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[motorbitch]

at the moment, it is no problem to über-legendary spare all your soldiers making them invinceble to all non-fireball-spitting enemys.
i think, this is a bit borring.
i thought it wuld be real nice, if high weapon skills only culd be achived in real combat.
for this, the expirience gained in combat maby wuld have to be incrased a bit, or, even better,  the xp gained culd scale with the level of the  creature that is involved to the xp gain.

mostly this wuld be nice to have in fort mode, but it also  be handy in adventure mode. it wuld make it impossible to go elite just by smashing stones agains a tree. in adventure mode, the maximum xp gained by a single enemy maby wuld have to be capped, too (code word : zomby groundhog strangulation)

[Tormy]

Well, yes champions in decent gear are quite awesome in the vanilla game, however this is why I love modding! You can balance out everything if you spend enough time with messing the RAWs.

[Neonivek]

The problem is how do you balance getting high level skills in combat.

Many games have a system where units get to vet skills but the fact of the matter is that if they didn't get to vet after one battle... they are going to die in the next with exception to units who can survive multiple encounters anyhow.

I personally don't EVER... EVER... EVER see a Dwarf getting to legendary (or heck Master) in combat even with the increased skill gain rate you suggest. Well alright it depends where the non-battle is left.

I guess as a balancer... Maybe to get a Dwarf who has Master or higher you have to up their training which could work on a luck basis. (Send them as Adventurers to get treasure... send them on a spirit quest?)

Of course with the Army arc and their simplified combat... it could end up possible

[Proteus]

This reminds me of Dungeon Keeper 2.
Here the units could only train to a certain level by using the Trainings room, then up to a certain level by making duels in the Arena and the last 2 levels were only attainable via combat against real enemies.

IMHO a good idea such a system.

[Neonivek]

Yes but in Dungeon Keeper your characters were very likely to survive such encounters as long as your Imps got to them in time. Not to mention that even without it combat was less brutal and for the most part you should more then outnumber and overpower any hero in the game.

In Dwarf Fortress... They just die.

[Othob Rithol]

I really like this idea. But I'd put it on a floating scale.

You can always train to Expert.
You can train up to Grand Master by sparring with a dwarf that is higher skilled than you.
You cannot train to Legendary levels.

So you train the army up to Expert. Then after MANY fights, one becomes a champion. He spars with veteran Professional. Over the next month, the student become Grand Master and starts helping the others advance to Masters. Ever y so often the Legendary trains a new disciple to be a Grand Master. Now your Kung-Fu is strong.

This might require a formal trainer system, which is one undeveloped aspect of my Guild Masters suggestion. (see link in my sig)

[Neonivek]

I don't know if it is reasonable to assume that any dwarf can survive enough battles to become Legendary from Expert with possible exception of a Marksmen

Perhaps there can be more then one way for beyond expert training

1) Sending out a Soldier as an Adventurer
2) Having them take part in a Gladiator Pit

Ohh and... here is a great one!

3) Catching Attackers, Slaves, Monsters, animals and Humanoids and having your Dwarves fight them in a controlled and safer environment!

[Pilsu]

Your dwarves don't need to be legendary you know

Personally I'd prefer they stopped right before becoming experts or whatever level makes them permanent soldiers. Couple that with proper healthcare (finally put all those barrels of Golden Salve to good use) and remove sparring nerve damage and you're golden. Hell, make it an init option

[Othob Rithol]

With the skill gain as it is and the endless pile of mood artifact ash ice cream scoopers "Legendary" has come to mean something much less impressive as say; King Arthur  , Miyamoto Musashi  , Albert Einstein  or Charlton Heston  .

In my army right now I have 8 champion swordsmen (out of , 1 champion marksdwarf (out of 12). In the Guards I have 17 champion swordsmen, 1 Champion Wrestler (out of 30 total).

So you are telling me that in centuries to come, in distant taverns, bards will be singing about the skill my 26 legendary warriors (out of 50): each by name?

[Buugipopuu]

Make Armour User and Shield User go all the way up to Legendary from sparring and one doesn't have to worry about relying on real battle to get your weapon skills up.  Reaching Legendary+5 in Armour User or Shield User would require actual combat experience, though.

Also: Record combat experience and training experience as two separate variables, and determine overall skill level from their sum, and cap training experience to some value.  This way any experience gained in actual combat before hitting the training cap isn't wasted.  Putting the cap for training with lethal weapons higher than the cap for nonlethal weapons might also be useful if training weapons ever get implemented.  I am also in favour of increasing the length of archery ranges required to reach certain levels of crossbow skill, as you can only get so good shooting at something ten yards away from you.  Obviously a dwarf should not bother training if he can't get any skill increases given his current weapon setup, unless there's someone who can and there are no other available training partners.  Oh, and while I'm at it, Marksdwarves who have run out of training ammunition or can't path to a useful archery range should spar to build up their Hammerdwarf, Armour User and Shield User skills.

Proposed caps:
Wrestler: 10,999 (1 point short of Great)
Weapon User, all except ranged weapons: nonlethal: 4499 (1 point short of Talented), lethal: 10,999
Armour User and Shield User: nonlethal: 10,999, lethal: 19,999 (1 point short of Legendary+1)
Marksdwarf: 3-5 tile range: 1,799, 6-11 tile range: 4,499, 12-23 tile range: 10,999, 24+ tile range: 17,999 (1 point short of Legendary)

[Draco18s]

I am also in favour of increasing the length of archery ranges required to reach certain levels of crossbow skill, as you can only get so good shooting at something ten yards away from you.

I made long (as possible) archery ranges before.  Marksdwarves seemed to only get exp when they hit the target (or at least, the other end of the range--it was a narrow hallway) though I had no way of checking, but it seemed to be more effective (training them to hit faraway targets and they can do it better).

[LegacyCWAL]

Yes but in Dungeon Keeper your characters were very likely to survive such encounters as long as your Imps got to them in time. Not to mention that even without it combat was less brutal and for the most part you should more then outnumber and overpower any hero in the game.

In Dwarf Fortress... They just die.

Depends on what level they stop gaining skill from sparring.  If it stops at novice, then yeah, you'll be lucky to get any champions.  Ever.  In all your forts combined.  If it stops at High Grand Master, on the other hand, then you'll probably get just as many champions as before.  The trick would be to find the "sweet spot" somewhere in the middle, where your soldiers tend to survive long enough to have a chance at becoming a champion, but not so long that it's guaranteed for every single Urist, Cog, and Dumat.


Marksdwarves, of course, are another story altogether when it comes to life expectancy in combat

[Granite26]

Personally, I feel like a general expansion of the logarythmic nature of the skill system combined with a marked preference for combat experience would resolve it.

English Version:

Getting legendary in anything is pretty darn easy.  Why not draw out the skill levels, make it take more XP to reach each successive one.  Still let people train legendary swordsmen, it'll just take 20-30 years of training.  To balance this out, increase the experience that combat gives by a smidge (10-50%?), as well.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This should work on miners and craftsmen just the same.  It's too easy to get legendaries, and you do it in a few years.  It's not.... Legendary.  I also think that you should be capped below 'Master' until you produce a 'Masterwork', but that's waaaay off-topic

[Muz]

I liked Othob Rithol's suggestion. Yeah, as it is, legendary seems a bit meaningless, but I think Toady plans to change the skills and attributes system in the future. I do think that the skill level should go up much slower, so there's less 'legendary' people.

[Fieari]

I also like Rithol's suggestion.  I'm thinking something similar might be applied to all other professions.

Perhaps making an artifact wouldn't make you legendary, it would unlock the ABILITY to TRAIN to legendary.  So just doing your job can get you to expert, a teacher can get you up to grand master, but only an artifact can get you to legendary.  But you still have to train to get that legendary status!