Skill sharing aura

[GOGOblin]

The way to make multiplayer more about mutual help and teamwork, thats how I see it:

 

High skill character(not in PvP mode) emits a kind of aura that ups other players' skill by 1 and gives them temporary bonus to getting XP for this skill (like books).

Like a more experienced worker gives advices to a newbie, both forcing him to work better and literally sharing his experience.

 

Just imagine those Spiffo cooking classes on big servers  

 

 

[Demonic_Kat]

This is very interesting. It's also a very good idea imo. Having the radius small would keep both players tied to the task at hand too.

[Kuren]

While I assume (and hope) we'll get a system to learn skills and recipes from NPCs, I really like this idea too

It would be a nice addition and kind of fit with the idea that you can learn from other characters. The only thing I might suggest is that there be some sort of penalty for a character doing something above their natural skill level, like maybe they craft slightly slower because their technically asking and looking for direction from their friend/partner. Ultimately, I really like the idea though

[TheWraithPlayer]

I think that this would work better as someone teaching someone else the skill in two ways:

(1), you practice with them, showing them how but not actually doing it if lifethreatening.

(2), you show them how on the job, like showing someone how to perform surgery while performing surgery on someone yourself

(3), two perks and two flaws could come from this

  (3a), Practice learner; you gain xp better from practice

  (3b), Hands on Learner; you gain xp better from doing

  (3c), Terrible practicer; you gain xp slower from practicing

  (3d), Terrible hands oner; you gain xp slower from doing

[Kuren]

4 hours ago, TheWraithPlayer said:

I think that this would work better as someone teaching someone else the skill in two ways:

(1), you practice with them, showing them how but not actually doing it if lifethreatening.

(2), you show them how on the job, like showing someone how to perform surgery while performing surgery on someone yourself

(3), two perks and two flaws could come from this

  (3a), Practice learner; you gain xp better from practice

  (3b), Hands on Learner; you gain xp better from doing

  (3c), Terrible practicer; you gain xp slower from practicing

  (3d), Terrible hands oner; you gain xp slower from doing

While I find these ideas interesting and like them as well, I have to wonder how some of this would work (game mechanic wise) or be implemented in a fitting/interesting way. Here's my though process on how some of these ideas might work well:

To start with an example, in the OP's idea you would only need to be in a radius around the other player/NPC. You could take it one step further and say that the player needs to be right next to or even looking at the teacher player/NPC. You could also make it so the teacher needs to be a certain amount of levels higher than the student player. So lets say the student is a simple level 1 fisherman. The teacher could then need to be at least a level 4 (3 levels above) to give the extra boost to level 2. You could then have a "master teacher" that's 6 levels above add 2 levels, so a level 1 fisherman could be a level 3 fisherman if he's working with and near a level 7 one. You could keep this idea going up, only have it be one level of boost or tweak the numbers a bit to simply make it more or less powerful.

Ultimately I could see the first idea listed here working kind of like TV and radio will soon, by watching or listening (in this case watching) the teacher, that then gives you a bonus like the books or a certain recipe like the magazines. Once again, this could be tied to some of the mechanics for the OP's idea and might even just work really well with the mechanics coming for TV and radio

For the second one, besides the idea of them "not actually doing it" it sounds like it would fit with the OP's idea again, so it could possibly work by the same radius and buff (in this case also providing an exp buff as well as the temporary skill level buff). To try not making this over powered you could make the "skill level aura" be a trait itself (for the teacher or the student side of things), as with the more we add here I feel like even the crafting time penalty isn't enough to fully balance it. However, with that being said, I really like the idea of it being very powerful to be with other players/NPCs. After all, there is strength in numbers and it would really encourage people to work with others and form groups

Finally, with all that said, I find it hard to find a place for some of the perks listed in the third idea here. Simply because I think it would not only be too powerful if you gain actual permanent exp from simple aura mechanics but it wouldn't fit with the current systems in the game (as books don't actually give you exp but an exp booster for when you actually do things). So ultimately here I feel like "slow/fast learner" have some of this covered already but there is technically room for a trait related to getting skill buffs from TV, radio and characters. I'm just not sure of a great way to make it work, but think slow/fast learner versus slow/fast reader lol

Anyway, just thought I'd throw out some game mechanic ideas for the ideas posted here, as I really do find them all interesting and love the thought of having player/NPC teachers in some sense


Edit: Also, while I still like these ideas for crafting type skills (and things like fishing, foraging and first aid) I should note that I not only think it would be over powered for combat skills (as well as things like sneaking, sprinting, nimble and light footed) but it would make little sense, in my opinion.

Edited July 6, 2016 by Kuren

[EnigmaGrey]

Had asked BlindCoder about this for his building mod. It'd be kind of nice to have an "overseeer" character that gives boosts in large construction projects.

[GOGOblin]

2 hours ago, TheWraithPlayer said:

I think that this would work better as someone teaching someone else the skill in two ways:

(1), you practice with them, showing them how but not actually doing it if lifethreatening.

(2), you show them how on the job, like showing someone how to perform surgery while performing surgery on someone yourself

(3), two perks and two flaws could come from this

  (3a), Practice learner; you gain xp better from practice

  (3b), Hands on Learner; you gain xp better from doing

  (3c), Terrible practicer; you gain xp slower from practicing

  (3d), Terrible hands oner; you gain xp slower from doing

Oh cmon, this looks too complicated. The game contains no brain surgery (but has some hungry Z's roaming around) and buiding shitty chairs from logs doesnt require such an accurate model, I think..

[Rathlord]

On the other hand, from a balance perspective:
 

There's been a distinct push to differentiate characters in multiplayer, or, to put it another way, to force people to specialize. Why? Because it makes the game scale up better than having everyone be generalists. It gives value to playing as a team, and for people to take skills that they otherwise might not. Sharing a little skill might be okay (still requires a person of higher level in the craft), but giving an xp boost kind of works directly against this goal of specialization/differentiation. I think I'd rather see more stuff that encourages cooperation (like, instead of giving a skill boost there's crafts you simply can't do with a single person).

[GOGOblin]

8 hours ago, Rathlord said:

balance

RRRRAAAGEEEE!!!

 

Sorry, lets get back to conversation.

Quote

works directly against

Can't agree. People actually ALWAYS up their skills, jerking barricade-unbarricade and "grinding" logs. The way to up them in a team, is a pretty nice way to increase the value of society for a player and save time for ENJOING the game.

 

What I really don't like in PZ is a skill system.  It is so unnatural and boring, and its gettig worse from update to update.  EVERY man can build a crate (or even staircases), it will take more nails and planks, will look shitty - maybe. But will be a crate (or stairs), even if it takes a week to finish it. Limiting the ability to TRY building something is a huge bullshit. Forcing players to GRIND for skills is the reason why game turns from excitement to boring work (wich we have enough IRL).  The skills must improve crafting/building, not limit it. Its not brain surgery, guys.

Edited July 7, 2016 by GOGOblin

[EnigmaGrey]

There's an ending?

 

PZ's now about maximizing skill gain through the power of team work?

 

This is now a discussion on a skill system that'll likely be undergoing changes in the future?

 

This is now about level-based systems vs. free-from systems where the only limiting factor is quality of the final product?

 

Now it's about grinding?

 

Skills already improve crafting/building.

[GOGOblin]

8 minutes ago, EnigmaGrey said:

Skills already improve crafting/building.

I think thats the only way the skills should work (especially after adding those magasines with recipes).

Everyone can make a chair, only a pro can make it well..  well enough to sell it..  Oh crap, we are surviving in a postapoc world here.. everyone can make a chair. Oh crap, I am the only survivor, the chair I made is the best available!

You see, surviving in such a world, like we have in PZ does not require professions until the SOCIETY is implemented, otherwise the minor differences between good chair and poor chair are negligible.

Knowledge is valuble if it is foraging or something medical or some complicated electronics, even farming, but skills (wich are detached from knowledge due to magazines) are far less valuable.

 

I realise, that the curse of primitive tabletop RPG systems is unavoidable, but still hope that common sense wil prevail somehow.  

[CaptKaspar]

I kind of like the idea of a skill sharing aura of sorts and disagree that it leads to less differentiated/specialized characters. Maybe over a very long term game you might end up not being specialized, but kudos to you for surviving that long.

 

To me; having a more skilled player assist you in learning a task is both realistic and also better for MP gaming. You would need to find an appropriate player who has a higher skill level than you and convince them its worth their time to assist you. What do you have to offer them in exchange? Add this to a server that doesn't have server-wide chat and finding that player would be much more challenging, desperate, and rewarding! It would make each encounter much more interesting. It adds more to negotiations between players when they interact. Knowledge and skills are better for bartering that way. "Please don't kill me, I can help show you how to do XYZ, I'm worth more to you alive than dead. I can teach you to do these things for yourself so I won't be a mouth to feed for long." "Hey bud, in exchange for some food, I can show you how to properly stitch and tend to your friend's wound." etc. 

 

In a small community, no one ever does only one task/job. You need a larger community to have specialized labor. Everyone learns a bit about everyone else's task/jobs in a small community. They assist when they can and fill the role when they have to. I don't support the idea that you are the only one who should build walls, you are the only one to tend wounds, you are the only one to grow crops, the only one who can hook up a generator, etc. "Hey Joe,  are you finished building that wall? Great I could really use your help hooking up this generator we just salvaged. Let me show you how to do it."

 

Take whatever RL job you have. There is most likely position specialization, but also a good deal of cross-training between positions.

Edited July 9, 2016 by CaptKaspar

[GOGOblin]

CaptKaspar

thanx for your post, you understand me perfectly!

Sharing skills leads to more complex social interaction in MP, besides this brings some realism boost.

 

36 minutes ago, CaptKaspar said:

Knowledge and skills are better for bartering that way.

It would be nice to share recipes (sophisticated ones, not stairs). Now this can be implemented by adding a crafting recipe (sheet of paper + keep pen/pencil) to make a blueprint, that contains desired recipe and a recipe to make a blueprint. 

Edited July 9, 2016 by GOGOblin

[samuk190]

Agreed.

 I Vote a yes for this suggestion.

[MyTJ]

Here is how I see how this intriguing idea could be implemented without hurting the push toward specialisation in MP.  In general, "radius" should be limited to "sight"

 

Boost scaling with level

1) Kuren already hinted at this in her post :

 

On ‎2016‎-‎07‎-‎06 at 2:28 PM, Kuren said:

To start with an example, in the OP's idea you would only need to be in a radius around the other player/NPC. You could take it one step further and say that the player needs to be right next to or even looking at the teacher player/NPC. You could also make it so the teacher needs to be a certain amount of levels higher than the student player. So lets say the student is a simple level 1 fisherman. The teacher could then need to be at least a level 4 (3 levels above) to give the extra boost to level 2. You could then have a "master teacher" that's 6 levels above add 2 levels, so a level 1 fisherman could be a level 3 fisherman if he's working with and near a level 7 one. You could keep this idea going up, only have it be one level of boost or tweak the numbers a bit to simply make it more or less powerful.

 

Unlike Kuren though, I'd suggest that there is a boost based on the highest skill of those present that could give something like :

• Level 4-5 : +1
• Level 6-7 : +2
• Level 8-9 : +3
• Level 10 : +4

Team member would still have an incentive to specialize as, the higher their skill, the higher their team-mate effective skill level would be. So the quicker the team reach level 10 in every skills by specializing, the more effective the team would be in general.

 

I'm not quite sure that combat and agility skill should benefit from this though.  If they do, I beleive that the effect should be lessened at least by half.

 

Drawback of level boost - Effective level vs real level

2a) Reduced XP gain : Effective level factoring the boost would act as the "real level" for xp gain purpose.  More clearly, if you benefit from a boost you would actualy be trying to learn more complicated things that require more XP (a higher level, a higher XP cost) then what you are used to do.  To avoid scaling nightmares in term of coding, it would probably be simpler to scale down the xp gain so that you earn something that look like this formula :

 

[XP increase] x [XP requirement for real (next) level]

                         [XP requirement for effective (next) level]

 

2b) Limited skill gain : Again, effective level would act as the "real level" for maximum level purpose.  More clearly, you would not be able to go above 10 (in the current system).  At this point (and I know this will be critiziced for being unrealistic), you would not gain XP while you are around the character that's buffing your level. This would force the player to learn the last few miles on his own, although this is where the teacher part could come into play and give an xp boost instead of a level boost.

 

The last stage : teaching

3) Tell, don't show : Here, to keep consistent with the idea, I suggest that the teacher need to do nothing else then actively teach.  It could even be limited to a single character (although others would still benefit from the level boost at that time if they are near enough).  How?  Just right click on the character and select the "Teach" option, then scroll through the available skill.  I think that Kuren's idea of requiring a minimal level difference would be a good idea.  The effectiveness of the XP boost could also scale with the level difference.  Oh... and teaching make noise!

 

Conclusion

Although this may require some tweaks and balance, I beleive this could lead to a very interesting multiplayer experience.  While working on common projects, players would have increased efficiency, but at a cost that would prevent them from just learning everything easily.  This would also add an incentive for the generalist that like to do everything themselves to act as the loners they are deep down

[GOGOblin]

10 hours ago, MyTJ said:

Reduced XP gain

Can't agree. Learning on your own is much less effective and needs more time and effort. Otherwise the master-apprentice approach and later education system could not be effective in comparison to DIY learning.

"И опыт, сын ошибок трудных" - PZ tier translation: "Experience, born by faults so bitter". I mean sharing knowledge gives you the best way to do something (usually), without need to try different shitty ideas to choose the one you think is the best.

[LeoIvanov]

I think a way to balance this idea would be actually pretty simple: Just cap the amount of XP one can gain from a person of higher rank to an XP/level number.

 

For example, let's say people can "teach" with their "skill aura" only up until they are 5 levels below.  That way, only people with sizeable experience in a particular skill can help others gain level faster. A level 10 carpenter can help others gain additional XP boost up until they are level 5. They are "on their own" after that point. Similarly, a level 4 carpenter couldn't give anyone an XP boost, because they, themselves, still have enough to learn about the profession themselves (Hence "Intermediate" carpentry).

 

Also, similar in topic, the "teacher" aura can help you perform/build recipes that are otherwise unknown to you. For example, if you are unable to turn on a generator, because you lack a necessary skill for it, a presence of an electrician in your vicinity helps you bypass this. By performing this "locked recipe" enough times in a presence of a "master", a character may learn how to do it himself, even if you "grind" it. It can, however, suffer a 100-1000% time disadvantage, so instead of taking 10 seconds to start a generator, you take 20-100 seconds.

(as a side note, the more often I have someone overlooking me doing a particular task and correcting me when I go wrong, the easier it is for me to learn how to perform it properly. So "Grinding" isn't even an issue)

 

Edit: Also as a bullet point, if you don't choose a particular profession (You don't have profession-specific XP boost), you won't be able to "teach" others the blocked recipe, or give them an XP boost, giving the ACTUAL carpenters more reason to be valuable.

Edited July 15, 2016 by LeoIvanov

[Kuren]

12 hours ago, MyTJ said:

Kuren already hinted at this in her post

Not sure why I still get mistaked as a lady all the time now that I changed my profile information a year or two ago but I like the ideas you put forward! lol, Ideas you can tweak from a design standpoint are always the best to propose

Edit: Maybe the toaster puts off a feminine feel, idk

Edited July 15, 2016 by Kuren

[MyTJ]

5 hours ago, Kuren said:

Not sure why I still get mistaked as a lady all the time now that I changed my profile information a year or two ago but I like the ideas you put forward! lol, Ideas you can tweak from a design standpoint are always the best to propose

Edit: Maybe the toaster puts off a feminine feel, idk

 

My bad

Sorry.

[Kuren]

4 hours ago, MyTJ said:

 

My bad

Sorry.

It's all good Just cracked me up a bit

[Magic Mark]

I like the idea of this, but for balance sake I think actually improving their skill should require performing the task, so people don't just leave their afk character in the aura of a woodworking champ and come back from their errands a master of their own.

 

My counterpoint on the anti-generalist argument:

 

Imo this idea would do nothing too negative against teamwork. I see where people are coming from not wanting everyone to be a generalist, but since an implementation of this would likely require working together I can totally see the contrast. There should be a semi-significant skill gap (like, say, three levels) between teacher and student so people can't grind this to master levels off of each other.

 

While everyone learning will gain the skill, it should probably be put in place that they have to physically do the task in order to get that level up. I'm also assuming that teaching would be very time-consuming, so it's not something people can casually do whenever a master of a trade is around to provide a boost. But if people work together on something (like a woodworker is building walls/floors with a student building too in the same area and the master is teaching, maybe they get more experience from it) it can totally promote cooperation.

 

I mean, the other option for non-skilled would be to read a book in front of a fire or something and then go out and grind it, so I think the "teacher-student" thing would be more fun, too. 

 

There is plenty of potential to flesh this idea out, like dialogue for each of the different skill levels and other details. This totally suits the world of NPCs, and multiplayer as well.

 

I mean I hope in a long term survival situation people passing on their craft isn't discounted purely for making characters specialized in only one or two things. I understand the need for that perspective but there are potentially great ways to work around that issue too.

[GOGOblin]

7 hours ago, Kim Jong Un said:

 

I like the idea of this, but for balance sake I think actually improving their skill should require performing the task, so people don't just leave their afk character in the aura of a woodworking champ and come back from their errands a master of their own.

 

I also do not mean increasing XP only by standing and watching "woodworking champ". The simpliest way is to use the skillbooks mechanics: gain more XP after the work is done. Just like on a picture above, the apprentice does work.

[Keshash]

It would make a quite interesting combo, if one could combine this suggestion with a workshop suggestion. Imagine working in a shed with special equipment, while teacher helps you. That would add significant bonuses from the both gameplay and roleplay points.

 

Edited July 16, 2016 by Keshash

[GOGOblin]

1 minute ago, Keshash said:

Imagine working in a shed with special equipment, while teacher helps you. That would add significant bonuses from the both gameplay and roleplay points.

And would make a base more valuable.  The more structures you have, the less you want to avoid Z's retiring to neighbouring town. Thus have to protect your clay, build walls, finaly building a city. PZ could be a pretty nice pre-industrial society simulator if it had some more complicated production and less loot. "10 years later" mode : )