Being Lore Prime's starting to piss me off, especially with all of the recent lore related threads.

Dart, I have faith in you, but it would be really nice to have some re-assurance about the direction of the Lore rewrite. When one guild gets the best of both worlds(every single combat skill at least secondary, and a lore skill that is learned at a primary rate like weapon making or whatever), things start to feel really unfair.

Shouldn't guilds that have Lore tertiary feel the same pain we and other guilds feel with having one, if not two or more combat skills as tertiary?

I try not to complain much, but this is a topic that I feel very strongly about.

__
~Leilond
http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h307/ss1shadow/leilondsootherin.png
http://soundsoftime.bravehost.com/bard_planner_v2.xls - Personal Skill-Tracking Bard Spreadsheet

> My primary skillset is useless, and I haven't heard any sort of indication that will be changing in the near future

I believe Ssra and I both said that once we finish up some lingering combat and magic concerns we'll be switching to lore in a huge way. We had hoped to get to it earlier than this, but sometimes things get delayed for various reasons. In any case, lore's turn is coming up. For bards, we have screams coming. Recall 2.0 is pretty much done, but since I have to manually convert all the old recalls to the new format, that's delaying things a bit (there's a lot of recalls out there to track down and reformat. Ack!) -- nevertheless, I expect to get it out in the next couple of weeks, along with a major enchante overhaul. After that we've got the new creation systems very much in view, as well as some plans to make teaching more friendly and useful.

Just hang in there a bit longer. Lore's turn is coming. Promise.


- GM Dartenian

"So he buckled right in with a trace of a grin
On his face. If he worried, he hid it.
He started to sing as he tackled that thing
That couldn't be done and he did it."
- Edgar Guest

Probably the wrong folder to be discussing this, but I'm curious on if you have a game plan on how to make the Lore skillset actually desirable post creation rewrite. While being able to learn all creation systems at a primary rate is cool, it doesn't seem like it would be any cooler than it is for a survival primary to be able to learn both hiding and evasion at a primary rate. By default, I still fail to see how being able to learn all of the skills in your skillset is "a perk" in and of itself.

Furthermore, often times skills of a different skillset accomplish a need that are not able to be bought from another person who has trained that particular skill. When I train evasion, I know very well that others' ability to train that same skill at the same or faster rate has no bearing on my own ability to evade, thus why I must train it myself. In contrast, there is no need for us or others to train more than one creation skill at a primary rate. While it would be nice to not have to spend money for someone else to create you something, that inconvenience is not the same as being flat out dead if you don't train evasion. In all honesty, if other guilds are able to train just one lore skill at a primary rate, who's stopping us from just buying someone else's items rather than having to create them ourselves?

I guess the main problems I'm having are...
1) Non lore primary guilds getting to train a lore skill at a primary rate when the suggestion of applying that same principle in reverse is so drastically shunned by both players and GM's alike.
2) The fact that we're given the "perk" of training more than one creation system even though we're able to utilize others' skill in those other creation systems. The best course of action in cases like this would be for two people to focus on one lore skill, and both benefit from each other's work. This is the most economical choice, and I imagine that unless someone is a recluse and does not like having to rely on others, that they will take this course of action.

__
~Leilond
http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h307/ss1shadow/leilondsootherin.png
http://soundsoftime.bravehost.com/bard_planner_v2.xls - Personal Skill-Tracking Bard Spreadsheet

>>Probably the wrong folder to be discussing this, but I'm curious on if you have a game plan on how to make the Lore skillset actually desirable post creation rewrite.

Combat is the standard by which many people measure a skillset's worth. Lore has the misfortune of being the only skillset with no current combat viability.

>>1) Non lore primary guilds getting to train a lore skill at a primary rate when the suggestion of applying that same principle in reverse is so drastically shunned by both players and GM's alike.

At this point I'd almost agree it's better to just make Barbs/Pallies/Rangers (guilds I play) suck it up and take away creation systems from them just for the sake of preserving skillset integrity in the game. That would, from a pure design point, be the best decision.

However, design is not the only thing needed to be taken into account when making this decision. The simple fact of the matter is that there is a sizable and very devoted DR fanbase who have literally spent years of their DR time developing the skills necessary to make capped blades/armor/bows under the current system. Refusing to let Bards learn survival skills at a primary rate harms no one because this is not something Bards already have. Taking away armor-making from Paladins would actually be taking something away from players of Paladin characters.

In this case, game design must bend somehow to customer needs. I'm sure we could argue ad infinitum about the best way to do this, but something's gotta give.

>>At this point I'd almost agree it's better to just make Barbs/Pallies/Rangers (guilds I play) suck it up and take away creation systems from them just for the sake of preserving skillset integrity in the game. That would, from a pure design point, be the best decision.

Justice isn't the only design priority. Taking creation systems away from Barbarians, Paladins and Rangers would be a horrible design choice.

The true issue with the creation systems rewrite is going to be the double standard by which non-Lore primary guilds will be given perks and bonuses to systems outside their skillset configuration. Barbarians and Paladins will be able to craft the best armor in the game along with the Lore primary guilds, but will the Lore primary guilds be given the same perks in the combat systems?

I'm confident that some compromises will be made on this issue, but I sincerely doubt they will just take creation systems away from non-lore primary guilds in an effort to be 'fair'.

GENT

Without going into any detail at all, I'll say this much -- our goal is to make creation systems in a way that there are a wide variety of areas people can specialize in. This way everyone can carve out their own little niche. The advantage of not being lore tertiary is that you'll be able to specialize just fine, and be relatively competitive in several related areas. Or in other words, you won't be as locked into a single creation specialization as a tert would be. We'll make it so even terts aren't completely locked down to a single creation specialization, but it's going to take some serious effort if they want to do more than just specialize in a specific area.


- GM Dartenian

"So he buckled right in with a trace of a grin
On his face. If he worried, he hid it.
He started to sing as he tackled that thing
That couldn't be done and he did it."
- Edgar Guest