Thoughts On Handcraft Skills

[Malaclypse]

During the discussion in this topic I got some ideas of possibilities to extend the current system. This thoughts are somewhat limited to the handcrafting skills within EL, that is Alchemy, Crafting and Manufacturing and to some extent Harvesting.

 

 

 

Beside the skill level we could introduce mastery categories that, in combination with the current level can describe more precisely the abilities of the character with those skills. If a character has none of those categories assigned s/he will be called Layperson.

 

(i) At some skill level N (lets say for ex. level 15) the layperson cannot advance further without doing some kind of instruction/education, given to him/her by some NPC. For this the character starts a quest with the NPC and asks for an apprenticeship for the given skill. This quest should be a rather big quest, consisting of several individual quests, like it is done with the gods quests. But in contrast to them those quest must have a high affinity to the given skill. This is necessary to ensure further and relatively fast advancement in the skill levels. The whole quest must not be solveable within a short time, but must rather take some time to finish, like a few weeks. During this apprenticeship time the character must visit his/her instructor on a regular basis. This has to be done in addition to the quests s/he has to solve. During those visits the Apprentice will be given additional tasks to do, that are part of his/her education and therefore will also have a high affinity to the specific skill. If the interval between two visits grows above a certain limit, the trainee will be given a warning. After let's say 3 warnings the apprenticeship will be canceled by the instructor. The character may look for another apprenticeship after some time with either the same instructor or another one. The game should enforce a delay so the character cannot immediately restart the apprenticeship (at least not with the same instructor). During this apprenticeship the level could not increase above a certain level N' > N which may depend on the actual skill.

 

(ii) After successful finishing his/her apprenticeship, the character will be called say Journeyman. During this time s/he can use his/her skills to further advance the skill levels up to some other level M > N'.

 

(ii) At this time the character must take a masters course to continue further which will be started almost the same way as the apprenticeship course. S/He must do another bigger quest with some NPC and again fulfill tasks for some instructor in order to learn new things and advance in levels. At the end of this time the character would be called Master of <skill>. During this mastery course the character can not advance above a skill level of M' > M which again may depend on the actual skill.

 

After this point there are no more restrictions in further advancement of the skill.

 

Therefore the characters will have an education of the form

Layperson -> Apprentice -> Journeyman/Journeywoman -> Master/Mistress.

 

This could even be split in a practical and a theoretical education, thus having two different ways (with different quests, NPCs, etc.) to achieve the same result. A way to name the categories for the theoretical way could be

Layperson -> Student -> Assistant -> Lecturer.

 

The system can be extended to have players become instructors by adding an additional level of education where someone can gain the Instructor 'skill' (category) and therefore will be able to teach herself.

 

 

Now for the failure or success of this all. First, IMO the fail rate should not depend on any random numbers. Instead it could be calculated from a combination of the current level and the current master category the character has. Of course the recommend level of the item to craft will also have to be considered in the computation. Additionally it may be a good idea to introduce a recommended mastering category beside the recommended level. Sorry I do not have a formula ready because this needs some deeper investigation of those ideas, and these are just my first thoughts.

 

This system has some strong influence with the current researching system. Some of the knowledge gaining could be moved from the research by book part to the educational part and therefore mixing the way knowledge is gained. I can also think of some way to do the theoretically oriented education with the current research system, that is by reading books whereas the practical education only needs a few basic books but the knowledge is gained through a learning by doing (and getting instructed with this) process.

 

Thank you for your interest

[Malaclypse]

no comments, ideas, suggestions, flames

 

Come on guys I'm interested in what you think about this.

[Acelon]

Well I didn't want to co9moment since I have only one comment.

 

The way you explained it seems to complicated to implemt/learn.

[sirdan]

it would be cool to aprentice a player

[Malaclypse]

Hi Lord_Vermor,

 

The way you explained it seems to complicated to implemt/learn.

 

The possible implementation should not be covered in this section I think, because this is the suggestions forum, where new ideas should be discussed. Whether they can be implemented and how and if they need to be changed in order to be implemented should considered only if a suggestion is accepted by devs. That's my thoughs, but this is the usual procedure for software engineering tasks.

 

I'm a bit suprised you find it complicat to learn What I mean is, as a player you only need to know, that at some point you can not advance further in a skill without doing an apprentice, and that at some other point you cannot advance without taking a master course. Is that really complicated? Maybe my posting sound a bit complicated, because I was writting it out of my belly. Furthermore english is not my native language, and some things I can't think in english yet, but rather have to translate Is it too technical?

 

If you can point me to what is complicated for you, I can try to re-explain it in other words.

[freeone3000]

It works, except that we should have it higher than level 15. Level 25, maybe? In some skills, you can't even make anything useful until level 22.

[Malaclypse]

@freeone: The level of 15 was just an example. Of course the exact levels would have to figured out before implementation

[Kami]

I like what Malaclypse is suggesting and think he's on the right track but I don't think I like the idea of Restricking your growth like this. I think that it should be completely optional much like the God Quests and doesn't Cap your Leveling (If that's what he meant). In fact, I think I like this idea more then the God Quests and might even replace them if the game continues to favor Godless Players like it is.

 

But mostly, I think this system should defiantly replace the Nexus System. Instead of a player buying Nexus points in Artifical to make high level Manufacturable Goods, (which never made sense to me) a Player should have to study under a Master in order to increase his/her Skill/Knowledge to produce such high level/Quality Items.

 

Just superimpose Malaclypse's Idea over the Nexus System, Add the Required NPCs, and remove all Pick Point requirements for Nexuses.

Edited January 2, 2005 by Kami

[Malaclypse]

I don't think I like the idea of Restricking your growth like this. I think that it should be completely optional much like the God Quests and doesn't Cap your Leveling

Well Kami, I see the problems you noted here, you are definitely right here, a good note Players won't do a skill, if they know there's a cap and they can't go beyond that cap without doing any further, let's call it education.

 

Ok then, I slightly modifed the idea. Instead of adding a level cap, let's do it like now, that is, every player is possible to do any skill without level restrictions. But players will be able to do an apprenticeship, or a master course to get better with their skills.

 

To give players who actually did an apprentice in their skill an advantage over other players, we could add a quality measure to each item that is producable by players. Players that have done an apprenticeship will in general produce higher quality items than laypersons, and masters of their skill will produce even more higher quality stuff. This way any player can produce anything without restriction, but only players that have visited a school, master course or something will be able to produce really good, quality items. The prices for items will then also depend on that quality measure.

 

Another restriction we could impose, would be that certain items will not be producable by layperson characters, but only if the players has visitied a particular course. This way we can limit the amount of high level items in the game. For example, to make a tit serp, a player will need to be a master of the manufacturing skill, that is he must have visited and finished the masters course. We could limit this to only a few rare items, while the bunch of the items could be produced by anyone. Players should then not be able to get this knowledge on another way than by visiting some courses. Getting the knowledge to produce high quality items is simply not done by only reading a book, but instead needs lots of experience in the skill. The quality measure should also be level dependant, that is, a player who has finished her master course, will be able to produce for example the tit serp, but at the beginning the quality will not be that high. After he successfully made, let's say N tit serps, her quality in producing this item will increase by a few percent.

 

We can even combine those two approaches, that is players can make any items without further education, with the exception of a few rare items, and they will be given a quality measure. This way an educated character will produce higher quality items and is capable of producing additional items that can not be produced by uneducated characters.

 

Suggestions, comments, anything you have to say to this modified approach are welcome

[Aislinn]

I don't think its too complicated, it sounds like its one of those things that sounds it on paper but actually is pretty simple and straightforward in practice.

 

There definitely should be no level cap and the level requirements as freeone said should be higher.

 

What's nice about this is it sounds like it would be fairly simple to add on to it...such as when players reach the highest level/title...more could be added to progress even higher, we would just have to be careful to not make them finite.

 

I would like to see each level reached (not numerically, but title wise)have some symbol of achievement so other players can see this and have something tangible to work for and there is pride in accomplishment for the player.

[70347]

I like the modified idea except for the quality system part. I'm pretty sure that under the current system, implimenting a quality value of that type would be impossible. It is a unique attribute and those can't be put in; however, a quality system that only encorporates mastry status may be easier to do. It would only make a few varients of one item like a Master's Titanium Serpent Sword or a Layman's Titanium Serpent Sword although if you want to add that status to all items it would get more complicated. Even if it was only added to finished items like armor and weapons it would still be many extra items.

[Kami]

Aye, this would really be great. And as for the quests, I think it'll make great use out of all of those unsellable Iron Shields. As one of the Quests, you'd have to produce, say about 400 Iron shields to advance to the next level. Of course, this would mean the the NPC will only count Iron the YOUmake and not just buy to give to him like we all do with the God Quests.

[Aislinn]

Of course, this would mean the the NPC will only count Iron the YOUmake and not just buy to give to him like we all do with the God Quests.

Very good point indeed, is this even possible to do?

[Kami]

Well, We could always Lock player in the Building and won't let them out until they're finish. Of course, that opens an entirely different can of worms.

 

Or we could Lock a player's ability to Buy or Trade Items but that wouldn't stop the more ingenius Players from just Bag Trading.

 

Only idea I can think of is to have players Make "Quest-Only" Items (Say Training Shields or Training Swords) that a Player can only make for the purpose of the quest and/or only in front of the NPC. But that would requre even more items to be added to the game that don't really do anything.

 

Of course, all of this depends greatly on what is and is not possible to program.

[Mer1in]

I personally like the idea of training / education to aquire skills, and agree that this could be used instead of the current Nexus system.

 

Perhaps, and this is just my n00b thinking here, the skill levels could be linked to the percentage of failed items and losses in manu / pots etc. I don't know if it's possible to impliment in addition to the existing rules, but say the people who don't follow the apprentice path have a higher failure / loss percentage, and once you start on the apprentice path you increase success rates with reaching master level you have a 100 % success rate?

 

Just adding my 2p's worth

[Malaclypse]

I think that it wouldn't be too much complicated to implement. We could, for example introduce a counter for every of the the quests, which will count the 'quest items' already done by that player. So we wouldn't have the need to lock the player down to some place until the quest is solved, which could annoy players much. Being locked down on a place, just because a quest that has to be done, is not really fun, I think

 

I like much the idea to enforce players to make the items themselves. Actually I play EL this way, but this comes out of my paranoia Having many years of experience in roleplaying, both as a players, as well as a dungeon master, I know that you can never be sure of a gods doing. The god might simply change it's mind, from one second to the other (I know that atm there happens nothing in EL, whether you solve the quests for yourself, or by some other player )

 

For the implementation part. I think, that from a technical point of view, nearly anything we could think of here, is possible to be implemented by software. The point is, how much work needs to be done to actually implement something. Must the changes happen only to the client or also to the server. And if the design would change too much, maybe the devs won't implement the ideas, because it would be too much work to reimplement all the design changes, no matter how good the ideas are. I always think, we first need to refine and discuss possibly interesting suggestions here in this forum, until they have a good foundation. After that, when the ideas are well thought off and well defined, and are accepted by the devs, then it's time to think of the implementation part. Furthermore, I think, that if there is something that can definitely not implemented one of the devs will tell so

 

@Aisslinn

What's nice about this is it sounds like it would be fairly simple to add on to it...such as when players reach the highest level/title...more could be added to progress even higher, we would just have to be careful to not make them finite.

That's where for example the instructors course I mentioned in my initial post could came in. This (first) instructor course will only be the first in an possibly endless set of courses (this must not necessarily all be real courses that have to be done by the player though). To speak in RL terms, a player could for example start researching in his working field, ending up in new, former unknown items that only this character can make, until she chooses to teach it to some other characters as well.