>> For most levels
>> of a skill, the teachers in most towns should suffice.
>You mean some fictious teacher ? Or do you mean actual units or NPCs?
>> For
>> higher levels, where only few people have such high
>> skills, the player would have to seek out better
>> teachers. When the player finally reaches a very high
>> level, there would no longer be teachers, and some kind of
>> quest would need to be performed.
As a simplification, how about this. Any player may learn up to level
1 or 2 in a skill simply by studying it anywhere. For levels 3 to 6,
stacking with a structure called a library (available in all
pre-existing CITY zones -- can be built with expenditure of raw
materials AND gold representing book purchases -- VERY expensive) or a
player with an equal or higher level and Teaching. After level 6, the
skill can only be learned by stacking with a guild tower or with a
character that knows the skill at the equal or higher level via
Teaching. There would be one guild tower for EACH skill at the start
of the game teaching one skill to 10th level each. 10th level players
could create new guild towers or add skills to pre-existing ones via
some sort of expenditure of gold. This is a raw idea. Anything good
in it? I personally like the idea of "going to the library" but I
haven't thought of a great way to handle it yet.
>> BTW, I'd suggest that a
>> teacher would have to be 5 levels above their students, so
>> that levels 7-10 would automatically require quests to
>> fulfill them.
>Again this is not very realistic. A good teacher given enough time
>can teach a student everything he knows. Why should BtA be unable to
>teach a 5th level mage to become a 6th level mage ? BtA certainly has
>all the knowledge required for either of these levels.
I agree. Teachers should be able to teach up to their levels.
Perhaps there could be experience bonuses for a quest but the thing I
don't like about quests is they are difficult to program in such a way
that Rich doesn't have to keep resetting them or changing them.
>Cut down drastically on effectiveness of untaught learning. Learning
>without a teacher should take 3 or 4 times as many days as it does
>now. This would represent actual research. Learning from teachers
>(even level 0 teachers) should proceed at the same rates as it does
>now.
This could work. I like it off hand.
>This change would also suddenly propel teaching from the fringe to
>becoming an integral part of the game. It would also open up whole
>new vistas of cooperation between players.
I think that whatever mechanic finally gets adopted, that this is a
good thing. I think teaching SHOULD be an important "integral" part
of the game.
>While is making that change, one might as well also remove the level
>10 level barrier. As there is _nobody_ above level 10 as of yet, all
>advancement to level 11 would have to be by research which would take
>over a year even using wizardly methods, so there is no danger of a
>levels explosion. On the other hand, the first level 11 in any skill
>would become greatly desired by all the level 10s who will be after
>his research results (i.e. want to be thaught by him to reach level
>11 themselves in only a few months).
I really like the warp 10 -- er -- level 10 limit. Why? Several
reasons:
A) Level 10 provides a fixed goal at which someone is the best.
B) It is very hard to come up with open ended mechanics that don't break
down at the extremes which...
C) makes it very difficult to use simple math progressions which are
easily understandable by all and easy to balance.
D) Giving each task under a skill levels allows sufficient variation
between 2 level 10 units to make differentiation through "brute
force" level accumulation unnecessary in my opinion.
Just as people were pounding out units and recruits just to "see what
would happen", people will sit and study and study and study just to
see what will happen. Remember, this game has only run for less than
5 Olympian years. In "production", it could run for 20 or 30 or more
before being reset. That sort of thing has to be planned for an a
topless system is dangerous in such a situation.
John Morrow - Varian [856]