Here are some selections from the ROT post I made last year. I hope you find them enlightening.
1) They think ROT is hard.
People who say such things, that ROT is hard/difficult…are not understanding what those words really mean. They think because training on Siege takes a long time to complete, that it is hard. They think this is good because Siege is supposed to be the “hard shard.” They think because people have to sit through and time their skill gains every day for 3-5 months or because a casual player may take 6 months or even more to finish training on Siege, that training must be hard.
They are wrong. Training on Siege is not anymore hard than making a million bandaids by cutting wool, getting yarn, and turning it into cloth, or sitting through hours upon hours of turning in bolts and gm made bows at a fletcher quester. It is easy. Very easy. It just takes a long time and is boring.
I can sit in my house and make clothes all day to gain in tailoring. I can go to the graveyard and sit by the fence and shoot the weak bone guys to gain tactics. I can put an LRC suit on and cast on myself all day. To use some real life examples: I can take me two hours to do a stack of dirty dishes. It can take me who knows how long to watch the complete, boring series of Star Trek: DS9. These are just a few examples. Is any of it hard? Absolutely not.
Do I have to complete some difficult quest, challenge some evil tough monsters, explore some underwater cave filled with water pixies or whatever and find some magical blah item….to train? NO. Might some of that be hard? Possibly, but I don’t have to do any such thing. I just sit down and repeat the same thing over and over and over and over again.
At 70 skill I have to get a timer and time my gains every 5 minutes day after day after day. Then the time delay increases the higher I gain. Is this hard? Is it a CHALLENGE? NO. Is it a pain in the arse? You betcha.
Boring. Grind. Tedious. Long. Pain in the arse. Pointless. Etc. These are words to describe training on Siege. Where does hard/difficult/challenging fit in? No where. People are confusing these words with long and boring. They are the not the same. Not at all. Training is not hard. It is long and boring. People need to stop mixing the words up.
If you care so much about training being hard…if you honestly think people should have to be really challenged before finishing their character, then there are options. You can ask the devs for instance to allow people to more easily train by PvMing ACTUAL monsters, the more challenging ones, and through PvP. But this would require a whole rework of almost every skill…because in order for this to happen, people in training (people with low skill level) must be able to compete with people with fully trained skills.
You can ask the devs to add in quests and force people to explore for items and fight challenging monsters, etc…to train. Make it more challenging. Make it more interesting. Is this the right way to go? Maybe, maybe not…but it will add some degree of challenge and make training a bit interesting.
Those are options to make training “harder” if it’s that important to you.
LONG AND BORING THOUGH……THAT DOES NOT MAKE TRAINING HARD. I hope you finally understand that.
-----Some even go so far as to claim ROT in its current state is basically “a large part of the heart of Siege.” They make the claim that ROT is what separates us from normal, trammel shards. They say that without ROT, we are just one step closer to becoming a “carebear server” and will continue on that path. This argument is also bogus. The very idea that someone can make the claim that long, boring training is what separates Siege from trammel shards makes me sad for Siege, for the people who say such a thing, despite playing on Siege, really have no idea what Siege is about. Siege was NEVER meant to be about pointless training. Training has nothing to do with what Siege is about. Added risk? Yes. Increased danger from other players? Yes. More required player interaction? Yes. More reliance on crafters (one character per account)? Yes. And MUCH more. But NEVER about training. Training is NOT in ANY way what makes Siege Siege. Changing ROT will NOT in ANY way be in violation of the spirit of Siege.
-----Really, it sounds to me like many are just making excuses for ROT because they had to go through it and feel others should have to too. Which brings us to our final reason people give for keeping ROT the way it is. Selfishness. Some people are even brave enough to say it out loud. They think that because they had to suffer through 3-6+ months of boredom training their skills, everyone else who comes to Siege should have to suffer as well. This reason is complete garbage. And I have a feeling many people citing other reasons really feel this way too, at least in part…because they had to suffer through it, so the next guy should too. Well they should be ignored, because such selfishness is hurting Siege.
Purchasing accounts: A further reason for a major ROT change is that skill training can already be completely avoided by those who purchase accounts. This undermines any reason the opposition can give for keeping skill training the way it is, when it can be completely avoided by purchasing the account of someone who has already done it for you.
Also, no one is suggesting a "insta 7 GM in a day" change. Many suggest around a month. I agree with that and my exact suggestion was 3-4 weeks. 3-4 weeks is in now instance. This range however assumes you're a power game who plays every single day and gets your max gains every single day. So in reality, virtually everyone would take longer than the suggestion time of 3-4 weeks and many would take significantly longer.
Now wake up to the truth and stop standing in the way of a better Siege.
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