Language system - thoughts?

[cptcuddlepants]

(I don't know if this belongs in the Suggestions forum, it feels way too disorganized for a proper post in there so I thought I'd toss it here and see what others think about the topic.)

I can't recall who posted it, or even where the original post was, but I recall reading a post some time ago that highlighed a large issue with the language system: The way it is right now, the only characters that can really enjoy it are wizards and maybe skill rogues.

Sure, one can max out their Lore skill, but that's also linked to Intelligence, as well as requiring skill points which are ...also linked to Intelligence.

That original post had a suggestion of being able to learn more languages based on investment in the Lore skill. I was thinking of suggesting something like a "soft cap" for languages based on your ability modifier, the same way things are right now, but add in the ability to learn languages past that "soft cap" - just at a much, much slower rate, and that rate would slow down further per each language above the soft cap. That way, someone who's really, really devoted to learning a certain language (or languages) will get there eventually, while wizards, skill rogues, and Gift of the Gab characters keep their perks of quicker language learning.

I don't know if such is possible, but I hope it is. I just feel it's a bit of a shame that the language system is so all-or-nothing right now.

[Mithreas]

There's the Gift of Tongues... and you only need 12 int to learn an additional language. That's pretty much the opposite of all or nothing?

I guess I don't understand the problem you are trying to solve? In my mind it's a feature (not a bug) that not all characters have equal access to all features.

[Lorkas]

It's in my post following Irongron's here.

[Iceborn]

My first and only real problem with language system: Speaking a language that you aren't fluent in.
The binary whole sentence/unintelligible gibberish result irks me to no end and makes the RP of learning languages for anything but an epic-lored character extremely off-putting.

I think I wrote a massive suggestion about that.
I think I wrote a massive suggestion about 90% of Arelith's systems by now.

[Lorkas]

There's the Gift of Tongues... and you only need 12 int to learn an additional language. That's pretty much the opposite of all or nothing?

I guess I don't understand the problem you are trying to solve? In my mind it's a feature (not a bug) that not all characters have equal access to all features.

Now that I'm back at my computer, I wanted to reply to this.

There's two approaches we could take to look at this system: what's realistic, and what's fun?

From a realism perspective, the idea that someone with average intelligence can't learn a second language is an absurd one. It should be possible for them as long as they're putting in the time and effort to study and immerse themselves in the language, which can be represented partially in game, but also could be represented as skill points assigned (in the same way that skill points assigned in spellcraft represent your character studying magic in particular--something that doesn't have to be roleplayed out specifically to anywhere near the same extent as language-learning in Arelith).

From a fun perspective, it may be just me here, but the roleplay that I've seen involved in learning a language doesn't tend to be deep, engaging, or much more than a chore, to be honest. The claim that 12 INT is enough to take part in the system is technically true, but in practice, it's utterly boring to spend as much in-game time learning the one language you're allowed. Language lessons can be interesting and engaging for a little while, but I have yet to see the person who can make it interesting enough to spend the huge number of RL hours it would take to learn a language purely through language-lesson RP. In practice, any character who doesn't have a wizard's INT score is essentially locked out by the sheer tedium of making any progress at all in learning the language.

This strikes me as really odd: why would proficiency in language learning be tied to proficiency in the wizarding sort of magic specifically? Why shouldn't we be able to build an effective spy character, for example, who focuses on stealth, deception, and ability to speak languages, without totally crippling themselves by taking plenty of INT? And, for that matter, why should having so much INT make you automatically good at learning languages in addition being good at wizardry? Wizards should have to invest a little bit of their skill points (which represent the character's training) in order to really make use of the system, in my opinion.

In PnP, you learn languages automatically by investing skill points, which represents your character taking time to learn them. Languages are purchased at a rate of 1 skill point per language. For a PW that reaches level 30, that's way too cheap, but something like 4 or 5 skill points + in game training to learn a language would be about right... especially considering that you've been saying you want to get rid of the lore check to understand languages you don't speak since even before I joined Arelith as a player

[Xanos950]

The Gibberish thing is really annoying.
Like even if you just blabber the exact thing somebody else says (lets be honest, having to listen to people is the equivalent of parroting what they said, any way.) Then it would be heavily accented but you'd still understand them.
For example, if you hear somebody say something in like german in irl. And you repeat it. It wouldn't be unintelligible gibberish just difficult to understand.

So maybe make it like there's a chance that one or two words in a sentence are turned to gibberish instead of the whole sentence?
Also please allow us to learn from books themselves. (Maybe slow passive progression while holding the book). Which would amount to the character actively studying the language via research and reading the dictionary or w/e.

Sidenote; Understanding languages via high lore should remain i think.
Usually in PnP you'd have easy access to spells like "Tongues" and "Comprehend Languages" and it just kinda makes sense that somebody with high intelligence or the grasp of worldly lore would know how to understand other languages but not essentially how to fluently hold a conversation.

[One Two Three Five]

Everything Lorkas said is accurate to how it actually feels in game, having gone through this with multiple characters, on both sides of the learning, for years.

The 'most fun' way I've ever managed to learn a language is just to have the book and wait. But that defeats the purpose, no? If the most engaging way to interact with a system is to ignore it...

[Opustus]

My first and only real problem with language system: Speaking a language that you aren't fluent in.
The binary whole sentence/unintelligible gibberish result irks me to no end and makes the RP of learning languages for anything but an epic-lored character extremely off-putting.

I think I wrote a massive suggestion about that.
I think I wrote a massive suggestion about 90% of Arelith's systems by now.

Could you link the suggestion? I'm sure many would like to read it.

This is not for the sake of argument per se, but to explain what the world might look like without the system at all:

The language system has been entertained many times to Amia, and we've chose not to have it. As it stands, people tend to know many languages and since you can, as a player, understand what others are saying in a language unknown to your character, you can actually understand it and it disturbs immersion. Some have taken to sending their foreign language in tells or in party chat to avoid the issue, which is again a bit difficult.

Now comes the argument:

The players are given a great many tools to learn and understand more languages with. The perk, INT modifier, and Lore skill. Every feature of the game does not have to be mechanically useful, and how bards and wizards come to learn languages more readily as opposed to other classes makes 100% sense to me. Bards are masters of lore by profession, and much of the arcana wizards study is written in languages other than Common; they learn languages by virtue of their class, as the class itself necessitates the knowledge of languages. There are already class- and race-specific languages in place, and I suppose they can be added if it's reasonable. Moreover, the stat system is limited, but out of the skills at offer, I think INT makes the most sense by far as the learning of a language is directly connected to the human brain's capability to discern differences and similarities in syntax or grammar. It could also be argued that, for example, native Drow speakers know a fair bit of Elven and vice versa, and that native Dwarf speakers know a fair bit of Duergar, as so far as I've understood the respective languages have a lot in common.

[Mithreas]

Language learning is deliberately difficult and time consuming, or else everyone would know multiple languages and the whole point of having languages at all would be lessened.

The new team may have a different perspective, of course, but it's entirely deliberate that the language system isn't very accessible. Making learning languages easier would make it a lot more common.

Switching it to use skill points would be fine too, as it would then have a real cost, and wouldn't just be something everyone did because it was there

[Durvayas]

A couple suggestions.

1) Make language books able to be 'used' as a 1/day ability, to increase your language learning progress as though your character understood a couple sentences. It will still take you forever to learn a language, but at least you can progress a bit on your own when the chosen race/class is rare in your area or timezone.

2) Make the language tutor tinkers more effective. You can hire them dozens of times and it doesn't really seem to make even a minute difference, which is a bit frustrating, given how rare they are to begin with.

[Shadowy Reality]

I would like to see language learning based on words. You hear a word more often, more often you can speak it. This means that you could learn the basics faster, but anything that falls out of that you wouldn't know.

I would also like to see a shift from (unintelligible gibberish). And rather see a 'digest' of the word you are trying to say, how much it is digested would depend on your proficiency with that word. 'hello' could become 'holle' or 'heoll' (and then be translated to the language you are trying to speak). This way the word would still be wrong but it could be translated and maybe identified by the native speaker still or not, if you are just starting.

[Mr_Rieper]

I'm just going to be that guy and say that most builds should have more than 12 INT.

14 INT is just fine for learning two additional languages. Let's be honest here, many of the languages are rather niche because most people get frustrated when people don't speak common to one another. Even Elven, which is arguably the second-most used language is still frowned upon when there's one person in the crowd who can't understand it and are therefore excluded from the conversation.

That being said, the *unintelligible gibberish* thing is very annoying, I'll agree.

[If Valor Were Inches]

I'd propose something like this:

Keep Language Learning velocity to INT, but cap the # of maximum languages learned at the same amount regardless of Intelligence, maybe max 2-4 additional (Not counting those gained by class/race).
Allow 10 INT access to learning languages. Less than 10 cannot learn a language.
Allow Gift of the Tongues x2 the Velocity and no cap to maximum languages. Those that know a ton of languages are pretty special and uncommon, so it'd be neat if it was tied into a gift.

Possible Additions:
Allow Charisma to give a small boost to learning speed, but less than Intelligence. I imagine Charismatic people are good speakers, and it would be a neat way for those focusing on maximizing their language learning to build around both CHA and INT.
Increase the translation DC for Lore to a higher amount.
Have Lore be the primary determination of how fast a language is learned, providing more boost to it than either INT or CHA.
And/Or have Skill Focus and Epic Focus Lore provide the equivalent of a +3 INT increase each in terms of speed, if that is easier to code.

This would allow flexibility in the language system, with Lore being the Chief factor, but not in translating 100%. The Best Linguist would be a Good Speaker, a Smart Speaker, and Worldly, which makes sense to me from my travels around the world meeting Linguists, they tend to have these qualities.

[Iceborn]

Could you link the suggestion? I'm sure many would like to read it.

PM'd.

Basically the most important thing of the massive suggestion was replacing the binary "you speak, you gibberish" result with a replacement of characters based on both a roll of a die against your knowledge, with a minimum and maximum defined by your language knowledge - the language knowledge being your percentage of learning.

So instead of getting "unintelligible gibberish" on failure (and success even if you are beginner), you'd get a word salad, but you could try to say it a few times and the words would become more apparent by the player themselves filling the gaps.

[Dunshine]

I like the moving of language learning capabilities to the Lore skill instead of the INT ability, makes it more of a character choice, then a side-effect of having high INT. High INT will still be indirectly beneficial for being the ability tied to the Lore skill.

The partial translation is a nice idea, might do something along the lines of this: If you have learned 10% of a language, then 10% of the words you'll hear will be translated or something.

I agree with Mithreas that language learning should be very slow though, so whatever we'll do, that won't be changed much.

[cptcuddlepants]

It's in my post following Irongron's here.

That's the one, thanks!

By "all or nothing" I mean that with the current system, you either get it all (high Intelligence means a high number of languages you can learn, high skill points means high lore which means you can automatically understand the ones you don't, fast learning speed) or you don't get enough to bother with (only a couple languages max, not enough skill points to put into lore without sacrificing points elsewhere, painfully slow learning speed)

I agree with the gibberish thing, too - which is even more all or nothing, I suppose - realistically, a beginner in any language would be able to read some words or a sentence out of a "phrasebook" (an English to Spanish dictionary for example) without a horrible catastrophe rendering it unintelligible. I think Shadowy Reality and Xanos950 have some really good ideas regarding it.

For making learning more interactive, maybe give people who know the language the ability to make "study notes" to give to learners. You'd just need to use a phrasebook (so that phrasebooks have some use for characters who are fluent in a language) and say, turn on a "teacher mode", speak the language being learned to whoever's learning it (maybe like the guard command, so you can send -teach to various people you're teaching), and then once you've said a certain amount of lines you can give study notes to the people you're teaching. Then they use the notes, which consumes the item, and gives them progress in the language. And if a non-fluent speaker tried to teach from it, the amount of progress from study notes would be drastically reduced.

That way, you could have actual classes where a fluent speaker does a lecture in front of a bunch of students, and you could also have study groups of beginners trying to piece together a language with each others' help. It would turn language learning into something that you'd have to actively work at, and seek other players for, instead of just afk'ing around fluent people and letting the progress roll in.

As for the "max languages" thing, I'd just like to see it done away with entirely Let the people learn! But if there had to be a cap, I feel like it'd be tied more to points invested in Lore, rather than intelligence modifier. Maybe a system like, all characters get one bonus language plus another bonus lanuage for every 3 points in Lore (purchased skill ranks and lore from natural ability modifier) they have? That way wizards and high-int characters would get to keep their bonus, while opening up the option for other characters to invest skill points and learn.

[Blood on my Lips]

Learning a language should be a slow process but at the same time, it really isn't as hard as some people make it sound. I've got a character that's about two months old who is almost fluent in a language and she never had a formal lesson. It's all from occasionally overhearing the language spoken.

The gibberish thing when you attempt to speak a language you haven't learned it annoying. I would like to see that go away.

I also think it would be great if the NPC monsters in game spoke their appropriate languages rather than the current made up words that they do so that you could possibly pick up some of the language through hunting and exploration. Want to learn goblin? Spend some time in the goblin caves.

[gilescorey]

FUMBA GRUMPH

[JediMindTrix]

Language learning is deliberately difficult and time consuming, or else everyone would know multiple languages and the whole point of having languages at all would be lessened.

The new team may have a different perspective, of course, but it's entirely deliberate that the language system isn't very accessible. Making learning languages easier would make it a lot more common.

Switching it to use skill points would be fine too, as it would then have a real cost, and wouldn't just be something everyone did because it was there

I've played on a server where you were able to pick bonus languages to your int modifier and everyone knew and spoke Elven, it was incredibly immersion breaking. I'd prefer them to remain inaccessible.

[kittenblackfriends]

To be fair, elven is a very common language.

Did you come from EfU or CoA?

[Orian_666]

I'm with the cpt on this one.

I saw that suggestion when it was posted and loved it, I've always been of the mindset that the language system, though still available to anyone with 12+ Int, was still quite restrictive to anyone that doesn't invest in Int heavily. Being able to learn 1 or 2 languages can be handy and a bit of fun, but being essentially restricted to having to play a Wizard if you want your character to be able to learn a lot of languages is a bit of a pain. That or take the ECL hit to learn an extra 4.

That's literally 2 options to be able to heavily take part in a feature and that is, in my opinion, just too restrictive. Well 3 if you include skill rogues with tongues.

Having Lore be an extra way to learn languages, maybe even if it's just a stunted version of the base Int way, opens up a lot of avenues for more possible builds for linguists.

Bard heavy builds will be able to learn a lot of languages, which they definitely should be able to do. A Warrior that's also invested time in studying history, the world, and gaining as much knowledge as they can (if that's a part of the character concept) will have the ability to learn multiple languages, and rightly so!

So in short I am in favor of opening up the ability to learn languages via the Lore skill, though I am still in agreement that it should take a lot of time, like a whole lot. As for learning it not being fun that's up to the player. My main learned Elven and I often made some great RP out of it with his teacher.

[JediMindTrix]

To be fair, elven is a very common language.

Common among Elves. Pretty sure for non Elves it's one of the most difficult languages to learn and impossible to master without magic.

Anyways I played on Tales of the Silver Marches for a bit.

[MissEvelyn]

I've played on a server where you were able to pick bonus languages to your int modifier and everyone knew and spoke Elven, it was incredibly immersion breaking. I'd prefer them to remain inaccessible.

So, every NWN2 RP server? I agree, this is ridiculously immersion-breaking to have an other-racial language mastered from Day 1.

I do have to agree, though, that having only 1 language as a human with 10 intelligence is absurd. It doesn't even line up with Forgotten Realms lore. The average human Commoner knows at least 2 languages, sometimes 3, based on their region. Chondathan, Illuskan, Cormanthan are but a few that come to mind. Along with Common and their regional language(s), they easily know 2-3.
Obviously Arelith does not have regional languages and that's perfectly fine, but something has to give to compensate for that. One additional language at 10 Intelligence would definitely help smooth it out.

While we're at the topic of languages, something needs to be done about Thieves Cant. That language is utterly useless, as nearly everyone, including your goody-two-shoes paladin, understands it because they happened to dip levels in the Rogue class.
My suggestion is to make Thieves Cant be something you learn at level 5, but instead of instantly mastering it, you're only vaguely understanding it, getting better as you level up your Rogue levels, mastering the language at, say, level 15. That would be a ton better for the immersion. Am I the only one who's been seeing this elephant in the room that we're all pretending isn't there?

[Miaou]

Language learning is deliberately difficult and time consuming, or else everyone would know multiple languages and the whole point of having languages at all would be lessened.

Learning a language as a wizard (Or simply a class with int and lore) can be done in a matter of days. This issue I see is it's terribly easy for one or two classes for reasons of having their base stats maxed. Anyone else? Hopefully you can learn it in a RL year, even with people helping and using ambassadors and such.

Don't get me wrong, I think it should be harder to learn languages, or the entire system overhauled. Everyone learns languages like elven or dwarven by just standing around listening to people. I think there should be a toggle, such as -teachlanguage that puts a character into a mode that when they speak a language, others are actually being taught. Otherwise, you get less of an increase seeing as you are just listening and not actually learning. It makes me not want to speak languages around for reasons such as this. There was little interaction or roleplay given to learning the language, they just stood there and at most emoted pulling out a phrasebook.

[Orian_666]

I love the idea of the toggle, -teachlanguage, it creates a reason for people to properly RP learning a language.

To add to it maybe there should be a "use" function on phrasebooks that does an auto emote along the lines of *Pulls out a small book and begins taking notes, listening intently to their surroundings*. With the same effect as the teach language toggle it speeds up the learning process a little bit (but the process is still long, and to a cap so someone with high enough intelligence simply doesnt need to use it). This would also warn players speaking a language to anyone trying to learn from them, so if they're a race/character that wants to keep their language a secret they can begin whispering or move to another location. It grants players the ability to react "negatively" to someone learning from them on the sly.