[evilhomer69]

Ya I think that sentance skills would be good, but we would need some way to know when your skills are going to increase.

[Ahoyhoy]

The thing is with skills, if someone practices training with a sword for a year in real life. They're generally gonna be better with a sword than someone who never used it before. So it does not take away from the realism. What you could have an option saying "train with this object" for you to get better with it. Or have someone who wears a lot of things on him be able to carry more eventually because his/her muscles get bigger.

You shouldn't know how good your skills are or what your limits are, but you should be able to know how well you have progressed. For example, if you are training with a sword and your skills improve dramatically after a days training, the screen should say "you have greatly increased your sword fighting ability" and if there's no progression the screen should say after a days training "you see no improvement"

[Jos Elkink]

It is rumored that there are skills in Cantr. However, apart from hunting and combat skills, nobody is really able to determine whether they exist or what they are.

Except that they are listed in the Wiki ...

For this reason I killed off most of my characters with especially poor skill and am therefore no longer bothered by it.

That's just really bad roleplay, indeed ruining the purpose of having skills in the first place. You could have played for example their dependency on social support for survival. Or make them smart leaders having hunters work for them ...

Meanwhile nothing is said about all the other issues and rumors. Do unused skills decline?

No, which is exactly why it isn't mentioned ...

If you only hit at 1% of strength, does it produce the same effect?

Good point. You could just have suggested in a more friendly tone to add it, rather than this approach ...

kinvoya wrote:
There is info on the Wiki that answered a lot of questions for me about current and possible future skills.

Yes but who put it there?

I did. Wasn't that visible on the 'history' page? (Perhaps not - sometimes I realise too late I forgot to log in.)

Non-statistical visiblity of the skills will be key to it's success though, because it is true that we are only guessing at what our characters have at their disposal skill-wise, and to thoroughly map it out is a bit too time consuming for most players. We need to know what skills we have to effectively employ them, but we also need to avoid the numbers in order to maintain the unique feel of the game.

Thanks for your support, wichita ... And I agree. At least some of the skills should be somewhat more visible. Hunting and fighting skills already are, I think ... Strength should be more visible also for outsiders (muscles). Other ones are currently already visible, I think. If we get more skills that affect working on projects, they will have to be made visible, as it would otherwise be impossible to guess.

That said ...

"You attack so-and-so using a steel saber, who loses 1 percent strength. The weapon feels awkward in your hand."

or...

"You attack so-and-so using a steel saber, who loses 54 percent strength. You feel like a strong fighter."

... these are actually quite nice examples ...