<u>ROT (skill training) and SIEGE: the TRUTH and the CURE</u>
As most if not all of you are aware, skill training on Siege takes a very long time, a completely unnecessary amount of time. The system of Rate Over Time (ROT) starts when you reach 70 in a skill. It imposes a ridiculous daily skill gain cap on you as well as a long delay between skill gains. It is an utterly worthless system in its current state and definitely one of the biggest problems on Siege.
In this thread we will examine why skill training (the ROT system) on the Siege Perilous shard in its current state needs a major change. Strong reasons will be given to support this change, something vital for the prosperous future of Siege. The reasons given by those who oppose a major change to skill training will be analyzed and eliminated as logical arguments, leaving the opposition with nothing to do but admit that ROT in its current state indeed is horrible for Siege and must be changed. Finally, a change to skill training on Siege (ROT), making it take much less time to complete a character, will be suggested.
This is going to be a long post, so I will color code it to help make it less confusing. In blue will be my arguments against ROT in its current state and why we should change it. In red will be my counter arguments to those given by people opposed to a major change to ROT. In black bold will be the suggested change to ROT. Some of the post will remain in the standard grey text, but it is not any less important than the colored text. The entire post is important and all if it should be read.
<font color="blue">First, let it be clear just how long it takes to complete a fully trained character on Siege. A 7xGM (grand master skill level) character on Siege takes around 3 months to complete, fully trained. A 6x120 character on Siege takes around 4.5 months. This is a long, long time. That much should be obvious. But in reality does it only take 3 months for a 7xGM character or 4.5 for a 6x120 character? The above amounts of time assume the player logs in each and every day. They assume the player gets their maximum allowable gains each and every day. This length of time is for the power gamer, someone who logs in every day and plays long enough every day to get their max gains. For a normal player, that long, long time of training to complete a character on Siege suddenly becomes even longer. For a casual player, much much longer. It can quite easily take 6 months and in many cases much longer for someone to complete a character on Siege.
This amount of time to finish training a character is ridiculous. It should be considered ridiculous if it were on any shard.but especially so on Siege Perilous. Let us consider a few things.
Siege Perilous is a VET (veteran) shard. This means that almost every player on Siege is not coming to Siege new to UO; they are already vets to UO. They have already trained a character. Very likely, they have already trained many characters.
What is the primary function of training? Its primary function is to acquaint players with the skills they will be using. One can argue that on a normal shard where most players start off new to UO, it makes sense for training to take a longer time (though not as long as training on Siege can take). This is because it can be argued that if someone spends a longer time training, they will be better acquainted with the skills they will be using, and that they simply shouldn’t be thrown into the world with trained skills they have no idea how to use.
However, we are not talking about servers where most players start off. We are talking about Siege Perilous, where barely any new players start off. Siege Perilous is, as already mentioned, a veteran shard. Players of Siege have trained many characters before. They have played many characters before with many different skills. They know how to train the skills. They know what the skills, abilities, and spells do. They know how to use them. They do NOT need to be put through a ridiculous amount of training to be acquainted with the skills they will be using; they already have been.
Now, do not be fooled. It is true that we could allow people on Siege to have a character in one day, but that is NOT in any way what I am suggesting. In this post, at the end, I will suggest what I believe and is believed by many to be a good compromise between an overnight character and one that takes an incredibly unnecessary amount of time to train. I will provide the exact details near the end of this post. For now it is sufficient to say that the amount of time I will be suggesting for a person to be able to fully train a character on Siege is around 3-4 weeks.
Now that we’ve covered why we don’t “need” to suffer through long training on Siege, let’s move on to exactly why long training is hurting Siege and preventing it from prospering. Let’s discuss a current issue, perhaps the biggest issue on Siege, one that the ROT system has an affect in causing and/or preventing its cure.
Population: All one has to do is look around. Siege’s population is extremely low. Why is population important? Well, this isn’t a single-player game. And it isn’t just any multi-player game either. It is an MMORPG. MMOG. Massively multiplayer online game. A strong, healthy population is perhaps the most important thing in most if not all mmo games, and certainly in Ultima Online. A healthy population is important because player interaction is important. Without it, why not just make it a single-player game? A healthy population is KEY to the fun level of Siege. This is low currently because the population is low. A healthy population is also essential to a strong community, and things that come of a strong community, such as player justice. Our community, though weirdly the best in UO, is but a shadow of its former self right now. Player justice is practically dead. A healthy population is perhaps even more important on Siege than normal shards, because much of what Siege Perilous is based on is risk and danger from other players, which decreases as population decreases. We could go on, but the point has been made: Siege’s population is very low. A healthy population is key to having fun in an MMO game, and especially in games like Siege Perilous.
There are many reasons people avoid playing on Siege. We must look at these reasons and see if there’s anything we can do to get some of these people to play here and make sure that whatever we do would not be in violation of the spirit of Siege.
Now, many of the causes of people not playing on Siege must remain. Changing it so that these people come to Siege will only hurt Siege, even if its population increases. To name an obvious one: insurance. Many people don’t come to Siege because there isn’t full insurance. To name another: no trammel. Many people don’t come to Siege because there is no trammel. This is of NO consequence. To change these things…to add insurance/trammel/etc….will only hurt Siege, no matter how many people we gain from the change. Some people suggest a 2nd character on Siege will get them to play here. That too will hurt Siege. We can go on and on, but suffice to say that some things we just can’t change on Siege because it would be in violation of the spirit of Siege and no matter how many players we gained, it would be a bad change.
However, there are some aspects of Siege holding people back that we can change without violating the spirit of Siege. There are some things that are no more an essential part of Siege than having red apples are instead of green apples. ROT is one of these things. The amount of time it takes to train a character CAN be changed without hurting Siege.
So we’ve determined we don’t “need” ROT. We’ve determined it’s something that can be changed without hurting Siege. But why else should we change it?
Is ROT actually keeping the population of Siege low?
The answer is undeniably yes; ROT in its current state is absolutely keeping our population low. We can determine this in a few different ways. For one, we can think about it logically. If we do, we can conclude that obviously it makes sense that people would prefer to finish a character in a shorter amount of time than have to suffer through 3-6+ months of boring, pointless training. So the longer a person has to train a character on Siege, the less likely they are to come play it.
However, we have something more than just thinking about it. Time and time again we are told by many people that slow training is a big (or for some the biggest) reason they do not come to Siege. These people ARE interested in Siege. They aren’t the people that say “oh no insurance=me not coming.” These people are the ones interested in playing Siege, the ones who like the idea of Siege, not the ones who don’t come because it’s not trammel land. But yet, these people interested in playing Siege for the great, unique, dangerous, risky place it is supposed to be with a better economy, more importance of crafters, a better community, and much more, do NOT come to Siege because one aspect of Siege is such a worthless pain that it keeps them away. What is it? ROT: Slow, boring, pointless training.
Though of course there are some who do come to Siege despite ROT. They come thinking they’ll still have fun on Siege. And a few do. But many find out they are wrong. Two major reasons a lot of new players to Siege (players who did start a character) give for leaving are ROT and a low population. BOTH of these can be fixed with a major change to ROT. If there is such a change, we will see many people coming to Siege (and staying) who otherwise would not come and do not stay because of ROT. And when this happens….when we get a lot of these people coming to Siege because skill training is faster…..then we will also get many others; the ones who don’t come to Siege because of a low population right now will come since its population will have greatly increased.
Many people consider Siege the “last stop” shard. It is not just for people who love UO but want something better. But it is also for people fed up with UO and about to quit. Instead of quitting, they have the option to come to Siege, a whole different game from the one they know from playing on normal shards. And yet, so many of these players do not come to Siege for their last stop. They just quit. Fed up with UO, they see no point in waiting 5 months through training to see if they might like Siege. The few that do come…many of them also quit because of slow training, never having actually experienced Seige since they were stuck in training the whole time. I know there’s many people interested in Siege who stay on their normal shard because of ROT. But I question just how many people quitting UO would be on Siege right now if it weren’t for ROT. I question if Siege would perhaps the healthiest population of any UO shard right now if it weren’t for our slow, pointless training.
There are a few other reasons for changing ROT:
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.
Soulstones: A possible future soulstone nerf is another reason for a ROT change. The only good argument against nerfing soulstones is that skill training on Siege right now takes far too long and soulstones allow us to keep skills instead of spending a long time dropping, retraining, and repeating whenever we want to move on to a new template. However, with skill training sped up, this reason will no longer exist…and we can look to a future soulstone nerf on Siege.
ROT in its current state is completely unnecessary on Siege, a veteran shard. This pointless, long, boring training keeps people who are interested in Siege from making a character. It makes many who do come quit over being stuck in training for so long, before ever having really experienced Siege. A major change to ROT will increase our population greatly, something we desperately need on this slowly dieing shard. Without this change, we may not see Siege alive much longer. If ROT is changed however, we could very well see a prosperous Siege with the healthiest population of any shard in UO. A major change to skill training on Siege (the ROT system) is vital to the future of Siege Perilous.</font>
<font color="red">Let’s now look at the arguments in opposition to a major change to ROT. What seems to be the two most cited reasons given by people who oppose a major change to ROT are the following:
1) They think it is hard.
2) They think it keeps away the undesirables that hurt our shard.
Both reasons are flawed.
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.
2) They think ROT keeps away the “undesirable trouble makers,” the arses that we don’t want on our shard.
This is a very easy one to argue against. All you have to do is look around.
Does it look like our shard is filled with angels? No. Rezkilling/dry looting/crap talking/griefing is at an all time high. Honor is practically gone. Player justice is almost completely dead. Scammers/cheaters/exploiters are unchallenged and accepted into the community. And there is a far greater percentage of such people than there has been in the past. Undesirables roam freely throughout the land. The good people leave, and the few who do replace them, are often poor quality players.
But does it even make any sense for ROT in its current form to keep away the trouble makers (if you don’t want to take the time to open your eyes and see just how many we actually have)?
NO….it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
Let’s think about it. The only way to arrive at the conclusion that ROT keeps away undesirables is by making a number of assumptions. People who argue this assume the following: Gamers who sit through ROT for 3-6+ months are the patient gamers. Older gamers are more patient than younger gamers. Older gamers are more mature than younger gamers. Their conclusion is that ROT “weeds out” the immature, younger games and only allow for mature, older gamers, or at least a majority of mature, older gamers.
Wooha…that’s a lot of assumptions right there. There are very many older gamers that are very immature and/or impatient just as there are a lot of younger gamers who are very mature and/or patient. Furthermore, the assumption that people who sit through 3-6+ months of training means they the patient ones isn’t necessarily true. As an example, I myself am rather impatient in many ways and yet I sat through over six months of training. You have to consider all this. You can’t make the assumptions people opposing a major change to ROT do. But, so long as we’re on the topic of assumptions, you might find the following paragraph interesting.
Since we’re making assumptions, we can assume the following: Mature, older gamers have families. Mature, older gamers work more. Mature, older gamers have less time on their hands. Younger, immature gamers don’t have wives and children. Younger, immature gamers don’t work as much or don’t work at all. Younger, immature gamers have more time on their hands. So it can be concluded that ROT is not detracting younger, immature players from playing on Siege, and in fact is detracting older, mature gamers from playing on Siege since older, mature gamers have less time on their hands and skill training on Siege takes a long time to complete. How do you like that for assumptions? It goes both ways. And personally, I think the assumptions in this paragraph have more truth to them than the assumptions people who oppose a change to ROT make.
So…not only can you eliminate the “long training keeps away undesirables” argument simply by opening your eyes and looking at just how many undesirables we have, but thinking about it you can also conclude that we might have perhaps even the opposite of “long training keeping away undesirables” and long training is keeping away the quality people we want while leaving Siege open to the people we don’t.
There are also some other, less-cited reasons people give for opposing a major change to ROT. As one of my goals in this post is to eliminate all resistance the opposition gives, I will also argue against these less-cited reasons, even though many of them are so ridiculous they don’t need anyone to say much against them.
-----Some say ROT allows new players to Siege time to adjust to the new ruleset and various differences on Siege, etc…”time to adjust.” Ok….so 3-4 weeks isn’t enough time to adjust? 30 days? Most people don’t even need that amount of time to adjust to new changes...in game or irl. The only thing I need over 30 days to adjust to is changes in the television schedule for Star Trek.
New players to Siege, almost all of them, have at least some idea of what they’re getting into. With the exception of a rare few people that may randomly click Siege in the list, every new player to Siege is going to be becoming here for a reason….because it IS different. They aren’t just suddenly thrown into a land without any idea. They know there’s not full insurance on Siege, fel ruleset, etc…And the few that don’t? Well again, why shouldn’t a month be enough time to adjust? And why 3-6 months (the current time to train)? Why not two years? Who decided 3-6 months was needed to “adjust” to the Siege ruleset? Furthermore, who are we to tell new players to Siege how much time they need to adjust? If someone feels they need 3 months to adjust (really…how many people feel that way…), they can put artificial limits on their skill gaining themselves and make that decision for themselves only. We need not punish everyone coming to Siege because a rare few people may need a billion months to adjust to the change.
I’ve spoken with many NEW (a guild for new players on Siege) and just new players in general and they certainly don’t feel they need so many months to adjust. They want to play the game. Logging in just to get skill gains isn’t playing the game. Many people just do that. Being unable to compete for 3-6+ months…depending on how often/long you play…that’s not truly playing the game, since you can’t compete. Many of these new players get bored in training and leave, never having experienced what Siege really is because they spent all their time in training.
These players do NOT have to relearn how to use the skills again. Training…what is its primary purpose? To get you accustomed to the skill you’re training. The people coming to Siege are VETS to the game. They already know what skills do what. Many are also PvPers. They want to get into the action and compete. They don’t want to have to wait months just to play the game. So they don’t come to Siege or don’t stay on Siege long because they don’t feel they should have to be put through 3-6 months of training (which they’ve already done…likely many, many times) just to get into the game.
-----Some people oppose a major ROT change because they think ROT is good for the “casual player.” It may seem so on the surface….This is because people are comparing ROT to trammel shard training, where some of the skills take many resources and a long time to train, whereas ROT allows them to get guaranteed gains with few resources.
However, though ROT may seem to cater to the casual player on the surface, in reality the exact opposite is true. ROT hurts the casual player. A casual player may not have time to get their max gains a day. A casual player isn’t going to be logging in every day. The casual player can be stuck in training far longer than other players because they aren’t playing as much. It can take 6 months and in many cases much longer for the “casual player” to finish training.
No, ROT is for the power gamers. It is good (well not really good…just less bad) for the people that log on and time their gains through the delays, getting their max gains a day. It is for the people that log on every day. And for those that want to avoid it, they can purchase accounts, which is something most casual players do not do. ROT certainly does NOT cater to the casual player. And people are in error in thinking it does simply by comparing its simpler, less resources training to a few skills on trammel shards.
Furthermore, people who cite this reason as one against a ROT change aren’t being specific as they should. There is absolutely no reason for them to oppose for instance a shortening of gain delay and an increase in the allowed gains per day. Their argument would have to be for opposing such things as a removal of ROT and reintroduction of trammel shard skill training system. Certainly NOT opposing a change to ROT to make it faster. Yet they lump it all into one and say “a ROT change is not good for the casual player,” which is completely wrong.
-----Another reason people give for opposing a major ROT change is that it “allows people time to get out and meet people” and therefore “builds community.” This argument is also flawed. Just how many people are going to finish getting their max gains per day and then say “I think I’ll go out and meet people now.” No, they go back to play their home shard, or do something else. Many, many, if not most new players to Siege are not getting out and meeting people. They are logging in to get their delay-timed gains, and logging back out. And once they get their max gains for the day, they simply log out since they aren’t anywhere near being able to compete…they still have many months to go. If you don’t believe me, the GM of NEW, our guild for new players, will tell you just this. And sometime during that training, many of them will leave, bored out of their minds with a useless training system and unable to compete. This certainly isn’t “building community.” Also, why on Sosaria would new players need 3-6+ months to “meet” people and become a part of the community? It’s kind of silly to suggest such a thing…..
-----A further reason given for suffering through ROT is “proving you are committed to Siege.” This is one of the most ridiculous reasons yet. Why should they have to prove anything to us? Is not coming here to try it out demonstrating their interest? And if they stay, chances are they’re going drop their house on their home shard to build one on Siege. Now THAT is a HUGE commitment. And again, who decided 3-6 months shows their “commitment.” Why not force them to train for two years? What’s your reasoning for the current amount of time? A few weeks in training, unable to compete and fully play the game, should be more than enough for you “commitment” freaks.
-----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.
-----One last thing: Some people suggest a “minor” change to ROT. Make it take a few weeks less they say. I’d like to point out that this would be a futile change. People who leave Siege or don’t come to Siege because of such long training times are NOT going to be satisfied with “ok....how about 15 weeks instead of 18?” It would be pointless for ROT to be changed only a little. Siege is beyond minor changes and tweaks. We need the big ones….the ones that count…..the ones that will help, will accomplish something. We can see a large increase in population with a major change to ROT. We will not see this with a little tweak.
That covers the arguments against a major change to skill training on Siege. The most cited reasons people give for opposing a major ROT change have been defeated. The less cited reasons people give for opposing a major ROT change have been defeated. Many of them are so ridiculously silly I don’t know why anyone bothers mentioning them in the first place. But there it is. They are complete nonsense or at the most, weak. As you can see, the opposition’s arguments don’t even come close to comparing to those for why ROT in its current state is no good and why we should change it. Skill training on Siege needs a major change and there is no good reason why we shouldn’t do it.</font>
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