Do it makes me less of a man by playing without skill rust?

[StopSignal]

Yeah. Skill rust definitely falls into the “mechanic so bad that there is literally no way that constructive criticism can salvage it” category for me. It shares this (dubious) distinction with Filthy Clothes, Faulty Parts, and Meter Management Hell (I mean vitamin nutrition).

We are on the same page here buddy.

[deoxy]

[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:19, topic:12478”]

Two easy fixes, and probably either one would be enough to make it non-stupid.

Those aren’t fixes. Those are “changes”.
You keep proposing those changes, but the problem here is that instead of thinking about what would actual consequences of those changes be, you only address some local problems.

Skills rust too fast -> slow it down
Skill rust is tedious to keep it up -> make it not matter
Problems addressed, but the end result is basically removing any consequences of skill rust altogether and ending up with what “Off” setting already does.

Skill rust is inherently stupid for as long as it can be stopped without spending resources (cheap stuff like rags doesn’t count). There is no way to fix skill rust if you can stop it by spending an in-game hour sewing socks, swimming in a pool, punching very weak zeds etc. every week to prevent it from actually causing problems.
For as long as skill rust takes player time instead of character time, it is inherently and irredeemably bad and the only sane option is “Off”.[/quote]

But that’s how real life skills work - use them or they “rust”. Conceptually, I wouldn’t mind if I neglected a skill for an in-game year and when I came back to it, there were penalties. If it’s important to me to keep it up, I would need to practice - that is, do something tedious just for the sake of keeping up the skill. For the long-term player (years on a single character), that’s a decent mechanic.

Simply slowing it down to something non-ridiculous would make it workable. As best I can tell, there’s no way to make it workable for you - you object to the very concept. That’s fine, but it’s not “constructive” at all.

I actually don’t object to the concept, only the horrendous current attempt at its application. Even the actual loss of skill instead of just temporary penalties wouldn’t be so bad if they wouldn’t start happening IN A SINGLE NIGHT’S SLEEP.

[bitcoinbastard]

For me, the worst part about skill rust is that crafting recipes have a hard cutoff for requirements; you can craft a duffel bag at tailoring 2/0%, but you are completely unable to at tailoring 1/99%. I’d consider turning skill rust on if the skill requirements for recipes were made into a target rather than a hard cutoff.

Want to try and make that duffel bag at tailoring 1/99%? Go ahead, you’ll be almost as likely to succeed as someone with tailoring 2/0% but less likely than someone with tailoring 2/99%, etc. Also agreed that skill rust should probably take longer to kick in, and maybe even a special check to see if you’re crafting using the skill in question right now and skip rusting that skill if so.

[Coolthulhu]

As best I can tell, there’s no way to make it workable for you - you object to the very concept. That’s fine, but it’s not “constructive” at all.

I said what needs to be done to make skill rust a non-horrible idea. In a pretty non-ambiguous way at that. Tip: “upkeep”

[survivornaginata]

I actually don’t object to the concept, only the horrendous current attempt at its application. Even the actual loss of skill instead of just temporary penalties wouldn’t be so bad if they wouldn’t start happening IN A SINGLE NIGHT’S SLEEP.

singe night sleep in cataclsim is not one night as year in cataclsim is not 365 days.considering that you can become master in field by reading or crafting for few “days” i dont conisider skill rust that annoying.

[Rezalex]

singe night sleep in cataclsim is not one night as year in cataclsim is not 365 days.considering that you can become master in field by reading or crafting for few “days” i dont conisider skill rust that annoying.
[/quote]

My Cata years are 364 days because I play with 91 day seasons, but of course skill rust probably isn’t set up to take that into account. And don’t get it confused, skill rust is definitely broken and needs a revamp, no one really denies that, but considering you can turn it straight off I don’t consider it to be a matter of paramount importance.

[deoxy]

[quote=“deoxy, post:22, topic:12478”]I actually don’t object to the concept, only the horrendous current attempt at its application. Even the actual loss of skill instead of just temporary penalties wouldn’t be so bad if they wouldn’t start happening IN A SINGLE NIGHT’S SLEEP.

singe night sleep in cataclsim is not one night as year in cataclsim is not 365 days.considering that you can become master in field by reading or crafting for few “days” i dont conisider skill rust that annoying.[/quote]

Yes, I know - 1 hour translates to approximately 6.5 hours, so a single night’s sleep would be about 2 days… after I spent 9 DAYS solid fighting without sleep. So yeah, that math works both ways.

Even 2 days is still brain-damage bad.

But if you notice, I suggested making rust kick in once or twice a “season” (which is 3 months), which would deal with whatever year length you like. Default, that would be 1-2 weeks instead of less than 8 hours.

[quote=“deoxy, post:22, topic:12478”]As best I can tell, there’s no way to make it workable for you - you object to the very concept. That’s fine, but it’s not “constructive” at all.

I said what needs to be done to make skill rust a non-horrible idea. In a pretty non-ambiguous way at that. Tip: “upkeep”[/quote]

So your solution to the tedium you complain about is to make it a little less tedious, and my solution to the tedium is to make it much less often?

You said this: “For as long as skill rust takes player time instead of character time, it is inherently and irredeemably bad and the only sane option is “Off”.”

But if it’s entirely automatic, then all it does is burn a smidge of character time, meaning all it really takes is a tiny bit more food, which is cheaper than rags (which you already called free) by the time you’re worried about skill rust, so how is that any different than just turning it off?

[Coolthulhu]

But if it’s entirely automatic, then all it does is burn a smidge of character time, meaning all it really takes is a tiny bit more food, which is cheaper than rags (which you already called free) by the time you’re worried about skill rust, so how is that any different than just turning it off?

Or it can have an actual cost, like I actually said in the same post you are quoting. How could you miss it?

For low level electronics it could be amplifiers and soldering iron charges, for ranged combat a viable ranged weapon and some ammo for it (higher skill level would require better gun and ammo) etc.
Even the food you’re saying is cheaper than rags is actually significantly more expensive than rags and thus would be a good cost. For example, strenuous combat activity (training melee skills) could drain extra nutrition.

[deoxy]

[quote=“deoxy, post:27, topic:12478”]But if it’s entirely automatic, then all it does is burn a smidge of character time, meaning all it really takes is a tiny bit more food, which is cheaper than rags (which you already called free) by the time you’re worried about skill rust, so how is that any different than just turning it off?

Or it can have an actual cost, like I actually said in the same post you are quoting. How could you miss it?

For low level electronics it could be amplifiers and soldering iron charges, for ranged combat a viable ranged weapon and some ammo for it (higher skill level would require better gun and ammo) etc.
Even the food you’re saying is cheaper than rags is actually significantly more expensive than rags and thus would be a good cost. For example, strenuous combat activity (training melee skills) could drain extra nutrition.[/quote]

Are you bloody kidding me? By the time I have skills high enough that rust would be a serious thing (say, 3ish even), I’m almost always ROLLING in food. I could just about use food as a score board, as it nearly constantly goes up (and yes, I’m only counting perma-food) once I’m out of the VERY VERY early game.

For several of the crafting skills, we’re pretty much already where you want it, as best I can tell.

Tailoring? Take any bit of anything clothing or leather related, and you’ll use some THREAD (which can be almost as limiting as batteries in some conditions) as you try to fix or reinforce it. The tedium has already be incredibly reduced on that.

For fabrication? Same thing, only soldering iron and battery.

Mechanics? Install a car part, same thing.

Cooking? LOTS of things there, which you’ll do most days, anyway, if you’re not binging on perma-food (or even if you are, if you, say, rehydrate the meat first or something).

The solution you’re suggesting is just stream-lining the current system a bit, and maybe putting in some easier things for certain skills (computers, anyone?!?). Heck, make reading books take extra nutrition, and you’ll just about have what you’re suggesting already in the current game.

[StopSignal]

nope sorry I ranted about something I had read wrong, keep moving

[TheWumpus]

I’m going to play devil’s advocate here for a minute, but considering how fast skills are GAINED are you absolutely positive every single survivor isn’t some kind of savant grade genius with severe memory issues?

I mean I only went to trade school for a year, and have been a professional mechanic for a little over 2, and I still run into plenty of issues I need help and instruction on. I’ve gotten much better at what I do but I’m not certainly not a journeyman yet. So how is it that by reading a couple of books for a few hours, and taking parts off of old cars and janking them onto new cars with duct tape and bailing wire over the course of a couple weeks an in game survivor can figure out how to assemble a vehicle from the ground up with spare parts and install/plumb/time multiple power trains/specialty systems/fuel tanks/etc?

Maybe the goo is fucking with us…

[deoxy]

[quote=“TheWumpus, post:31, topic:12478”]I’m going to play devil’s advocate here for a minute, but considering how fast skills are GAINED are you absolutely positive every single survivor isn’t some kind of savant grade genius with severe memory issues?

I mean I only went to trade school for a year, and have been a professional mechanic for a little over 2, and I still run into plenty of issues I need help and instruction on. I’ve gotten much better at what I do but I’m not certainly not a journeyman yet. So how is it that by reading a couple of books for a few hours, and taking parts off of old cars and janking them onto new cars with duct tape and bailing wire over the course of a couple weeks an in game survivor can figure out how to assemble a vehicle from the ground up with spare parts and install/plumb/time multiple power trains/specialty systems/fuel tanks/etc?

Maybe the goo is fucking with us…[/quote]

You’re right on the skill gain part - it is way too easy. As to books, there’s been talk for a long time of splitting skills into knowledge and application somehow, with books only useful for knowledge and recipes, but actual skill checks being made with the application part. Not sure on the details (if they’re even decided on), but the need for something like that has been acknowledged.

[Coolthulhu]

[quote=“deoxy, post:29, topic:12478”]Tailoring? Take any bit of anything clothing or leather related, and you’ll use some THREAD (which can be almost as limiting as batteries in some conditions) as you try to fix or reinforce it. The tedium has already be incredibly reduced on that.
For fabrication? Same thing, only soldering iron and battery.
Mechanics? Install a car part, same thing.
Cooking? LOTS of things there, which you’ll do most days, anyway, if you’re not binging on perma-food (or even if you are, if you, say, rehydrate the meat first or something).

The solution you’re suggesting is just stream-lining the current system a bit, and maybe putting in some easier things for certain skills (computers, anyone?!?). Heck, make reading books take extra nutrition, and you’ll just about have what you’re suggesting already in the current game.[/quote]

Tailoring takes a single point of thread to stop the rust. That’s far more of a cost in keypresses than in a “limited” resource. And you don’t even need to spend a single point of thread - just craft hand wraps and disassemble them. To stop lvl 10 tailoring from rusting. Even if it took 100 threads it would be cheap since you can just disassemble car belts for like 3600 threads each.
Fabrication rust can be stopped by putting a rock into a sock and pulling it out. Free in resources, not free in keypresses.
Mechanics can be un-rusted by soldering a piece of scrap for a tick. 1 battery, easier to carry around than rags. And by the time food is free, you have an UPS+charger, meaning batteries are even freer than food.
Cooking stops rusting when you boil water. To preserve your deep understanding of chemistry.

The solution I’m suggesting is making skill rust have an actual cost that isn’t greatly overwhelmed by the cost of keypresses.

[X-PLODE]

Turn skill rust into a negative trait called “Dementia” where you forget random recipes.

[deoxy]

[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:33, topic:12478”][quote=“deoxy, post:29, topic:12478”]Tailoring? Take any bit of anything clothing or leather related, and you’ll use some THREAD (which can be almost as limiting as batteries in some conditions) as you try to fix or reinforce it. The tedium has already be incredibly reduced on that.
For fabrication? Same thing, only soldering iron and battery.
Mechanics? Install a car part, same thing.
Cooking? LOTS of things there, which you’ll do most days, anyway, if you’re not binging on perma-food (or even if you are, if you, say, rehydrate the meat first or something).

The solution you’re suggesting is just stream-lining the current system a bit, and maybe putting in some easier things for certain skills (computers, anyone?!?). Heck, make reading books take extra nutrition, and you’ll just about have what you’re suggesting already in the current game.[/quote]

Tailoring takes a single point of thread to stop the rust. That’s far more of a cost in keypresses than in a “limited” resource. And you don’t even need to spend a single point of thread - just craft hand wraps and disassemble them. To stop lvl 10 tailoring from rusting. Even if it took 100 threads it would be cheap since you can just disassemble car belts for like 3600 threads each.
Fabrication rust can be stopped by putting a rock into a sock and pulling it out. Free in resources, not free in keypresses.
Mechanics can be un-rusted by soldering a piece of scrap for a tick. 1 battery, easier to carry around than rags. And by the time food is free, you have an UPS+charger, meaning batteries are even freer than food.
Cooking stops rusting when you boil water. To preserve your deep understanding of chemistry.

The solution I’m suggesting is making skill rust have an actual cost that isn’t greatly overwhelmed by the cost of keypresses.[/quote]

What you’re describing is the problem with ALL simulations. Somewhere, there is a boundary where the simulation hand-waves some problem, and people will disagree with where that hand-wave happens, but it WILL happen.

What would YOU suggest to “preserve your deep understanding of chemistry”? Some magic, unspecified “practice”? And again, this is better than spending time studying with a book how?

If you want the task to be meaningful to avoid rust, feel free to require yourself to do something meaning, or use the rock-in-a-sock exploit and burn 100 thread afterwards. Trying to make the rules of exactly which tasks are good enough is a monstrously huge task that, even if completed, will satisfy a very small chunk of people, with large numbers of people on both sides saying it’s too easy/too hard.

“And by the time food is free, you have an UPS+charger” Uh, no. Food is the earliest, free-est thing in the game (OK, except for, maybe, rags, since beds turn into such giant piles of them) - it’s certainly WAY earlier than UPS+charger (all on average, of course - any given game can drop whatever into your lap).

Make rust matter only in the longer term, where it takes actual neglect to lose skill instead of just a single night’s sleep (or heck, even doing ANYTHING ELSE for a few hours - good luck keeping up more than maybe 3 skills), and the method becomes less important, where if it’s not perfect, well, I can live with it. As is, you’re pretty much guaranteed to have most people turn it off, because the method to avoid rust matters so much and is so hard to get people to agree on.

Hence my calls for making it longer term. That, and I don’t want to play Dory all the time. Cute movie character, lousy game play.

[SpadeDraco]

Here’s a crazy idea. How about instead of spending several days brainstorming and arguing about how to upgrade a “completely shitty mechanic” into a “moderately shitty mechanic” we discuss some potential “good mechanics”? I’ll start; “Hey guys, how about some more endgame dungeons? Wouldn’t that be nice? Or maybe we could rebalance traits and professions? Maybe wandering npcs could use a few more player interactions?”

[BorkBorkGoesTheCode]

Maybe wandering npcs could use a few more player interactions?"

The game need this. Without more opportunities for interaction the speech skills are useless.

[Coolthulhu]

If you want the task to be meaningful to avoid rust, feel free to require yourself to do something meaning, or use the rock-in-a-sock exploit and burn 100 thread afterwards.

If you want skill rust, feel free to use the debug menu to lower the skills you aren’t using.

"And by the time food is free, you have an UPS+charger" Uh, no. Food is the earliest, free-est thing in the game (OK, except for, maybe, rags, since beds turn into such giant piles of them) - it's certainly WAY earlier than UPS+charger (all on average, of course - any given game can drop whatever into your lap).

lolno. Batteries are much easier to get enough of early on. They spawn on zombies in huge masses. To get food, you need to go out of your way and search forests/swamps which takes extra time, isn’t guaranteed to be nearby, requires cooking etc.

Make rust matter only in the longer term

That’s not what you were suggesting. You were suggesting to make rust not matter early on. You didn’t offer suggestions on how to make it matter, only on how to make it matter less than it does.

As is, you're pretty much guaranteed to have most people turn it off, because the method to avoid rust matters so much and is so hard to get people to agree on.

People turn it off because it is a shit mechanic, not because it happens too fast.
When a mechanic is purely tedious, making it happen less often isn’t a fix, as it doesn’t do shit about the part where it is 100% tedium.
Actually, current rust isn’t 100% tedium because it happens during sleep (when you simply can’t make it stop), so let’s say it’s 95% tedium.

When a mechanic is about as fun as getting kicked in the balls once per day, making the kick happen once per week is not fixing. Fixing is making it not happen at all or changing the kick to something less unpleasant.

What would YOU suggest to "preserve your deep understanding of chemistry"? Some magic, unspecified "practice"? And again, this is better than spending time studying with a book how?

Yes, unspecified abstract practice that consumes resources. Better than magic we have now: boiling water preserving your chemistry skills.
You can read the book, you just shouldn’t satisfy your daily/weekly need for knowledge by boiling water.

What you're describing is the problem with ALL simulations. Somewhere, there is a boundary where the simulation hand-waves some problem, and people will disagree with where that hand-wave happens, but it WILL happen.

What kind of argument is that? Everyone dies so murder should be legal? Some tedium will always be there so we should have a “breathe in” and “breathe out” keybinds?

Current system is horrible because it allows you to cap the skill and then only do the most basic shit to keep it up. The only time you need to do anything complex is when you oversleep and rust the skill back to lower level.
It doesn’t make the skills rust if you press the binds to make it not rust.

Hence my calls for making it longer term.

PR it and someone will probably merge it.
Skill rust is a shit mechanic meaning that the only kind of review it will be likely to get will be code quality review.

And in before someone goes “if you took the time to do that instead of arguing, it would be done long ago” - arguing is more fun than skill rust.

[deoxy]

[quote=“deoxy, post:35, topic:12478”]If you want the task to be meaningful to avoid rust, feel free to require yourself to do something meaning, or use the rock-in-a-sock exploit and burn 100 thread afterwards.

If you want skill rust, feel free to use the debug menu to lower the skills you aren’t using.[/quote]

Not a bad idea, actually. Better than the current mechanic.

[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:38, topic:12478”]

“And by the time food is free, you have an UPS+charger” Uh, no. Food is the earliest, free-est thing in the game (OK, except for, maybe, rags, since beds turn into such giant piles of them) - it’s certainly WAY earlier than UPS+charger (all on average, of course - any given game can drop whatever into your lap).

lolno. Batteries are much easier to get enough of early on. They spawn on zombies in huge masses. To get food, you need to go out of your way and search forests/swamps which takes extra time, isn’t guaranteed to be nearby, requires cooking etc.[/quote]

I have actually run out of batteries when doing stuff with welder/soldering iron, etc. Other than the very first few days (when I’m not using any significant amount of batteries or rags anyway), I’ve NEVER run out of food. Food is EVERYWHERE. Most houses have at least a day’s worth, and zombies drop it, too. Almost every non-zombie/blob thing that you kill can be butchered for food. And I don’t ever bother to pick up candy/potato chips/toast’ems/etc., so I wasn’t counting those.

Grinding up mechanics, electronics, and sometimes fabrication can easily burn 1000+ batteries a day. I horde batteries like a maniac until I find books for that stuff. There’s no way to consume food like that (short of the metabolic CBM) - a year’s worth of food is a year’s worth of food, end of story. If you want to build a deathmobile before you have UPS+solar+charger, well… you can grow fruit, turn it into fruit juice, etc, etc, etc, make batteries. Food is FAR FAR FAR less effort than that.

[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:38, topic:12478”]

Make rust matter only in the longer term

That’s not what you were suggesting. You were suggesting to make rust not matter early on. You didn’t offer suggestions on how to make it matter, only on how to make it matter less than it does.[/quote]

I certainly have, and I’ve repeated it in several posts, but for reference:

if you notice, I suggested making rust kick in once or twice a "season" (which is 3 months), which would deal with whatever year length you like. Default, that would be 1-2 weeks instead of less than 8 hours.

Even just having it work as it does now but only every half a season (so one week without using it, default) would be a huge improvement. Let it sit for a year, and it will hurt, so yes, it matters in the “long term”, but it won’t happen at all for the first week, guaranteed, and if you’ve actually worked on the skill at all, a lot longer than that.

[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:38, topic:12478”]

As is, you’re pretty much guaranteed to have most people turn it off, because the method to avoid rust matters so much and is so hard to get people to agree on.

People turn it off because it is a shit mechanic, not because it happens too fast.
When a mechanic is purely tedious, making it happen less often isn’t a fix, as it doesn’t do shit about the part where it is 100% tedium.
Actually, current rust isn’t 100% tedium because it happens during sleep (when you simply can’t make it stop), so let’s say it’s 95% tedium.

When a mechanic is about as fun as getting kicked in the balls once per day, making the kick happen once per week is not fixing. Fixing is making it not happen at all or changing the kick to something less unpleasant.[/quote]

The whole concept of skill rust is you penalize your skill level for not using it - that is, some level of forgetfulness. The smaller the interval, the fewer skills you can keep up, no matter how hard you try, and the longer the interval, the more skills you’ll keep up just from use.

To put it another way, at the one week period (instead of less than 8 hours), I’m going to use the majority of skills that I care about, just getting around the world. There’s no “tedium” there at all.

But that bashing skill I don’t use anymore because I switched from bat to sword? Yeah, if I don’t take the time to keep it up, this time next year, when I pick up that bat to deal with a shocker zombie, I’m going to be noticeably worse at it.

That’s EXACTLY the right thing for the concept of skill rust. Haven’t used in it a long time and you didn’t deliberately keep it up? Bam, penalty.

I studied it YESTERDAY is not.

[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:38, topic:12478”]

What would YOU suggest to “preserve your deep understanding of chemistry”? Some magic, unspecified “practice”? And again, this is better than spending time studying with a book how?

Yes, unspecified abstract practice that consumes resources. Better than magic we have now: boiling water preserving your chemistry skills.
You can read the book, you just shouldn’t satisfy your daily/weekly need for knowledge by boiling water.[/quote]

I still fail to see how this is the slightest improvement to the part you’re complaining about. Yay, I can do the key-strokes to do the magic “read a book and eat extra” or whatever instead of the key-strokes to boil water. Since the tedium is the main complaint…

[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:38, topic:12478”]

What you’re describing is the problem with ALL simulations. Somewhere, there is a boundary where the simulation hand-waves some problem, and people will disagree with where that hand-wave happens, but it WILL happen.

What kind of argument is that? Everyone dies so murder should be legal? Some tedium will always be there so we should have a “breathe in” and “breathe out” keybinds?[/quote]

No, more of a “let’s make the tedium of breathing only apply if you do something stupid, like just in the water, otherwise we just assume you breathe”.

Instead of making the breathing mildly less tedious (in the analogy, you’re suggesting making a keybinding that both breathes in AND out… yay?), I’m suggesting removing the tedium altogether until you do something out of the ordinary, like, say not use a skill at all for a LONG time, not such a short period of time that everyone is guaranteed to do it every day (like, say, SLEEPING).

[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:38, topic:12478”]Current system is horrible because it allows you to cap the skill and then only do the most basic shit to keep it up. The only time you need to do anything complex is when you oversleep and rust the skill back to lower level.
It doesn’t make the skills rust if you press the binds to make it not rust.[/quote]

Read that emphasized part again, and realize how insanely ridiculous that is. You can easily sleep long enough to make your skills rust, even when you’re purposely trying to avoid it. That’s not “rust”, that’s brain damage.

Your idea isn’t a bad one, OK? It’s just that it still wouldn’t solve the worst problem, which is that a skill I worked on this morning is “rusting” before I go to bed tonight. Heaven help me if I actually want to do something like, I don’t know, actually play other parts of the game…

[Coolthulhu]

[quote=“deoxy, post:39, topic:12478”]I certainly have, and I’ve repeated it in several posts, but for reference:

if you notice, I suggested making rust kick in once or twice a "season" (which is 3 months), which would deal with whatever year length you like. Default, that would be 1-2 weeks instead of less than 8 hours.

Even just having it work as it does now but only every half a season (so one week without using it, default) would be a huge improvement. Let it sit for a year, and it will hurt, so yes, it matters in the “long term”, but it won’t happen at all for the first week, guaranteed, and if you’ve actually worked on the skill at all, a lot longer than that.[/quote]

Funny how you explained the exact opposite of what you intended to. Once again you just described how would you make rust matter less without any idea on how to make it matter.

That's EXACTLY the right thing for the concept of skill rust. Haven't used in it a long time and you didn't deliberately keep it up? Bam, penalty.

Well guess what - it’s a shitty idea and a shitty mechanic, even less defensible than all the shitty mechanics that people are rightly complaining about (except maybe filthy clothing, that’s also indefensible).
For as long as you can boil water (and other such feats) to preserve chemistry, you also drop any semblance of realism, so it’s not like there IS anything to defend here.

I still fail to see how this is the slightest improvement to the part you're complaining about. Yay, I can do the key-strokes to do the magic "read a book and eat extra" or whatever instead of the key-strokes to boil water. Since the tedium is the main complaint...

No you can’t, because books only level up to 8 or so, but you need 9-10. And you can’t read without a book acquired.
Not a big improvement, would not make rust not shit, but it would make it have implications in the game. Unlike your idea, where rust happens when you make it happen, like intentionally not boiling that water. Since you have to want to lower skills, it’s better to just use the debug menu.

Unless you’re also talking about the automatic practice thing. This one would fix skill rust by making it consume character time (slightly limited resource, due to zombie evolution, food, rot, etc.) and crafting components (moderately limited, depending on skill) instead of just player time (keypresses).
Mechanic that is pure tedium (current skill rust, your idea of skill rust) has no right to exist.

I'm suggesting removing the tedium altogether until you do something out of the ordinary, like, say not use a skill at all for a LONG time, not such a short period of time that everyone is guaranteed to do it every day (like, say, SLEEPING).

But you don’t want to actually remove that tedium, only remove it in some cases? Why not go all the way and remove it? After all, you want to make it not matter at all unless player willingly makes bad choices.
That sleeping thing makes rust actually do things. Your vision of rust is pure annoyance and pure tedium, excused with “but at least it doesn’t happen when you can’t stop it”.