Please could we have - Crafted - Practice Dummies - with Durability?

So that you can both purchase/craft one, practice on it, until it is broken and you have to salvage it for scraps.

This would help the player economy tremendously in a use base system.

Since the XP pool doesn't get anything more it wouldn't debalance things.

...and it would make a lot more sense than people summoning gustballs everywhere.

 

My understanding of how things are supposed to be working at this point - and you put quite succinctly, Spoon:

Without the XP pool (that they allowed us to bring with us from R20) gaining in skills by hitting a brown beachball wouldn't be possible (without the death of an opponent) - once a wipe of that pool takes place - which is what we'll certainly have on release.

So what difference does it make here and now regarding whether a skill is gained on a gustball or on a dummy ? I mean, becoming a master swordsman by hitting a brown ball in your yard is pretty pathetic just on the face of it -
is it not?

I'd prefer the dev's spend their time on issues more pressing... IMO.

Sorry.

 

Nope, this is not true.
The XP pool is created whenever you get XP. So even after complete wipe, while we are adventuring we will gain XP, that is put into pools. So we will have such pools for skill gain after wipe and launch as well.

The most obvious example of this is the XP you gain through quests, they are not tied to skill use at all but fills the pools for future skill gain.

Quite a lot of a difference and no you have it a bit backwards since practicing using a dummy has been done troughout history and is still being done today. It's part of all military training globally. So it is not a pathetic concept in itself, although the gustball exploit is a bit silly and one which I hope gets removed/nerfed.

However practicing on a dummy is a valid concept although with rapidly diminishing returns.
It does have its place.

...and there are plenty of Wing Chun / Karate / pick your poison, grandmaster champions that have zero actual combat practice but still could wipe us out easily.
Same thing with lots of olympian archers and shooters who could easily take us out at a distance.
So not all practice have to be actual combat practice.

I'm of the opposite opinion obviously.

We can find them in many places in the Novian world, they already exist as assets and logic, they are prominently used in the starting location etc.

Anything that is placed prominently in the game like that should be made available to the players as well.
If I see a Target Practice I should be able to target it and fire upon it.
If I see a Practice Dummy I should be able to target it and whack it with my weapon.

And most things that you can see and interact with in the world should players be able to craft.

So in my opinion the devs can do one of two things
A)
remove practice dummies and targets completely from the world
B)
Include them in the player experience. (interacting, crafting, purchasing, reducing to scraps etc.)

 

"Practicing" on a dummy or a gustball in order to gain in a skill is a ridiculous concept and invites everyone to just sit back and assign a macro to become good in said skill.

No matter how you spin it, gaining in a skill by attacking an inanimate object is just wrong...

Anyway, that's obviously just my opinion - I suppose we could just agree to disagree on that point.

 

And archery targets! Don't forget those.

I'm both with you and not on this. With archery people use inanimate objects all the time and some people become quite skilled. It's not the same as combat experience of course but you do gain skill. Practice dummies allow you to work on stance, weapon control and accuracy and have long since been used in real life training.

That said, I would not expect the same skill gains as you should get out in the field and would not be adverse to say.. 1/2 skill xp or less.. and also not improving innate skills sat all. I would also not be adverse to say.. a hard cap on how high you could go. Say up to 40. Just enough to remove the current damage penalties on the base skill. Heck maybe even limit skill gains to the base skills. but dummies and targets should have at least some use.

 

I love this idea. In fact, i think is something needed... when i was leveling up i went back to solace bridge looking for the dummy i hit in the tutorial (i don't want to use a gustball), but it's gone. All the reasons Spoon stated are valid for me (dummies used in real life, they're already in the game, help to boost character development).

Macro characters up to perfection is something, giving a reasonable target so newbies characters may practice is another, so imposing limits in the way Bowen proposed may balance everything. I'd say that dummies may be used to "train" high skills and prevent them from decay... for example if your blades skill decayed from 80 to 78, practicing on the dummy for a while may give you back those two points assuming you haven't had anything that makes that decay definitive (like dying or increasing the value of other of your skills).

 

???

Those who does macros would never use a practice dummy. Where do you get that from?
Cheaters are not going to use practice dummies/targets since they are less efficient at skill gain.
If you run a macro AFK you could just as easily do it in a place where you would gain XP at the same time, just ask around the more competetive crowd - they are already doing this.

Practice dummies/targets are more for RP/regular/casual players.

 

Agreed. I thought that practice dummies as a concept included those? (Like the ones in the Obsidian Keep).
I will add pics of both when I'm in game next time.

Also think of an Archery Competition - Player event. Where you score versus the score of the hit on a target.

Fully agreed, and good suggestions.
Hitting a practice/target dummy should have some diminishing returns.
Maybe for the first iteration just something as simple as the skills costing more XP from the pool?

 

I totally want archery competitions! And it wouldn't need to complicated.. just allow the arrows to stick in the target where they hit. That's all it would it take. Doesn't need to report a score or keep track of anything else. Players can do that.

 

@DarkStarr @Chris

If we take the gustball and just make it have an amount of health where it dies/deflates when hit, then implement practice dummies and archery targets as proposed here (both models you already have) then allow them to be craftable and purchasable with durability...

Then you remove the immersion breaking gustball fiasco while also tying it into the economy.

I actually agree with this.

Gustball players are not going to care as much if the gustball has life attached to it... In a game of gustball, we have yellow and red cards. We can simply make it a rule that deflating the gustball results in a yellow card.