Siegurt wrote:svendre wrote:Sure, here's an example:
Suppose I have a merfolk with a massive aptitude for polearms (+4) who started with a magic background thus has no polearm. Now, let's say this merfolk finds some good slaying item or armour or for whatever reason you decide it would be good to switch to a melee or hybrid build. You then come across a nice (but not end-game) non-pole arm weapon but you have a poor aptitude with it. At this point, you need to make a decision:
1) Shall I train a poor aptitude because of this weapon I found?
2) Shall I hold off on changing my focus to melee until I find a polearm?
If I can train polearms at any time, those decisions still exist but you are given an easier more obvious choice: use the good non-polearm weapon you found with a poor aptitude to train pole arms. You may say that this does nothing but increase the number of decisions, but recall that this character has other strong reasons to get melee started asap (slaying,etc.) I believe if there are two equally difficult choices, it is a more strategic situation than if there are three choices but one of them negates the other two.. leaving you with one single more obvious choice and less strategy. If additional choices can be made where they are all equally difficult to decide between then it's an enhancement.
But that is a terrible example, if you don't have a pole arm yet, but feel strongly inclined towards melee, and really really don't want to waste the (unimportant trivial amount of) Xp on a different weapon skill, the correct answer is
still not to train pole arms (which gives you absolutely zero benefit right now) the correct answer in that situation is to train fighting, or defensive skills. Skills which do benefit you right now now, and will continue to do so even once you find a pole arm.
I am not saying there is no such example, only that this isn't one.
I guess we have different views on spending xp for a weapon type (or spell) you don't intend to use later in the game, I do it as a last-resort not as an obvious choice. Now if you are going to say "but it hardly costs you anything to level the skill up a couple levels", then to that I would say: you're also not getting that much from it either. I view that as you clear the game, enemies keep getting more difficult, and you need to be prepared not only for what you are facing in the immediate present, but keep up with the difficulty curve. Some times it makes sense to make tough choices which are difficult in the present but will reward you in the future. The correct answer being not to train pole arms might be the case, but perhaps not. Perhaps you've already trained fighting up some but haven't come across the polearm yet, now it's more expensive than something with a +4 apt and since it's a general skill it's not going to be as potent either. Throwing more points into fighting will give you some additional ability along the way, but at the moment you find a polearm, you will not be as strong as if you had balanced the two. Maybe that will be fine, but maybe not. Being less powerful later on in the game can be an issue. There are cases where you can judge with reasonable probability that you will find something (ie: I've found the shoals entrance, so I know I'm likely to find a polearm when I'm ready.)
Here's a situation that I'm often faced with in a game. I've got a branded dagger, but I am sure I want to train a different weapon type for the character. So, there is a cost to that - I train fighting, or something else. The net result is that the character is in fact weaker (getting less effect fighting with an untrained weapon) until I find the weapon type I want to use and can begin using it in a trained state. Actually that branded dagger often will continue to be the best choice even after I've found the alternate weapon until the skill is high enough (to keep attacks at 1.0 auts, increase accuracy and the brand) This isn't as much of an issue in a game taking your time to auto-explore every corner of each level because you are very likely to find all the weapon types. It is more of an issue in a game where you are diving into the dungeon more quickly. What I would do almost every time then, is spend some xp gained from that branded dagger (or whatever) and put at least a little bit into the weapon type that I hope or expect to find soon. It's in that moment you get the weapon, you are now better off for having done it. For me, tough decision removed. Having some skills trained ahead of time may not always be useless. It's a free buff to allow it, so at the least they shouldn't be called "useless".
While I did not like the old method of skill training "dancing", and I most certainly utilize manual training... at least from a flavor stand-point the current system seems a bit strange (wielding a dagger training axes because it's in inventory.) Training something you don't even have or have seen is going even further in that direction. I feel like at least wielding a weapon should be a requirement for it being able to train even while multiple weapons are still selected. I get why that would be awkward though because you could weapon swap then kill something with a spell or mostly kill something with a dagger and make the final blow as an axe to get around that. You could have a more complicated system where even if you have 3 different weapon types selected for training, only a % of the xp per kill can go into the weapon training based on the damage done by that weapon type. Anyways this is getting off topic and I don't think such a system would be worth the time invested, I think it's fine currently.
You want to add a mechanic which allows you to make easy decisions when they are easy (even if they are more difficult some times). I want to preserve a mechanic which sometimes forces you to make tough decisions.
Tuesday, 12th April 2016, 20:46 
