Topic

Please remove learning skills - they drive a difficult bargain for players

As seen with the CCP MMO Eve Online, the idea of learning skills is a polarizing topic. It presents "long-haul" players with a carrot of quicker advancement, but can drive shorter term players away with the steep initial investment. Players end up creating formulas for the "best" progression path for a specific goal and people who don't follow it are considered to "waste time". 

I didn't like that attitude in EVE and learning skills in that game are now a thing of the past. I think it would behoove the developers to take a look back at the lessons that game can provide and eliminate the learning skills.

Feel free to disagree, but I can't really see a logical reason to have them in the game.

Posted 17 months ago by Juugcatm Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • I haven't played Eve Online, but I don't think Glitch is quite as "serious" as you fear it may be. This game hardly seems like it is going to be very competitive about much of anything. In fact, I can't imagine one reason why I would care what another player is doing/has earned already.

    It's quite fun to be able to check on my character's progression when I'm out somewhere else not playing. I think it'd be a shame if the folks at Tiny Speck done took it away.
    Posted 17 months ago by Sean of the Moor Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I'm slightly confused by this. If we had no skills and everyone was equal and nobody had progression paths for goals other than a standard one. Then surely the game would be kind of pointless (from an economy side of things). If everyone was doing exactly the same thing, it would be kind of... boring, wouldn't it? 
    Maybe I just don't understand, as I've never played EVE, sorry if I've got you completely wrong.

    Personally, I've always enjoyed Mr. Rock doing his learning. When I see others who've finished all the skills, I don't feel jealous or like they have an unfair advantage, I just feel "I hope I finish learning them all someday". 
    Posted 17 months ago by Ebil Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I've never played Eve Online, but for me the skills provide diversity of character abilities without forcing me to be a specific type of character "race" (like the dwarf, mage, knight type of games). I like to cook, I like to garden... one day I hope to keep bees and make a butterfly net.
    Posted 17 months ago by girlhacker Subscriber! | Permalink
  • With skills, you could specialize. That's the logic, I think. If there wasn't any skills, there won't be specialization. Imagine ít like RL: Take, for example, the AK skill set. I'll compare it to a Language degree. So, The first skill is like the basics. You learn the basic grammar and whatnot. Then you can choose not to continue past the basics and learn something else, or you could choose to continue learning it. Understood?
    Posted 17 months ago by KitkatCat Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Juugcatm, I think you should get used to the game before saying stuff like this. Glitch is far more light-hearted than Eve Online and learning skills is part of the game. The skills don't determine your character in any way. This is a game without combat and without specialization of characters, ie mage, warrior, healer, things like that. 
    Posted 17 months ago by Piratice Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I think some of you have misunderstood Juugcatm's point. I would suggest he is referring to the skill 'Better Learning' not the overall concept of learning skills to progress your character. In Eve there were a set of skills that, once learnt, reduced the time to learn other more general skills.
    Posted 17 months ago by Uean Subscriber! | Permalink
  • yeah, i also thought he meant learning skills, but i think they are set up in an ok way that is flexible with regards to different gameplay styles.

    but i also understand his bigger point, and think that if anything is out of balance in a way that promotes the 'this is the best most optimal way to do things' attitude (have also seen this in kingdom of loathing!), it's more the ability to advance quickly in the early game through currants/favor gained by mining.  i could be wrong about this, but there seems to be a common understanding among players now that mining is the 'best' way to do this, and i fear there is going to be this mad rush to the mines after launch if that's the case.
    Posted 17 months ago by katlazam Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @katlazam  Personally I've avoided mining as much as possible (never appealed to me, so only done it for goals) and I manage to make a comfortable 'living' doing other things.  I know a lot just go for mining, but other paths can be equally profitable :) 
    Posted 17 months ago by Ebil Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I haven't played Eve either.  I love the skills!  They give me some Goals to shoot for and many things to do besides just running around.  I don't really care what Skill or how many Skills others have.  I see little competition regarding these and do enjoy them tremendously.  My only complaint about Skills is the length it is now taking me to get the last 3 or 4 - LOL!  When the game goes 24/7 that will not be much of a problem for me.  I want more Skills please!

    If he does mean the BL Skills then I also disagree.  The BL mean little to me as they don't really reduce learning time enough as far as I am concerned.  After I got the first one, I really did not care about the second.  I expect the last BL will be left for me when the game goes Live.
    Posted 17 months ago by Brib Annie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • You are so full of it... Game is about challenges. For God's sake.  Why don't you play Parcheezi???
    Posted 17 months ago by napabeth Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Skills is a big issue, I agree. But I don't believe at all that Glitch could be compared with EVE in that respect. 

    Let me make myself clearer. We can already see certain conceptions as to how to earn money comes up. I, for one, asked in the forum about it ("What's the best way to earn money?"), and saw many do the same. ("Get the Mining III as soon as possible!"), ("Go mine, then sell your stuff to L4E!"). And I'm sure people with come up with full-fledged career paths in the near future. Yet, on the other hand, I seriously doubt that any "career paths" would be hugely popular with this game since, first of all, Glitch is much less competitive than your classic MMORPG. In other words: Why bore myself to death power-playing in Glitch?! Secondly, it is less linear than many others, more focused on experience (though, on that note, isn't that the claim of every other RPG?).
    Posted 17 months ago by Sublimie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Its taken me like a month & a half to nearly learn all of the skills so I don't think that players even really need to choose a path anymore to be honest...
    Posted 17 months ago by Taylor Swift Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Sublimie... what's L4E?
    Posted 17 months ago by Bleu Subscriber! | Permalink
  • The BL skills give you, what, a 20% improvement to learning speed?  EVE's equivalent to the BL skills gave you more like 200%, if I remember right.  (I started playing EVE as 'Learning Skills', their version of the BL skill, were being removed, so I'm not entirely sure.)  So the 'carrot' Juugcatm is talking about is a lot smaller in Glitch than in EVE.

    I'm not a fan of BL in general, but maybe it's not as fun-killing here as it was in EVE.
    Posted 17 months ago by Fizzitt Subscriber! | Permalink
  • If people want to reach the endstate of the game as fast as possible, they are imo welcome to do that.
    But the game isn't about being most efficient, fastest, with most currents. What do you do when you get to the top, which challenge awaits you?
    It's not the destination, it's the road to it that is the game and makes it fun.

    So even if you speak about the better learning ability: I only took the first skill in it, before I realized i didn't mind if it took 10 hrs or 7 hrs to learn something. I won't be playing this 24hrs a day, and with longer learning times you have something to look forward to.
    I would not like it if I was able to learn all skills in a week time. What is there to do after?
    I am the kind of player who likes leveling, learning, development and change, rather then end-game raiding content.
    Posted 17 months ago by Miriamele Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "Why bore myself to death power-playing in Glitch?!"

    there are different ways to 'power play' in glitch.

    you might consider me a 'power player' because i do the teleport to ajaya bliss, level 4 east thing, but if you look at my account i'm only at level 32 despite playing every test of the beta .. so what's going on? what explains the discrepancy?

    the explanation is that i mine in fast, short, highly efficient bursts that then power long stretches of either using glitch as an IM client, sporadic testing of whatever looks interesting lately, experimenting with inventing in-game stuff like jumping game, pilot and bombardier, some casual performance art style shenanigans and planning end of test parties.

    i used to also use the bursts to power some project participation, but that has become less compelling to me over time. i do get bored with glitch from time to time, and mining might alleviate that boredom if it wasn't mostly about just clicking stuff, but i'm fine with mining being a grindy thing so long as i can play efficiently enough to not have to do it much.

    that's me, specifically. the larger point is that just because someone might optimize or "power play" as you put it, doesn't mean that is primarily how they interact with the game, or that super-efficient resource gathering and use is the end goal of all people who think about optimized strategies.

    "So even if you speak about the better learning ability: I only took the first skill in it, before I realized i didn't mind if it took 10 hrs or 7 hrs to learn something."

    i don't mind that fluctuation either, which is why i never learned anything beyond BL 1 this test, initially.

    the problem is that as the game progresses and new skills are introduced and the skill times increase in length dramatically, the difference stops being measured in hours, and starts being measured in days and even weeks. when the learning length changes were implemented i was sorta caught behind the 8-ball since i didn't have BL-4 so while all my buddies where playing around with TP 4 and 5 i'd have to wait weeks to catch up.

    edit - i should probably add that if "unlearning" had been ready and available, i wouldn't have had the additional days-week wait time and the the lack of better learning would have been inconsequential. so long as players don't feel 'trapped' at higher levels based on a 'mistake' early on, i think things will be fine.
    Posted 17 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • What striatic said.  "Advancing" in a game like Glitch is...very hard to define accurately, which is very much to its advantage.  Accruing more xp or than other players, or learning more skills doesn't confer a particular advantage, or carve out a "best way to play" the game.  I think it's mostly miners that think that way :P

    In addition, one of the best things about the game (and I hope this doesn't change) is that there are no defined classes of character, which means a lot of casual (for lack of a better term) and topical pseudo-classes emerge from the game.  Miners, gardeners, etc only define a certain style of game play vs. a committed class of a character.   With the emergence of the rook, we are starting to see people who will style their gameplay as rook fighters.   There are, or were (*farts in general direction of TS*) players who could be called butterfly-singers.  These are all valid methods of 1.) leveling up and 2.) killin' time.
    Posted 17 months ago by Nanookie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • To clarify, I'm 99% certain that what Juugcatm meant was not that "learning skills is bad" but that "the Better Learning skills are a bad idea".

    And, Juugcatm: I understand your point but the way this works now (and the way it will work as the next big batch of skills is added, along with the "unlearning" skills) is sufficiently different from Eve that I don't think the same issues will arise (though certainly people with a min-maxing and wiki-reading bent will use some set "optimal order" of skill learning anyway).
    Posted 17 months ago by stoot barfield Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Sorry for the late replies, but I was talking about the "Better Learning" skills. I re-read my post and I realized how confusing it was for many people. 

    Stoot and everyone else who replied, thanks for the replies. I just wanted to open a debate about these skills and bring my EVE experience into this.
    Posted 17 months ago by Juugcatm Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Well, I've only been playing for a week or so... 
    but, immediately upon looking at the skills I immediately started planning when to get better learning skills to optimize my skill getting speeds.  I am one of those that play 'power-play' style or whatever it was called. 
    In the end, this tree will probably just give a slight advantage to those of us who take it at the appropriate time. It adds a little bit for us power players to toy with. 

    It could be removed completely and wouldn't hurt the game at all, but it would lose a small amount of that appeal to us who take any advantage we can to get ahead.  For some of us it is a race, and that's the fun of it. :D
    Posted 17 months ago by Mahphisto Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I like the Better learning skills,can`t remember ghost777 whole skill tree done with BL5 but do know this last test which is only 3 and1/2 days got my hubby avatar up from level 1 to level 23 with much better time with Better Learning.I think I only finished Better Learning 1V with each skill taken to half time with shrines.I leave the big day skills to before shut down of test letting them ride to finish.I so enjoy the quest that come from the others so if BL any level helps me to get there quicker so be it.Then one who really enjoys a particular type of whatever (IE) cooking, alchemy,gardening can get there faster. Well there my 2 pennies in the poke.
    Posted 17 months ago by Jellybelly Baby Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Maybe some people don't like learning or learning skills, I love them and hope when reset comes not only are the "old" skills we have learned are still available to relearn but I would love to see even more skills to learn.  Learning Skills are like Glitch college when you learn new things you can do more things.  I for one want even higher education.  PHD in teleportation, a master degree in gardening and on and on and on.   
    Posted 17 months ago by xoxJulie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • xoxjulie, the top post wasn't talking about what you are talking about, although confusion is understandable.

    the thing the top post meant to reference was the "Better Learning" skill suite, specifically, and wasn't discussing the idea of in-game skills generally.
    Posted 17 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Oh Julie my sunshiny friend from fauna land sooooo long ago,good for you wanting a better brain.If I remove myself from this chair sometimes to go shopping I think it might be safer to attached a note who and where I live (please take me gome to Glitch) hahaha.I find it keeps my noggin thinking.sure I like it easy at times yea everyone loves a pet now and then,BL does this for me when I am impatient.but all and all my brain is turning and The medical (know it all folks) say this is a good thing ,well for me.haha less the cold beer.That will be a cold day in Hell.lol
    Posted 17 months ago by Jellybelly Baby Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I think better learning serves its purpose.
    Posted 17 months ago by Jungalist Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Oh Ghostie your stories about living on a sailboat going from port to port, have always inspired me to enjoy the games we play with good friends and good times.  Hugs
    Posted 17 months ago by xoxJulie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Oh striatic, umm, I don't get it.  Isn't the BLS so we learn faster?  That's a good thing, well I think it is so we can learn more in shorter length of time.
    Posted 17 months ago by xoxJulie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I disagree. While Glitch is down, I find one of the things I miss most is the skills.
    Posted 17 months ago by Mieli Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "Isn't the BLS so we learn faster?  That's a good thing, well I think it is so we can learn more in shorter length of time."

    doesn't that sort of turn skill learning into a game though, where if you learn skills in the wrong order it becomes very difficult to learn new things after a while? i would be interested in hearing your opinion on whether that is a good or bad thing.

    that's the point the OP brings up.

    maybe it is better to encourage people to jump in and start learning things right away, without having to worry about learning better learning first. BL turns "skill tree management" into a priority when maybe it would be best for people to approach the skill tree with the assurance that they can't really *screw up* learning the skills by doing it in the wrong order.

    i would prefer it if the Better Learning skills were removed. they don't really add to gameplay, unless you consider skill tree learning time efficiency to be a kind of game. they have no associated quests, so learning them is rather anticlimactic.

    otoh i don't really care much, personally, because i know that i'll just hunker down and do the boring skill learning time math and get on with it fairly early on. i've played the game before, and won't feel the "wow cool let's try stuff out!" attitude that might make players eventually regret not taking Better Learning first instead of exploring right away.

    the upcoming "unlearning" skills will ease some of that regret though. Unlearning should help people out of situations where they've already learned a lot of skills and feel *trapped* by the dramatically increased learning times when all they want to do is change things up and try something else.
    Posted 17 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I think there are some BL-related quests which have to do with shrine donations, and they are not timed well.  If I'm remembering correctly, the quest for BL5 is to obtain an emblem, but if you haven't already obtained one, you can't learn BL5 (you have to spend the first emblem of Lem in order to learn BL3).
    Posted 17 months ago by glum pudding Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Striatic: "doesn't that sort of turn skill learning into a game though, where if you learn skills in the wrong order it becomes very difficult to learn new things after a while?"

    I'm sure I've seen Stoot say that this is they way they'll be heading, with increasing numbers of skills available it's a natural consequence of the % increase in time per skill. And that's what the upcoming "unlearn" is set to mitigate, as you say.

    I'm agnostic about whether the % increase is a good or bad thing - to me it's just a condition of the world. Since we have the % increase, it's up to the player whether they want to shave time/spend time on BL skills. Although since learning continues while you're logged out, I don't see any downside at all in taking them - BL1 is very short, BL2 is an overnighter, BL3 is a long weekend, and the benefits are permanent.
    Posted 17 months ago by Spong Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Is there actually a limit on the skills you can learn? It seems like the whole unlearning skill would imply that but I'm not seeing any other suggestion of it

    I wonder if they'll ever actually make people choose to skip some skills and take others to force the kind of social exchanges that WoW and other games attempted to. Note I said attempted XD I know most people I knew in WoW just rolled more characters for the other skills and kept grinding so... yeah, hehe...
    Posted 17 months ago by Marl Subscriber! | Permalink
  • i think we should keep the skills.they make the game more exiting.
    Posted 17 months ago by GiaTori Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Marl, there is no limit. But since it takes longer to learn skills as you add more skills, the idea behind Unlearning is to give a way to mitigate that issue.
    Posted 17 months ago by Lord Bacon-o Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Stoot, are you going to put additional skills ( like engineering 2, block making 2 and stuff like that..) or will the skills block remain the same? 
    Posted 17 months ago by Aero Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Aero

    Read the posts above yours.  Stoot has already said that they are adding skills.
    Posted 17 months ago by WindBorn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I can't imagine that there's any sort of wrong way to get skills.  Want to spend more time now to get things later? Do it! Want to get fun things now? Things will take longer later, but who cares? This isn't a race, you're not going to somehow miss out if John and Jane learn Improved Cartography 4 before you do (unless you're stuck in a pile of sextants, anyway).
    Posted 17 months ago by Magic Monkey Subscriber! | Permalink
  • No, I LOVE the learning and the quests and new abilities that come with it! Its what keeps me playing!
    Posted 17 months ago by Yum Yumyum Subscriber! | Permalink
  • The problem with learning skills is that after you research 5 skills for example, the time increases on ALL your other skills. So the mouse-over "time to learn" tooltips are deceiving to say the least. Makes it really hard to plan anything.
    Posted 17 months ago by Bashere Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "This isn't a race, you're not going to somehow miss out if John and Jane learn Improved Cartography 4 before you do (unless you're stuck in a pile of sextants, anyway)."

    that's a bit of a misrepresentation of the issue.

    the main issue isn't being "caught behind" other players, although that *is* an issue ..

    the issue is being punished at higher levels because  when first encountering the game, your first instinct was to explore and try things, not carefully calculate skill progression. the isn't simply a problem in relative terms, relative to other players in some kind of skill learning game, but it is also a problem in absolute terms. the amount of molasses you end up in if you elect to explore first.

    people are going to keep asking "which skills should i learn" and i wish i could just say "whichever ones interest you the most!" unequivocally.

    once we get unlearning i will still be able to say that .. but not unequivocally. more like "whichever ones interest you the most bearing in mind that if you don't take better learning very early on in order to shift character focus without greatly increased delay you will have to unlearn skills which will represent something of a drag but at least not the overwhelming multi week delays in shifting focus you might otherwise have."

    which is fine, mechanically, but it it really wise to front-load this game with that sort of thinking?
    Posted 17 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • of course, many games do benefit from that kind of front loaded structure. most of these games are RPGs, MMO or otherwise, that can trace their lineage back to Dungeons & Dragons and its front loaded character creation systems.

    i'm not sure where Glitch fits into that tradition as a whole, but the skill tree - and XP mechanic for that matter - seems to be directly drawn from that heritage.
    Posted 17 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • What I'm trying to get at is that how long it takes to learn a new skill ultimately isn't important.  I don't see it as a punishment at all. I think it's a reflection of how things work.  The more things you know, the more challenging and time-consuming it becomes to learn new ones, especially if you want to know detailed in-depth information about a broad variety of subjects.

    I do, however, think that the means by which skill learning times change needs to be explained clearly somewhere.  Even if all of the details are kept quiet, new players need a way to know that it's going to happen by a means other than what they have now (which, as best as I can see, is hearing about it from other players).

    I also don't see being stuck behind other players as being an issue at all -- not only will it happen no matter what (some people started before you, others have more spare time to play and can get more stuff to donate, etc.) but there's really nothing in the game that you're locked out of if you don't have however many skills or particular skills.  Projects are always requesting an ever-increasing variety of things, and I'm hard pressed to think of any other activity that needs you to have a particular skill.
    Posted 17 months ago by Magic Monkey Subscriber! | Permalink
  • lol, you want to make it take longer for people to learn skills by removing a skill that speeds up learning?  no thanks.  Feel free to not take it.  God forbid players have to do some decision making.
    Posted 17 months ago by Btaylor Subscriber! | Permalink
  • also, Striatic said "the issue is being punished at higher levels because  when first encountering the game, your first instinct was to explore and try things, not carefully calculate skill progression." 

    Am I the only player who looked at the skills before choosing?  "Get learning skills at the beginning" seems like common sense.  Maybe it's not, who knows.  I do have an engineer's brain.
    Posted 17 months ago by Btaylor Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I'm on the fence about learning skills. In some ways it seems odd that you are forced to leave your computer connected to the game server for hours, or even days (even if you're not playing at the time)!!

    But I'm reserving my judgement until we have 24x7 testing. When you only get to play for a few days at a time, there's a sense of urgency so learning skills just gets in the way. We might feel differently when it's 'always on' and you can set your own schedule.

    I'm assuming there will be testing like that - it's the only way Tiny Speck will get true feedback about this contentious issue.
    Posted 17 months ago by MeetHead Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "In some ways it seems odd that you are forced to leave your computer connected to the game server for hours, or even days (even if you're not playing at the time)!!" 

    Not sure where you got this bit, mate. . .  I don't think that's how it works, though I've been wrong before
    Posted 17 months ago by Btaylor Subscriber! | Permalink
  • The game would be nothing more than a glorified chat room if you remove skills.  I find them to be fun.
    Posted 17 months ago by Baxterina Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @btaylor: while I was evaluating my skills as I went when I first started, there's a difference between going first for the optimum and going for something exploratory, which is what I was going for. I'm one of the sorts who learns context better from experience, and so Better learning leveling wasn't my personal priorty. And to be honest, it isn't now, because I'm interested in exploring the skill tree as fully as I can. I can't yet imagine a time where I want to start unlearning, because I'm being able interact with my environment in a broadder manner.

    And hey, that's just my decision making process. And i think the better learning skills are good because they fit your play style! Even if they don't fit mine eniugh to be my priority.

    maybe I'm over thinking this because I'm stuck with a friend who's clothes shopping. All things are possible!
    Posted 17 months ago by Caesura Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @btaylor unfortunately I can't play Glitch 24x7 (or barely 1x7) , but some of the skills take 8 hours (or even days for Teleportation) to learn, so the only way I can learn them is to learn while I'm doing other stuff IRL (some people call it 'employment') or to leave my computer on for hours on end while I'm out (or sleeping) - to keep the learning progressing.

    Ironically, TIny Speck has a game about caring for the world, yet makes me leave my computer on using up real world energy (ordinarily I would turn it off my computer when I'm not at home).
    Posted 17 months ago by MeetHead Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @MeetHead Not sure what the confusion is here, because you are more than free to start up an 8 hour skill, as you say, and turn your computer off if you so desire. Turn your computer on 8 hours later.. VIOLA your skill has been learnt. There is no need to keep a computer on.
    Posted 17 months ago by Lepz Subscriber! | Permalink
  • For my part, I like the Better Learning Skills.  I was talking to people to plan my strategy even before I got my invite.  And I will do the same plotting when we go live.  That's all part of the fun for me.  The whole "what would benefit my game play best" is a fun option for me.  
    Posted 17 months ago by kat65 Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @MeetHead

    Once you've started learning a skill, turn off your computer.  It's that simple.

    The only reason to leave your computer running when the game is open, is if you want to use one of the 3rd-party apps that automatically starts the next skill learning once the first has finished. 
    Posted 17 months ago by WindBorn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • So everybody should take Better Learning V as a prelim to Unlearning 1       LOL
    Posted 17 months ago by xoxJulie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • D'oh!  Well, aren't I a meathead?  I just assumed the learning only happens while you have the progress bar open.  Hang on while I go save the planet - I'll be back in 7 hours once I've finished learning Teleportation II :)
    Posted 17 months ago by MeetHead Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I actually prefer this sort of skill system to one where you have to actually grind in-game. This allows someone who works (or goes to school, or has other time commitments) to keep progressing at a reasonable rate. Sure, people who start paying later will be behind, but isn't that kind of the point of MMORPGS? You play in order to progress.

    And like many others here, I feel that choosing the optimal skills is part of the fun. I'd feel like I had much less incentive to level up and keep playing if there was a generic set progression.
    Posted 17 months ago by Queen Blork Subscriber! | Permalink