On Schools, Training, Relations, Aptitudes, Morality,

[GamlinValkyrie]

...leadership, and children

First, I don't generally post on forums (and that's no understatement as this is the first forum I've posted on in about ten years, literally. I used to post on the EverQuest forum under the same name. The first one.). However, I felt it necessary in as this game not only can support these ideas, but in its cultural and social setting some of these ideas should warrant addition.
Plus I like this game and its potential...

That said...

This post covers several ideas, most are under discussion in the forum, some strongly talked about, but I found it necessary to present my argument and ideas as a whole simply due to the fact that each idea builds on the other.

The Basics:

These are simple ideas in their complexity. The first topic will be Teaching and Sparring. I see no reason a player controlled character with sufficient experience could not train and/or oversee the training of less experienced characters. As in a Master/Student relation. The idea of training dummies are fine, but that's only a beginning to a greater well of knowledge.


~The Master and the Student

Say you have an advanced weapon user with X amount of skill (where X is a numerical value representing skill level). In this case lets use a skill level of 20 in a system of tens (since our society functions on a math system dealing with the multiplications of ten anyway (did you know the Mayan civilization worked on multiplications of twenty? ~trivia). So a teacher with said skill could train a student beginning at a skill level of 0 up to a skill level of 10 by interaction, maintaining a 10 level buffer where the skill difference would be too insignificant to make training practical (this is just an example by the way and in no case needs to have a ten level buffer, or even a buffer at all).
This interaction could be as simple as sparring with the student and granting the student experience through the training as one would while interacting with a training dummy.
You could go as far as to increase said experience exponentially for each point of skill above the students current level. For example a teacher with a skill level of twenty teaching a level 0 skill student, while sparring, would grant an experience bonus of 1.0x (same as if you were out fighting dust bandits but without the risk of life and limb), whereas a Master/Teacher with a skill level of 30 would grant a level 0 skill student a 2.0x, at 40 a bonus of 3.0x, and so on and so forth.

[b>]Beyond the Basics:[/b]

~Sparring In and Of Itself

Want to Spar? Grab a Training Sword!
This would also be a great way for disagreeing individuals to settle disputes. What disputes you ask? Why faction related disputes of course!
So the Holy Empire don't like you a little bit. Your standing isn't good, but it isn't to the point where they're killing you on sight. You walk into a town and the local police chief asks you politely and firmly to leave, denying you entrance. Challenge him/ her to a duel. Whether or not you win or lose isn't the point. Its the idea that you sought a nonlethal means of settling your differences. Most people in a Feudal culture respect such an honorable attitude, and as such, as long as your standing isn't too far in the hole, you earn a little bit of respect and perhaps improve your relations slightly in a more positive direction. If you loose they might still throw you out, but they would might respect you a bit more for the beating you subjected yourself too. Or perhaps you won. You can stay in town with a bit more respect from those around you. This is just the simplest part of the idea and an example only.
More advanced parts of sparring could be a character good a dueling specifically. Bandits attack? To the defense! During the fray your duelist finds him/herself facing down the bandit leader. While most bandits are more likely to stab you in the back than look at you, to say nothing about trying to challenge honorless dogs amidst a raid. This doesn't mean a good duelist could not force him into a one on one simply by sheer combat finesse and/or charisma alone. Because he doesn't have honor doesn't mean that he doesn't have pride. A defeated leader in a duel could warrant the surrender or retreat of the rest of his party. This idea of dueling/sparring has much further reaching implications and impacts upon the game which I won't bore you with. I'm sure this previous idea has already sparked your imagination...

~The Rival Students

With the above understanding of training your students in mind, expand on the idea. Two students of equal level sparring. While they might garner very little experience gain between the two of them of them it doesn't mean that its a useless nuance. They'd grow tougher for beating each other senseless with clumsy swings for sure (an experience gain towards your toughness and endurance, obviously).
That said, accidents happen. Two inexperienced fighters sparring with one another might "slip-up", whoops I stabbed you by accident (...Medic Training Time!). The lower the skill of the sparring individuals the more likely this could be to happen (a percentile base would be the easiest way to determine this).
Naturally, a higher level individual facing a lower level individual would greatly reduce the chance (even by just a few points) between the both of them. So what happens if two extremely high level individuals are pitted against one another? Lets say, just for poops and giggles, two level 70 melee users.
Not much of course. It would be a great battle to watch for sure. It would improve guard and toughness for sure, if these levels are significantly lower for some reason. Maybe lesser skilled individuals would learn a little by simply observing. Who's to say? It would likely be a long battle for sure before a winner would be determined. Maybe they're both just too good and the only determining factor in claiming victory would be who outlasts who stamina-wise.
Lastly, building upon this idea, two students being overseen or coached by a Master/Teacher/Trainer. This could be a character you control, or even an NPC (in the case of an NPC you would probably simply need the appropriate faction level (if any is needed at all) and the right interaction or price.
While the experience gain obviously wouldn't be as great as having your own personal trainer it would still be there and would open up avenues (for you as the controlled teaching character) to train several of your lower level recruits at once at a reduced rate than one on one sessions, but at a greater rate than taking the time to train each student individually. Have an odd number of students, no problem, odd man out gets the training dummy. Too many blundering newbies injuring each other? Too many 0 level skill practitioners? Give everyone a training dummy! At least until they're good enough while the Master shouts encouragement, tips, and slaps you into the proper stance while walking down the line of his/her trainees.
The idea of large groups of people under one teacher opens up the way for the next topic in my discussion; Schools.

>Advanced Ideas

~Schools;

New Jobs, New buildable items unlocked; Schoolhouse, lecture hall, podium, desk, sparring ring, training grounds. teachers desk, Sensei's seat/mat.
The simple idea of being able to Teach expands into something more complicated. Why not found a school where all the knowledge you've accumulated can be passed on? This wouldn't be exclusive to melee skills, but would incorporate every skill in the game (even manual labor, you had shop class in highschool didn't you?).
The easiest way to do this, but not the only way, would simply be to make an item that would allow the teacher to preside over a class (i.e. teacher's desk, podium, Sensei's seat/mat), to begin the teaching action (just don't forget to seat your students at their desks, put them in the sparring ring, and/or training grounds, or simply have them stand around in the lecture hall (today's lesson, advanced mathematical applications on forging steel implements and sword crafting techniques!)). Logistically you wouldn't need a "Teaching" skill, simply that the skill you wish to teach would be the teaching level of the teacher. Same as the first part of this discussion (remember the ten denomination topic and the pointless information about the Mayan mathematics style?).
Moving on...

>Very Advanced Ideas, Social Settings, and Others)

~Aptitude

What's aptitude? Just an idea. The idea that some characters may simple be better than others, even with equal levels of ability. Its a simple truth to the world. Some things just come easier for some people. This could simply be reflected in a small side menu that might show a character's bonuses or even penalties when dealing with the appropriate skills. These "aptitudes" could be numeric values. Pluses or minuses received during the process of executing said skills. These bonuses could also be randomly generated for each individual upon spawn.
As a rule there should always be at least one positive modifier if ever there is a negative, if there are any modifier generated at all. As a result you could have a 1 for 1 ratio for every negative modifier. One positive for one negative. Just to allow a player to feel he is not getting the short end of the stick when recruiting a character and finding that they have several negative aspects and no positive. When dealing with positive modifiers I don't see a reason to impose negative aspects for each positive, genius characters exist in every world, people that seem to be good at everything. But for the more positive modifier one has the chance for a negative should be added exponentially. As for the starting character it might be feasible to add a checkbox to opt out of this option at the beginning of the game so that when created your first character can be a "neutral", good at nothing bad at nothing. Or maybe a random generation button for the modifiers, or perhaps a point buy system.

~Children;

I understand that there is/was a discussion about adding children into the game (and pregnancy, naturally). My personal feelings is that children should be implemented, even controllable at a certain age. Allow an age to be set upon creating your first character to a minimum level (Orphan starting option where you take a pre-adolescent into the harsh world of Kenshi and forge a lifelong story). Children go perfectly with the idea of passing on knowledge, and add much irrefutable immersion into any game world.
Dealing with the controversy? The idea of children getting killed or the player killing children is always brought up in such discussions. If the company decides to implement this idea it would be ultimately up to them to determine how to deal with this issue. There's always the "immortal" children idea, but this breaks immersion.
What I have to say about it?
Let me explain a simple fact. While the death of children are in other games, games as innocent as The Sims. There is no the aspect of combat but it is a game about life, which death is a natural aspect of. This doesn't, however, rule out the fact that a player in The Sims game can't deliberately kill a child. Its actually quite easy. You can starve them, drown them, and even trap them in a room with no door and burn them alive.
This is an example of a player deliberately going out of his/her way to murder and is in no way different than clicking on one to stab. It is a conscious, premeditated, choice by the player and is, obviously, not the responsibility of the developers. It is the moral choice of the player and not a promotion of murdering children by the developers. Just because I sell you a gun doesn't mean I condone the act of using it to kill someone.
Some people argue that managing children and pregnant women would be time consuming, redundant, and break immersion. I say different. If the ability to function as a teacher is added then obviously a woman in her late stages of pregnancy could teach classes or work at the outpost. Besides, who's to say a pregnant woman can't fight? Kenshi is a different world, a harsher world, a tougher world. A world where pain is an everyday occurrence and people didn't have the comforts and convenience of our culture in our modern world. Besides, have you never heard the story of a great warrior being born in the middle of battle?
Having discussed the nasty bits let me talk about the positive. Immersion is the primary reason. Watching characters grow, raising them through their life, and seeing them through their hardships yields an attachment to said character unlike any other. I personally would like to see my warrior grow into a man, fall in love, have children of his own, raise and teach them all he's learned, and continue his own life through the lives of his offspring as he passes his torch to the next generation.
This kind of diversity adds a deeper experience of immersion for a player unlike anything else, bar none. It should be a topic to consider seriously, else a world seems kind of dull and one-sided. I would much prefer take control of the descendant of my starting character than having to find another recruited or recruitable character. Its more like a continuation of my creation than a substitute to replace him.

~Leadership and Morality

So training soldiers means that you can have an experienced fighter with no actual combat experience. This results in a "green" soldier whose never actually taken a life.
A neat idea might be to add a "Moral" aspect. A modifier that could be applied to characters to grant bonuses or penalties. The green recruit is going to be nervous, scared, and probably leaving brown marks in his underpants are more likely to make mistakes. Whereas the hardened warrior is calm with nerves of skill and a steely gaze resulting in bonuses.
With Morality comes the idea of Leadership. Rallying your troops, giving them bonuses to combat, having a leadership skill might be a fun idea. After all, the game is based on squads. Every squad needs a leader figure. As the moral of your troops rise, so too does their ability. As comrades fall around them and the tides of battle shift against them Moral could fall just as quickly, resulting in reduced combat performance, even outright panic where you loose control of a character for a short while.
The Captain that trains her troops through months of grit and blood are likely to be a more commanding figure on the battlefield having earned the respect of her men, giving them bonuses in combat. The leader of an outpost might promote inspiration in others, resulting in harder workers. This give rise to character relationships.

~Relationships

The closing topic is relationships. How does one character feel about another? Who says money is the only way to earn a follower? The idea of adding relationships into the game gives rise to many new aspects. Character marriage, child birthing, love, hate, dislike, loyalty. There is already a factions aspect, a very similar process to adding, perhaps, a hidden faction numerator dealing with player relationships to one another. Specifically for player characters of course.


>In Closing:

I would like your opinions on these ideas. Feel free to comment, obviously this is what a forum is for, and perhaps bump my ideas if you like them, or critique (explain) what and why you think some aspects would be unwanted or unnecessary. I gladly respond to constructive criticism or questions.

[Hatsune_Neko]

Most your topic is already covered in Sparing Topic Formally Kendo for Training and a few other topics based on the same idea.
we already know reproduction and children won't be in the game. which is talked about in Marriage+Reproduction and a few other topics where its talked about as well.

even though no where near listing all the ideas, you might wanna try reading the Suggestions list (Yep, pretty much abandoned by me) topic.
We also have a handy search button at the top right of the forum.

Thank you for your time and effort.

[LootedWhileAwake]

I easily agree to all the things that you have listed. I would really like to see all these things added to the game and I think there are others who would definitely agree too.

[Chinsei]

Personally i like all the suggestions.

Though , for me i'd love being able to start as a child. freshly born with like NPC parents or something to take care of the child as he or she grows (orphan works too but not everyone is an orphan so perhaps randomly determined at start).

Because starting as an adult to me is just odd. because the character doesn't feel like mine because , unless you are a Last Thursday, kind of believer >.< then... You've missed out on atleast 14-18 years of the characters life.

Your taking over a character , is essentially saying they had a mental break , or something. because there no longer able to think or act for themselves except for maybe cut scenes.

and it'd be nice if we could go to schools an learn skills o.o immersion and RPing is always fun, and Rping atleast for me is helped by having props to act with. i don't have much of an imagination ^.^


Sparring and training grounds i'd love to have simply because in a world like Kenshi people who seek to be master swordsmen would probably maintain a daily sparring/training regiment to keep there skills in shape. and of course to continuously improve.

Especially when it comes to self defense.

-

On aptitude, if there are 'geniuses' then there should be the opposite end of the spectrum too people who are clumsy and usually bad at almost everything but of course have one thing they excell at better then almost everyone else.

after all Geniuses , and other highly skilled people usually even if there good at almost everything have one thing they're really bad at. more often then not they're as the cliche goes, bad at socializing with others.

[philthymcnasty]

Most your topic is already covered in Sparing Topic Formally Kendo for Training and a few other topics based on the same idea.
we already know reproduction and children won't be in the game. which is talked about in Marriage+Reproduction and a few other topics where its talked about as well.

even though no where near listing all the ideas, you might wanna try reading the Suggestions list (Yep, pretty much abandoned by me) topic.
We also have a handy search button at the top right of the forum.

Thank you for your time and effort.

"we already know reproduction and children won't be in the game."

Tell that to the loverslab, the pron modding community of the Internets. They put children into skyrim, they will put them into this game when its finished and they get the chance.

[Zeal]

Most your topic is already covered in Sparing Topic Formally Kendo for Training and a few other topics based on the same idea.
we already know reproduction and children won't be in the game. which is talked about in Marriage+Reproduction and a few other topics where its talked about as well.

even though no where near listing all the ideas, you might wanna try reading the Suggestions list (Yep, pretty much abandoned by me) topic.
We also have a handy search button at the top right of the forum.

Thank you for your time and effort.

"we already know reproduction and children won't be in the game."

Tell that to the loverslab, the pron modding community of the Internets. They put children into skyrim, they will put them into this game when its finished and they get the chance.

Smart butt :\
When we talk about features and ideas for the game, we're talking about the core game. Mods do not count.

[philthymcnasty]

Most your topic is already covered in Sparing Topic Formally Kendo for Training and a few other topics based on the same idea.
we already know reproduction and children won't be in the game. which is talked about in Marriage+Reproduction and a few other topics where its talked about as well.

even though no where near listing all the ideas, you might wanna try reading the Suggestions list (Yep, pretty much abandoned by me) topic.
We also have a handy search button at the top right of the forum.

Thank you for your time and effort.

"we already know reproduction and children won't be in the game."

Tell that to the loverslab, the pron modding community of the Internets. They put children into skyrim, they will put them into this game when its finished and they get the chance.

Smart butt :\
When we talk about features and ideas for the game, we're talking about the core game. Mods do not count.

I know...

The thing about kids in the game, is that it makes things VERY difficult, due to the international nature of the internet.

Skyrim, and fallout, made kids unkillable. This was because some people will blow ALL the gaskets when it comes to violence against children. And then, stealing their clothes pushes the boundaries for obscenity laws.

So when it comes to kids in a game, i do not want the devs to put them in, ever, regardless of the game. The only exception is the sims, but that is because that is a virtual dollhouse, and it makes sense there.

So as a risk averse accountant, i will be screaming NO!!!!!!!!! when it comes to putting kids in a game, and pointing people to the creepy mod community that does these things.

[swillo]

So as a risk averse accountant, i will be screaming NO!!!!!!!!! when it comes to putting kids in a game, and pointing people to the creepy mod community that does these things.

I would agree. If the game was meant to cover years of time then pregnant women and kids could have a roll to repopulate a town. But the time span of the game would never allow kids to grow into viable characters, or women to bring new babies to term. So there is no point in having them.

[philthymcnasty]

That is an extremely good point. So far, the longest i have gone time wise, due to all the imports with updates, is 121 days. That is like what 4 months?

Even when the game is finished, will it be possible for the game to go long enough for this to be feasible?

granted, if this was one of those larger planets, then a day would be longer, and a year would be longer, that may explain it, but still, its too much time game wise for this to work....

Maybe with the hive men and bone people though.