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Ok, I get some of you have been playing since Jesus was a baby, but how can you infer raising skills now doesnt take effort? And don't give me the "bashing on a golem doesnt take effort" line, cos not everyone does that - in fact, it's probably the people that have been playing longer that DO do that.
I just GM'ed lockpicking, and getting .1 skill gain per day may be EASY, but it isn't quick.
Going out there, as a newer player, and *PLAYING* the game, takes a hell of a long time to raise skills!
I really do sometime think that some people playing this game actually forget what it's like to play the game, and play *with* it.
And everyone saying about soulstones, yeah, sure, dunno where you all got them from, I have 1 at the moment from my 12 month vet reward, and I bought a couple more from the tokens they have for sale at the moment, but no way in hell I can afford to buy enough to be able to train ALL the available skills up and soulstone them all off! Heck, even fragment tokens are some ridiculously high price, and totally not worth paying for, cos you can only use them 5 times. And by the time you chop and change and move things around to try different ways of playing, they can be used up in no time.
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I didn't say anything about soulstones, I think they are a stupid addition. What next, a save-game feature for MMOs?
Skills raise much faster than they did back during Shattered Legacy or The Second Age. They still take effort yes, but people now focus on skills as an end rather than a means. Just then you said people should focus more on playing the games by using skills, rather than directly training them. This is exactly why I made my post. I agree with this.
It's not just skill gain, it's also risk that was lost with renaissance. It was a stupid short term implementation that didn't consider long term factors. My first guild from release had one smith. Why? Because murderers, monsters and just extremely long skill training times turned others off. Sure we were free to try skills like we are now, but not many people had the dedication to become a grand master in a trade skill.
People really appreciated smiths at Britain. These days it's "I'll log in my mage" or "I'll log in my mule" or on a worse note... "who crafts anyway, we'll do a peerless".
So in summary, yes skills gain faster than they used to. Becoming a grand master is something that takes a lifetime. The developers who followed the original team didn't comprehend this snse of a virtual world.
There is nothing stopping you from trying skills. Only a few skills have new features at high levels. For example, you can try a swordsman quite easily at 40% skill. It'll be exactly like 100%. A mage however will not be the same at 100% as new spells are opened up with each circle. But there are only a few skills like this. Most are crafting. The crafting itself is still the same, so you can look forward and see if it'll appeal to you.
So this argument for "trying everything" is a little weak. considering how easy it is to swap skills.
