Prevent newbies from wasting lessons on non-class skills

Florentino

Three ideas based on interactions I had with a novice just now suggesting this needs more work:

1) lift the inability to put lessons into miniskills from level 10 to level 40

2) apply the inability to put lessons into General Skills (vision, avoidance, etc.) until level 40

3) when people who haven't trans'd at least their primary class skill want to put lessons into a non class-skill, give an OOC warning/prompt asking them if they know what they're doing and telling them Class Skills are usually the way to go, and that they should proceed only if they're certain. Also maybe tell them to join a House.

Iocun

I don't think this would do that much good, because "class skills first" is only an extremely rough general rule, that doesn't apply in quite a few cases.

For some classes, for instance, survival is much more critical to combat/hunting than one or several of their class skills. For some classes, one or two class skills are entirely optional, even for combat (I guess this will change a bit with the tradeskill changes though). Then we have non-newbie alts who definitely know what they want and may have an entirely different "lesson plan" in mind.

And last, but certainly not least, we must account for the possibility of not every novice being interested in "combat practicality", but may actually want to focus on "other fun stuff". There's nothing inherently wrong with a novice going for gathering or tattoos first. This is only a problem if the novice expects this to be a good choice for combat. Most people don't do all that much combat though, so apart from getting a few essentials (bashing attack, basic survival stuff), there's no true need to have a very specific lesson plan.

I wouldn't be opposed to some OOC prompts of some sort though, to make them realize that spending lessons is an important decision and that getting some advice may be a good idea.

Nemutaur

Resetting invested lessons without changing Class

-------------------------------------------------

Those at level 30 and under may reset the lessons spent in a skill by using the

following syntax: FORGET <SKILL>. This will return almost 100% of your invested

lessons back to you.

Zuko

Yeah, I dont think this needs to be noob proofed any further. I agree with what Iocun said, and for young monks as well as some other classes, a novice may want to put some lessons into fitness to regenerate endurance faster for hunting. Same goes for Philosophy

Florentino

Okay, so make some minor exceptions for the good cases where it's necessary like monks and the endurance regen one. But there's no reason we should take the risk that newbie serpents are putting tons of lessons into constitution because they're confused and thinks it gives them more health.

Sylvance

Florentino said:

Okay, so make some minor exceptions for the good cases where it's necessary like monks and the endurance regen one. But there's no reason we should take the risk that newbie serpents are putting tons of lessons into constitution because they're confused and thinks it gives them more health.

Again, this seems to be based upon the premise that there is a 'best' way to play Achaea. Now, don't get me wrong, I 'wasted' a good deal of lessons (paid for with OOC credits, no less) on Riding (and Tattoos, although that was less of a waste in hindsight) as a young Bardlet because I thought it would be c00l, and later regretted it. So I get what you're aiming at, but to address that by making it impossible for anybody to want to be a Bardlet who rides a unicorn but can't sing worth a damn would be a very strange thing to introduce to a game that is purportedly about deep roleplay and customizability.

Bethesda (may it rest in piece) were right on the money when they said that a good roleplaying experience allows somebody a great deal of scope to make decisions, including bad ones. If you feel that this is costing the game in newbie retention, then there may be a case, but really I'd be amazed to learn that it is.

Iocun

Florentino said:

But there's no reason we should take the risk that newbie serpents are putting tons of lessons into constitution because they're confused and thinks it gives them more health.

But such mistakes can be made even with limitations like the ones you are suggesting. What if a newbie masters all his class skills, thinking that he'll be able to use those for hunting, only to later find out that most abilities only work on players? I'm willing to bet that happens quite regularly.

This is a general issue of communication and can't be fixed with hardcoded learning limitations.

Aepas

My first character put like 100 lessons into weaponry as a magi. Back then 100 lessons was a lot, I was so upset forever.

10/10 would do again

Taraza

While restrictions may help sometimes, it may be more beneficial for Houses to include an introductory scroll (Yes I am well aware most houses have this) to the House that explains their lessons and skills properly. Also it may be wise to give each novice some type of orientation where they should spend their lessons. Now if you are a novice aide and use HOUSE SKILLS <novice> and see they have learned something that truly would be wasteful, then I would point out using the FORGET skill command may be a better route for them to take so that they learn the skills the truly need at this stage. I don't think there needs to be any formal restrictions, the reason was stated above, older players want to try something new and desire to have their own learning program.