Skill Pooling

[Kinaed]

I've just recently upped the skill pooling on chandlery because someone contacted me to note that it was heinously hard to pool. Are there any other skills that players know (but maybe the staff haven't been told) are just a huge headache to practice because it goes sooo sloooow?

[Dice]

I would say almost every craft skill, if not every craft skill, has this problem. While some crafts have items that can be made cheaply and easily, many crafts do not, and pooling them becomes very difficult because the demand is simply not high enough for the amount of items required to ascend in rank.

There's an argument often made that craft skills shouldn't raise quickly, but honestly? Most of the items PCs want tend to be in the higher ranks, so ascending ranks is not a luxury that can be taken slowly. You can't really function as a successful crafter in most crafts at low levels because of where the PC demand lies.

For example: Tailoring. Silk and velvet are what people buy, and require high ranks. The market for pre-mades is fairly decent, but if yours don't sell, you're out a ton of money trying to get to the ranks required. Blacksmithing has a similar problem - few people buy iron weapons when they can buy steel - and costs even more to pool. Brewing is especially problematic because the unit of brewing is a cask, and a cask holds enough to drink that they sell rather slowly - plus they cost a considerable amount to make, given the ingredients and the multiple steps required.

I think craft skills, given that expense and difficulty, should pool pretty generously compared to skills like performing skills, survival skills, etc. that can be used and improved for free or with very little cost. One single fishing pole purchase pays for all fishing pool. Forage is a free command with minor MV cost. Pmote is free, languages are free, etc.

[Puciek]

This sounds like the high-end stuff is simply to cheap. I mean I tried Otois to get an iron weapon, because he is notoriously broke, and he got talked into upgrading into steel (which makes sense because it is only 2x the price and much better in every way). Now if charge for steel vs iron would be in magnitude of 4-5x the one of iron, people would think 3 times and would create a market for iron weapons. Quite sure the same can apply to other crafts, as higher prices will lower the demand, shifting it toward cheaper alternatives.

[Tremere]

Right now, pooling combat skills is terribly hard. I went to a trainer twice, and then trained with another person on my own. And yes I did the thing where I rest in there and regain movement before fighting some more and despite that I still haven't gained a single rank in any of my combat abilities, not even the one that is in the 50's. It is outrageously difficult right now to get pool. Also, I know it was questioned about the training thing, but given the difficulty in getting any worthwhile pool with combat in there, the stopping to rest thing is necessary as the 25 silver cost is a high cost.

[Pixie]

Spent more than 1000 silver this last week on pooling a crafting skill at Proficient level. Gained 1 and a half ranks working at it really hard over several days and many many hours of online time. It was adjusted, and it IS better, but it's still not pooling much and you run out of the pool before gaining anywhere near a reasonable amount in the skill.

[Puciek]

Right now, pooling combat skills is terribly hard. I went to a trainer twice, and then trained with another person on my own. And yes I did the thing where I rest in there and regain movement before fighting some more and despite that I still haven't gained a single rank in any of my combat abilities, not even the one that is in the 50's. It is outrageously difficult right now to get pool. Also, I know it was questioned about the training thing, but given the difficulty in getting any worthwhile pool with combat in there, the stopping to rest thing is necessary as the 25 silver cost is a high cost.

To be fair the very slow climb only starts at 50+ level. And there is a cheaper alternative - find a sparring partner.

[Tremere]

To be fair the very slow climb only starts at 50+ level. And there is a cheaper alternative - find a sparring partner.

I'm well aware that things get slower past level 50, I'm saying that the way the change has been implemented the rate of growth is entirely untenable. And I've got sparring partners, I've had them plenty, but there are times I can't meet up with them, but want to train a bit.

[Rabek]

It's my understanding there was recently a change to pooling. I can't find another post on it, so I will put my findings here:

1. At offensive and defensive skill 36, I fought until I ran out of MV and only pooled enough to hit 36 (66%) in my offense. Defense was less because of how combat trainers work.

2. With my magic skills around 42, I've since gathered a dozen or so Earth nodes over several days and cast approximately five spells and I didn't get a single rank. The percentages are a bit messier since this character wasn't straight out of chargen (thus starting at 0% progress to the next rank) like my fighter was.

Both these seem far too slow.

[Tremere]

I had it put to me by someone I was talking to about the pooling, that the change in pooling really really hurts newbies and incredibly favors oldbies right now. Because of how slow pooling goes, it will take newbies with fresh accounts a long time to catch up to older players who have been playing the game for a long time. It will take them a lot longer to catch up. And then also those who are older players who make new characters with qp to raise their skills past 36 will be able to get in and dominate much quicker as well, much more so than they would have normally before. Given the focus on recruitment lately, disadvantaging the new players seems counter productive.

[Puciek]

I had it put to me by someone I was talking to about the pooling, that the change in pooling really really hurts newbies and incredibly favors oldbies right now. Because of how slow pooling goes, it will take newbies with fresh accounts a long time to catch up to older players who have been playing the game for a long time. It will take them a lot longer to catch up. And then also those who are older players who make new characters with qp to raise their skills past 36 will be able to get in and dominate much quicker as well, much more so than they would have normally before. Given the focus on recruitment lately, disadvantaging the new players seems counter productive.

Pools aside, as I do not have data for lower skill levels but it may by slightly too much, I really dislike the approach you've described here - that is to 'dominate'.
This is an RP-based game, not a hack and slash, the goal here is not to be the strongest fighter on Urth and to dominate the world but to have an interesting character that leads to entertaining RP. And there is nothing more boring than a world where everyone is the master and there is no apprentices, or people just plain bad at something because it cuts a lot of RP possibilities and reduces whole interaction of "circling your enemy" to some stat fest (which is borderline meta-gaming) and ignores the actual RP that goes with it.

And if anything this is what newbies need to learn, that not-perfect characters are NOT inferior, are or worse nor they are disadvantaged in any way shape or form. If anything they have way better RP opportunities than that established master warrior who kills everyone with 1 hit.