Skill drop

[Chroma Key]

My char, who has been an expert at farming is now gathering a particular resource "novicely". Her farming skill is still listed as "expert" on character page and I'm sure she was still gathering expertly yesterday. I haven't been able to check the progress to see if it dropped as well... Could someone pm me, please?

[SekoETC]

I assume the resource in question was moved from farming to forestry if it grows in trees.

[Chroma Key]

It sounds like it - but it's a very big change that affects a lot of things and characters to be made without a single warning. I sure as hell wouldn't invest into spending months of my char's life on gathering this resource (travelling, collecting, preparations, etc) if I knew that she was suddenly not going to be very good at it.

[SekoETC]

At least resource gathering skills develop notably faster than fighting skill. If you keep gathering long enough, I'm sure you can make profit with it. Remember that when skills were first implemented, there were lots of people whose lives were ruined because for example a town guard could suddenly end up much weaker than average and an awkward fighter. This is only affecting a single resource.

[Chroma Key]

That's no consolation whatsoever for a change that doesn't do anything but disrupt plans. I can understand the introduction of skills, but this is just a very costly (and unnecessary, in my opinion) bit of realism (where many other things have their own Cantr realism) for a single resource.

Also, considering "long enough" equals about 2,5 months of continuous gathering to improve fully from one skill to the next, in my case, merely to get efficient... Definitely no consolation.

[*Wiro]

We can revert the change for a few days and put up a warning for people to set up a long (80-day) project. That way they can either use the old or the new at least for the next RL month.

It was a necessary balance change considering that forestry is underused and farming the exact opposite.

[SekoETC]

I don't think that's how it works, or is it? I assume if the skill is changed in the database, it affects all projects, including ongoing ones.

[Chroma Key]

That's right. She was an expert when she started her last project yesterday, and novice now, on the same project.

Forestry is underused? With all the wood cutters around? The grape and apple gatherers?

[*Wiro]

It is how it works, old projects don't get updated.

[SekoETC]

It was an oversight that olives ever used farming in the first place, but so few people gathered them back when they had no use that no one paid attention to it. The skill should've been changed at the same time when olive oil got implemented, but no one noticed back then and there's no way to roll back time. I find it hard to see how gathering olives as a novice could be a disaster, especially if you have a ladder. Most likely you can sell them somewhere at manual rate because people on islands with no olives have no idea what they're worth, or in the worst case scenario, you can give the ladder to some local who's expert at forestry and gather something that uses the farming skill to pay them for their work.

[*Wiro]

Most likely whoever added farming as their skill didn't know they grew on trees. I only found out a few years ago while playing Wurm.

[NancyLee]

No that it would make any difference when you decide that something should be changed, but I would have liked a warning also. Mere courtesy toward the players when a change affects how productively or not they spend the character's time.

[Alladinsane]

My char with a ton of olives was very skilled at both...

But I have complete sympathy to those who gathered food, built ladders which serve no other purpose, and maybe built a ship so that they could travel 20+ days to use their skills to gather/farm (we have a thing around here called 'tree farms") etc.

Now they, with zero notice, have had their planned careers, their char lives, or their game completely disrupted by such an arbitrary act.
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[SekoETC]

When Wiro pointed out gathering olives used the wrong skill, I didn't realize that changing it would make so many people angry, so I told him it was okay to change it. In the past skills have been changed for manufacturing individual objects when it has been an illogical skill, but obviously a gathering skill affects more people than manufacturing some niche object. Neither one of us has the ability to send announcements and Greek wasn't involved in this decision. It can be rolled back for a limited time so that people who have made investments but have a poor forestry skill can gather enough to make a profit, but eventually it will have to be changed back to forestry.

[Chroma Key]

My char with a ton of olives was very skilled at both...

But I have complete sympathy to those who gathered food, built ladders which serve no other purpose, and maybe built a ship so that they could travel 20+ days to use their skills to gather/farm (we have a thing around here called 'tree farms") etc.

Now they, with zero notice, have had their planned careers, their char lives, or their game completely disrupted by such an arbitrary act.
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My point exactly, except far better said. Thank you.

Seko, if you think there's nothing wrong with me/my char now having to spend twice as long to reach my char's goal, for which tonnes of time and resources were spent on, we'll just agree to disagree.