What about allowing players to "mentor" other players in lieu of training (some) skills?
If you're still reading this instead of immediately spamming the reply button to cuss me, awesome, thanks! I see this as a way to remove some dependence on NPCs.
Suppose I have just ding'd Elemental Magic level 125, and am now eligible to learn Cold 10 and Electricity 1. The person I wish to learn from, and who wishes to mentor me is level 145, and has Cold 11 and Electricity 2.
The mentor would construct an action containing stanzas that I know or am eligible to learn from a trainer, target me, then right-click that action and select "Mentor". If I was eligible to learn everything about that action that I didn't already know, I would be presented with a confirmation window showing the action and the SP and experience cost (explained below). If not eligible for any part of the action or can't afford the SP cost, the mentor would be shown a denied window. If I accept, I am marked as an understudy, and my mentor is marked as my mentor. (Working out details like progress between login sessions is nit-picky and easy to do later).
To gain knowledge of this action and all of its stanzas, my mentor and I must be in the same team, and must perform the same type of actions on the same targets; if I am learning Cold 10, I would use my Cold action while mentor would use his or her Cold action. After a certain amount of experienced gained in this manner, I would then gain the knowledge of those stanzas, that action would appear on my action bars same as if I had learned it from a trainer, and the SP cost would be deducted from my character sheet.
A limitation of this is that a mentor could not teach a new ability; I would not be able to learn Electricity 1. However, once I learned Electricity 1 from a NPC trainer, I could then learn Electricity 2 in the field.
Another limitation of this is that a prospective mentor can't mentor me if I'm trying to learn the same rank abilities that are his or her max. That is, someone cannot mentor me in Electricity 2 if that person has only learned up to Electricity 2.
This type of system wouldn't work for a number of abilities, including Prospection and Extraction blueprints, as well as the various auras and stat upgrades. I'd not be concerned about the auras and stat upgrades, but perhaps an exception could be made for Extraction and Prospection, in that you can learn both using Careplan actions in team with the mentor. (It's impossible to have two people use an extract action on the same node).
Either Cats should not affect the experience gain as far as mentoring is concerned, or the costs should be doubled to take cats into account.
An example an experience cost of this could be something like: (level required for stanza) * (sp cost) * 10. Double that to allow cats. Thus, the maximum experience cost for the default Cold 10 action is: 125 * 26 * 10 = 32,500 exp (or 65,000 to adjust for cats), plus the 26 SP. That's perhaps 11 kills to gain knowledge of the new skills. Experience that would have counted as Elemental Magic (in this case) is the only experience that counts, in the same manner as leveling and using multiple skills applies the experience differently.
While being mentored, my experience from kills would go toward the stanzas I'm trying to learn, and not toward my level. It shouldn't be crippling, but it should take a little bit of time. Balance convenience of staying in the field over not throwing extra experience into the training.
If you're still reading this instead of immediately spamming the reply button to cuss me, awesome, thanks! I see this as a way to remove some dependence on NPCs.
Suppose I have just ding'd Elemental Magic level 125, and am now eligible to learn Cold 10 and Electricity 1. The person I wish to learn from, and who wishes to mentor me is level 145, and has Cold 11 and Electricity 2.
The mentor would construct an action containing stanzas that I know or am eligible to learn from a trainer, target me, then right-click that action and select "Mentor". If I was eligible to learn everything about that action that I didn't already know, I would be presented with a confirmation window showing the action and the SP and experience cost (explained below). If not eligible for any part of the action or can't afford the SP cost, the mentor would be shown a denied window. If I accept, I am marked as an understudy, and my mentor is marked as my mentor. (Working out details like progress between login sessions is nit-picky and easy to do later).
To gain knowledge of this action and all of its stanzas, my mentor and I must be in the same team, and must perform the same type of actions on the same targets; if I am learning Cold 10, I would use my Cold action while mentor would use his or her Cold action. After a certain amount of experienced gained in this manner, I would then gain the knowledge of those stanzas, that action would appear on my action bars same as if I had learned it from a trainer, and the SP cost would be deducted from my character sheet.
A limitation of this is that a mentor could not teach a new ability; I would not be able to learn Electricity 1. However, once I learned Electricity 1 from a NPC trainer, I could then learn Electricity 2 in the field.
Another limitation of this is that a prospective mentor can't mentor me if I'm trying to learn the same rank abilities that are his or her max. That is, someone cannot mentor me in Electricity 2 if that person has only learned up to Electricity 2.
This type of system wouldn't work for a number of abilities, including Prospection and Extraction blueprints, as well as the various auras and stat upgrades. I'd not be concerned about the auras and stat upgrades, but perhaps an exception could be made for Extraction and Prospection, in that you can learn both using Careplan actions in team with the mentor. (It's impossible to have two people use an extract action on the same node).
Either Cats should not affect the experience gain as far as mentoring is concerned, or the costs should be doubled to take cats into account.
An example an experience cost of this could be something like: (level required for stanza) * (sp cost) * 10. Double that to allow cats. Thus, the maximum experience cost for the default Cold 10 action is: 125 * 26 * 10 = 32,500 exp (or 65,000 to adjust for cats), plus the 26 SP. That's perhaps 11 kills to gain knowledge of the new skills. Experience that would have counted as Elemental Magic (in this case) is the only experience that counts, in the same manner as leveling and using multiple skills applies the experience differently.
While being mentored, my experience from kills would go toward the stanzas I'm trying to learn, and not toward my level. It shouldn't be crippling, but it should take a little bit of time. Balance convenience of staying in the field over not throwing extra experience into the training.