Trading Skill, Hang on now Mr. Lock and Key

[Ironsides]

Right, but the fact that no one has any idea about their skills until they find out they don't have the skill to do something seems harmful to the experience. Skills have no presence until you lose them or find out you're not skilled enough. Academy's aren't worth the time or gold, and skills aren't making the game experience any more fun. Who pays attention to them? Who invests in them? Why have them?

[vonGenf]

Skills (and honour and prestige limitations) forces you to play your newly created 17-year old character like the newbie he is. You can't just make up a new character and play him as a prodigious trader because you, the player, know the trader game: you need your character to learn it, too. And this creates better characters overall.

[Ironsides]

So how do you explain for the loss of skill? What kind of trader forgets how to do his job?

There has to be a better way to represent youth or inexperience. Maybe a grade level? Or show your skills on some page so you have something to work?

[Anaris]

So how do you explain for the loss of skill?

As long as you're using a skill, it's not likely to decay.

Everyone who wants to get or stay good at something needs to keep in practice. That's...just the way the world is. No one can just get good at something, then not do it for 5 years and expect to be just as good as they were last time they tried it.

[vonGenf]

So how do you explain for the loss of skill? What kind of trader forgets how to do his job?

There has to be a better way to represent youth or inexperience. Maybe a grade level? Or show your skills on some page so you have something to work?

Loss is slow. If I understood the other thread correctly, it was not the cause of the changes you have seen with your character.

[Indirik]

The idea of removing skills, or the trading skill specifically, has been denied. So the thread is closed to prevent endless debates. You have your answer, so further debat on that issue is pointless.

If you need a justification for trade skill, you can think of it as your trading contacts. The better your "skill", the more and better contacts you have, so the better you can trade. After all, it's not what you know, it's who you know. If you don't maintain your skill (I.e. network) you lose it, and can't trade as well.

[JPierreD]

Contacts, knowledge about the food situation at a macro level, know-how of the local ways of trading. All which can change given enough time.

[Tom]

@Ironsides: Sorry, but I don't like to discuss people with pet peeves. You're completely ignoring all the points everyone else is making, and that's a kind of one-sided talk you can have with your mirror or something. EOT for me.

[egamma]

Right, but the fact that no one has any idea about their skills until they find out they don't have the skill to do something seems harmful to the experience. Skills have no presence until you lose them or find out you're not skilled enough. Academy's aren't worth the time or gold, and skills aren't making the game experience any more fun. Who pays attention to them? Who invests in them? Why have them?

You're completely ignoring the other thread, where someone told you that you went to your home region, which doesn't have a marketplace. Trading in regions without a marketplace is at a 50% penalty, because you do not have the business contacts that you would have at a marketplace.