Any possible bonus gained over trans from mentor will probably be less than a single truefavour, so I'm not exactly sure what the fuss is about. It seems like an encouragement to mentor others and be a mentor in more than just title. All of these changes seem focused on encouraging those who would not normally go out of their way to teach newbies to help them along.

If I'm trans tracking and environment and Synl is trans tracking and environment, but Synl has the gall to teach someone else either skill..well, damn, I'm screwed. That's just one episode, and it seems to have a lot of people annoyed.

It depends on the skill, honestly. I'll probably gain like a net 4 charges on my medicinebag. 50 damage on my cudgel. I'd like -both- of those, especially considering cudgel's current damage.

Also, re: everything else. Magic and Resilience are a, what, 15-25% defense at trans? You'll get like 16-26%, now, tops? Maybe .05 seconds off focus body if you actually teach that much? I don't see the issue. :S

Do you have any issue with increasing damage across the board to account for the new skill caps in resilience and magic, as well as damage reducing skills that depend on lessons invested such as stoneskin and draconis?

No, that shouldn't be necessary. Look, I think you guys are making a mountain out of a molehill. If this doesn't work, we'll tweak it or get rid of it but until let's see how it actually works out first before jumping to conclusions.

Erm, one question: Did traps and environment ever get changed? IE if someone was above trans in environment you couldn't dismantle their trap if you had only trans environment?

A good tweak/fix may be to put a random factor so even if someone has a stronger tracking ability than you there's a chance of success. Something for envoys perhaps to think about. Again, if there's one or two issues that crop up, we can tackle them as they come.

Well, from my perspective when I was more active in newbie-things, I did most of my teaching of them before they asked to become a student (because that was when they needed the most hands-on time, and I wanted to help get them into the world before just snagging them as proteges). Further, I always asked them to look over our Mentors scroll first to find someone who they felt was suited to them, instead of just the first one they see.

Most of the changes are kind of neat, but the ability to learn lessons past Trans is going to cause issues. It's something that people will desperately want, and that they can get without a whole lot in the way of interaction (the whole "Oh, you want to learn? Just come stand by me and ping my OK trigger a bit so I can learn too" which anyone can do). It does not actually improve the novice's social experience, and may even damage it, simply due to the fact that people who have no interest in novices will still try to get some for no reason other than the skill-learning... and pay no attention to them at all outside of that. Proteges will still do it because they can learn faster and get some bonus lessons out of it.

The EXP bonus encourages interaction over time (hunting together). That's good. The faster learning helps tremendously. The "above trans" thing, though, just seems like it's going a bit too far-- and that's the thing that's going to most encourage Seconds abuse as well. Simply because it does go too far. I'm not entirely sure why you want to add in another thing that you have to spend time monitoring and investigating to this degree, but... I'd think adding in a few more neat Mentor<->Protege RP abilities would be a better incentive without giving as much encouragement for abuse.

The effect is small, but I don't see why it's necessary in the first place. Proteges are going to learn from their mentors anyway because of the 1/20 lesson boost, so there's no need to add another incentive that comes at the cost of skewing skill caps.

QFT.

As a programmer I die a little on the inside when I hear someone say "We'll fix it later if it breaks." That never works out the way anyone hopes it does. By that point you'll have people complaining that they worked hard being a mentor to get their skills up past trans, then it'll be harder to get things changed.

It's how things are now. If something should be changed, but people are like "I paid for it!" It makes it impossible to change.

The above trans thing is a terrible idea. You really shouldn't have to mentor to be at your best in combat, and it encourages people who don't want to mentor (ie people who will probably be bad mentors too) to mentor even more then the system does currently.

Other then that, cool changes.

And this has happened with a few other High Reward things as well, so it is important to think about it earlier rather than later.

This statement probably bothers me the most. You have envoys in this thread telling you there will be issues. Yet instead of actually doing something before there is issues, no you will make envoys waste slots on an already hard to get changes through system. I know numerous envoys that have suggestions backed up till January for their report slots, myself included.

Sure we understand, you put this concept out there, you have to defend it, we have been through this every time. Yet almost every time months down the road, the very things we said at the start need to be fixed, end up needing to be fixed. Just once, why not try something innovative, and listen to us before the issues happen?

I think this has been blown just a tiny bit out of proportion.

If you learn at max lessons, it will take over two thousand (I believe closer to three thousand) sessions to "max out" your skillpoints beyond trans. This is already covered much more easily by truefavours. If you're "at your combative best", you will be toting a Truefavour anyway, along with karma blessings, shrine blessings, herofete, etc etc.

As for tracking, making it more random and not 100% based on hard greater than or less than would be a fitting solution. I think illusions might already work this way for dispelling. What do you guys think?

That's already needed in general, even without this (and is a good idea as it is needed).

And are you saying that this will not stack in any way with a single Truefavour? I thought that Truefavours didn't affect all skills at once.

Illusions does have a bit of randomness to it, but it doesn't take much to scew it completely. Even when you have two people of the same skill, it's hard to dispell their effects - it takes very little to make the chance so remote, it might as well be zero.

I'm not sure offhand if a single truefavour maxes it or not, but it certainly makes an impact several thousand times more than a single mentor learning session.

Random is definitely one way to go.

A truefavour does not provide a boost to every skill. Also, I don't think difficulty of achievement is a very good argument for defending something that somebody can (and no doubt, eventually will) get, though that is one we see a lot on these forums.

Truefavors are also not permanent.

It does boost every skill, though not equally. The boost itself depends on the god giving the favor.

If someone actually manages to achieve this, it would mean they managed to teach thousands of lessons to their proteges. While you're right in that it has the theoretical chance of happening, I don't predict its occurance any time soon.

I do agree that it may be unfair to provide a bonus like this that is unable to be met by other means. However, this is not the case. One truefavour will go well and beyond anyone with this bonus for the forseeable future.