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

Game Talk The Bunker
41

[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:40, topic:12478”][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.[/quote]

Does it matter now? If it matters now, then my suggestion would leaving it mattering EXACTLY as much, just not “I have brain damage” soon. Why is this hard for you to understand?

[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:40, topic:12478”]

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.[/quote]

Can we get over the “boiling water” thing? There are actually other skills, and most of them don’t have the equivalent of “boiling water”.

Also, it has nothing to do with “intentionally” not doing so. Have you ever not practiced something for 6 months, and then you were rusty? Did you do that “intentionally”? Same thing. If this mechanic is to exist at all (which I think is questionable, honestly), then it should mirror that. Rust happens when you don’t pay attention to a skill, just like in the real world.

[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:40, topic:12478”]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.[/quote]

If it’s something you have to do, then the tedium is identical. If it’s not something you have to do, shorten the day by a few minutes, and turn it off, because it’s pointless.

(And actually, if it’s not something you have to do, good luck coming up with generic “resources” appropriate to every level of every skill… unless you give choices, which have to be chosen among, in which case, you’re back to exactly the same tedium you’re complaining about, only with a few more choices of which recipe to use. Yay? Heck, you could do that right now with JSON!)

My point is, the thing you are suggesting is ALSO pure tedium or pointless. Either it takes keystrokes (but FEWER OF THEM! yay?) or it’s automatic… which is going to be functionally equivalent, in the vast majority of cases, to making the days slightly shorter, which is basically making you eat a bit more (which is essentially free).

[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:40, topic:12478”]

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”.[/quote]

When you have to do something every 5 minutes, it almost doesn’t matter what it is, it becomes tedious. When you have to do it every 5 years, it almost doesn’t matter what it is, it’s just not that tedious (unless doing it once is inherently tedious, like lots of paperwork or something). THAT is what you are leaving out of the equation.

For skills you use regularly, the tedium is gone - the difference is that “regularly” is something longer than “every 6 hours, because all characters have serious brain damage”. For skills you don’t use regularly, it would take a small effort BY THE PLAYER upon occasion to intentionally practice the skill. 4-8 keystrokes 4-8 times a years does not meet my definition of “tedious”.

3-4 times every day is tedious. That’s what the current system does, and unless you are suggesting we lengthen the time between checks (just maybe not as much as I suggest?), then your suggestion is still just as tedious. If you ARE suggesting we lengthen the time between checks, then you agree with me, and our only difference is one of degree (and you wanting to add another improvement, also).

Just for the record, I’ve suggested my suggestion as a “quick fix” - one that could be implemented very easily in the current system. As a more realistic fix, I would actually suggest that no skill is ever lost, but rusty skills simply have a penalty to their success chances that goes away fairly quickly - say, 10-25 times as fast as skill is normally gained. Something like that could kick in a lot faster (every day or two, as that would be about every week or two in the real world), as getting rid of it again would not be so insane.

42

Hard to understand what? That you can’t reply to the question I’m asking about your own claims? I understand it very well.

Your idea was:

Make rust matter only in the longer term

And then you weren’t able to answer how to make it matter in the long term, only dodging the question by contradicting self and claiming you did answer it.

Can we get over the "boiling water" thing? There are actually other skills, and most of them don't have the equivalent of "boiling water".

But they do. Sew a sock with 1 thread, craft a knitting needle, solder a bottle once, shank a zed kid/dog stashed in a locker for the sole purpose of being shanked once in a while, drive a tile, sling-fire a pebble, fire a bow, (dis)assemble an electric fire starter, (dis)assemble a nailboard trap, (dis)assemble a bindle, (dis)assemble a first aid kit.
If you encumber your torso well enough, you will miss the shank and thus will only need one kid to train all melee skills.

What is left is gun skills (require pneumatic and laser weapons to be free to unrust, otherwise need to waste a single bullet per day per skill), computers, barter, talking and swimming (lol).

Computers, barter and talking are in vast majority of cases book-locked skills, so we’re left with just gun skills and swimming. 5 skills total, 8 in worst case.

Also, it has nothing to do with "intentionally" not doing so.

You forgot to press “breathe” button, now you’re unconscious!
If you see your skills rusting, you have to choose not to unrust them or be really bad at spotting stuff. Punishing players for not checking their ‘@’ screen would be a bad excuse of a mechanic.

If it's something you have to do, then the tedium is identical.

The difference between pointless tedium (boil water to preserve chemistry) and “pointful” tedium (waste non-free resources like bleach or oxidizer to preserve chemistry or choose not to) is the point.

good luck coming up with generic "resources" appropriate to every level of every skill... unless you give choices, which have to be chosen among, in which case, you're back to exactly the same tedium you're complaining about

You should be trying to pick strong sides in your arguments and weak in mine and offer alternatives that solve the issue better than my ideas, not desperately searching for holes where none exist and using arguments that work just as well if not better against your own points.

Tedium backed up by meaningful choices is infinitely better than one that is automatic and could be done by a bot. If you had to boil water to preserve chemistry on a fucking desert, it would be a much better mechanic than if you had the same choice in a LMOE with an underground river going through it.
Also, resources could be remembered, like they are with “recraft last craft” button.

My point is, the thing you are suggesting is ALSO pure tedium or pointless.

Yeah, bleach is free, time is free, processors are free, gasoline is free…
So you’re implying scavenging is pointless and pure tedium. Are you sure DDA is the right game for you? Unless you actually like pointless and pure tedium, in which case forget I asked.
Or maybe you have a good suggestion on how to remove the tedious parts of scavenging, in which case I’m all ears (eyes).

When you have to do something every 5 minutes, it almost doesn't matter what it is, it becomes tedious. When you have to do it every 5 years, it almost doesn't matter what it is, it's just not that tedious (unless doing it once is inherently tedious, like lots of paperwork or something).

I already covered that with that kick in the balls thing.

Maybe I should have used another word. Brainless? Doing the job that should be done by a bot? “Tedium” sounds too much like “routine” and routine only forms when you do something multiple times, regularly.

Player shouldn’t be required to do things that offer no choice and have to be done. Rust doesn’t offer meaningful choice on the mechanical side. You can spend trivial amount of time and resources to un-rust all rusty skills. This is a bad thing, since it means that player is forced to do something that is always trivial and requires only keypresses, not thought.

Just for the record, I've suggested my suggestion as a "quick fix" - one that could be implemented very easily in the current system.

Sure thing, PR it and someone will probably merge it.
As I said - parts of the game that are considered shitty and are expected to be turned off by everyone don’t have any serious balance standards.

43

How about this:

-Rust being passing negative xp that occurs af if you were training the skill but in reversed at 1/2 the rate.
-Can only prevent rust by doing stuff that would train the skill other wise, example: a 6 level cook can’t just boil water to get skill level back since boiling water would not train the skill at all or a level 6 tailor can’t just make/repair socks since it wouldn’t train their skill either in the first place.
-Passive and Hard rust
*Passive rust is just a temporary skill decrease, if you have -2 cooking passive cooking skill then you can still make the recipes you would do to train the skill otherwise just with a higher chance of failure. Passive skill rust would “train” the skill back to its base value at 2 times the speed since you are just remembering stuff not learning.
*Hard rust is having completely forgotten skill levels, so if you have -2 hard skill rust then you have to level up that 2 cooking skill back as if you did not have it.
*Passive skill rust occurs at the rate normal skill rust is now and hard skill rust takes place at 1/7 of the rate (scaled weekly but skill makes forgetting skill daily).

44

skill rust is dumb

It just makes you do things you’ve already done all over again for no real reason.

45

Hard to understand what? That you can’t reply to the question I’m asking about your own claims? I understand it very well.

Your idea was:

Make rust matter only in the longer term

And then you weren’t able to answer how to make it matter in the long term, only dodging the question by contradicting self and claiming you did answer it.[/quote]

I’m doing talking to a brick wall that is being intentionally obtuse. You “win”.

46

how about we implement rust in a fucking logical way like being ‘rusty’ actually is

after time not using a skill, your effectiveness with that skill is reduced by a flat %, until you use it for a while

if you don’t have the need to melee anything for a few seasons, you’ll be 40% effective until you kill a few dozen monsters. if you don’t do any electronics crafting for a year, all electronics crafting takes 2x longer and you waste resources more often 'til you have made a few things.

people IRL don’t actually forget their fucking important skills. they get rusty at them until they ‘get back into the groove’, which imho makes skill rust really fun WITHOUT making you worry that you’re losing all your hard-earned progress. your skill never ROTS, it RUSTS. you’ll always be the 12 and 97% melee guy, but if you don’t actually use melee anymore, doing it again will be like a famous boxer coming out of retirement or something. still skilled, NOT in the groove.

47

That’s rich coming from someone who claims he’ll argue something then turns around and argues the exact opposite. You fucking hypocrite.

48

That’s rich coming from someone who claims he’ll argue something then turns around and argues the exact opposite. You fucking hypocrite.[/quote]
Lol this quote war has got to be the funniest thing I’ve seen on the internet in a long time.

49

Just wanting to add a tiny bit regarding the skill rust; “Skills” in cata are actually not the same as “skills” in real life, imho. I would argue real life is much more recipe-based and the underlying abilities are very subtle. It is a common simplification of videogames to create skills as categories because obviously tracking each and every ability that a human being can be good or bad at would be overwhelming.
Therefore I don’t think skill rust is something that this game needs or that it’s something that makes it more realistic. However, if it were to be a bigger feature at some point, something like the proposed “upkeep” from coolthulu is probably the most sensible.

50

Chiming in to say that imo rust is terrible and should be removed or sidelined into a mod. It’s tedious and unfun. If it’s really desirable to attack the player’s skill levels, do it with a monster attack or a disease or something that’s not just another more boring hunger/thirst meter.

51

It’s already removed and disabled by default in the options menu

52

That’s a start. But I’d prefer if it were burned out of the code, its name forbidden and cursed to be forgotten by history, and the earth salted so that no other rust might grow there.

53

It’s more than that: no one even has a good idea on how to fix it.[/quote]

[s]Replace INT stat with KNW ( knowledge)
Create new INT stat, this can’t be trained and is chosen at the start of the game. It influence mostly time taken when learning knowledge or crafting and (aiming?) Recipes need a certain INT value on top of KNW skill.

Positive influence on INT: Drugs CBM (Danger?) and being healthy.
Negative influence on INT: Bad Health Cold Pain (Age, Brain trauma?)

When Skill rust is activated:

KNW lost over time, this is countered by increasing any skill other then combat skills or training knowledge. ( not sure if this even make sense)
INT stat influence the amount of KNW lost.
Recipes done often get increasingly done faster. Bonus disappear by time for complex recipes.
Possible to forget learned recipes.
[/s]

420

54

… I still play skill rust. Though I’ve never actually gotten all that far, I figure it will be real fun if I can get to CBM installing stage and get memory CBM, and then start wrecking stuff.