Progress bar for skills

[Mr. Bones]

Don't know if it's been suggested before so I'll throw this out there. I would like to see progress bars beside skills so I can keep up with how close I am to leveling up. Like instead of it just saying awkward, have a progress bar to what percentage I am towards Novice. Just for reference sake. I remember I had one character that sparred for 50 years and never leveled up his fighting skill, it was quite discouraging. I don't know about everybody else but just it's presence would be encouraging while trying to rank up a weak skill, watching the progress go up and knowing how far away I am from my goal.

[Wolfsong]

Aren't skills already ranked in order of progression? As in - one novice skill is higher than another and as a result it displayed above the lower skill.

[masterekat]

I would -love- it if we could have progress bars. It's such a small change, but it might motivate some people to log in more often, too, if they know that logging in every day means they can level their character faster.

[Mr. Bones]

Aren't skills already ranked in order of progression? As in - one novice skill is higher than another and as a result it displayed above the lower skill.

It does rank the skills you already have in those ways. But it just says that for example, cooking is a better novice skill than fighting, but it doesn't tell you really how close you are to leveling to efficient. It just tells you which one is the best, but your best could be only 50% the way to the next skill rank for all you know, but a progress bar will tell you for sure where you stand.

[Auryn]

Motivation would be nice. I still have never had a character "level up" in any skill, even ones they've been doing daily their whole lives.

[EchoMan]

Just a reflection: Aren't there enough number crunching games out there already? Do we want Cantr characters of the completionist type, that want to "max out" all skills to "win" the game?

[masterekat]

If they make it to 40, why not?

[Oasis]

I would have agreed with you, Echo, about three years ago before the big decline in player numbers. We all realize the need to keep players interested and keep their characters awake, to increase player numbers. This type of motivation just might be needed now, regardless that it does go against the essence of the game. It's not going to make any difference to the game....those blood thirsty pirates that train their muscles incessantly to gain an advantage in the game already do that, and so what if a tailor becomes better at sewing quicker? Good for them!

I think we need this addition, as much as I dislike it.

[SekoETC]

Mind you, if a character has 6399 skill points or 6401 skill points, it's not going to make a difference in most scenarios, yet in one case they'll be called efficient and in another one skillful. Thus leveling up doesn't really matter. It would probably be easy to display a percentage after the adverb and it wouldn't even take much space on the page.

[Armulus Satchula]

I'd rather just see the percent to next level. No need for bars.

[Wolfsong]

I don't think this is needed - people who want to see their skills improve can already do so in a limited fashion, and opening it up to percentages or bars just encourages powergaming.

[Kelna]

Personally, I would like some method of indicating when your skill will, level up. It would help figure out when your character is starting to get the hang of a chosen project without a, "Oh I thought I was doing a horrible job at this, but apparently that last tick was enough to make me go up a level." If you're an awkward tailor, there's a big difference between, "So, which end of the needle do I use?" and, "Look, that's a clean stitch! I'm figuring this out!"

Something like this might help people that powergame, but not implementing it isn't going to stop them. If it can help rpers as well, is that such a bad thing?

[Wolfsong]

But we already have ways to see how good at something your character is - skill levels are already implemented in 'awkward, novice, efficient, skillful, expert' and players can already roleplay around how well they do something based on those. I don't believe you need to know that you're 43.7% of the way to novice skill level from awkward skill level just to be able to roleplay - that's a BS excuse to legitimize powergaming.

[Kelna]

The skill level isn't the problem. Unexpectedly jumping to the next one is. It's an awkward situation when it happens in-time. Sure, the other person might not know how well you are doing without a little investigating, but when I don't realize it and suddenly do later, I am forced to make my character backtrack and fix my mistake. I wouldn't mind if it was some vague indication you would level up soon. I would just like something there.

[Mr. Bones]

I'd rather just see the percent to next level. No need for bars.

Yes, it doesn't have to be anything elaborate. I wouldn't mind it just being a simple percentage beside the skill, as long as there's some indication of when you'll level it up. Bars and such really wouldn't be necessary.

And I really don't think it will change anything as far as powergaming. People that are powergamers will do the exact same thing as they always have. They are still going to spar constantly, or work on whatever skill they want leveled up whether this is implemented or not. I just think it would be good for us who aren't powergamers, who just want some kind of true reference available about our skill progression. I think it would be motivational for old and new players alike, if we could see progress on a regular basis and not just when we go from novice to efficient, which can take decades of work in game.

Kelna wrote above:

The skill level isn't the problem. Unexpectedly jumping to the next one is. It's an awkward situation when it happens in-time. Sure, the other person might not know how well you are doing without a little investigating, but when I don't realize it and suddenly do later, I am forced to make my character backtrack and fix my mistake. I wouldn't mind if it was some vague indication you would level up soon. I would just like something there.

I agree here too, it does seem to make things a little harder on RP. In real life if you started playing chess for the first time, you might classify yourself as a novice, but after a couple months of playing you might also consider yourself a novice, but you'll know that you are a little better, and you'll have an idea of when you can consider yourself to have average skill or even to be an expert when that time comes. It's not so sudden as just jumping from novice to efficient unexpectedly like in game. I think people understanding how good they are becoming in something would be realistic and allow us to RP this in game.