Meditation. Too Common?

[chara]

I haven't quite made it through the whole thread, but there are a couple of ways that meditate might be changed to make it more realistic and decrease its attractiveness a little, without hamstringing its use.

One idea:

Maybe when you're deep in meditation, you have some idea what's going on around you, but you aren't able to really process many details. For example, instead of seeing:

Luminier says in common: Get up, there's a Satho in the area

you'll instead see something like:

Someone says something.

In other words, your character knows that there's a conversation going on around you, but can't make out the details. Same with people coming into the room (someone comes in, or several people come in instead of seeing exactly who). Your character would still have the presence of mind notice a touch, an attack, or a shout, I'd say.

Another idea would be that every activity in the room would have the chance of breaking the meditation. For example, every time someone says anything, there's a check if you continue to meditate, every time someone goes in or out, etc. The check would depend on your meditation skill. This would make it more effective for people to meditate where it's quiet (makes sense realistically) and could result in better roleplay (the character asking people to respect their meditation, searching out stiller places to meditate, not just plopping down in the middle of the marketplace to meditate. etc.)

These ideas could be used separately or together.

[Urlyth]

I meditate it has taken me a lot of in game time to reach guru in the skill. (regular play and regular meditating for over a real year at least.)

I wear chain armours . To remove the armours and to put them back again isnt difficult but will cause more spam to those in the room with me because if I can meditate by removing the armours I will. However. one drawback with doing this is the danger.

eg... Moles, wargs, and other monsters move and are fast and if they come and attack while you are meditating you will be in a combat situation and not able to wear your things since you cannot do that in a fight.

I like to hunt when I can with my in game husband and he being scribe and learning spells meditates to recover his mentals .I also use my mentals when I use my specials to fight and need to use them more when hunting with him since he is concentrating on learning magic not fighting skills. He has to wait a lot longer for me to recover since I am in front and get injured more often and more seriously and realistic or not how boring to have to sit waiting for someone to recover for ages longer than if she meditates.

Some of the monsters have a fast recovery and to sit and simply rest and achieve a much slower pace of recovery of health mentals and fitness in a place where the monsters move about will just see more players dead and less likely to explore the more dangerous areas because it wont be fruitful to hit rest and find by the time you have rested they are back to full recovery and you never make headway.

Potions yep if you are rich you can buy potions from shops or alchemists but how many potions would you need in one fight for instance with the troll in the orc tower? or even working your way through that tower? Will the alchemists be able to supply so many players with so many potions with only so many herbs to be found.... doutbful.

I think meditate should be left alone. Its difficult enough for a non guild member to survive without taking one of the tools they do have away from them. Meditating anywhere is a risk as is resting and sleeping being the only other speedy way to recover is really a none option if you have any sense.

[krelji]

As an alchemist I would like to be able to brew potions to stock the guild shop, but I think a coca potion would be worth some silvers, not a few gold, which is what I think they go for in the shop. (The same is true of heal disease potions, where the price is especially outrageous).

I once had the idea to get some kind of player owned shop someplace, where
people wishing to purchase potions could place their orders. At some point I
discarded the idea, since I didn't want to invent new ways for my char to get even
richer . But if some others came up with the idea in game, I might support them
somewhat - at least if those chars were alchemists.

[lanyara]

Trying to answer a few of the questions ...

A long time ago only skalds were available, then came the scribes (I think).

Skalds were very easy to join, and that was an advantage (This could also be a disadvantage, as pretty everyone can become a skald ... well, perhaps not if they are banned from Arborea. But in general I like easy accessibility even though the skaldes probably are the least important guild compared to alchemists and scribes, and I think these latter guilds are harder to join than skalds.)

But I say that this was an advantage because it was virtually effortless to join, you did not depend on other characters at all.

As for alchemists, I can't see how Lanyara would suddenly be able to start skinning/butchering/dissecting animals on large scale when before she ICly stated that she doesn't like to do that. That would be somewhat strange. But this is an in-character reason, I doubt many would have this problem.

Even without this handicap, I think at least for a cleric character some guilds are not that attractive. I.e. a Taniel cleric can do breeze, cure all kind of things ... only mana potions seem to be really attractive here? (Depending on the reasoning, one could argue that you could "cure faster again" with mana potions).

If your character is in a main guild, you have to pick between alchemists, scribes and skalds (or join none of these), otherwise you can pick two of these.

But except for skalds, you basically have to be a good or neutral character type. And now I am not talking about those on the extreme scale (extreme evil), but I mean ... you can't just go up, insult the scribes, then want to join them. That just seems ... difficult. Unless you insult them all, then forcefully join them by paying ridiculous amounts like 500 gold coins to BUY your way into these guilds. Now that may be something to try ...

And once you are in it, it seems as if you require resources constantly (for alchemists and scribes), and affording to lose access to areas is a lot more difficult than to not go that route at all. (Since you already invested a lot of time and if you are denied access, but have to train skills but can't, your skills would just decay, as you can't train them? It seems as if you join any guild you also lose flexibility in what you can do.)

Hmm... not sure if that is really helpful, just some thoughts on it.

[Delia]

I personally find having armour skills along with general encumbrance affecting your meditation quite appealing. Chara's suggestion also makes a lot of sense. I'd imagine it'd take a quite bit of discipline to effectively meditate when there is a barfight going on, for example.

All the other Shao-Lin skills work the same way, so why not meditate? Meaning, you can do all those fancy moves and wear your gritty gear(up to a certain point atleast)if you train your body and armour skills.

And the reason I came with the "before the skills change" is that during those days, meditation worked as intended. The Shao-Lin were undisputable masters of that skill.

[Sairina]

1) Why don't you use potions? Too expensive? Too hard to come by? Any other reasons? What would make you use them more?

Too expensive, probably also too rare if all people suddenly started using them heavily.

2) Why not become a Skald? Or an Alchemist? Too confusing? Too hard to join? Just not your style?

Not my character's style, won't fit with her roleplay (while I'd think that meditate does).

3) If we change meditation, would you want to exchange your meditation skill for another already existing skill? If so, which ones?

That depends on the change... if meditation still works for lightly armoured people, I should be fine. If there's a delay to being able to do it again after rising, and/or a slight delay until it starts to effect me, I would not mind. If I could not have the skill anymore, I'd have to think about it...

[Delia]

I'd be willing to consider, after all the possible changes, that the Shao-Lin were not automatically considered masters who are not affected by the changes to meditation. It would feel somewhat sensible that all shaos should undergo some meditation training as well that sets them apart from other users of the skill. Bit like when trying to acquire advanced chi. There could be some meager perks gained and some fluff that makes the whole shao-thing its own. Different style(s)?

Of course, after someone has gone through the process and learned what there is to learn that knowledge is retained. Guildhopping or not. Just magically forgetting something just seems like too big of an inconcistency. IMO.

[Abharsair]

Too expensive, probably also too rare if all people suddenly started using them heavily.

I've added more places to buy potions from and lowered the cost to buy them.

[krelji]

Thanks a lot for lowering the prices.

[lanyara]

Of course, after someone has gone through the process and learned what there is to learn that knowledge is retained.

*hopes for astral projected shaolins*

[Skragna]

I didn't even know that non-alchemists could even get potions, myself. I joined the Skalds, as well, but it seems to be taking forever and a day to get quenya to budge, even though I spend most of my time wondering what all the elves are babbling about. And if meditation was changed, I suppose I'd like my really low meditation skill changed out, I don't even think it's in the double digits. As Skragna, I generally just flop down and, if I'm all by myself, use the Crusader's regenerative ability, which only seems useful for catching your breath back, IMHO. During combat, though, it lets me go for as long as it takes, provided I don't get mauled. And as for meditating in heavy armor, the ancient samurai caste had to meditate in far harsher conditions as part of their training. Like sitting in a loincloth under a waterfall in the winter and meditating. Meditating in their armor, which was both functional and ceremonial. They could wear it all day and not have a problem sitting down or running, anything like that. Sorry for the big post, just my two cents. /rant

[lanyara]

In terms of efficiency it is easy to see why Meditation is widespread, because it is simply more efficient than rest after a certain threshold and definitely not as dangerous as sleep (because you can still see what is going on, unlike with sleep).

[Olrane]

Sorry that I got testy Luminier. My tone was not very polite. I still stand by my idea that the meditate command is essentially divorced from roleplay in current function, which was why Gojin started the thread.

Am I singling out heavy armour wearers? YES.
Why? Because I think they really should be using another method to recover, not just because I want to see them nerfed as my "enemies".
Currently, the heavier the armour you wear, the safer you are in sleep or meditation, simply because the armour can deflect blows.

Ok, let's look at other options, rather than just nerfing the command. How about we make it so that any character who is attacked in meditation is considered on the ground and needs to slowly stand up (with flickup disabled for a short time due to surprise/disorientation)?

I really liked Chara's idea of reducing the perception of meditating characters even more.

And as for the "players can't spend 10-20 days of playtime" comment...I simply think that's ridiculous. Anyone who wants high skills must spend time playing, and anyone who doesn't spend much time playing shouldn't care much about having high skills. I'm going to guess that a low length of play time for a "serious" character is about 40 days. I know I logged ~80 with Olrane, and 10+ with numerous alts who usually didn't stick. Not once since the skill change has the meditate skill been remotely difficult to learn.

Edit: I have had meditate at 100. It's nice, but what I'm saying is it's not something you're entitled to. Pre-skill change, you effectively could not have 100 meditate unless you were a Shao, or whatever other guild skills.
People are upset because there isn't diversity - meditate is overwhelmingly the best choice. I'd like to see meditate be changed a bit, and maybe you could use potions/songs/Iron Will etc. in its stead.

Edit 2: I wasn't trying to insult you personally with the "powergamer" comment, Luminier. By powergaming I didn't mean non-roleplaying. What I meant by it was Playing to Win. If you're playing to win, and it doesn't completely compromise your roleplay, it's just plain stupid NOT to use all of the tools at your disposal. This is why I mentioned the backstab thing. When it was acceptable RP-wise (which I do agree was backwards), it was very rare that a goodie with any stealth/knife skills did not train it because it was too powerful to forgo. That's how I feel meditate is; instead of a diverse amount of options, you have to choose the "right" one to be competitive. Sorry to sound inflammatory, that's what I meant by "powergaming".

Edit 3 (because I don't want to double post): That meditate is such a hot-button issue brings other questions to light. Players feel entitled to recover at a fast enough rate that the game is fun for them, and currently training meditate as high as possible is the only viable way to do this.
Perhaps plain resting can be made better so that characters old and young do not have to go through as much frustration and down-time in the game.

[luminier]

Im still not convinced, but, bare with me through this post, It's more sensible and less sweary I promise. I honestly don't know why Gojin or the others that apparently agree with him think that meditate is divorced from roleplay. I do agree meditating in some places is rather foolish (like out in the swamps, market places, etc etc), but, is sleeping much better? Resting is a little slow IMO, hence why I started to learn to meditate because it's easier. Im all for making it harder for non-Shao-Lin to use but singling out the heavy armour wearers makes it blatantly unfair. And no, we don't get more protection when we are sleeping or meditating. Arrest and severing limbs is the same for everyone. If you think armour dudes should be using something else, maybe try and suggest what you think we should use. As for right now I can only think of rejoining the alchemists and trying to get a boatload of potions to carry around.

Im up for that changing that in terms of being attacked while meditating. But since Abh so kindly offered to give us the skills in something else, maybe Ill just drop meditate for alchemy or something. Maybe since meditate is getting buffed, skills like iron will can get buffed for the Crusaders and the Rangers to give successful practices bonuses to health regen or mana regen. Oh and don't forget that everyone who isn't a Crusader or Ranger gets the skills debuffed, cause then it's more attractive to join our guilds.

I liked Chara's idea too. Being able to look around while your meditating always sounded dumb to me anyways.

And I wasn't saying players -can't- spend 10-20 days playing. I was saying that it takes a long time for players to find that much time to play. As in over three months they'll play 10-20 days while you or I or other serious players would take much less time to burn through 10-20 days. And again, maybe not hard to learn for you, but others might see it differently. And again, im all for making it harder for non shaos to learn and making the skill better -for shaos- and -shaos- only. Also again, I would like to see iron will improved to help us regen and other stuff and then for people who know it right now who aren't in Rangers/Crusaders have the skill worse so it is treated like meditate.

As far as im concerned you are entitled to no skills until you earn them. Once you get the skills and have spent many hours training them, yes you are now entitled to them. Obviously it was changed for a reason, and whatever that reason was obviously people think it's stupid now. So change it back to the way it was?

Btw, what people were upset cause there wasn't enough diversity? I read the whole thread and I don't remember seeing that. Songs don't exactly work for everyones roleplay, potions are fine I suppose... but iron will I figure is the best way to give non clericals a good way to recover, also more incentive to learn the skill.

On the Powergamer thing, alright fair enough. I like to be effective when I fight, I suppose if I must find another way then I must, but I would really like to have the oppurtunity to swap meditate for something else as in I get to split up my 100 meditate into something else I find useful. Maybe iron will and alchemy, especially if iron will is buffed up. I would really like to see a more IC thing for the heavy dudes to do anyways.

Resting being made better wold certainly make a lot of tshaharks very happy and Im game for that. Good suggestion.

In short, in case you didn't get it from my post, if this whole thing is going to happen I would like to see a few things.
- Meditate made more useful for Shao-Lin's than it is for anyone else, and also made easier to learn for Shaos, no one else.
- Meditate made so that you are less perceptive, and that it is harder to meditate based on skill depending on people around you who talk, shout etc etc.
- Existing players can dump meditate into skills that are based on restoring health/fatigue/mana like voice, alchemy, herbalism, and Iron will (if iron will is changed to include health/fatigue/mana recovery which I think it's fair and a good idea that iron will is changed.)
- Players who aren't in Crusaders or Rangers get an Iron will debuff, to make the skill more useful to Crusaders and Rangers, no one else. Also Iron will made easier to learn for Cru and Rangers, and made harder for everyone else.

[lanyara]

Songs don't exactly work for everyones roleplay, potions are fine I suppose...

The current way for potions (run around collecting eyes and other icky stuff) at least wouldn't really ICly work for Lanyara.

[Sairina]

I think maybe Luminier's point was that using potions works with everyone's roleplay, not necessarily making them. Lanyara or Sairina could still buy them...

My character has often openly announced her disdain for books and theoretical studies of any kind, so I don't see how she would fit into a guild like the alchemists any more than the scribes or skalds. Unfortunately she's not rich either, so buying potions all the time would be really hard on her as well.

[lanyara]

Oh I see. Though I am not sure how useful potions are in this case. One would have to make some coins first, and I am not sure that this is worth it to burn the hard earned cash for a... perhaps 30% faster "mana increase" or similar effects.

Though, unique abilities for potions like removing scars, or other fancier effects, might be quite interesting.

Edit: Hmm, come to think about it, I still couldn't see how Lanyara would be able to use potions if all sort of crazy things are in such a potion ... eyes of a giant spider, teeth of a warg, innards of a mole (ok ok exaggeration...)

[Zehren]

Edit: Hmm, come to think about it, I still couldn't see how Lanyara would be able to use potions if all sort of crazy things are in such a potion ... eyes of a giant spider, teeth of a warg, innards of a mole (ok ok exaggeration...)

Alchemist: I swear, this potion contains aught but water and herbs.
Anti-innards: Oh... Okay, then.
Anti-innards buys potion for four gold.
Anti-innards drinks the potion.
Alchemist: Thank you.
Anti-innards nods politely.
Anti-innards leaves east.
Alchemist: Heh. Anti-innards didn't notice the mole innards.
Alchemist rolls his eyes in exasperation.

[krelji]

Thanks to Abharsair the shop prices for potions have been reduced recently, and
you'd have to pay even less when you purchase them from a playerchar. Potions
aren't abundant though, and neither are the ressources required for them, so they'll
never be cheap.

- Meditate made more useful for Shao-Lin's than it is for anyone else, and also made easier to learn for Shaos, no one else.

Perhaps the usefulness of meditation could be limited by the place where you're
meditating. My char recently purchased a carpet where he can meditate on, and
perhaps the Shaolin could get something similar that would give some bonus.

- Meditate made so that you are less perceptive, and that it is harder to meditate based on skill depending on people around you who talk, shout etc etc.

I think this might be interesting.

- Existing players can dump meditate into skills that are based on restoring health/fatigue/mana like voice, alchemy, herbalism, and Iron will (if iron will is changed to include health/fatigue/mana recovery which I think it's fair and a good idea that iron will is changed.)

Of those options you presented my char could only pick one, and technically I'd
be tempted as a player to pick Iron will. If it was possible for him to relearn
meditate, I'd be hard pressed not to get a boost to iron will, since relearning
meditate should be faster and far easier.

-Players who aren't in Crusaders or Rangers get an Iron will debuff, to make the skill more useful to Crusaders and Rangers, no one else. Also Iron will made easier to learn for Cru and Rangers, and made harder for everyone else.

I don't think we'll return to the times when there was a learnbonus for certain skills.
In case of my char I could understand it generally, as he received a learnbook from
someone who didn't care too much about sharing it with others. In case of former
members of those two guilds it's different though, and they should certainly retain
any bonus the Rangers or Crusaders would get.

[lanyara]

My char recently purchased a carpet where he can meditate on, and
perhaps the Shaolin could get something similar that would give some bonus.
Quote:

*hopes for flying carpet*

But on topic - this is a pretty nice idea. Different locations (may) make it easier or harder to meditate. So when meditating on busy streets filled with merchants or undeads could be harder than to meditate on mountain peaks (or some other less frequent areas)