Confusing display of cost of crosstrained skill

[damerell]

I'm posting here, not to Mantis, because I can't quite decide if I'm missing something obvious and this is not an infelicity.

It seems to me that the relative cost displayed for a skill that has been crosstrained is misleading. For example, start a HuGl and go flail. Use wizard mode to raise M&F to 20. Generate and pick up a trident and the Axe of Woe. Take a copy of the savefile. In the skill screen, the cost displayed to raise both Polearms and Axes is "1.0". However, this is the cost to raise one's base level - if you focus Polearms and generate and kill an Orb Guardian, Polearms will go up from 0.0 to 3.3; if you focus Axes and do likewise, your effective Axes skill goes from 13.5 to 13.9.

This is all expected behaviour; you don't get cheap skill levels twice, once from crosstraining and once from real training. However, I think if the player has "enhanced" values not "base" values displayed, as is the default, they should be shown the relative cost of raising the enhanced skill level, not their base level.

[Siegurt]

I'm posting here, not to Mantis, because I can't quite decide if I'm missing something obvious and this is not an infelicity.

It seems to me that the relative cost displayed for a skill that has been crosstrained is misleading. For example, start a HuGl and go flail. Use wizard mode to raise M&F to 20. Generate and pick up a trident and the Axe of Woe. Take a copy of the savefile. In the skill screen, the cost displayed to raise both Polearms and Axes is "1.0". However, this is the cost to raise one's base level - if you focus Polearms and generate and kill an Orb Guardian, Polearms will go up from 0.0 to 3.3; if you focus Axes and do likewise, your effective Axes skill goes from 13.5 to 13.9.

This is all expected behaviour; you don't get cheap skill levels twice, once from crosstraining and once from real training. However, I think if the player has "enhanced" values not "base" values displayed, as is the default, they should be shown the relative cost of raising the enhanced skill level, not their base level.

Probably the costs should also switch when switching between base and modified level display.

[Sorcerous]

M&F doesn't cross-train Polearms, though. It's Staves and Axes.

Edit: after reading again, this is a valid question about XP values.
What would the implications be with a full dynamic shift that matches the cross-trained skill? Honestly, I think with high numbers like 20 base skill it won't matter as much. By the time you have the XP needed for that investment, it's like IRL training: having gone through similar motions and stances so many times over, you're not starting from zero. It's much easier to pick up the use of something that your body is used to. Having the initial low XP cost isn't that strange to me. Maybe it shouldn't change.

Re-edit: after reading again, I posted something stupid. The display can be confusing, to a degree.

[Sprucery]

M&F doesn't cross-train Polearms, though. It's Staves and Axes.

That's the point of comparing training Polearms and Axes after training M&F.

[damerell]

Probably the costs should also switch when switching between base and modified level display.

That is exactly what I have proposed.