This isn’t strictly speaking absolutely true. It should merely significantly slow down skill gain, not stop it completely. Also it would mean that any shot taken at an anyway erratically moving target should also give no gain, regardless of how low the dispersion of your bow+arrow (or gun+bullet) is. In fact if this level of realism is applied to firing, it should also be applied to other combat skills:[/quote]
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I think this is merely a shifting of the end goals and perception of them. At some point, shooting at erratically moving targets aren’t going to make a person any better at all, and part of that equation is the precision and quality of the weapon they’re using. When a more precise weapon is acquired, relying on the previous weapon’s circle of projectile spread probably isn’t going to work anymore, or at least the person will not have the skills required to make use of that extra precision.
Think of this like transferring the skills of shooting a smooth bore musket to shooting an SKS. You can only get so good with that musket in terms of aiming and adjusting. Even if the targets are erratically moving and hard to hit, aiming at them with the musket isn’t going to do a person any good when the person can’t tell if the shot is going to connect or not.[/quote]
I didn’t express myself as clearly as I could have.
If you make “…has to be accurate enough that where they’re aiming and where their shots go have to be consistent for them to adjust for forces like recoil, posture, wind, motion, etc.” a requisite for there to be skill gain, then it would mean that, if the target is moving erratically, there would be no skill gain since the consistency is lost. There is no actual difference between the erratic movement of the target and the randomness of the inaccuracy of the weapon. You are right in that, if you only hit by luck, there is no skill gain, but this is true regardless of the weapon you are using and is a matter of the relative size of the target.
In fact, theoretically, you can become as good a shot with a musket as with a SKS, meaning that the only inaccuracy in the shot comes from the inaccuracy of the weapon. In the model Cataclysm DDA uses (all weapons in the rifle category use the same skill even though it isn’t acquired through training with that weapon), it would mean that skill from musket would transfer directly to skill with SKS.
That is my take on the issue. But even though I disagree with the explanation of the system, I’m content with how it works in the game. I’m sorry if I have wasted your time with my pointless arguing.
