I POSTED THE FOLLOWING IN THE BOARDS ELSEWHERE. I KNOW A NUMBER OF YOU ONLY READ THE RANGER BOARDS, SO I AM REPOSTING IT HERE. I DON'T WANT ANYONE TO THINK I WAS NOT BEING UP FRONT WITH YOU...

It doesn't matter if I say something, or if I just let the attacks continue...those that understand the change will find it acceptable (whether they like it or not) those that don't understand it are going to be upset about it and criticize it. But I feel its my job to respond, and I have never been one to dodge anything so here goes...

First of all, the criticals that are being received are admittedly more frequent than we expected. We are in the process of reviewing exactly why they are ocurring by introducing some statistical tracking that isn't currently in the system. I will say this however, we tested this system extensively. I personally took on the personna of someone from just about every level of every profession and tested the system out. I did not see the criticals we are seeing today. And we have looked at what is going to see what we could given the information we have...the only way these criticals can even be reached in the system is to be dramatically out of your league skill to difficulty wise when skinning the creature.

With that said, here is the scoop on the new skinning system.

Skinning was created just after DragonRealms opened. It has, over the years, gone through several minor and major changes as other systems, skills and abilities were introduced. The main focus of these changes were for the Ranger. Like it or not, right or wrong in your eyes...skinning has always been, and has always been intended to be, a Ranger ability that others could dabble in. It was never intended to be an endless vault of cash flow for Rangers or anyone else. But as creatures keep getting higher in difficulty, and the GM demand (yes, GMs are just like players) for "my skin must be the coolest and most desired"...has driven values and it has been hard to keep in check.

Over the last two years or so, as a result of a series of changes, introductions and events, Rangers have been pushed further and further into the background as other professions became better and better at skinning than Ranger, hands down.

The fact of the matter is, the system had reached a point where Rangers would be required to hunt in areas so far over their head they literally risked death with every effort to skin for experience. And this was VERY unfair to them, since they are required at every circle to advance in skinning.

Also, because some of the other professions consistently hunt higher than their level, all the focus was beginning to be on making it more of a challenge for them, which even pushed the Ranger further down. It was spiraling out of control.

As a result, my staff and I have been very aware for more than a year that skinning was becoming more and more of a problem...not just as a game system, but for the Rangers themselves. In fact, the Ranger team discussed this at length at the last SimuCon.

We knew that the fix that needed to be made in order to bring the system back in line for the Ranger was going to have a severe impact on the other players of the game. We don't just do things like this on a whim, regardless of what some think, and so I searched for an alternative. I thought I had found it in ARRANGE. Unfortunately ARRANGE solved some of the problem, but only about 40% of it.

Two things brought this to a head. Tanning and substances. Tanning was, as most of you are aware, written, previewed and then pulled. The reasons it was pulled was many, one of them being there was not enough variance in the quality of the skins that were used to create the items, to afford us a variance in the quality of the finished product. You basically ended up with bad, avergage, or extremely good. And because of the Ranger bonus, they could only create extremely good (another reason I pulled it BTW)...they literraly could not fail to make the best item the system would yield. I did not find that acceptable.

Substances, as I write this, is going through a complete rewrite. And as part of that system, the skinning system will yield objects intended to be used for the substance system. That in itself required a fairly major rewrite to meet those needs.

Yes, I knew when this system was released there would be a backlash. Not all the Rangers are exactly happy with it either. The system doesn't just focus on the non-Ranger when it comes to making it more difficult. Rangers themselves have seen a significant decrease in the trophy pelts yielded even with ARRANGE. But as a GM it is not my job to make the most popular decision, its my job to make the decision that is best for the game in the long term. Not just for Rangers but for everyone.

I could have just capped skinning and said, if it is X above you, you always fail. But that would not have been a fair, or even a reasonable solution. I could have simply given the Ranger an even larger bonus and increased experience. But that would have simply been unbalancing. And finally, I could have simply given everyone who wasn't a Ranger a huge penalty...but that was far from fair as well.

So instead we made the range from easy to extremely hard much wider...for everyone. We made it more realistic in that you get better results from using a skinning knife than you get from using a pole-axe...for everyone, we set up criticals at the extreme end of the "you are definately over your head here."...for everyone, and finally, we stopped giving experience for failing a skin...for everyone.

Ranger are bow users...most of them are at a disadvantage over you because they now have to put their bow away and get out a knife. At least the majority of you can still attempt it with your sword. Rangers were, like everyone else, boosting themselves along on failed attempts, they have lost this now as well...and they need those ranks to circle.

In fact, we fixed a formula bug that, by fixing it, hurt the Ranger more than anyone in this game...that being the more over your head you were, the more experience you got for failing to skin the creature. In fact, you could get more experience under those circumstances if you failed than if you succeeded.

The only impact to those of you who are non-Rangers is that you are no longer getting experience for failure (well you are, but its minimal) which means that just because you are hunting 20 circles over your head, doesn't mean you can accquire massive amounts of skinning experience by continually failing to skin those creatures...and yes, you all know you were doing it. :)

The other impact is that because of the fix, you will have to hunt creatures skinnable at your skill rank which may mean hunting below your level. Or risk criticals. In other words, if you want to skin for cash, you just may have to put your weapon advancement on hold for a while. Unrealistic? Yes, it might be unrealistic. But we did see the potential for bleeders, that would give people the opportunity for FA...instead of the unrealistic solution being emplyed now by the players, by having people shoot arrows at them. Is it a perfect solution? Probably not. Is is an acceptable solution? In my opinion yes.

I want to clear up some misconceptions too before I conclude.

First of all, it is possible for a non-Ranger to get a trophy skin. You simply have to be working in your skill level. Second, right or wrong, whether you agree with it or not, the skinning system in DR has never been tied to the level of creature. It has been intentional that combat and skinning be maintained as two separate systems. To appease the players, we do, whenever possible tie the difficulty of the skin to the level of the creature...but that has not been game design, and it is what has lead to our problems today. Partcularly at the extreme we've reached.

Finally, I don't want anyone to be shocked when armor encumbrance becomes part of the skinning system as well. If he has not already introduced it, I have already given Taejun the go ahead to introduce that as well...consquently those of you hunting in full plate are going to see even more of a problem when it comes to skinning than you do now. Those in chain will see less, those in leather will see the least.

So whether you agree with my decision or my motives, there they are. Its easy for anyone, including myself, to "arm-chair-quarterback" any GM's decisions after the fact. But I have watched this, and I have monitored players in the game. There are some who are hurt by this, I knew there would be. But for the vast majority it is working, and it is working well...and it solves several problems in the process and opens up avenues for a richer game overall.

One thing I think we do need, and I'm discussing it with Taejun now, is the ability for a player to get a relative difficulty of skinning a creature, in relationship to his/her skills. It is something I will persue with much seriousness.

Regards,

Trev