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[Pilsu]

Legendary as is is pretty meaningless and not really true to it's name. It'd be nice if skill was capped at Grand Master which would then unlock artifacts which would elevate the person to legendary status. Doesn't need to be the same thing as dwarven artifacts if those are inherently magical, just something that earns the craftsman his status instead of any soap maker becoming a legendary stone crafter by making a tonne of mugs

At the very least remove furnace operating and mining from the list of applicable skills, limiting it to crafting since that's how it's gained. Engraving too until it's possible to make artifact engravings. Them carving some mug is pretty silly, at the very least they should use an existing item to decorate if walls cannot be used for code reasons

Edit: while I'm at it, disallow pictures of artifacts on artifacts and disable engravings of dwarves engraving and renditions of other engravings. They're just.. silly 

[Warlord255]

If you go to the modding forum, a discovery has been made recently that reveals that the [SLOW_LEARNER] tag that slows down Cyclops and Giant skill gains works when applied to Dwarves, making leveling up all skills and attributes far harder; artifact experience only elevates a neophyte to Master, rather than Legendary. Not a permanent fix, but a decent one for now.

[Pie]

Legendary as is is pretty meaningless and not really true to it's name. It'd be nice if skill was capped at Grand Master which would then unlock artifacts which would elevate the person to legendary status. Doesn't need to be the same thing as dwarven artifacts if those are inherently magical, just something that earns the craftsman his status instead of any soap maker becoming a legendary stone crafter by making a tonne of mugs

At the very least remove furnace operating and mining from the list of applicable skills, limiting it to crafting since that's how it's gained. Engraving too until it's possible to make artifact engravings. Them carving some mug is pretty silly, at the very least they should use an existing item to decorate if walls cannot be used for code reasons

Edit: while I'm at it, disallow pictures of artifacts on artifacts and disable engravings of dwarves engraving and renditions of other engravings. They're just.. silly 

Personally, I think that artifacts on artifacts is fine. I reckon it is cool when you see a part of your fort's history recognised and replicated. And if you don't want dwarves engraving other engravings or engravers, don't dedicate so much of your time/workforce to engraving. If all you ever did was record history, do it for long enough and you end up recording yourself recording. It makes sense.

And on the main point: I reckon legendary should be a bit randomised. So like every dwarf can become Grand Master in something, but there is only like a 1 in 20 chance that they have the CAPABILITY to become legendary, making it so that in a fort of 200, you would only have 10 Legendary peeps. Alternatively it could be that each dwarf has one profession that they COULD become legendary in (natural talent). That would give an interesting twist in that you would need to find what dwarves are suited to which jobs...

[Neonivek]

ACK IT IS PIE but more importantly his AVATAR!!! My eye BURNS!!!

Anyhow, "Legendary" is only a name... a name that somehow rewards a "Legend" status.

Perhaps Legendary skill should not automatically reward someone by making them legends onto themselves.

Of course a person who made an artifact would instantly be made a legend even if he didn't get legendary skill (afterall there are only so many artifacts).

So a person with Legendary skill could become a legend simply as the natural result of their skill. Continuous Masterwork creation, Respected Miner, and perhaps a Chef's food being world renown.

Wow am I making sense right now?

[Draco18s]

Wow, I get to resurrect a dead thread of my own diabolical creation TWICE today.

Edit, skills too.  For example, maybe McCarpenter has a lower potential for carpentry than average, and while good, can never be "the best" (in this respect, I'd place Legendary +5 as the highest possible potential, personally I think the lower bound would be around "professional" with your average at Grand Master; reasoning: legendaries are f-ing legendary, these are the guys who's potential is higher than the norm, your generic dude shouldn't rise above Grand Master because he just isn't Legendary, while someone who works at it, but has a low potential can still be a "professional" at the job--they'll produce fine to superior furniture on average, where as your generic average dwarf makes Exceptional pieces*).

*This sounds high to me, i.e. the average should be professional, everyone is a "white collar worker" with your above norms getting up to Grand Master, and only the super-dwarves (artifact makers) achieve legendary status, which modifies their potential to a new bell curve from Legendary +0 to Legendary +5 with the average around +2.5: a McDwarfy who had a potential of Grand Master could then achieve up to Legendary +5, while your Professionals would get +2 to +3.  Unfortunately the lower bound on this would end up being around "competent."  Actually, no, I think that works: your dwarves who "just suck" at some skill can still be competent at it with experience, and those who have normal/average potential can be professionals at their peak, while the select few achieve master or grand master.  This makes linguistic sense, cuts down on the "champion spam" and "everyone's legendary!" problems, as well as reduces the need for recruiting peasants to make your furniture: you find a farm boy and apprentice him, but he proves to be lackluster, but he can knock out cheap furniture for the masses.

[Neonivek]

The problem with the term "Legend" is that there are too many terms that go under it. It is just like the Sims 2 with two versions of Lifetime rewards.

Legend definitions:
1) A mode in which history is presented
2) A level of skill based on the 5-6 highest levels
3) A nameless creature who earns a name
4) A creature or being who earns a title by killing or crafting an artifact (I don't know other ways)
5) A Dwarf who gains a legendary skill becomes a legend which is a legal status.

Those are the five I can find. Lets not try to equivocate them.

(Still disturbed)

[Milskidasith]

Here's an idea: Instead of everybody and their mother having a way to add fake difficulty by making it impossible to attain a simple status with dwarves, just change the wording.

Make legendary legendary+5, throw in some more stuff between *insert skill level* and grand master, and stop arguing about it. Seriously, it's getting a bit annoying having all these suggestions that all amount to "you don't know what a dwarf can do, most of them can't get past professional/master, have fun micromanaging THAT!," and all of it is based off of a stupid wording flaw.

Hell, just remove legendary in it's entirety from the normal skill list, and only give legendary to those who make an artifact or kill, in the case of weapon users, say, 20 enemies. Just make it in a way where dwarves aren't inherently pigeonholed into a certain profession and especially not if you don't know where they are pigeonhold. It's already annoying enough that immigrants are generally crap you don't need, but when you can't even mold them into what you want you guys are just being unreasonable.

EDIT: Since neo posted while I posted, I'll agree with him. This whole argument is over a god damned matter of semantics. Just edit the words and what's the problem? (along with that, make the skill levels make a bit more sense. Why is it that "expert" is below "great," for example?)

[Neonivek]

Instead of everybody and their mother having a way to add fake difficulty by making it impossible to attain a simple status with dwarves, just change the wording

Stop throwing around the term "Fake Difficulty" unless you mean it. (Making a game needlessly harder without improving gameplay)

The "Legend" Legal Status is an extra point and is SUPPOSED to be there as a recognition to those of great achievement. To remove the requirement of simply "Legendary" skill isn't "Fake Difficulty" because the problem with it is that the point of it is broken by its superfluousness and its effect is almost cosmetic if it wasn't for the broken economy.

Of course I am assuming that the economy isn't going to be pernamently broken so you won't need to rely on a HUGE legend base to survive.

Edit: I think I mixed up what Milskidasith meant... Uhhh... what I said isn't wrong... it just doesn't apply to what he said... Sometimes I feel really stupid XD

Edit 2: I think what we do need to do is seperate the many terms for Legends... at LEAST for the sake of reference... I mean when I went to school and there were 5 Michaels... We gave them different names.

[Milskidasith]

Instead of everybody and their mother having a way to add fake difficulty by making it impossible to attain a simple status with dwarves, just change the wording

Stop throwing around the term "Fake Difficulty" unless you mean it. (Making a game needlessly harder without improving gameplay)

The "Legend" Legal Status is an extra point and is SUPPOSED to be there as a recognition to those of great achievement. To remove the requirement of simply "Legendary" skill isn't "Fake Difficulty" because the problem with it is that the point of it is broken by its superfluousness and its effect is almost cosmetic if it wasn't for the broken economy.

Of course I am assuming that the economy isn't going to be pernamently broken so you won't need to rely on a HUGE legend base to survive.

Edit: I think I mixed up what Milskidasith meant... Uhhh... what I said isn't wrong... it just doesn't apply to what he said... Sometimes I feel really stupid XD

Also, I do mean "fake difficulty." Micromanagement is a form of difficulty (granted, difficulty with putting up with the game, in this case, but it does hinder your fortress) and if you really MUST cap dwarves' skills, let us know that. We already know all the facets of every dwarves' personality, so hiding what skills are capped just adds MASSIVE amounts of needless micromanagement, hassle, and general non-fun. The only good thing about that I can see is that I can easily train reserve military dwarves without getting them to great.

[Pilsu]

Yes, innate potential would get frustrating fast. Especially when trying to find a natural armorsmith who also likes steel

I did like the suggestion to compress legendary skill into the grand master level and make legendary status confer no quality/speed benefits. Would also solve the invisible Legendary +5 dilemma. Probably would need to increase the XP requirements of course

[Milskidasith]

Oh, I still think legendary should offer bonuses, perhaps even bigger ones than normal. But they can only be unlocked by having a massive kill-count or making an artifact.

[Draco18s]

I did like the suggestion to compress legendary skill into the grand master level and make legendary status confer no quality/speed benefits. Would also solve the invisible Legendary +5 dilemma. Probably would need to increase the XP requirements of course

If that was my suggestion, thanks, though the Legendary's still give bonuses, they just aren't achievable under normal circumstances (except in rare cases of "legendary potential" and even then it was just Legendary +0).

As far as finding "a high potential weaponsmith who likes steel" goes, my implementation wouldn't grant bonuses or penalties based on likes (i.e. a smith who likes brass is just as good as one who likes steel when making weapons of steel).  Finding the "high potential" ones would be difficult without other changes.
1: Each dwarf has no more than 3 skills that are exceptionally high potential'd (and must be related skills*--no carpenter/armorsmith/soapmakers)
2) Immigrants who have a profession have that profession because it's where their potential lies
3) Apprenticing is in and functioning (such that your peasants and children indicate their potential by finding a master).

*IMO the "related" groups would end up in a raw somewhere so if a player considered bonecrafting, woodcrafting, and stonecrafting to be related they could change that.  I however don't consider them related for this purpose due to the "mason/stonecrafter" making sense but not "mason/bonecrafter."

[Silverionmox]

The hidden talents of the dwarves should just be that sometimes. If all immigrants automatically are the most effective they can be, players will take it for granted and the whole system becomes pointless. (Also, immigrants in the future won't be generated on the spot anymore; whether dwarves are both free and self-aware enough to choose their favoured profession remains to be seen).
Hidden talents could always show them through moods, or otherwise by the dwarf's likings (eg. liking three types of stone -> try to be stonecrafter or if Urist "was not satisfied at work lately", a career change might be a good idea) or how he spends his free time (eg. a butcher hanging around the forges). This rewards players who actually pay attention to their dwarves with happier dwarves, while not penalizing the player who just uses the dwarves in their previous profession, because that's what they're experienced in.

[Milskidasith]

No, No, NO,, NO!!!

That's fake difficulty, pure and simple. At the very least, we HAVE to know our dwarves potential. Otherwise you just have to further micromanage 200+ dwarves, and it kills enough time just changing labors to meet your forts needs, let alone the fact they only will do certain jobs.

If dwarves must have a cap (and I'm not in favor of this) at least make the non-capped stat fairly high. And let's not get manual labor tasks (including weapons and such) into this: Anybody should be able to get the highest stat in those (not counting my suggestion of "proven in combat legendary weapondwarf) since there isn't really much to learn, just train.

Another suggestion I thought of: All dwarves can hit the highest non legendary stat in all skils. They arrive with one of their "natural" talents, which have a slight EXP bonus. A few more talents (related, mostly) have a regular EXP gain, and the rest have a weaker version of slow learner. With mental and physical attributes coming soon, this could also tie in with those, where some dwarves are naturally more apt to gain strength, or ingenuity, or comprehension, or whatever, and learn faster at tasks involving those, even against a dwarf with the same stat. For example, two blank title very strong pump operators, one naturally more apt to be strong than the other, would operate at different speeds, with the former being faster.

Anyway, I hope you could understand that rambling. It made more sense in my head, probably.

[Silverionmox]

You don't have to, that's the point. Don't do it, and you'll get just as many moods, some will get their favourite job anyway, and the rest will function just as normal. If, on the other hand, all dwarves have their favourite profession by default, all that is accomplished is that the general productivity is increased, and flexibility is decreased. That way the player is punished for straying from the road ("Give this dwarf the clothier job, or else!"), while the hidden-talents-with-hints mechanic rewards the player that pays attention to his dwarves, and retains the flexibility we have now. My 7 founder dwarves usually end up skilled in some very different professions; I like how their skills reflect their history.

Mind you, the normal dwarf that gets a job should be able to reach sub-top (superior) quality reliably in his work and make a masterpiece now and then. A dwarf that has talent should make masterpieces more often and be somewhat happier with his job.