Language Learning System
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Language Learning System
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Re: Language Learning System
That said, I do think it would be nice if you could use an minor/normal award to add a language to your character at creation to help round out concepts.
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Played; Echo Hemlocke-Ralkai, Joshua Colt, Namil Evanara, Elanor Shortwick, Sawyer Brook, Kaylessa Dree, Sines Oliver Selakiir, Birgitta Birdie Swordhill, Bella Weartherbee, Arael Laceflower, Corbin, Rupert Silveroak, Hadi, H'larr Twins, and others.
Re: Language Learning System
The type of RP that language learning lessons generate is hardly the kind that should be encouraged. I don't know how hearing the same line 5 times in different languages is really an enjoyable (IC or OOC) experience for anyone. The result tends to be afking in a class and checking in every 6 minutes. It is an okay system for casual learning if say you're out doing something else, but the kind of "teaching" classes are quite meh.
I'd personally prefer it to be instant. When you start, you get new languages = INT bonus. Maybe learning would be an option if someone invested in something like you can do in pnp (obviously more than 2 skill points in the concept of Arelith).
The other option I would choose is to make it much harder to learn and having someone know something other than common languages (i.e. get 1 language from a background and make learning 10x harder) though I feel that would still create (more) language classes so an incentive to do it another way would be necessary.
I know those are two very different sides of things, but one or the other would be better.
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Re: Language Learning System
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Re: Language Learning System
I entirely agree. I'd love to see this.That said, I do think it would be nice if you could use an minor/normal award to add a language to your character at creation to help round out concepts.
(I now have a DM Discord (I hope) It's DM GrumpyCat#7185 but please keep in mind I'm very busy IRL so I can't promise how quick I'll get back to you.)
Re: Language Learning System
- make people choose languages at startup based on int score and gifts. Grant an automatic 50 percent then. This represents childhood education in the language.
- make the remaining 50 percent towards mastery be based on both hearing the language and practicing speaking the language. This forces active RP. Make this curve extremely steep and the last ten percent require speaking to native speakers or perfect lore masters.
- create tiers of phrasebooks in the loot matrix with a master book being required for high levels.
- create literature books that when consumed can add 5 percent. But only when the character is below 75 percent. Cannot be copied.
This can appeal to everyone. Easier to enter the language game. Harder to master and forces rp and interaction. Finally who doesn't love the rp around people trying to speak a language. I find it to be super fun and always a good laugh.
Re: Language Learning System
As someone that isn't really bothered by the awards system, this would actually be something that would interest me.Emotionaloverload wrote: ↑Sun Nov 15, 2020 2:26 am
That said, I do think it would be nice if you could use an minor/normal award to add a language to your character at creation to help round out concepts.
-S
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Re: Language Learning System
"That's not true! I can totally be suffered!"
Re: Language Learning System
As it is now, I believe language learning relies on the number of lines "heard", not how many words/characters are in a particular line of text. It would help if it counted characters in a line, because not every person willing to spend any amount of time teaching you will suspect this or know of it. I spent half an hour conversing with someone and I only gained 2% progress. That is extremely disheartening to think of how much effort needs to be put in, even with the gift of tongues, high Lore, and Bard levels.
Then, not everybody wants to or can help you learn, because you're infringing on their own play time and IG business. I've had characters say "Let's get together some time and I can teach you." but it doesn't happen, because a plot drags someone away, they move on, or simply forget. Sure, there are scheduled language lessons, but the schedule isn't 24/7. Language Tinkers then? Haven't seen one yet, so I can't give an opinion on those specifically.
It'd be nice to have some kind of tweak to the system, like accelerating language learning at lower levels, to coincide with still gaining experience. It might also make sense to accelerate language learning as you get higher % fluency, since you start to grasp the language better, like adding a % of your fluency to the roll to learn a language. Heck, the consumable book for language fluency above sounds good, too. Perhaps being able to teach yourself by trying to speak in the language, but up to a daily cap of some kind.
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Re: Language Learning System
As it stands right now, language learning is a grind. The fastest I have ever gotten a language from scratch is 3 RL days with 5-7 hours every day of straight language learning, non-stop. Of course you can spread this out over time but even then people find the progress slow and disheartening (I love to grind and I am not easily dissuaded)
It might be nice to have some flavor stuff to move the learning along for casual players or those that just don't like the monotony of the language rp. Maybe you could even encourage adventuring by having genie merchant spawn that randomly spawns on you and have some special magic rock that you can use on the character to boost learning speed for an hour.
The UD has tinkerers and the surface has that one special language NPC place but maybe we could add some NPCs in libraries across the island. An elven mage in the new elven district that gives you a one time 1% boost or a Tower mage that gives sporadic draconic help.
Anything to add a bit more of a dynamic, if people are unhappy with it.
-S
Played; Echo Hemlocke-Ralkai, Joshua Colt, Namil Evanara, Elanor Shortwick, Sawyer Brook, Kaylessa Dree, Sines Oliver Selakiir, Birgitta Birdie Swordhill, Bella Weartherbee, Arael Laceflower, Corbin, Rupert Silveroak, Hadi, H'larr Twins, and others.
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Re: Language Learning System
The best classes are those that tell a story, or read books (I've hosted such myself and they were fun); but they would have been as fun without the language learning part. After spending 16 hours in lessons and only getting to 60% over the course of RL months, with an int 30+ was very disheartening.
I just want to RP, not sit there having people repeat themselves eight times until I understand it; and being useless at a language until I've spent 20 hours listening to words I don't understand.
Path_of_Play wrote:Fear, intimidation, anger - All these, the tyrant's tools.
Laughter, encouragement, play - not simply just for fools.
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Re: Language Learning System
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Re: Language Learning System
I find though, it's really only as grindy as you make it, just like a lot of systems.
Yes, if I silent-run-grind a place, eventually I'll get board silly. But if I join up with a crew, mix in some rp, do some chatting and character development it can be a lot of fun!
Yeah, if I sit there in a language lesson where someone is 'this is how you say cake' twenty times - I can get board silly.
But I've had some fantastic roleplay situations from learning a language. My personal favorite is saying the language once, then saying the sentence again in common. And holding a conversation with repeittion that way.
That way you get a bit of interesting rp as well as teaching.
'But Grumpy, It's not FAST! It's slooowwww!'
Yeah I guess it isn't the quickest way of doing it but... so what? In my opinion it's the journey that makes it worth it.
If you genuinly oocly hate language learning and you cannot even concieve of a slight way of making it fun? Then uh... don't... do it?
With Language Learning, as with Leveling, a swith Goal Setting - the best way to approach this is to make the journey enjoyable. Because that's what this game is about. Having Fun. If your entire game is focused on the destination, of sacrificing your own enjoyment entirely for some sort of promised award? Well... I hope you're very sure that award will be good.
(TL;DR: A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Have fun with the journey, in whatever you do, and if you get to a good place at the end then that's a bonus. Also if you're having fun it goes quicker!)
(I now have a DM Discord (I hope) It's DM GrumpyCat#7185 but please keep in mind I'm very busy IRL so I can't promise how quick I'll get back to you.)
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Re: Language Learning System
It makes very little IC sense why she wouldn't be fluent in a language she should have started with, let alone after -five years- of real world time trying to learn it. And this is a high lore/INT PC.
The system is too slow. The system does not factor in character background at all. The system would greatly benefit from being able to choose a few freebies (I would suggest that fully half of the languages your INT mod would allow could be freebies) to represent your character's life before Arelith.
The system is literally designed to require a grindy approach to learning instead of a natural one from my experiences. I would honestly prefer -no- language system so I can just emote the languages my characters would know, half of which aren't even represented in the code anyway. I feel the system is an RP hindrance instead of a boon in its current incarnation.
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Re: Language Learning System
That's a bit harsh.
Not all language lessons. I've had some good ones and some bad ones. I've given some ok ones and hopefully not so bad ones.
This is no different from any other aspect of the mechanics on NWN. Some players are grinding language percentage just like they are grinding XP. This is where DM's can step in (or not) and it certainly reflects on players RPR.
A good mechanism is the one that promotes good RP, true. But I think it is players' responsibility to go beyond the mechanics and actually RP language learning.
EDIT: I guess I just regurgitated what Grumpy already said... well, sorry.
Re: Language Learning System
Re: Language Learning System
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Re: Language Learning System
But yes, these "language events" which are functionally spam is terrible.
Language should be more closely tied to a Linguistics skill, rather than Intelligence. Comprehend Languages could be a scroll. "Languagebooks" could be found that give +5% advancement to a particular language.
Characters who learn a language (human learning elven) should not be able to increase the fluency of other non-elven speakers (other humans). "Primary" language-users should be the only ones who can pass on language.
I often ponder what would happen if everyone was given a "set" number of bonus languages, and it was not tied to Intelligence or anything else.
I also don't think tying classes to languages was a good idea.
What exactly are the role of languages in Arelith? It's communication, right? Private communication? Espionage? Obfuscation? Flavour?
It's a weird mechanic that straddles narrative/mechanics, and idk how I've ever felt about it. It's cool when the elvish warparty all speaks elven to one another when they stumble upon a wayward human knight on a forest patrol -
it's less cool when a party of epics start blabbering off in Jotun because they're so cool.
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Re: Language Learning System
I wish the language classes were discouraged at least, maybe even mechanically.
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Re: Language Learning System
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Re: Language Learning System
Re: Language Learning System
Having said that, IRL you can learn basic phrases first rather than have a 3% chance of speaking a whole paragraph correctly so that might be just a limit of the mechanics.
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Re: Language Learning System
But I come from a time when dweomercrafting = enchantment and ESF: Enchantment was amazing and lucrative.
Re: Language Learning System
The good ol' days. I'll drink to that.LasharaDyran wrote: ↑Sat Mar 06, 2021 4:42 amI'm going to voice the (likely unpopular) opinion that dweomercrafting should not be in any way tied to intelligence and runic dweomercrafting assuredly is based on the racial imbues which are not actually racial, they are language driven and therefore tied to intelligence modifier.
But I come from a time when dweomercrafting = enchantment and ESF: Enchantment was amazing and lucrative.
Re: Language Learning System
Despite my extremely favourable position, it was still a really terrible system and way too exclusive. It's far better now.
It's a really strange stance to be okay with the old system but against the language requirement since that gives some taste of the old system.