skill poll

[The Sociologist]

To add insult to injury, my vote doesn't seem to have been counted.

[Agar]

On the other hand, if there's to be no way to improve skills in any decent time frame, as seems currently the case, then nobody in their right mind will accept a category "1" hunter anyway given how extreme the skill disadvantages are (hurts for ~10 with a top-range weapon). Which will simply waste everyone's time and increase the number of corpses to bury

Not true. I have what you're labelling as a category 1 hunter, and I'm not getting rid of her for anything. It's a kind of cruel irony that I'm Aki with her, but, I've never heard anything in character to lead me to believe I'm a bad hunter, and animals are being driven away by me feathering them, so I'm still helping. She's not going to be surviving on meat alone, but then, no one said you had to.

If you have a category 1 hunter, chances are, you're better at something else. So ... RP it! "Bah, I can't kill the blighters! From this day forth, I'm a vegitarian!" Just becuase you want an uber killer doesn't mean you'll get an uber killer. How would your character (or you) react if you sucked at hunting and had to come up with something else?

In short, your characters are more than your skills. If you're determined, truly determined to be a great hunter, keep hunting, and you will get better over the years. If you're not that determined, then knock it off, and find a new path, just like you would in real life.

[Nixit]

And I think if skills are revealed for too long, or are too obvious, then it will become a hack n' slash game. It'll be like trying to 'level' up all the time.

I can imagine:

"Yes, I just got better at my hunting! Only five more deers to kill until I am a true master of this bow!"

Or something of that nature.

[Bowser]

What skill system? Unlike some of our more mathmatical players, I have yet to note weapon damage or exact time for manufacturing things. Maybe I do things better, faster, slower, or less efficient now... I don't really know. Besides, more than half my characters don't do actual work anymore. If you are weak, just get strong people to do your dirty work for you.

[kinvoya]

nobody in their right mind will accept a category "1" hunter anyway

I could not care less how well my chars can kill animals or people. In five Cantr years I think I've had one char strike one person and the rest hunt occasionally for fun. Some are really good at it and some are lousy. I couldn't tell you which are which 'cause I don't care. Not one of them has had to kill to eat or get animal products. A few of them were spawned in the backwoods and hurt by animals but it's the not healing and lack of healing foods that was the real problem. Killing off all the animals would have just been stupid and short-sighted.

So I guess that leaves only one conclusion...I am not in my right mind. Why, oh why, am I not obsessed with how much my chars can hurt things? If only I would come to my senses and let the ones who don't deserve to live because they can't hit hard die, then life in Cantr would be so much better!

[Nixit]

Yeah, I guess I'm out of my mind as well...

[The Sociologist]

Strangely enough, that's become Cantr's style. New implementations suck.
But they get improved with our input, and over time we realise they made the game that much better.

With respect, the only thing one can say about the tiredness system is that it's effect was eventually reduced to the point of being redundant in all cases except combat. At that point one could perhaps say that the game had returned to being not much worse than it had been before.

And regarding the skills system, I killed off almost all of my grossly inferior characters with perhaps only one exception, and now for me the game is once again not much worse than it had been before.

Meanwhile, we've have been begging and pleading for what should be introduced--item deterioration--and all we've seen so far is a system mangled by out of sync values that absolutely presuppose repair, but no sign of a repair system yet and these continuing "resets".

Finally, we have landmarks that may well function as tombstones--yes, that's a plus--and a rather doubtful dynamic naming system that is unlikely to succeed without true building names added in. At least there's movement there, but the capability to rename buildings is far more significant.

At the end of the day? Well, were anyone to offer me a new reset server with the old flavor of Cantr on it, even if that meant starting from scratch, then I would prefer to go play there.

[Lumin]

So let me get this straight; my little newspawns may be superb at, say, knitting wool, when they've never so much as touched an item of clothing, but terrible at the farming they do every day for survival?

Really, inherent skills just don't make any sense to me, though I could see characters starting off with base skills and improving with practice. Instead of just crippling newspawns in random activities and making them great at others, why doesn't everyone start off being average at resource gathering and poor at complicated things like crafting, hunting and fighting? Now, assuming skill improvement actually worked in a noticeable way, this would create a need for employee training, vocational schools, etc. and all the RP and economic activities that go with it. (It may seem a little rough at newspawns in animal-heavy areas at first, but since they have to hunt every day they'd quickly become experts.)

The current system doesn't seem to do much more than kill RP; restricting what characters can do based on some completely stats is more game-like than any of the changes I've seen here yet, and I'm honestly a little disappointed to see it in Cantr. To me, the wonderful thing about the game was the way characters were completely formed by their surroundings and experiences, with no artificial rules to push them one way or another.

If a character is born into a society of hunters, or joins the town guard, then it's just silly to insist that they'll never get the hang of using a bow, ever. Same goes for farming potatoes and anything else. (Especially if that particular area doesn't even have potatoes...)

I don't know if I'll ever quite be comfortable with the idea of skills, but all that is the way I could see them being the least painful to live with. Though another idea I saw and thought had some merit was the one about making characters skills depend on the region they'd spawned into; forest, mountain, whatever.

I know Jos said that was already in the game in the form of genes, but with all due respect I'm not so sure the way it works now is having the desired impact. Gathering wood is something I'd expect a person raised in a forest to be good at, but it's not like their life depends on it. Plenty of chars could do just fine in a forest even as a crappy lumberjack, meaning they're not going to be dying off and leaving only people with good wood-gathering genes (even assuming such a thing could logically exist) to pass their skills on to newspawns.

Of course, I suppose if someone was good at gathering wood and the player knew it, that character would eventually migrate to a forest, but that would be horrible for the game; in fact it's a prime illustration of why I hate skills.

EDIT: Oh, and will those of you who disagree please stop hiding behind the "powergaming" accusations? It's stupid and quite frankly insulting. (And trust me, a powergamer would never waste their time playing Cantr....) If you've got a differing opinion I'd be happy to hear it, provided it's backed up with actual logic. Most of the posts I've seen here have been made from an RP perspective with well-thought out arguments included, but unfortunately I can't say that applies to everybody.

[The Industriallist]

With respect, the only thing one can say about the tiredness system is that it's effect was eventually reduced to the point of being redundant in all cases except combat. At that point one could perhaps say that the game had returned to being not much worse than it had been before.

I don't think it's any worse...I think it's not much better because tiredness got a gutted in reaction to complaints. There was a time when it was just about perfect except for tools.

I thought the need for ready fighters to save their energy by not working was good, but it seems to have been taken out altogether.

And regarding the skills system, I killed off almost all of my grossly inferior characters with perhaps only one exception, and now for me the game is once again not much worse than it had been before.

It's not necessarily bad as it is. Some people being bad, some being good has many downsides, but there are things to be said for it...which you seem unwilling to notice. It just isn't as good as it was intended to be, because it's broken.

Meanwhile, we've have been begging and pleading for what should be introduced--item deterioration--and all we've seen so far is a system mangled by out of sync values that absolutely presuppose repair, but no sign of a repair system yet and these continuing "resets".

Yeah...I'd like to disagree with everything, but I can't disagree with that. Well, except the implication of massive popular support.

Finally, we have landmarks that may well function as tombstones--yes, that's a plus--and a rather doubtful dynamic naming system that is unlikely to succeed without true building names added in. At least there's movement there, but the capability to rename buildings is far more significant.

We've been promised signs soon, was my impression...and I kind of believe that. When they show up, I'll consider that a great thing instead of just a good thing.

[kinvoya]

I vote twice for what Lumin said. It's so simple and it solves many problems plus it makes sense. Everybody starts at a low skill base and:

1) Chars can get better at what they do a lot of. Practice = skill

2) Every char can have a randomized speed at which they can improve = skill

3) Every char can have a randomized maximum level they can reach = skill

This way chars can actually figure out if they are good at something they want to do pretty quickly. Plus they can still do it and get at least somewhat better at it even if they aren't as skilled (speed of learning + level of achievement) as other chars although they might also decide to try to find something else they can do better. It seems to me this is the purpose of skills unless I'm misunderstanding.

Plus, with the inheritance it makes sense that in a town of skillful weavers newspawns would tend to have good weaving skills.

It's also possble that this is close to what we have now but our chars just can't tell. Would it be so terrible if the chars got little private messages once in a while like: You see your weaving skill improving? You are now an above average novice weaver. I dunno. I know everybody will scream leveling but since our chars don't have real sensory feedback we have to have some way of perceiving improvement.

[Solfius]

Would it be so terrible if the chars got little private messages once in a while like: You see your weaving skill improving? You are now an above average novice weaver.

I don't like that, but I'd like something similar. Just a little note when you have a project complete dialogue along the lines of "you clumsily/quickly/skillfully/whatever-description-you-choose collect x amount of x reseource" and a similar thing on the character description page.

[InsaneIrony]

I like how skills are right now: Present, but often unnoticed. How often in life does someone wake up with "The next Einstein" or "Best Miner" tatooed across their forehead? It takes time to notice these things, and in life some people struggle at jobs they were never meant for. Just like in Cantr life, a former soldier may have trouble when the crossbow they were an expert at suddenly starts doling out only four points of damage. Then its time for a new job. Someone who could become an expert basketweaver could be working in accounting, or whatever else.
If you want to learn your own skills, experience life. A person can never know how well they can swim if they never jump into the water. They don't just look in the mirror and see a couple stats tatooed on their forehead. They learn things. How many people, at age five, knew they'd someday become a professional baseball player, or the next president? If your character wants to know how well they can hunt, then hit something. If they want to know how well they are at any single thing, they should try those things. You can never know how good of a miner you'll be if you never step into the mountains.

[Lumin]

If you want to learn your own skills, experience life. A person can never know how well they can swim if they never jump into the water. They don't just look in the mirror and see a couple stats tatooed on their forehead. They learn things. How many people, at age five, knew they'd someday become a professional baseball player, or the next president? If your character wants to know how well they can hunt, then hit something. If they want to know how well they are at any single thing, they should try those things. You can never know how good of a miner you'll be if you never step into the mountains.

I sort of agree, but I think you've got a couple of contradictions there. A person does know how well they can swim if they've never been in the water; they know they can't swim. You're not born with inherent skill and knowledge of swimming any more than you're born knowing how to mine stone. That's where this whole skill system falls down for me. A person might be genetically inclined to be better at athletic things, or have an ear for music, or have a feel for words and writing, but that's not the same thing as a skill.

I know a guy who has a knack for languages, but the point is, he wasn't born knowing how to speak French. Or English or Spanish or Japanese, for that matter. These things are learned, and aside from the fact that I dislike the entire idea of skills, I'm not seeing any signs that characters are improving in a significant way at the activities they do every day.

I've had some more time to think about it, and the more I do the less I like it. Either everyone needs to start off with the same base skills and learn from there, or skills need to be abolished. They do nothing for Cantr, at least as I understand the game. In fact, to me this seems worse than tiredness, as at least that was only a physical difficulty characters had to overcome, but if skills go in the direction it looks like they're going, this changes the entire nature of the game and even goes so far as to trump roleplay.

I know combat isn't the only factor, but it's the most noticeable. None of my characters own a weapon or want to be involved in combat at this point, but I've heard enough stories in this thread alone to dislike what's happening. Someone roleplays their character settling down in a town, hunting animals for practice, joining the guards, chasing down thieves and bandits for years, maybe even becomes the head of the guard one day because they're the most competent and trusted man there, and then skills come along and all that RP is proved to be meaningless?

I know some people have said that if a character is a weak fighter just "RP around it" or whatever, but why should the hard-coded rules of the game system dictate the way a character lives their life?

Sure, you could just as easily up and decide to block off the street in front of your house one day and tell everyone to just drive around it, but would that accomplish anything other inconveniencing people and pissing them off.

Except I don't know if that's even a good analogy, because with skills characters aren't just being inconvenienced, but having limitations set on their entire lives.

I don't know, maybe skills will be balanced out and not have that drastic of a change after all, but I guess what bothers me is seeing Cantr going in this direction at all. I thought complete freedom in forming characters and societies was what it was all about. The lack of hard-coded rules is what drew me here in the first place, and I dislike all these changes that make the experience more like playing a regular game with stats and skills.

Before, if you wanted to RP a weak or clumsy character you had the freedom to do that; all you had to do was not hit at full strength. Now, people are being forced into playing that kind of character based on a roll of the dice. You can RP all the training you want, but it's not going to improve your skills one bit.

Maybe I'm just getting nostalgic here, but I miss how the game used to be. I just want my characters to go about their lives without worrying about some huge shakeup to their entire reality every couple of months. It just seems like everytime one thing gets partially straightened out something else comes along. Frankly, if reality's going to get shook up I'd much rather it involve other characters and in-game events, not OOC forces.

Heck, maybe Sociologist is right. A reset and new server doesn't sound like that bad of an idea. Those of us who want to RP in a stable world can go there, and those of you who want to try and ride things out here don't have to listen to us complaining.

[nitefyre]

I like how skills are right now: Present, but often unnoticed. How often in life does someone wake up with "The next Einstein" or "Best Miner" tatooed across their forehead? It takes time to notice these things, and in life some people struggle at jobs they were never meant for. Just like in Cantr life, a former soldier may have trouble when the crossbow they were an expert at suddenly starts doling out only four points of damage. Then its time for a new job. Someone who could become an expert basketweaver could be working in accounting, or whatever else.
If you want to learn your own skills, experience life. A person can never know how well they can swim if they never jump into the water. They don't just look in the mirror and see a couple stats tatooed on their forehead. They learn things. <b>How many people, at age five, knew they'd someday become a professional baseball player, or the next president?</b> If your character wants to know how well they can hunt, then hit something. If they want to know how well they are at any single thing, they should try those things. You can never know how good of a miner you'll be if you never step into the mountains.

Wasn't it Beethoven who was a child prodigy in the music world, at such an early age?

That seems to be the best argument yet, for the system we have in place. I still would find it reassuring if someone went through all the figures and made sure everything was working right- not that I'm saying it isn't- but there always seems to be people who come to suggest that it is somehow flawed.

[The Sociologist]

How many people, at age five, knew they'd someday become a professional baseball player, or the next president?

Precisely! Yes, precisely! You support my argument, not yours. Cantrians are spawned at age 20, not age 5. If you want to have children in the game, then that would be another matter. But then children would have true parents to inherit skills from, and parent guidance in finding out about themselves.

But the way skills were actually added to Cantr, you had the spectacle of men and women in their sixties not knowing what they were good for......and to be quite honest, most of them still don't know.