Request for skill points status

Not looking for anything as overt as the old bar, but could we please have some kind of indicator, perhaps selectable via the game menu, to show us when pool experience is low or empty?

This is the first time in ages I've played without an experience booster and am really fighting having a 0 point Adventuring pool.

Such a status would help us determine if its worth punching a skill just to advance it - which is wasted effort if the pool has 0 points in it.

 

The number is shown on the skills (k) window if you haven't noticed it before

I think that works fine but wish it was one of the paper doll stats, which I use more frequently.

 

I know, but I'm getting really tired of punching K to see it.

 

An option to display the numbers on the screen, perhaps below our health/focus bars or in a corner, would be more useful than wandering around with the skill window open.

 

Completely agree. Don't know how much time I wasted tonight leveling my training skill, just to realize I had run out of pool somewhen during the process.

 

This has been discussed before, but it's worth bringing back up again.... Because it makes sense.
To my knowledge, no one at Portalarium has acknowledged the requests/feedback as yet.
@Chris @DarkStarr
Please have a look at the pic, and see if this isn't something that you could give us please.

 

The current way works very well: checking the XP pool is in no way time-critical (nobody does it in the middle of fight, right..?), and can anyway be checked in less than a second - just a casual double tapping of 'k' (try it) does the job.

I'm very much against adding additional clutter in the main window. I guess it could be coded in as an option, but...all in all the XP pool size stuff is a kind of a red herring, making folks obsess about wrong things. Actually I think the way it is now is already a bit much, would much rather have it put into /stats (like the 'AdventurerLevel") but it's fine the way it is.

 

I seriously doubt they are coming back. They were removed because they took up too much space on the screen. I also supect they were removed because they don't want you focusing on the nubmrs. Putting them back on the screen is contrary to these two design principles they want to implement.

 

In my opinion there were whined away by parts of the community.
YES report me for that, feel free! (not you @jiirc , the part i am talking about ^^).
What i would like to see is an option to turn the skillbars on and off.

 

I don't agree. I do things all the time that keep me busy (like 6-8 training rounds before the target dies), and often roll right into the next one. Its a huge waste of time if my point pool is zero.

 

This is exactly what I'm talking about. I regard the size of the XP pool as one of the biggest red herrings in the game.

The fact is, as a rule of thumb, as long as you keep killing stuff, you'll be progressing. just fine.

Even then, if one really wants to occasionally check the XP pool size, for whatever reason, it takes now about 0.7 seconds (yes I measured it), surely everyone has time for that every now and then, if they really want? Actually, it's much quicker and more reliable now than it used to be, when we had those XP bars. If one really wants to tune it up, and check the pool size every half a minute, remapping the 'k' key to something closer to the WASD keys might be a swell idea.

Micromanaging skills is quite another matter. I can't help but wonder, how well do those worrying about their XP pool sizes actually know about skill related XP requirements? For example things like, how much XP is spent when progressing an ordinary active fight skill from level 20 to level 40? How about from level 60 to level 80? How about in the case of passives and stats like str/dex/int? This kind of information is absolutely crucial if one wants to actually and seriously worry about XP expenditure. So how much do they know? Do I even need hazard a guess?

So wouldn't it be much easier, and much more enjoyable, to just play the game?

 

Please don't impose your views on what is enjoyable on everyone else. I know exactly how much XP is earned for killing things, when I'm in the area and have such a concern. Your whole argument also falls apart when your doing NON KILLING activities that consume pool points. And given that we have requested this to be selectable, why do you care?

 

No, because wasting my time while my pool is zero is not enjoyable, at all.

 

Apologies for expressing an opinion.

It is true that activities that do not involve killing may consume pool points. That's partially related to the issue that activities outside of killing (and a limited number of quests) are generally not rewarded with XP, at least not yet. That is something that I hope will be addressed somehow, someday. However this has almost nothing to do with the red herring that is the widespread concern about the XP pool size. The fact remains, one consumes exactly what one earns, period. And it has to be earned beforehand - there is no credit card for XP. The fact also remains that it currently takes about 0.7 seconds to check the XP pool level, at any given time, if so desired. Very easy, quite nondisruptive. Therefore I do not understand even what issue this proposal is trying to address, let alone what is it trying to improve. I do care because I think this appears to propose spending dev resources to something that would be steps backwards, and I also think I'm actually entitled to express an opinion, am I? - the "we" vs "you" dichotomy that you presented might suggest otherwise, I would prefer just "we", but whatever.

I did not refer to XP earned for killing things, I referred to XP requirements (XP "cost") when advancing skills. That's a very important distinction. XP earned is relatively easy -- 1150 points from an elder wolf, 650 from large timber wolf, 3500 points from quest X, and so on. Skill advancement related XP expenditure on the other hand involves awareness of two nonlinear curves, namely 1) exponentially increasing XP cost per skill level and 2) generally diminishing returns per skill level. This double whammy can be tackled using either math, heuristics or intuition, or a combination of all these. It all comes down to how to "invest" the earned XP in the best way (depending on one's preferences, be they roleplay-related or simply striving for max overall efficiency). This is rather complex and tricky, and there are no right answers (even though there might be a number of wrong ones). Part of the fun I guess.

And why is this important, why do I even mention it? Because this understanding, especially math-based, shows the XP pool concerns as what they actually are - mostly a non-issue, at least in the big picture. All that matters is what you earn, and how you choose to allocate what you have earned. Like it or not, the XP pool size at any given time has relatively little to do with this, or any related concern. And the current way of checking the pool size is not at all such a big issue it is made out to be.

Other than that, I certainly don't care, as long as what is implemented is completely optional. Sorry again for expressing an opinion. Peace out.