[Ranylyn]

[12:41:43 AM] Adam: "You'd really like to write in this thing, but you don't know how!"

... brb bashing my head against the wall because this character wrote letters to old friends literally earlier today and LE is stupid.
[12:42:20 AM] The Maid Of Choice: lolololoplololololplolololololoplolololololololololi

Context: Someone's been drafting apology letters after some... rather awkward social faux-pas. During all this, an LE was performed, and then more letters were needed post-LE... which was not possible due to not knowng how to write despite having just done it.


... okay, so literacy being tied to Fluency is totally neat. But this is... well... the opposite of neat. In a way, LE can kind of make sense as being rusty and out of practice; a bodybuilder who doesn't do any physical activity won't keep those muscles, after all! Your reflexes can dull, your atention can wane, etc. But... is it physically possible to forget how to read, short of amnesia? I've forgotten an entire language, verbally, but I could still read it and I remembered it as I read it. Literacy is a pretty deeply ingrained thing.

Basically, I'm suggesting ways for a once-literate character to not suddenly derp out and forget the alphabet.

Some Ideas:
- A hidden flag that triggers once literacy is attained, that never goes away.
- Automatically letting all LE'd characters be literate simply from worldly experience (you don't need to RP as literate!)
- Attaining Literacy via NPC trainers as an alternative method, so you can quickly relearn it after an LE. (This could also be tied into varying degrees of literacy, and me mechanically tied into quests involving translation, decoding ciphers, and the like, and really opens future potential.)

I personally think the last one is the coolest idea, but that's just me.

[Someone]

Let people read with 0 literacy but apply a filter that obscures/messes up the words a bit!

[Normal Username]

Level 60 Pre-LE: " Lalalala.~ Roses are red, violets are blue, RNG loves me, which is why my stats suck.~ Time to write it out in a book! ''
Level 1 Post-LE: '' Oh my, I seem to have forgotten how to properly aim, I think I'm getting rusty. But if I remember right, I made a book last night. Let's see. Holy crap, what the hell are these words?! I can't read it! I should write a better one! Uh. Let's see. How to hold a writing quill/pencil and write? I seem to have forgotten as well! Oh my, oh my! ''

[Slydria]

Let's not make this more convoluted than it needs to be.

I propose that we should have the ability to read as the default, it's going to be more likely that players will have (or at least roleplay) the ability to read than not.

So to do that, I think the current Rank 1 effect and it's restrictions should be removed. Then the other effects re-orders as so:

e.g.
At Rank 1, you begin studying arcane languages, increasing your Skill when making Tomes by 1.
At Rank 2, you're used to carrying heavy books around, reducing the Battle Weight of all Tomes you use by Rank.
At Rank 3, reading such arcane languages is as simple as reading an Inn sign, increasing your Will by 2 when using a tome. In addition, you can equip Tomes while using any class.
At Rank 5, you are really good at the word thing, increasing your WIL growth by 5%.

May need to consider a different bonus for the one getting replaced however.

I think if people really want to roleplay being illiterate then they'll simply do so, the game doesn't need to enforce this particular thing considering how rare illiteracy roleplay actually is amongst players, I believe it makes this a slight nuisance than a neat little detail.

But if Fluency should bar certain things as a flavour thing then I believe it should be for unique languages rather than the basics.

E.g. Let's say in future, there's a quest that has you take a book to be translated by a scholar in Karaten, but if you have a Fluency of at least 3, you can instead select the option to go "Hey, there's no need for that, I know this language, I could totally translate that for you."

[Mivereous]

I would rather keep the 'equip tomes regardless' thing at R4, to keep in line with the Expertise/Marksmanship branch.

I really think just putting a flag on it for the first time you get it would be the least convoluted thing.