Proposal: Defer "You must select a skill for training"

[Hurkyl]

It's annoying that, when training just the shield skill, if I take my shield off momentarily (e.g. to wield ID a 2-handed weapon), the game forces me to enable a skill for training now that I can no longer train the Shields skill.

I propose that this check shouldn't happen until you actually have skill points to distribute.

[One-Eyed Jack]

Maybe you should be able to train all skills at all times

[KoboldLord]

The main issue I can think of is that you nearly always get skill points in combat, so if you can disable all skills you will almost definitely get that pop-up that demands you find a skill to put your skill point into at a point where it will interrupt actual combat.

In this case, I would think that having a shield in your inventory should unquestionably be good enough justification to activate shield skill for shield training. The arguments against just allowing skill training on any skills of your choice at any times of your choice don't really apply.

[Psiweapon]

Well, you CAN train a weapon you're not wielding, right?

And similar other examples, IIRC Invocations was recently changed so that it becomes trainable the moment you join a god that will EVENTUALLY grant you an invocation ability.

If you are carrying a shield, you should be allowed to train it, even if just for getting rid of this interruption (it's happened to me too)

I admit it makes less sense, though.

[One-Eyed Jack]

The notion of "experience points" abstracts character advancement to a degree that I find it hard to believe that there is a sifnificant difference in sensicality regarding conditions under which certain skills can be advanced.

[TheArcanist]

Maybe you should be able to train all skills at all times

Honestly, I don't understand the design rationale behind restricting skill training in the manner Crawl currently does. I mean, isn't this exactly the sort of thing that prompted the overhaul to the skill system four or five versions ago? Forcing the player to do some arbitrary bullshit to put XP into the skills they want doesn't sound much like fun.

[Psiweapon]

Maybe you should be able to train all skills at all times

Honestly, I don't understand the design rationale behind restricting skill training in the manner Crawl currently does. I mean, isn't this exactly the sort of thing that prompted the overhaul to the skill system four or five versions ago? Forcing the player to do some arbitrary bullshit to put XP into the skills they want doesn't sound much like fun.

Yes, but there's a difference between training things which are conceivably accessible, and an OgHu training venom magic from the start of the game when it's latter revealed that the first book generated with a poison spell is lying besides an Oklob Plant at L:7.

Doing arbitrary bullshit to train a skill is no good, but being able to train some skills can in itself be arbitrary bullshit in some circumstances.

[nilsbloodaxe]

http://s-z.org/neil/git/?p=crawl.git;a= ... d5e8ab18d5

[duvessa]

OgHu training venom magic from the start of the game when it's latter revealed that the first book generated with a poison spell is lying besides an Oklob Plant at L:7.

you forgot the part where you explain why this is a problem (probably because it isn't one)

[Igxfl]

OgHu training venom magic from the start of the game when it's latter revealed that the first book generated with a poison spell is lying besides an Oklob Plant at L:7.

you forgot the part where you explain why this is a problem (probably because it isn't one)

Agreed, you shouldn't be training a skill anyway if you have no relevant equipment whatsoever. Not letting players do so only serves to idiot-proof the skill system a little.

However, good skill training might be harder for new players to learn if there are a bunch of irrelevant skills around. Bad choices only seem only seem really obviously bad once you're used to the game.

More experienced players won't be affected by whether their OgHu can train Poison Magic from D:1 anyway.

[Quazifuji]

I remember this discussion coming up a few months ago. The impression I got was that one of the devs (I forget who) like equipment restricting training for flavor reasons. When they first did the skill overhaul, armour and weapon skills also required having corresponding equipment equipped to train, but people didn't like it with armour and it turned out to be tedious and scummy with weapons. The dev still wanted to bring those restrictions back but basically kept the restriction on shields as a compromise.

I didn't see any remotely convincing arguments as to why requiring an equipped shield to train it actually benefited the gameplay. Basically, the arguments seemed to consist of "it makes sense from a flavor standpoint" and "it's rare that you'd want to train shields without having one equipped anyway so why does it matter?" and it mostly seemed to come down to one person saying "I like training restrictions and don't want to remove the only one left."

[Hurkyl]

There is merit from an interface point of view to hiding skills that are currently useless to your character, doubly so for players not yet familiar with the whole spectrum of skills available to them.

Although the interface is not a reason to disallow training the useless skills. (hitting * to expand the list could allow you to train anything, if for some reason that was desired)

[Sprucery]

Although the interface is not a reason to disallow training the useless skills. (hitting * to expand the list could allow you to train anything, if for some reason that was desired)

I think this would be the right solution (show all skills / show currently usable skills). If even more 'newbie protection' is wanted, the possibility of training all skills could be made an rcfile option. But maybe that's overkill.

[PleasingFungus]

http://s-z.org/neil/git/?p=crawl.git;a=commit;h=43eea485f30f77c41b07869c13a833d5e8ab18d5

Yeah, I have no idea why people are still talking about this - the problem that the OP complained about was fixed months ago. I tested and was unable to reproduce the problem, but if it's still occurring, the OP should file a bug report with more details on how to reproduce it. There's no need for a GDD thread.

[and into]

http://s-z.org/neil/git/?p=crawl.git;a=commit;h=43eea485f30f77c41b07869c13a833d5e8ab18d5

Yeah, I have no idea why people are still talking about this - the problem that the OP complained about was fixed months ago. I tested and was unable to reproduce the problem, but if it's still occurring, the OP should file a bug report with more details on how to reproduce it. There's no need for a GDD thread.

Quite right—locking thread.

If someone wants to discuss seriously open skill training, start a new thread in GDD about it.