I need to pick your collective brains on the following. I am designing a game (online, persistent multi player world) set in a classic fantasy setting (working with Realmcrafter). It's intended to be completely skill based, and skills will be trained as in EVE : The player picks a skill to learn, then he learns the skill at a rate of 1 xp/s, regardless if he is online or not. Once the skill is fully learned, the player can then pick another skill to learn. Now, in a sci-fi game, this learning is fairly easily explained by cybernetics etc, but in a high-fantasy setting, there is no such easy way of explaining it. I got my writer thinking about it right now, but checking in with you guys for inspiration and ideas to - any input would be much appreciated. So far I'm leaning towards creating some kind of ancient magic that allows this training or similar.

Replying myself, as it looks like my writer cracked it - But please, do provide ideas if you got any ;)

Simply because most players do not like to grind, that they want to have an automatic leveling, but it reality, you cannot master a skill without using it. So when a character is able to use a technique, they have still not truly learn the technique. That is, if you take things to real life, then you will see that in order to master a technique (learn it for real, not for fun) then you will have to use that technique over and over continously for many times. Mastery of a technique means that you can exectue that skill ith 96% success chance on average when you intend to use that skill. An example of the mastery of a fireball spell would be having 96% accuracy of the player and the game combine, but such instances cannot be measured because the chance to miss because the player selected a position next to the monster is usually not posible, i.e. most games do not let you execute a spell when you click onto an empty cell. And so the rate at which you move your mouse to the intended target if the mouse is use to control the skill target, or the keyboard in the case of using the keyboard to designate the target, and the success rate overall have to be 96% for the mastery of the skill. Like adding, you have to be able to add two numbers with 96% accuracy regardless of which two numbers are thrown at you will show that you have mastered addition.

Real Life Mastery Scale of Skills
96%-100% grade level performance
91%-95% half a grade level lower in performance
86%-90% one grade level lower in performance
81%-85% one and a half grade level lower in performance
etc.

As you can see, the mastery of a skill is the ability to use the skill when needed. If you have an interface that does not use hotkeys, then the player has not truly master the skill until they can execute the skill in a timely manner, and to do so would require that the player remember how to open the user interface to the point of selecting the spell. With hotkeys, most games have become a move your mouse over target and click after pressing the hotkey, but such games have an unrealisticness to skills.

Even if you start a game where the player has everything, they may still not going to be able to do anything because they lack gaming skill. It is not the skill of the charcter they are playing but the skill level of the players itself that is needed to be consider. Since you are making an MMO[RP]G, you will need to know that most players lack gaming skills, so regardless of how successful your game becomes, only the hardcore players will remain longer than 3 years of gaming.

The explanation is not needed because you can create a game where the player has everything. The skill of the playerself will determine how powerful their character will be and not the stats of the character itself. You will notice that this is the inevitible that the players whom spends more time will have higher character statistics, but the character that can exploit the abilities will find the efficient ways to play and therefore higher skill level will still give the more skillful players a lead even with characters with lower statistics. Therefore, you can say that you are unlocking the potential of the character, instead of saying that you are learning skills. The potential of all characters is the ability to use all skills, and that the character is essentially only unlocking what it has always have been capable of doing.

Would it be sufficient to show that the character is meditating (or reading, or dancing, or practising) whenever it is idle and it had picked a skill to learn? The progress is still only occuring even if the character is not idle. The added animation is only cosmetic.

I tend to agree with Wai. Some kind of special fiction may not actually be needed. The time I spend studying programming isn't all on the computer. Often, I learn quite a bit simply thinking of methods for getting programs to work while doing something else, like driving or playing guitar.

Just assume that the character is "studying" when the player is not logged into the game. If I were a player, it would be enough of a fiction to keep me satisfied.

I'm personally in favor to allow anything to be automated. Allow the players to run bots or macros, and even assist him in doing so.

I don't really like to grind to learn a technique, so for me, it would be better to have a character that starts with all posible techniques, and that the player does not know the techniques. It is the job of the player to learn about their own characters by learning how to execute the techniques. I am not in the favor of hotkeys because hotkeys give a slight advantage to the player with better keyboards. I believe in typing strings of characters to use the skills; then, the ability to use the skill resides on the player and not the character [giving more player character interaction]. Of course hardware difference may still arise, but I want this to be minimize.

The usage of bots or macros is not fair if these bots or macros are not part of the game itself [second parties' (player created) and third parties' bots and macros are not fair because not every player has it]. First party bots and macros, bots and macros developed by the developers of the game, that are part of the game should be the only ones allowed.

Thanks for the input so far guys!

@Platinum_Dragon - I can see your point, but I don't think I could make up enough techniques for the player to learn for it to be effective, and being a RPG I do want to stick with the "Avatar" learning things.

@Wai & lukehedman - Good thought, as it is now my writer came up with something that works well in the lore, but your point is definitely valid so I don't think it will be a main focus to "try and explain" that mechanic.

About automation - I don't mind automation, but:
- Preferably the game should be designed so that it's not needed
- If it's needed, it should (as already raised) be equally available to all

I like the idea of allowing automation by third parties. As long as it remains somewhat fair. I think it will only work in games that require a high level of strategic insight to play good. In these games, humans often have great advantage over machine and AI programming is tough. In a game that relies on hand-eye coordination skills, automation will probably advantage machines to much.

Automated players might even add an interesting aspect to the game, as their playing style is usually significantly different from humans. This might create a new class of players, besides PC and NPC.

Also, your idea for offline training sounds like a great solution for unfair grind automation.

I don't see how using bots is not fair. If you've got a better bot, that means you've got better AI writing skills, and therefore better skill at managing the game.