Make low level paving and prospecting less grindy

[Eldurian 86]

Title says it all. I've discovered while there are tricks to the absolute fastest skulking of most skills that most skills can be leveled on practical jobs that use that skill. Two exceptions are paving and prospecting.

Paving becomes practical at level 21 and prospecting at level 20. The actions available to those skills before that are not ones worth using frequently enough to level them significantly.

Paving seems like a simple fix. Currently paving a road with real materials gives equal XP to just packing dirt. Please scale up the XP granted from paving roads so that putting in some roads in the areas around your deed is more likely to get you to 21. Also consider making floorboards give paving skill.

Prospecting..... I'm not sure. You either need to add a low level action that's more useful or lower the level of an existing action to 1-10.

Edited May 21, 2015 by Eldurian

[Postinglels 1,270]

I dunno friend. You can get 40 paving in one (long) evening with a high coc shovel and sb and never have to grind it again, so it's pretty easy already as far as i can see.

[Wulfgarr 810]

Title says it all. I've discovered while there are tricks to the absolute fastest skulking of most skills that most skills can be leveled on practical jobs that use that skill. Two exceptions are paving and prospecting.

Paving becomes practical at level 21 and prospecting at level 20. The actions available to those skills before that are not ones worth using frequently enough to level them significantly.

Paving seems like a simple fix. Currently paving a road with real materials gives equal XP to just packing dirt. Please scale up the XP granted from paving roads so that putting in some roads in the areas around your deed is more likely to get you to 21. Also consider making floorboards give paving skill.

Prospecting..... I'm not sure. You either need to add a low level action that's more useful or lower the level of an existing action to 1-10.

-1 no real need. Its easy enough to get them there. Skiller and sb and you can get both to 20 in matter of hours..

[Eldurian 86]

I guess my point is you shouldn't have to stand around doing a useless activity for a few hours just to get a skill a useable point. I've done no useless activities so far and had no trouble leveling carpentry, any smithing / carpentry skill etc. mostly with unenchanted tools I built myself. Sure I could imp a bunch of needles for blacksmithing or gloves for tailoring all destined for the trash heap to get the easiest/fastest gains but those aren't the only way to level those skills.

With prospecting and paving you won't ever get past level 10 if you don't engage in useless / repetitive tasks. To people who work for a living a long day worth of playtime doing nothing useful to get a skill to a useable point is a big deal.

Edited May 21, 2015 by Eldurian

[Wulfgarr 810]

I guess my point is you shouldn't have to stand around doing a useless activity for a few hours just to get a skill a useable point. I've done no useless activities so far and had no trouble leveling carpentry, any smithing / carpentry skill etc. mostly with unenchanted tools I built myself. Sure I could imp a bunch of needles for blacksmithing or gloves for tailoring to get the easiest/fastest gains but those aren't the only way to level those skills.

Well you can run around finding veins, prospecting the surface and those will give you an adventure get you skill up. For paving you could also just make roads... There are alternatives to skilling up just like blacksmithing... i dont understand if you want an alternative to skilling or an easy way. Most skills have a way to get it if you are not grinding aka building a road in this instance and a grinding way aka dig and pack. Take the same in blacksmithing- making nails and stuff and imping for tools you need on the go or imping needles or horseshoes. Edited May 21, 2015 by Wulfgarr

[Eldurian 86]

Well you can run around finding veins, prospecting the surface and those will give you am adventure to get the skill. For paving you could also just make roads... There are alternatives to skilling up just like blacksmithing... i dont understand if you want an alternative to skilling or an easy way. Most skills have a way to get it if you are not grinding aka building a road in this instance and a grinding way aka dig and pack. Take the same in blacksmithing- making nails and stuff and imping for tools you need on the go or imping needles or horseshoes.m

Given it takes hours of packing with a skiller tool doing nothing but packing you might just barely hit 21 if you build a major road system several tiles wide.

Prospecting likewise would never reach 20 though practical use.

Especially if you don't live on epic.

[Brynden 69]

seems more like you dont like the way prospecting can be leveled by really using it and "you" would never raise it be using it to look for veins,doenst mean other people dont.

 

same for paving, i never wanted to do anything that uses the paving skill so for me it doesnt matter if it takes 6 years to get 21,if you want to have it now you can grind,if you dont want to grind you dont have to.

[Wulfgarr 810]

Given it takes hours of packing with a skiller tool doing nothing but packing you might just barely hit 21 if you build a major road system several tiles wide.

Prospecting likewise would never reach 20 though practical use.

Especially if you don't live on epic.

I dont live on epic,but i do have grinded both skills to 20+++++ on many accounts. If you don´t like tedious standinaplacedoitagain, then its not the game faults. You should not get more skills doing the stuff you want. I see this thread like this - I don´t like to do this, but i want to do this and get more skill while i do what i want. World is not like that, you have all means available to you and the grind is not that hard even... Tedious, yes, but hard or impossible - no. Now if your only goal is skill the grind, but if you want to build something then do it an the skill will come. I for example like to imp clay shapers - maybe i should ask to get more skill for that because imping spindles is tedious?

 

seems more like you dont like the way prospecting can be leveled by really using it and "you" would never raise it be using it to look for veins,doenst mean other people dont.

 

same for paving, i never wanted to do anything that uses the paving skill so for me it doesnt matter if it takes 6 years to get 21,if you want to have it now you can grind,if you dont want to grind you dont have to.

he gets the drift!

 

My point is - there is always a optimal("fast") way to grind a skill and the way where you do projects and have fun. The first way is hard, boring, tedious but rewarding with good skillgain. The other way is usually good in a way you create something and have fun, but usually lack the skillgain. This is how this game is and i don´t think we need to change the way the game is as you would like to get very good skill thru actions you like.

[Eldurian 86]

Say you want a new deed with a 3x3 stone house with stone brick floors. If you have a brand new character and go set-up a new deed, through the process of building a cart, fences, a guard tower, some bsbs and supports for your mine etc. you should easily get the 21 carpentry and 30 masonry you will need in 2-3 weeks of pretty casual play. That's without CoC tools.

If you pave all the roads you need, a highway connecting you and several of your neighbors, and build all the roads they need you probably still aren't looking at 21 paving for the most basic paving based house floors. I actually pack every tile once I'm finished terraforming it as a way to keep track of what I have and haven't terraformed and my paving gains are still awful.

Anyone pretending you can get to 21 paving through general play in any reasonable timeframe without grinding it isn't being fully honest with themselves nor anyone else.

The grind required is disproportionate. It's a straight up fact. Same general principle for prospecting.

Edited May 21, 2015 by Eldurian

[Eldurian 86]

Also from another angle, I paved a road from my mine to my deed today. I was getting about .06 skillgain ticks with a non-CoC shovel for like 6ish second packing actions at around 7 paving. I recieved about .06 skill gains for 12ish second actions to pave that packed dirt with round cobblestone.

About twice the action time, consumes a mat, same skillgain.

How is that a good system that doesn't need reviewing?

Edited May 21, 2015 by Eldurian

[Bunnyman 96]

I have 71 paving and 61 prospecting on freedom, some of the fastest skills I've ever grinded.

[Tekari 133]

Since the only things you need higher paving for are the different house floors making gain skill on it easier now doesn't make sense.

 

If they would make it easier then they could just get rid of the skill requirements for the floors altogether.

 

But no... new players are simply not skilled enough and therefore have to live with the floors they can make or ask someone to make them some other.

 

-1, sry

[Eldurian 86]

I guess this is rooted in my belief that if there is ever a point you are doing a useless and repetitive activity that is not fun that's a flaw in the game's mechanic. Where other people see a pair of skills that are fast to grind I see two skills that waste 6-8 hours of the time of people that level them without providing any fun in return.

This may not seem like a big deal to some people but when you are working a full-time job with regular overtime and taking college classes at the same time the idea of spending all of your gaming time for the day on a single repetitive activity that you have nothing but skillgains to show for at the end is pretty repulsive.

I also noticed you are all dodging my point about how the skillgains for paving an actual road give the same skillgains and twice the action timer of packing a dirt with an unenchanted low QL shovel.

Edited May 22, 2015 by Eldurian

[pugwash 52]

-1 hire some 1 todo the work for you if you dont want to grind the skills yourself

[Eldurian 86]

Also from another angle, I paved a road from my mine to my deed today. I was getting about .06 skillgain ticks with a non-CoC shovel for like 6ish second packing actions at around 7 paving. I recieved about .06 skill gains for 12ish second actions to pave that packed dirt with round cobblestone.

About twice the action time, consumes a mat, same skillgain.

How is that a good system that doesn't need reviewing?

New tactic. Just going to cut and paste this for every -1 until someone addresses it.