Hello Wyvern Rising Players,
We again want to thank those of you who volunteered to take the survey. It provided valuable feedback to inform many of our decisions about the game.
One of the mechanics identified as needing improvement the most was how teaching works. To address this, and to get our hype train moving a bit, we’re announcing some changes to the Wyvern Rising teaching mechanic.
First off, the easy stuff. The skill ‘Teach’ is being removed from the game. Now any character with a skill from the public skill list can teach that skill to another character. Yes, there will be a build refund for those with ‘Teach’. Additionally, the roleplay requirement for teaching has been reduced from 5 minutes per build point, to 5 minutes per tier of the skill. Tier 1 skills and Base skills will take 5 minutes to learn, tier 2 will take 10 minutes to learn, and so on up to tier 5 skills which will take 25 minutes to learn. Of course, you may roleplay as long as you want, and you may earn some extra roleplay points for engaging roleplay to learn/teach a skill.
Now the bigger change. You can now attempt to learn any skill from the public skill list via AAR. To attempt to learn a skill via AAR, state in your AAR:
- The skill you wish to learn
- Where you are going to attempt to learn the skill
- Who you are asking to teach you the skill. The “who” can be general (eg. Guards at the Keep) , rather than specific. But you will likely have better luck if you can know and identify a specific person in the world.
When attempting to learn a skill via AAR, you cannot do anything else in your AAR. No buying things, no skill use (e.g. Research), and no other activities via AAR. Your entire month is dedicated to finding a teacher and learning the skill.
You may notice that above we said ‘attempt’ to learn a skill. Learning a skill via this method is not a guaranteed “success”. The determination of whether you actually learn the skill is going to depend on in-game reasons. For example:
- If you go to the Keep to learn a skill, and it’s on lockdown due to in-game circumstances, you might find it difficult to be taught a skill
- If you ask an NPC whom your character is at odds with, either ideologically or personally, they will likely not teach you that skill
- If you’re trying to learn a particularly difficult/rare skill (e.g. Higher Tier), you will have more difficulty finding a teacher.
- If you’re asking an NPC who does not have that skill to teach it to you, they will not be able to (So don’t ask Shebari to teach you “Sure Hit” or any advanced fighting skills)
Generally, you will have a better chance at successfully learning a skill via AAR if:
- The skill is common and easy to learn (i.e. lower tier, or base skill)
- You are asking a specific NPC character your character has a relationship with, rather than asking a group or random person at a location
- Your character knows where/how to find this NPC, and has a good relationship with them (maybe make them a “Contact”)
- Your character has pre-arranged being taught by the NPC the last time they were in-game.
For example, Tyrin wants to learn the skill “parry”, which is a tier 1 skill. He could write in his AAR that he wishes to learn a simple and common fighting skill, ‘Parry’, and that he will go to the Twin Blade camp and ask around the camp for someone to teach him. He is likely going to be taught the skill, unless there is in-game plot preventing access to the Twin Blade Camp, or if Tyrin had recently done something to seriously upset the Twin Blades. And the Twin Blades will probably make him cook for them for the rest of the month in return for the training.
Or for example, Tyrin wants to learn the more challenging/rare skill “Sure Hit”, which is a tier 5 skill. If he writes in his AAR that he wishes to learn ‘Sure Hit’ and will go to the Twin Blade camp and ask around the camp for someone to teach him, then he very likely will NOT learn that skill. ”Sure Hit” is not a skill the average Twin Blade member has, or is willing to teach a stranger. If instead, Tyrin writes in his AAR that he wishes to learn ‘Sure Hit’ from the leader of the Twin Blades, “Aramis”, with whom he has the skill “Contacts”, and she in fact owes him a favor, he is much more likely to be taught that skill if Aramis is available and at the camp.
Do you not know any NPCs with the skills you need? Your AAR can be an opportunity for you to try and find one. It may take a couple AARs to find a teacher and convince them to teach you. They may even come into the game once you’ve met them via AAR.
Once you’ve successfully learned a skill via AAR, the build will be deducted from your card, and your character will have that skill the next time they come into the game. Be sure that your ‘unspent build’ balance is greater than or equal to the build of the skill you are trying to learn. You cannot use your “base build” or “donation build” from the NEXT game to learn a skill via AAR, nor can you rely on “getting enough RP” for an extra build point. You must have enough unspent build to afford the skill.
Please keep in mind that what occurs in your AAR is effectively occurring in the game world. We aim to make the game world as persistent as possible. So where you go to learn skills, and who you ask to teach them via AAR may have an in-game impact on your character and the world. For example, someone may be kind enough to teach you in your AAR, but come into the game later looking for a return favor. Or, if you were to ask a guard from the Keep to teach you ‘Assassinate’, you may find yourself under closer scrutiny from the guards. Or if you try to learn ‘Darkness Knowledge’ from a representative of the Church of Diakonoff, you may find yourself on the wrong side of the law, and angry Templars knocking on your door.
We are first and foremost a roleplaying game, and want to see skills continue to be taught in-game as much as possible. The relationships your characters make with each other, and with NPCs, are an important component to the roleplaying atmosphere we want to maintain. So why are we making these changes? A couple reasons.
First, we want people to have an avenue to get simple/common skills without having to wait around for an NPC with that skill to come into game while that PC is at an event and available.
Second, because we want to respect that your AAR is “what your character was doing between events”, and realistically, your character could try and go get some training. We want the world of Wyvern Rising to be “persistent”, and this is part of that.
And lastly, because staff (unfortunately) doesn’t always have time to come in as every NPC that every character has made relationships with, and we want you to still be able to interact with those characters, when appropriate, via AAR to learn from them. We wear a lot of hats as staff (metaphorically and literally), and we know it’s frustrating to not see the NPC you’ve made a student/teacher relationship with for a whole season because that staff member is too busy being 8 other people. (or worse, to find out they came in on your NPC shift…)
Ultimately, we want to be able to have NPCs available to teach the skills you want in-game, but we understand that’s not a completely obtainable goal. We hope these changes address some of the difficulty people have had with obtaining skills from the public skill list. Stay tuned for more game updates. Happy Veteran’s Day. And stay safe and healthy.