Use it or lose it

[Deedee]

I had a thought in regards to combat skills, but perhaps it could be applied to other skills as well: after a certain amount of time, their effective level could degrade, similar to how the effort command works. In the case of combat skills, this would encourage regular training RP to keep one's edge, and help with endgame boredom where it's currently meaningless to practice further, aside from chasing the champion rank.

When a skill has degraded, it would need to be pooled again to be restored, but it would not cost rpxp to return to the normal level. It also wouldn't degrade more than a maximum of perhaps 10 ranks, and no more than 1 rank per OOC week if unused. The pool rate for such could also be double compared to learning it for the first time, perhaps.

[Staub]

I do like this for combat skills, but I'm not playing anyone focused on combat.

However, I hate this idea for trade skills. To get them to raise even by two levels once you're master is arduous, difficult, and, most of all, very, very, very expensive. Last two levels I gained after using up three velvet bolts entirely... having to use those up again because I had to take a month break from TI to study for exams, sounds like a nightmare to me.

So, I can see this working for skills that can be trained for free in some way, not so for those that are already hard to learn or expensive to learn.

[Dreams]

This feels like it would be a punishment for 1) characters who have been around a long time (we tend to have a lot of skills), and 2) people who do not have the time to sit in game for hours on end.

It is simply a fact that we do not use all of our skills every week. If every week I used three skills, but my other however many went down, it would get frustrating. In fact, it would be nearly impossible to keep up, and it would encourage hiding and crafting so people don't 'lose' their skills, rather than getting out and RPing.

I don't like it for combat, either. Spars are good RP, but not something I want to engage in constantly.

I think, for me, this is a hard 'no' as far as interest.

[Starstarfish]

During a time we are actively looking to encourage playerbase growth (or return), I'm not sure is the best time to introduce a system that could in some ways both "punish" those who chose to keep playing (unless they chose to artificially focus on their skills rather than RP) and punish those who might want to return from a hiatus.

Further ... skill level is one of the feelings of accomplishment that an older player/character has. Unless we are looking to open up and replace that feeling with alternative accomplishments I'm not sure what would be the net gain here.

[Deedee]

If weekly is too short of a time, fortnightly or monthly could be considered.
If extended to all skills, perhaps any usage, even low-level recipes, could pool up to the original skill level.

I think the idea has potential to help with retention. For older players, maintaining the skills important to them will give a reason to play, and will seem more fair to new players if old players have to maintain their skills, and not simply be better than them despite never using the skill anymore.

There's often been complaints about jack-of-all-trade characters as well, and this could encourage more specialization, focusing on maintaining the skills that make the most sense for them. But still not be too difficult to bring the neglected skills back to scratch when they really need them for some reason.

Lastly, this could be a great boon for trainer-type character concepts.

[mystry]

I am emphatically against this idea. Not only that, I don't think it should do that to combat skills either.

However, as I tend to be a contrarian, if this is put in, please do us the favor of having a 'degrade timer' so we can see which skill and when they would degrade. Otherwise it'll be absolutely impossible (at least for me) to keep track of what you need to practice and how much time has passed between each session. I already find it next to impossible to keep track of prestige points....

[Starstarfish]

I think the idea has potential to help with retention. For older players, maintaining the skills important to them will give a reason to play, and will seem more fair to new players if old players have to maintain their skills, and not simply be better than them despite never using the skill anymore.

As an older player, I can say this would not particularly inspire me. We are an RPI ... ultimately the reason to feel inspired and interested to play the game and characters should be roleplay and story. And I think moving things more to wanting code to be the reason people play than RP is the wrong direction to head. More things that would making playing feel like a chore/job is the wrong direction to head.

This would also also simply put people who don't have a built in partner (spouse/best buddy) willing to spam pointless things with them to maintain these levels at a serious disadvantage.

[Dreams]

I think the idea has potential to help with retention. For older players, maintaining the skills important to them will give a reason to play, and will seem more fair to new players if old players have to maintain their skills, and not simply be better than them despite never using the skill anymore.

Disagree. As an older player, if I have 5 hours available to me to play, I'd not bother logging in if I knew that I was going to have to spend 4 of the 5 hours crafting or doing something to maintain skills rather than having a nice, good, deep RP session. I'd find somewhere I didn't have to do that.

[Geras]

I really dislike this idea. You already get punished for going inactive and that's a barrier to re-entry more than an incentive to stay active.

Also older players get hit hard with the nerf bat from old age as it is.

[Puciek]

Btw if you cannot find RP partners to spar with, re-earning a high master/gm notch in fighting will cost you at least 75 silver every week (likely more if you master multiple weapons), and that's assuming you have best or 2nd best armor available and near-max stats. As that's how slow and painful it is to grind the late combat skills. To even get that of sparing it would mean at the very least 3 hours (between actual sparring sessions and organizing said rp) out of your weekly RP budget are now needed just to maintain your skills.