Profession Ranks

Jeremy Saunders

We are considering simplifying this process down more for people. It seems to be overly complicated for newbies (and normal players) coming into the game. After reading through the profession help files, I can see why.

Some things we are considering. 

1. Moving to 3 ranks instead of 5.
2. Giving novices all three skills instead of just two.
3. Allow novices to forget a skillset to get the lessons back (if they learn the wrong skillset for example)
4. Removing the guild rank requirements.
5. Removing the time limit to apprentice people.
6. Removing the skill rank limits for novices.
7. Profession ranks are determined by the number of lessons you have put into the skillsets.
8. Rank will determine how many lessons you get back should you forget the profession. (100%, 90%, or 50%)
9. Cerise would be set to only help newbies.

And probably a few other things I am forgetting. Thoughts, ideas, feedback?

Selthis

1. How would the ranks break down?   This sort of changes things up a bit since lord knows as it stands our profession system isn't the clearest to newish people.

2.  This  would be a bad idea. Give them only the 2 you give them now until either  A) they outlevel newbie areas (past level  30) or they meet a lessons invested in other skills  quota.

3. This is a good idea.

4. Withholding comment until  other questions are answered.

5. This would be a good thing.

6.  I like this idea generally, it would allow for much more sensible skill suggestions I think.

7. If you do it based on total lessons, am I going to be screwed   if I only pick up knight for smithing because I'm a merchant at  heart and I only trans smtihhing?  What  sort  of cutoffs are you looking at for  class stages.

8. What sort of breakdowns are you looking at for how soon you're locked in? I feel like how punishing it is to people who aren't hugely invested but realize they made a mistake is going to be the make or break point here.

9.  I'd be mostly okay with that.

Khizan

The biggest problem with the skills in Imperian is that a mistake with them is so hugely punishing, especially to new people. A person who learns to tri-trans in guild skills has learned lessons equivalent to ~$300 worth of credits. If they later decide that they don't really like that class in combat or whatnot, changing profession is asking them to eat a 50% loss. This is a crippling blow to new players, because so many classes are reliant on all their skills, but by the time a player learns enough about his class to understand it, he's already committed to it. 

Ideally, I think there should be a time period as a profession before you drop from 90% loss down to 50% loss. 36 hours online. 7 RL days. Something that lets people get their feet wet in a profession without risking ~$150 on it. 

Sarrius

Khizan said:

The biggest problem with the skills in Imperian is that a mistake with them is so hugely punishing, especially to new people. A person who learns to tri-trans in guild skills has learned lessons equivalent to ~$300 worth of credits. If they later decide that they don't really like that class in combat or whatnot, changing profession is asking them to eat a 50% loss. This is a crippling blow to new players, because so many classes are reliant on all their skills, but by the time a player learns enough about his class to understand it, he's already committed to it. 

Ideally, I think there should be a time period as a profession before you drop from 90% loss down to 50% loss. 36 hours online. 7 RL days. Something that lets people get their feet wet in a profession without risking ~$150 on it. 

Tangentially related, can we maybe look in to more potential conversions like the Smithing -> Smithing and Chivalry -> Chivalry lesson recoupments? We could maybe classify certain professions in to groups across circles that share potential 'relearns'.

Ahkan

All of the ideas presented here are pretty amazing. Things you'd also want to cover (you may have covered these, so I apologize). When a newbie chooses a profession, I think there should be some sort of dialogue box that gives you a quick summation of your skillset that you can access using some sort of unique command, "whatmyskillsdo" or something.

Defiler
Torment - This has your primary bashing attacking in it.
Treant - This is almost strictly pvp.
Shadowbinding - This is your utility skillset.

It would help cut down on buyers regret when you blindly buy because a skillset sounds cool and ends up not helping you at all.

@Sarrius: People would game that too much. All skillsets should remain equal. That being said, maybe someday smithing will be a general skill and no one will care anymore.

Dicene

Only comment I really have is that 2 doesn't work without 3. I like the very short-term two skillset limitation, and the amount of lessons required to get dual adept is minimal. I feel like it has very likely saved many novices from learning to Basilisk Fear before they could Wyvern Claw, so I appreciate it's purpose.

Garryn

Dicene said:

I feel like it has very likely saved many novices from learning to Basilisk Fear before they could Wyvern Claw, so I appreciate it's purpose.

Novices automatically receive the Adept rank in their primary bashing skill these days upon creation, so this isn't really a concern.

Khizan

People might game it too much, but I'd still like to see something to make switching circles less of an investment.

While I can understand that Avasyu and such think that circle-switching RP is lame and awful and blah blah blah, it's still a fairly large problem in Imperian. Back in Achaea, every side had a monk guild, a mage guild, a serpent guild, and so forth. Aside from the Devo/Necro/Occie classes, you could get bounced from Ashtan and the Ashura and move to Shallam and the Sentaards without any problems aside from RP ones, and this gave you a certain degree of freedom in how you acted and RPed.

Imperian's a whole different story, though. If I get bounced from the AM circle, I am almost certainly looking at a pretty huge lesson loss, and this means that there's a certain metagame knowledge behind all your RP interactions. This was a huge issue for me during the Godwar. Interacting with Visyra was completely and totally awesome, and every time I interacted with her, I was risking ~$150 worth of lessons, because there's a pretty good chance I'd have gotten tossed out of the magick circle for it. After it was over, people were asking about why Kinsarmar wasn't punishing us, why we were refusing to take an RP stance that we might somehow be deserving of some kind of punishment for our role in killing off all the gods, and that sort of stuff. Maybe even put us on trial, whatever.

And the answer is that, as interesting as that stuff could be, I'm very, very, very hesitant to risk the losses that those lines of RP could incur, and so I based my choices around "what protects my investment the best?" and not "what is the most awesome?"

Gurn

To that extent though, there's a certain amount of restraint that should be going into every character. When you do something huge and drastic, you're taking a risk. It wouldn't be awesome if it wasn't risky in some way, after all.

So, yes, while you're considering from a metagame perspective of "what protects my investment best," your character should probably be also thinking, "What risks am I taking in doing this?"

The whole issue I have with that is that with some characters, citizenship and organizations, as well as professions, as seen as so meta and so disposable flavour-of-the-week that there is next to no roleplay and no justifications or backgrounds behind their actions. It honestly frustrates me when orgs like Kinsarmar go, "Well, these guys just raided us two days ago, let's just make them pay a fine and let them in!"

If we're going to argue RP, then we'll also have to argue that really, hopping circles all the time for skills and/or because the circle you're in is boring as of the moment isn't very good for the RP environment, either. I think the discouragement of circle-switching is because the admins want you to make the circle you're in awesome, rather than bandwagoning to the next cool thing, which is what a lot of circle-switching folk tend to do.

If Kim-Jong-Un decided he didn't like life in North Korea anymore, USA certainly wouldn't be letting him in with a fine or some light jail time or something, after all. It doesn't make any real RP sense beyond meta "Yay combatants" for cities and councils to be letting people in willy-nilly.


tl;dr: Awesome = risky, circle-hopping should carry risks, make things awesome with the hand you're dealt.

Ahkan

I'm completely ok with novice-ahkan can class switch for 30 days at no/reduced cost.

I'm not ok with derp-tron-veteran picking up trans ability, using it, and returning it for 98% because he knows how the system works, x 10.

Sarrius

@Gurn : Your argument is only solid in an environment where people are not spending hard earned cash.

Gurn

Sarrius said: Your argument is only solid in an environment where people are not spending hard earned cash.



Also, just because you're spending cash shouldn't make it so you're exempt from the rules. We ain't the bank execs here.



Everyone who's gotten trans skills and artifacts got it somehow, whether through hard work or spending cash. There is a risk still, and will always be. Some dude in EVE Online just lost a ship worth 11k US money, with nothing he could do about it.

Here, you choose what you do, and for the most part, can control if you lose those lessons or not. Sorry, but "I spent cash on it" is not a valid argument as to why you get a free ride on anything.

Aulani

Selthis said:

7. If you do it based on total lessons, am I going to be screwed   if I only pick up knight for smithing because I'm a merchant at  heart and I only trans smtihhing?  What  sort  of cutoffs are you looking at for  class stages.

I am curious about this as well, as someone who has Alchemy only for the merchant ability. (Yes I know it will be changing soon, but it applies.)

I do like the option of gaining the profession in another way. Like I have RG at specialist because I'm above GR 5. So even if I left the Vindicators I still have the profession to learn or not as I please. It is one of the few benefits of Guild rank besides, haha, I'm higher then you and being able to favour.

I'd really like to know more details on how this is going to work out. It would definitely be nice if it were more simplified, as it's hard to explain to newbies right now.

Sarrius

Gurn said:

Also, just because you're spending cash shouldn't make it so you're exempt from the rules. We ain't the bank execs here.
...
Here, you choose what you do, and for the most part, can control if you lose those lessons or not. Sorry, but "I spent cash on it" is not a valid argument as to why you get a free ride on anything.

I never said your argument didn't have some merit, but there is a difference between "circles should not be a worthless construct that see people filter in and out based on desire" and "some people just want a change of pace or being forced to change". You should not have to break your own back (and your bank) for making controversial roleplay decisions, wanting a new place, not enjoying the qualities (or lack thereof) of your circle, etc.

I'm not saying that you should be exempt from the rules. You should be held accountable for your actions - be that being unable to return to your circle, being denied entry to a new one, etc. These are player-based consequences. I am asking for things to be reviewed at a mechanical level. The rules - and your roleplay - should not make you beholden to your circle simply because some people believe that changing circles isn't 'kosher'. That is asking some people to settle for a stale gameplay experience, holding their investment hostage to make them accept it.

@Ahkan : A way to ensure it isn't abusable is to look at how the system currently operates - when you change Knight classes, you still lose 50% of your lessons, you just retain half the rank. Quitting the class directly after still costs you quite a bit in lessons (moreso than just quitting knight and going to a different class entirely). I would basically ask for that conversion in a slightly intelligent lineup, such as Trailblazing -> Pioneering -> Some Demonic kit, etc.

EDIT: Furthermore, a single person should not obligated to solve long-standing issues that they as a single player don't have direct control of - disagreement with laws when they are a massive minority, being in a politically unsound position in terms of what you think your org should be doing, etc. The onus of quality of experience in a circle should fall on the group, not JUST the individual. If the group does not wish to comply, then 'making things awesome with the hand you are dealt' becomes significantly more difficult and significantly more dangerous due to some people being capable of holding your investment hostage by way of robbing you of a safe place to go - in which case, to gain it, you must change circles or hope the other half of your circle is more kind.

Ahkan

Brutality                  1738

Necromancy            1738

Smithing                 1738

All of these skills are equally valuable from a lesson/credit standpoint. There's no justification to prioritize cost of refund on a skill by skill basis. The only issue to be addressed here is that newbies may learn the wrong skill because it sounds cool. You can address that by a grace period of no-lesson lost forgetting/class switching and updating admin-side help files/discussions that tell newbies "If you want to bash, learn Brutality."

At the end of the day, Imperian is a business. If an older player wants to switch classes, he should have to pay for that option. I'd even be a jerk and say that we need to eliminate the free skill pick up when you transfer from circle to circle and pick up the same skill. We don't need to make it easier and cheaper to circle hop, though I can see why you'd want that. 

Jeremy Saunders

Changes are in. Read Announce post 2416. Please issue feedback if any. Otherwise we are on to the next big upset.

Siors

I am logged on a different character and didn't realize it. But you should know who I am, and if you don't, the important people know who I am.

I agree with most of the changes, and having somehow missed this thread when it was started, I am somewhat sad and partially terrified that I agree with Sarrius comments above (that have been dismissed with the negation of equivalent skillsets being transferable across circles). I am a person that has changed classes across circles across multiple characters throughout the years I have played Imperian; I am not as terrible as some people, and I've never switched professions just because or because I irresponsibly or whatever screwed somebody else over. I would never have had those opportunities (within roleplay or to have fun in the game) on several characters without the less of a sting of circle change. Usually, I switched circles because one of them wasn't fun anymore (an this is a game).

Now, let me give the example of how much real life money I would have lost if I had switched circles to follow a very temporary opportunity to play with Cassiopeia again.

Seven anti-magick professions equivalent to nineteen transcendent skill sets each equivalent to about 292 credits. That's 5548 credits. Let's say at $0.27 per credit (that's 1.5 cents less per credit than the 2000 credit package), that's $1497.96. Let's say I had been forced to switch to the magick circle under a 50% loss across the board. That's losing $748.98, and as much as I love Cassiopeia, the experience I got from that would not have been worth that much money when I make $22k a year. (Edit: And if I hadn't gotten to that, I probably wouldn't have come back to Imperian for a while longer from that hiatus. And I may not have gone to IronCon and met all some of you cool kids.) Let's say I get kicked out of Ithaqua for some reason these days, either I can wait until I can resolve the issue with Ithaqua and not play her, or I can eat that loss of money and play magick or demonic, both of which I have never enjoyed so much skill-wise.

The last time I transferred from demonic to magick (Assassin to Renegade), I noted that, while you may be able to get back to transcendent in that equivalent skillset, you still lost 50% of your lessons in that you reached "Transcendent" in half the amount of lessons. Thus, if you actually decided to switch to another profession, you're right back with everybody else with a quarter of what you started with. Which was fair, I thought. It sucked and rendered some of my lowbie characters unplayable, but I figured at that point, switching that many times, it was fair.

I agreed with the idea above that all skillsets should be classified across the board into groups for potential relearn  rather than removed entirely, as it now has been. And I'm not huffing and puffing because I am thinking about or planning on a circle change on any character any time soon (Khizan's post is still valid, imo).

That aside, I like the other changes. I think the issue of people ("derp-tron veterans") potentially gaming the system re: Ahkan's post were addressed, and I think the ability for full refund below circle 50 for novices will be useful not only to them, but also for allowing novice aides and guild secretaries to come in and help "fix" potential learning errors from novices (in which they may have spent 90% of their lessons in Artistry because making instruments sounds far cooler than it is or in Beastmastery because who doesn't want a wolf and a mask) without whatever penalty it was before (10%, which can be a lot that early on?).

Cheers to making it simpler to novices/newbies and older players alike.