Training on Gust Balls . . . .

ooo I wouldn't mind an offline skill gain system.

 

I think the real concern for me is whether or not it is possible to macro the gaining of XP, rather than its expenditure once legitimately earned.
Thinking about it, I have no problem with the use of a gust ball to spend honestly earned XP. I do however have an issue with the idea of using a gust ball to gain XP.

 

I have a question with regard to this topic. Do skills improve more quickly practicing against something inanimate like a gustball that has a lot of hit points than practicing against low level mobs that have the benefit of carrying loot that can be sold or salvaged?

 

To follow on from what Gix and Dreamo84 said in reply to the OP: why? To make it more specific: what do you care how I earn my XP? What difference does it make to you whether I am playing in a way which you see as "legitimate"?

 

Like it or not, we are all in competition with each other. Even if playing strictly PVE, there is a significant advantage, for example, for those with the strength to secure the Obsidian forges at Hilt. Many of us would like to see a level playing field where success in such endeavours is based on hard work rather than cheats, otherwise those who take short cuts can gain a significant economic advantage over those who don't. Instead of "pay to win", it's "cheat to win".

 

Whether you like it or not, I disagree. What are we in competition for? What terrible fate will befall my avatar if I fail to win this competition you think we're having?

I'm not really clear, and I'm not familiar with the Obsidian forges at Hilt, to whom does this advantage accrue and who is disadvantaged? Is it bothering you that other players will have more in-game gold than you despite not working as hard for it? Or are you suggesting that the amount of in-game gold is a zero-sum thing?

I should point out that I personally have nothing in principle against "pay to win", and "cheat to win" seems to be a matter of opinion.

 

If due to advantage gained through cheats you are able to gather resources and manufacture items for reduced cost (less damage to armour when gathering resources, higher meticulous collection rate, ability to gather resources in more dangerous and higher rewarding areas), then you will be able to undercut the prices of those who don't cheat. This means that their sales will be adversely affected as a direct result of your cheating. To me, that is intolerable. It damages the economy, and is likely to dissuade some people from playing, since competition is not fair and equitable.

EDIT: Since Portalarium is placing great emphasis on the game's economy, it is vital for them to protect it from damage by cheaters, otherwise it will be impossible for honest players to earn a decent living in game - with the result that many of them could seek other games to play. Thus the problem with "cheat to win" is that it is detrimental to the long term ability of Portalarium to raise funds, due to loss of customers.

 

From what the devs have said, no you actually have a negative for gustballing vs skilling against mobs and not just due to losing on xp gain. Being in field is better for both faster lvls and for increasing money/loot. The negatives for being in field is waiting for spawns, too many people in scene stealing kills, or running into things that are too difficult (usually not a huge issue if in a zone appropriate to lvl... and avoiding the OP spiders of doom). It also is harder to focus level 1 specific skill, which is the primary thing I see gustballs having an advantage (albeit small).

I wouldn't necessarily agree with as I play the game for my own reasons that have little to nothing to do with the grand scheme or competing with others. I play for my own personal enjoyment and don't mind slower advancement than others. I do understand the concern of losing out on market values... but that will happen regardless of whether or not people macro skill progression. Someone who decides to horde silver will lose out on the big money that happens early on when there isn't as much available, but if timing it right can complete destroy the market when dumping the horde. Having said that, to my understanding XP is only gained by successfully killing something or completing a quest, both of which are impossible to do with a gust ball.

 

I wonder if the XP pool had a overage buffer that forced you to expend the XP before any additional skill gains could occur. Say you're at 100% in adventure XP pool. After so many kills after 100% the game would create a 10% buffer. Once this buffer is activated and reaches the 110% mark, the adventurer XP pool locks itself and requires you to expend all of the 10% xp without killing any monsters. While the lock is activated your character's skills would not benefit from skill usage until you get back into the 100% adventurer xp range. In a scenario where someone is macroing a camp for XP, their skill gain would stop because they've set a macro at the camp and it continues to kill monsters and activating the buffer.

This is in order to prevent macroing at a camp through some type of 3rd party software or script?

 

Even in UO, you had to get on a boat to properly circumvent skill gain restrictions for GM Magery (for example)

Of course, you could train Parry for 18 months and be the server high of 92.8 .. lol

Ah, the good old days !!

I think the system is still hugely in-progress. Taming gains are crap-tastic, as are the pet stats, as is the progression. Hopefully place-holders. A 83hp Horse becomes 18hp after I tame it ....

Hard to say whether anyone will want to hit a magic skill 100,000 times to GM it. I do tons of casts between resource collection / battles and 72 is by far the highest magic glyph I have

Chis did mention the higher your XP pool is, the more XP was consumed/added per use. So people who dump small pools until 0, will have far slower gains even while afk/macro

Not sure if multi-hit, for skills that do multi, assists in quicker skill XP growth.

 

Its an interesting concept, but it does create an issue where sometimes there is a net imbalance between xp gained vs xp spent (especially if fighting in a group in a higher level area than you normally can). You also have quest experience that could make this even harder to calculate. Interesting concept though. I'd be curious to see them implement something to prevent macroing.

 

Skill gain should be removed from gustballs, and capped at 25 for a new item - TRAINING DUMMIES!

I also like what I heard about a general XP pool governing the rate at which skills can be leveled up. I like the idea because its truer to a real life experience, how can I call myself a grandmaster stunner when I haven't stunned a troll or ogre? How can I call myself a grandmaster at arms when all I've done is beat a glorified soccer ball for x amount of hours?

EDIT: Wait, I kept reading through the thread, is this how it already works (aside from the first line I wrote)???!!?!?!!

 

Absolutly no difference, but since oyu can stand there and don't have to hunt / chase / find a gust ball you can save ALOT of time.

Jon Redbeard has it and I agree at 20 - 25 gust balls and other inanimate / objects should be treated like this

 

I disagree, your not gaining exp, your spending on what you already have gained. Would be better imo if you get the exp gain directly when you are rewarded it instead of it going into a pool.

 

I'm thinking something a little more liquid than a pool (lol). Like a fluid conversion of experience points into and equation which increases speed of skill gain, with scaling skill points per level.

That way the skills are on a scale which is ever increasing, forcing you to gain experience (questing or monster hunting or what have you) in order to competently gain points toward skills by using them.

Like I have stated, using crushing blow over and over again on extremely low level mobs shouldn't do much for you - at first -.... You need to EXPERIENCE (through active play or leveling up or what have you) what it is like to attempt to use a crush blow against that troll/ogre/dragon/whatnot in order for your -TRAINING- to be meaningful.

Understand the flow here:

Kill monsters, gain skill.

Group with your friends, kill bigger stuff, (this increases your experience pool on a much greater level than soloing it against mobs your size, which in turn equates into faster skill gain (Port will have to figure out the equations for all this fun stuff)).

This promotes group play, anti-macroing (of skills), and an immersive mechanic in order to progress.

Portalarium is half way there already! We have an experience pool and we ALSO have individual skill pools. The only thing to do now is connect the two in a meaningful way!


All of this provides a LOGICAL and REALISTIC way to become stronger, this even applies to crafting! Someone who has smelted a ton of ore and gained much experience in this respect knows exactly what he/she is looking for when mining said ore, thus increasing their learning ability with mining.

The same is true in the reverse, (although maybe not as obvious reasons) one who is great at extracting ore and has gained much experience through doing so would be much more keen (its like the development of a soft skill in real life) to learn quicker how to smelt said ore and do it efficiently!

 

This is good stuff... But don't forget there is going to be a single-player mode also and the game was not designed to be an MMO...

 

Absolutely, I did say that it "promotes" group play, but the equations could be worked in a way that it doesn't detract from solo play. This is where experience sharing comes into play, of course you will gain more experience per mob, but this also ties into the fact that it takes the solo player longer to kill said mob, which balances out when we use our skills more in order to kill said mob.

On the other hand, you may have less of a chance to continuously spam your skills during group play, as the mobs may die much quicker. (This may not be entirely true depending on the mob.

But this is what will happen, the most effective and efficient leveling groups will be parties who go after mobs that are a much higher level, while the solo player can still be most efficient and effective in gaining experience/skill level while fighting mobs much closer to their level.

This leaves neither playstyle much more effective in terms of leveling/skill gain than the other.

Granted, you will probably experience/skill faster in a well oiled party, however, experience/skill gain on your own would not be hampered by this system.

 

You train skills faster when killing stuff, much much faster. The more full your pool, the more exp gets assigned to the skill being used.

 

At this point I just wish the same applied for crafting.

My producer pool is over 80k right now and it takes maybe 15-20 attempts at mining to actually level the skill up. It's only at level 15 now after this entire release!

 

I have seen people making those statements about the larger your pool the more points added????

What I have seen by watching numbers used by low level small pool chars complared to higher level high pool not much difference.

What IS sifferent is at level 1 - 10 the # Points used is less per level than the number of points used at higher levels.

So to to from;
1 - 2 = 2
2 - 3 = 3
3 - 4 = 5
..
.
.
.
23 - 24 = 30 ponts

Now you can train "faster" while fighting as you can use more skills faster when you work and regen focus and such. BUT As for the number used there is no difference between a player with 300 in his pool of a player with 300K in his pool. Skill 23 - 24 costs 30 points.

I will say this if something like this is out there all you are doing is causing an even larger cap between the casual player and the hard core player.

But again I have watch the number and am pretty sure I am correct.

If people are referring to Chris post about using 1/1000 of the pool you undstand that that number is like .01 percent, you wouldn't even notice it unless you actually saw the data stream as all you see or raw integers