Experience: The CCP Way

[mithrawndo 166]

Several topics have cropped up about attributes, experience, skills and talents in game, and I'd like to start by being clear on this: I am 100% against the addition of trainable skills, talent trees and "XP" in this game. However, I'm not Dean Hall and nor am I Bohemia, and I suspect these are things that as tried and tested mechanisms in other games are possibly going to make an appearance no matter what we anti gamers think. If we then proceed on the premise that these things are inevitable, in what way could we introduce them and not break the "feel" of the game as it currently plays? For that we need only look over at the only real present example of an anti game on the market, and one I know was an influence for the development of DayZ: Eve Online.

 

In Eve, it doesn't matter how many times you repeat an action. There's no way to "respec" to suit a specific encounter. In eve you implant a skill into your brain and learn it as time goes on. That's real-world clock time; A skill can take anything from a few minutes to a few months to learn, depending on what you're training towards. Being able to do one thing in eve can often take several months of this passive training to achieve, and you need to sit on your ass and be patient. The time it takes to learn these skills is dependant on your attributes - and that's ALL your attributes influence.

 

Given the fragility of our avatars, I can see a modification of this mechanic actually working. Let me tell you a little story...

 

You and your friends keep yourself alive for many months, sneaking into Chernogorsk Central Library every day to read about hydraulics systems so that you might figure out how to fix a broken helicopter that you've discovered in the wilderness. Little do you know that a group of bandits has been watching you and your allies do this from the shadows, and have been ghosting you as you make your way between the locations - they too, patiently waiting for you to finish learning how to do this over the weeks and months.

 

Finally the day comes - months of learning has paid off and you know enough about Hydraulics to be able to fix up the knackered systems on that old Hind you found. It's your ticket out of the hell that is Chernarus. Just as you finish your first test of the old girl's main engine, one of your buddies outside refueling you drops to the floor with blood gushing from his chest and a dozen hostiles come running out of the treeline. They've caught you by surprise and take you hostage! Shit, I should have been paying more attention!

 

After cuffing all of you, they turn to you and your buddy who has been patiently learning to fly the helicopter and demand that you work for them or else they will kill every single one of you. You refuse, and a single bullet ends your first friend's life. They ask again, and again you refuse. Bang, another friend down. The bandit leader looks at you, and you look away in defiance. Bang. Just you and the pilot left. Your buddy caves - Fine, he'll fly them, just spare your lives - and as you begin to protest...

 

Bang.

 

You wake up on the beach. You know nothing about helicopters. All you have is the clothes on your back and a flashlight...

 

Thanks for reading, and I hope you appreciate why I felt I needed to start a new thread for this. I look forward to your comments and criticisms and again I'd like to say; I'm 100% against all of this, but if it's going to happen I'd like to see it happen something like this!

[Duenan 226]

This would be amazing if implemented and it would give people are reason to not kill eachother on site.

 

Maybe you end up killing a welder or a mechanic that could fix your car. Maybe you end up killing a CNC machinist that could make you custom weaponry or any other thing that you want.

 

It would give people a reason to group together and make bases. Since not only would you need raw materials to fix something but you would also need knowhow.

 

I support this 100% as it would add a depth that doesnt exist in this game or even in the mod

[- Karma - 75]

I would not be opposed to passive stuff like this, especially if the big stuff took a concentrated team effort.  I feel it would be one way in which the End Game could appear - PVP being the other, naturally.  I don't know about timeframe - months seems ridiculous, even though it would be rewarding.  I would say maybe a week of solid playing, tops - only because it is pretty easy to die in this game.  Especially once things like weather and temperature and disease come live.  I never played EVE, but I've been told quite a bit about it and a system like this does intrigue me.

[spinager 152]

Great idea. I like it. But like another post said, dont make it months long of "training". Since in DayZ, when compared to EVE online, its 100% Null-sec where ever you on the map. There is no concord like AI that protects you if from some random PVP.

 

I think it would be a good idea for the skills to train while in game, compared to passive offline(unless it trains REAL SLOW), but have it scale with the amount of people on the server. The more people on the server, the faster you can train skills. It will stop people from just joining an empty server and going AFK.

 

But i like the idea. Puts value in what each character can do.

Edited February 22, 2014 by Razgriz Berkut

[jfn3000 10]

I'm a fan of a lot of the things Eve Online has done, and this is very much applicable here without damaging immersion.  I agree that it would enhance the value of human life greatly.  You don't necessarily need to take it to the level of repairing Hinds, either, if you want a more subtle impact.

 

Example: You find a book about medicine.  While you have it in your inventory, you're able to "research" medicine (the verb used in Eve.)  It takes 4 hours (or whatever) of being logged in and alive to learn the skill.  Once learned, it opens up more medical recipes with slightly better results.  E.g. you can use improvised materials for things like IVs and transfusions with less risk of getting sick.  Once illness and health mechanics make it further, you could have the medicine skill reduce the time it takes to fix hypothermia.

 

Notes:

• In Eve, you don't have to stay logged in to research, so months for high level battleship stuff isn't unreasonable.  In DayZ it makes more sense to be logged in to learn, since it's a survival game.  You can't just log and learn things, you need to survive the wilds of Chernarus for 4 solid hours after finding the book.
• Optionally, it could be like eating where there is an animation and you are otherwise indisposed.  Then it could only take an hour of "reading," but reading involves sitting down with the book in your lap, making you vulnerable and requiring interruption to go find more food or hightail it.
• If these "skills" only open up new recipes or make things slightly more effective, you can lower the effectiveness of existing actions slightly.  Maybe without a weapon care book, a cleaning kit is only 80% effective, meaning your gun will slowly become ruined despite cleaning it religiously.  With the book skill learned, a bandit group has reason to keep you alive to clean all their guns instead of just murdering you, since they probably don't want to take the time to read books instead.  If in the future, a splinted fracture means you can't run until it's healed, medicine-skilled splints could take less healing time.
• Recipe-based incentives open up bartering with other survivors.  Trade a good splint for some campfire jerky that won't go rotten.

 

If any skills make it into the game, I see this as being the closest to retaining the hardcore survival feel while opening up player-driven gameplay options.

[mithrawndo 166]

 

• In Eve, you don't have to stay logged in to research, so months for high level battleship stuff isn't unreasonable.  In DayZ it makes more sense to be logged in to learn, since it's a survival game.  You can't just log and learn things, you need to survive the wilds of Chernarus for 4 solid hours after finding the book.
• Optionally, it could be like eating where there is an animation and you are otherwise indisposed.  Then it could only take an hour of "reading," but reading involves sitting down with the book in your lap, making you vulnerable and requiring interruption to go find more food or hightail it.
• If these "skills" only open up new recipes or make things slightly more effective, you can lower the effectiveness of existing actions slightly.  Maybe without a weapon care book, a cleaning kit is only 80% effective, meaning your gun will slowly become ruined despite cleaning it religiously.  With the book skill learned, a bandit group has reason to keep you alive to clean all their guns instead of just murdering you, since they probably don't want to take the time to read books instead.  If in the future, a splinted fracture means you can't run until it's healed, medicine-skilled splints could take less healing time.
• Recipe-based incentives open up bartering with other survivors.  Trade a good splint for some campfire jerky that won't go rotten.

 

If any skills make it into the game, I see this as being the closest to retaining the hardcore survival feel while opening up player-driven gameplay options.

 

• The thing is, even with 100 people on a server I am pretty sure I could easily find a hole to hide myself away in and go to watch TV whilst my skill trains. Is this desirable from a gameplay perspective? This means people not playing the game, using up bandwidth and slots to train their abilities. Making the ability totally passive nets the same result without having the need to use bandwidth or server slots. It's authentic, rather than realistic. In short, if people are going to go afk to do this, maybe we should just let them legitimately? Perhaps it should simply be a slight acceleration when logged in? I'm sure you can tell I'm very undecided on this fact!*
• This was my initial thought, but as I've pondered the idea further I'm not sure it's practical - see my above statement. A simpler mechanic would be that you must have the book in your inventory (information already stored by the central hive), and whilst you do you passively and VERY, VERY SLOWLY learn about the subject you choose. Only one subject at a time, so there would be no point in stocking up on books. Many subjects would require several books to learn, and all would require you to own a pen and paper. You won't learn anything if you don't take notes!**
• My thinking exactly. Don't add anything that makes a new spawned survivor less effective than a 90 day veteran, simply give those veterans a few perks - for as long as they remain alive. Let them feel the potential soul crushing that losing those perks brings, but allow them to come to the realisation that they can (after they have finished throwing their toys out of the pram) come right back in without any real disadvantage. Better in fact, as they have made a mistake... and that's the only real way to learn!
• The possibilities are limitless!

Thank you for the kind comments so far, it's humbling to see a few people of like mind.

 

As for the comments regarding timescales: These were very much an off the cuff figure and would require a large amount of tweaking if ever deployed. As I am not aware of the figure for the average player's survival time, I could not even begin to estimate as to what could be considered a reasonable scale - however regarding eve online, the timescales involved are frequently years in the case of effective control of regions as opposed to months.

 

*It just occurred to me that the result of this proposal is actually the restoration of civilization: People sitting in houses reading books and learning to make stuff, whilst other people guard them. I'm not sure I'm OK with this anymore!

 

**It's even potentially possible that your notes could become a valuable commodity, perhaps allowing for marginal acceleration in learning times.

Edited February 23, 2014 by Mithrawndo

[jfn3000 10]

One thing to keep in mind is that zombies aren't at their end state yet.  With the addition of more zombies and better AI, going AFK in a house could be suicide.

[Thatshaneboy 5]

What if while you were learning a skill you would have to complete a few challenges assigned randomly while learning? Like things that you would have to practice to help with your learning. Lets say that you were learning a hypothetical shooting skill book that improved your accuracy (Purely hypothetical book idea), you may be assigned a challenge to go out and get 3 headshot kills to progress or speed up your learning. This would make those who just camp out and go afk actually have to get off their butt and risk their life out in the open world.

[pale1776 375]

This would be cool, but theres always gonna be a lifeless ***** who will go out of his way to kill just so he can know that he ruined someones work.

Edited February 19, 2015 by Mos1ey

[Lady Kyrah 1109]

And here i thought that the sole reason for CCP's leveling system was to sell monthly cubscriptions and PLEX *rolleyes*

[mithrawndo 166]

And here i thought that the sole reason for CCP's leveling system was to sell monthly cubscriptions and PLEX *rolleyes*

 

Heh, I actually stopped playing eve regularly shortly after the removal of ghost training. I still jump on from time to time for a month or two's subscription (I have a 2003 character, why wouldn't I?) but I feel I've played it to death, and to be honest in many ways it's become overcomplicated: There are too many toys in the sandbox, a lesson I hope DayZ remembers.

 

For those of you unaware, for the first 6 years or so of Eve Online you could set a skill to train that would take you three months, and even if your paid subscription ran out the skills would continue to train. A lot of people complained about this - I really don't know why - and eventually CCP removed this so-called ghost training. Since then you've been required to have an active subscription to learn skills. It's not strictly relevant here, but it's an interesting point of trivia.

 

One thing to keep in mind is that zombies aren't at their end state yet.  With the addition of more zombies and better AI, going AFK in a house could be suicide.

 

True, this alpha is so engaging I sometimes forget that it's missing so many core features!

 

What if while you were learning a skill you would have to complete a few challenges assigned randomly while learning? Like things that you would have to practice to help with your learning. Lets say that you were learning a hypothetical shooting skill book that improved your accuracy (Purely hypothetical book idea), you may be assigned a challenge to go out and get 3 headshot kills to progress or speed up your learning. This would make those who just camp out and go afk actually have to get off their butt and risk their life out in the open world.

 

I'm really not comfortable with being set challenges to make you better. I feel that as almost every other mechanic in the game is passive and invisible, so skills should be to. No quests, no objectives, no maps, no meters.

 

As for the hypothetical example: At no point should any skill brought into this game give you an advantage over another player once trained. Being able to repair something, or identify something as useful for a recipe you are aware of would be good examples of how this could work. As soon as you deploy skills that make you "better", they become mandatory for anyone who wants to take the game seriously. See every single RPG style game ever made for reasons why this is a bad idea: Particularly eve online, where the skill system - the one I'm suggesting here - actually creates a huge barrier for new players as to get involved they have to learn a lot of prerequisite skills. At least a month's worth of training before you are not a "noob". Nothing about that facet is desirable, and so the solution is to ensure that skills add only flavour rather than strength.

 

That means no weapon skills and no physical enhancements. Probably more too, but you get the idea I'm sure. In my opinion the only things that can work and retain authenticity are things that don't matter, but make the game world better: Examples could be:

 

Tailoring: Anyone can sew, but most of us are pretty ham fisted and at best can repair our clothes up to "Damaged". A week of training in tailoring and this could be up to "Worn" and after a month, maybe any clothes could be repaired to "Pristine". Further, rarer books could allow for further knowledge of other materials and the ability to repair different types of gear - assuming you can find the materials to do it.

 

Cooking: Anyone can make an edible rabbit stew, but there's a real art in making a tasty one. A slight numerical improvement (or better yet, a reduction of the drawbacks - rabbit stew is a good example here as you can't live on rabbit alone as it lacks some key nutrients.) from learning out of recipe books would seem quite apt, and certainly wouldn't harm any game balance.

 

Gunmaker: Anyone can saw the stock and barrel from a shotgun, but it's takes a skilled hand and eye to rifle a barrel. A month or so of training and a skilled Gunmaker could counter bore your damaged Mosin, returning it to near it's former glory.

 

Just some thoughts. The key is small additions - nothing that would fundamentally change the nature of the game. Evolution, not Revolution.

[Thatshaneboy 5]

"I'm really not comfortable with being set challenges to make you better. I feel that as almost every other mechanic in the game is passive and invisible, so skills should be to. No quests, no objectives, no maps, no meters.

 

As for the hypothetical example: At no point should any skill brought into this game give you an advantage over another player once trained. Being able to repair something, or identify something as useful for a recipe you are aware of would be good examples of how this could work. As soon as you deploy skills that make you "better", they become mandatory for anyone who wants to take the game seriously. See every single RPG style game ever made for reasons why this is a bad idea: Particularly eve online, where the skill system - the one I'm suggesting here - actually creates a huge barrier for new players as to get involved they have to learn a lot of prerequisite skills. At least a month's worth of training before you are not a "noob". Nothing about that facet is desirable, and so the solution is to ensure that skills add only flavour rather than strength.

 

That means no weapon skills and no physical enhancements. Probably more too, but you get the idea I'm sure. In my opinion the only things that can work and retain authenticity are things that don't matter, but make the game world better: Examples could be:

 

Tailoring: Anyone can sew, but most of us are pretty ham fisted and at best can repair our clothes up to "Damaged". A week of training in tailoring and this could be up to "Worn" and after a month, maybe any clothes could be repaired to "Pristine". Further, rarer books could allow for further knowledge of other materials and the ability to repair different types of gear - assuming you can find the materials to do it.

 

Cooking: Anyone can make an edible rabbit stew, but there's a real art in making a tasty one. A slight numerical improvement (or better yet, a reduction of the drawbacks - rabbit stew is a good example here as you can't live on rabbit alone as it lacks some key nutrients.) from learning out of recipe books would seem quite apt, and certainly wouldn't harm any game balance.

 

Gunmaker: Anyone can saw the stock and barrel from a shotgun, but it's takes a skilled hand and eye to rifle a barrel. A month or so of training and a skilled Gunmaker could counter bore your damaged Mosin, returning it to near it's former glory.

 

Just some thoughts. The key is small additions - nothing that would fundamentally change the nature of the game. Evolution, not Revolution."

 

 

I understand your point here. I stated the example idea as purely hypothetical because I am also against skills that give you an edge over other players, especially in pvp situations.

I would like to say though that the challenges idea of mine is meant to be purely anti-afk. Let me rephrase and say lets forget the "speed up your learning" part. How about while learning your learning progress will pause at random intervals no more than 3 times. To un-pause your learning you would have to go out and complete a very simple challenge. One that is simple enough depending on the skill to get you up and moving just for a little bit so you are not just sitting in a house hidden for 4 hours. Sometimes you may even have the stuff needed for the challenge already on you so you wont have to get up (Lucky you then). This idea can be realistically backed up because you learn better when your book learning is supplemented with some hands on practice.

Edited February 23, 2014 by Thatshaneboy

[mithrawndo 166]

I see no problem with some form of invisible mechanism that ensure you must be actively doing something to learn. What I wish to avoid is any form of pre defined challenge - as this would become a repetitive grind. For example:

 

You spawn on the beach and after tending to your initial requirements, you start learning some form of cooking. It's going to take you 72 hours to learn how to repeatedly make good, wholesome rabbit stew (though you don't know this when you start - the time is kept hidden from you). However every hour you need to make another batch of rabbit stew, or else your skill training will pause. Finally you finish, and you hear a rustling in the bushes...

 

You spawn on the beach and after tending to your initial requirements, you start learning some form of cooking. It's going to take you 72 hours to learn how to repeatedly make good, wholesome rabbit stew...

 

You spawn on the beach and after tending to your initial requirements, you start learning some form of cooking...

 

See where I'm going here? Having to repeat the same actions again and again and again to train a skill on top of the day to day survival mechanics and the countless other little bits and pieces the game will eventually end up with will quickly get overwhelming. However some form of server side activity monitor - the game currently knows whether you are idle or active for example to calculate your energy consumption - might be beneficial.

 

Hypothetically, of course.

Edited February 23, 2014 by Mithrawndo

[Von_Carnage 37]

I personally like the idea having played eve for 10 years on and off myself. Thing is with eve, if your clones up to date your skills are safe if you die, obviously we'd have no clone in Dayz... 1 life live it?

My question is, Could a skill tree be implemented into Dayz though?

[kaix12 34]

i think as long as it isn' a XP thing I will like it. The only way it should be is by you level something up by doing it often. E.G Stamina, the more you run the furhter you can go, bu you can' tell what 'level' you are, just your character won't get tired as fast.

[MangoX 10]

Thanks for reading, and I hope you appreciate why I felt I needed to start a new thread for this. I look forward to your comments and criticisms and again I'd like to say; I'm 100% against all of this, but if it's going to happen I'd like to see it happen something like this!

 

Nice story and not bad idea.. I do play EVE too btw.

[MangoX 10]

I'm a fan of a lot of the things Eve Online has done, and this is very much applicable here without damaging immersion.  I agree that it would enhance the value of human life greatly.  You don't necessarily need to take it to the level of repairing Hinds, either, if you want a more subtle impact.

 

Example: You find a book about medicine.  While you have it in your inventory, you're able to "research" medicine (the verb used in Eve.)  It takes 4 hours (or whatever) of being logged in and alive to learn the skill.  Once learned, it opens up more medical recipes with slightly better results.  E.g. you can use improvised materials for things like IVs and transfusions with less risk of getting sick.  Once illness and health mechanics make it further, you could have the medicine skill reduce the time it takes to fix hypothermia.

 

Notes:

• In Eve, you don't have to stay logged in to research, so months for high level battleship stuff isn't unreasonable.  In DayZ it makes more sense to be logged in to learn, since it's a survival game.  You can't just log and learn things, you need to survive the wilds of Chernarus for 4 solid hours after finding the book.
• Optionally, it could be like eating where there is an animation and you are otherwise indisposed.  Then it could only take an hour of "reading," but reading involves sitting down with the book in your lap, making you vulnerable and requiring interruption to go find more food or hightail it.
• If these "skills" only open up new recipes or make things slightly more effective, you can lower the effectiveness of existing actions slightly.  Maybe without a weapon care book, a cleaning kit is only 80% effective, meaning your gun will slowly become ruined despite cleaning it religiously.  With the book skill learned, a bandit group has reason to keep you alive to clean all their guns instead of just murdering you, since they probably don't want to take the time to read books instead.  If in the future, a splinted fracture means you can't run until it's healed, medicine-skilled splints could take less healing time.
• Recipe-based incentives open up bartering with other survivors.  Trade a good splint for some campfire jerky that won't go rotten.

 

If any skills make it into the game, I see this as being the closest to retaining the hardcore survival feel while opening up player-driven gameplay options.

 

Dont mean to be nitpicky here. Just had to add that its not really called as "reseach" in EVE. It is called as "skill training" you put "skills" in "training queue". However "research" is the thing where you improve "blueprints".. Then there is the "research agents" that provide "datacores" for you..

 

;)

Edited February 24, 2014 by MangoX

[mithrawndo 166]

My question is, Could a skill tree be implemented into Dayz though?

 

I don't think a skill tree is the right way to go. Simply some skills that one can learn. Adding prerequisites and chains of skills that require learned overcomplicates things and leads to potential min/max outcomes, something a large portion of the (vocal) community do not want to see - myself included. Single skills that gradually and invisibly unlock abilities - with the durations required to learn them moderated by various external influences, such as your health and activity levels - could lead to small improvements without overdoing the pain when, inevitably, you die.

[blackberrygoo 1416]

Yea reading books and PRACTICING the action (like trying to place an engine in a car, you will break the engine an unspecified amount of times if you don't read up on it first , then finally you will successfully learn [on your own or with books or both ] that "knowledge").

I like the idea from another topic as well that instead of this just being lost upon death, skills also can be lost if you don't practice or read about the "knowledge"(skill) . It wouldn't happen fast , maybe if you learn a helicopter repair skill after three days of breaking helicopter parts it would take about the same (logged in counts only) to lose the skill from your knowledge ? That way you don't just know everything and keep it even if you don't die , you have to semi-constantly keep practicing or reading to not get rusty .

EDIT: I think we all agree there should be no movement strength accuracy or combat bonuses/ skills , ONLY cooking , tailoring , gun making (perhaps) and vehicle/aircraft repair (which should be the hardest to learn by far).

Edited February 24, 2014 by Grapefruit kush

[jfn3000 10]

Dont mean to be nitpicky here. Just had to add that its not really called as "reseach" in EVE. It is called as "skill training" you put "skills" in "training queue". However "research" is the thing where you improve "blueprints".. Then there is the "research agents" that provide "datacores" for you..

 

;)

 

>< oops!  Yes, you're right :p

[jfn3000 10]

I like the integration of using the skill being a part of the process! Not the challenge-based scheme version, but requiring use to train and/or "use it or lose it" both fit with the realism aspect.

 

In Everquest, I think, crafting wasn't a guaranteed success, which was incredibly frustrating because precious materials were still lost in the process.  But in this case, that could be useful.  It might be a little too painful to consume mats on failure, but if your bandaging only works 75% of the time because you don't actually know how to do it right you have incentive, but not a need, to get it up to 90-95%. 

 

Two possible ideas that came to mind (assuming use increases skill regardless of having a book):

• Skills increase faster with the book in inventory, or maybe requiring you to have the book out while you do it if it's a one handed task.
• Training by use could raise success rate, but only training with the addition of the book would allow better recipes (e.g. advanced splint).  There could be a period where you can craft the recipe only with the book before you learn it permanently and can ditch it.

Keeping with tradition, this would all have to be more or less silent to the player still. 

 

And, I support the absence of skill trees.  They are tons of fun, but this is a game that should have a near-complete lack of character sheet.  I really enjoy being naked old me in the woods, so to speak. 

[WolfgangF 1]

This is just the best method of adding skills into the game I have seen yet. While I will admit I thought of this idea separately, I applaud you for bringing it to the attention of the community.

[mithrawndo 166]

Thank you for the kind words WolfgangF. It's clearly not my original idea either: As the title implies, I stole it entirely from CCP Games!

It's been a while since this post surfaced to the top of the pile, so I'm ashamed but honest enough to admit that I responded to bring forth further discourse on this point.

TL;DR - bump!

[Damnyourdeadman 1045]

This is definitely something worth reviewing.

Something i need to clarify...

Supposing you train for a day to improve a skill system.

You receive always the same pre determined quantity of training exp only on the end of the day?

What happens if you don't train? Is the exp quantity in the end of every day the same,regardless of time training?

Is there an "train time" cap that needs to fill in order to reap the whole xp quantity reward at the end of the day?

Sorry,in case i confused you...

[mithrawndo 166]

This is definitely something worth reviewing.

Something i need to clarify...

Supposing you train for a day to improve a skill system.

You receive always the same pre determined quantity of training exp only on the end of the day?

What happens if you don't train? Is the exp quantity in the end of every day the same,regardless of time training?

Is there an "train time" cap that needs to fill in order to reap the whole xp quantity reward at the end of the day?

Sorry,in case i confused you...

 

The way it works in Eve is that you must have a skill in training to receive any skill points at all. If you don't, that's time wasted. No refunds: Be better organised next time!

 

I'd like to see this implemented in the same way here. You only learn if you have the appropriate book in your bag and activate the training. It trains passively for as long as your character is alive. For example:

 

• You find a book on hydraulics & put it into your inventory
• You find another book on chemistry & place it in your inventory
• You start "reading" the hydraulics book
• You log off... and don't play again for a week.

When you return, you'll have finished reading the hydraulics book - aka trained the skill - but it won't automatically start reading the book on chemistry, nor will it "save up" the skill points for you to apply elsewhere. They're lost; you should have checked on your progress.

 

One bullet in the head, and all you've ever read is lost.