Recipe points are simply determined by how much skill you have, so if you reduce a skill, you're effectively reducing your recipe points associated with that skill. That is to say: recipe points aren't independently tracked. It's literally how many skill points you have in the skill.
Unlearning recipes is going to be tricky. There's going to be that worry of someone learning a recipe just to make one of that thing they need, and then unlearning the recipe to free up the points again - and then what's the point of having limited recipe points in the first place? Another long-time-based unlearning process is the best middle ground I can think of. Don't really know yet how to handle skill points being reduced to the point that you have too few recipe points for the recipes you currently have.
That's kind of the point, though. I feel like the unlearning process should be something you have to really consider, and it should come with some pains to discourage overuse or overdependence. I'm for allowing some limited backtracking, but I don't want it to end up feeling like abilities/recipes/skills are easily "hot swappable". (That's a generalized exaggeration to make a worry of mine clear. I'm not saying you were asking for that.)I never enjoyed the fact that in other games you might go to unlearn an ability and (if already capped) would not be able to learn a new one until the timer ran out - essentially making your character less capable than others during that time by having no access to the one being unlearned or a new one.
I'm not particularly keen on a test server or environment. It's essentially one more way to remove people from the main game environment, and I think it cheapens the experience somewhat overall regarding discovery and progression.
Regarding points of no return: There'll be a threshold below which you could completely unlearn a skill, I think, though I'd want that threshold to be quite low. If you're just taking something up to see if you can fill a role because nobody else is doing it (at the moment) and/or to get a basic feel for it, you shouldn't need to get very far into it to understand what the day-to-day is going to feel like and whether it's worth investing further into. If it's not already determined to be an integral part of your character, I wouldn't suggest going any further than 100 if you're already that far and still just not feeling it.
Swimming/diving: You need 200 skill to dive and search for items in applicable places (like just off the New Emberlight dock), and 300 to go down into significantly deep underwater rooms. These are meant as fun extra perks for those who invest into swimming, and not as a point at which the skill becomes, say, something that your character primarily does all day in order to make a living and steadily advance. They're just little things to do with the skill beyond simply being able to make harder swim checks. Swimming is an exploration skill, and not intended as a primary money- or experience-maker, or something a character spends the majority of their time doing like crafting or combat. So if swimming isn't your character's "thing" and you're taking the skill just because you're wondering what diving entails, I can save you some time: You can dive in a small handful of rooms to occasionally find some items, and can get into a small handful of underwater rooms. (I'll add this info to the wiki.)
Agreed, but part of the problem is that I don't have a lot of clarity on what exactly they'll do at all levels yet myself, so I can't communicate what I don't know, and I'm hesitant to share ideas I'm uncertain about at the risk of changing my mind and ending up misleading people. If you are lacking information you need about a skill to make decisions about it, you should A) consider not investing into the skill beyond what you know is available and want from it B) poke me to develop the skill further or put up more information about it if the skill is already further developed and just lacking documentation.For things like swimming, riding, climbing, meditation, trading, husbandry, linguistics etc. it would be great if there was a lot more clarity in general.
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One more idea for the unlearning process: Rather than a simple time-based thing, it could require channeling experience toward. So if you want to unlearn a skill, you set it to unlearning, and then experience you earn is going toward reducing that skill instead of toward your next level. This requires some sort of sacrifice for those below the level cap (you're slowing down your leveling), and also keeps experience relevant post-cap for those who have gotten there and decided to switch up their skills a bit (keeping in mind points of no return). Even for people using the easiest and most effort-free meta means of experience gain possible to do so, it still means it's requiring at least some kind of action and effort instead of just setting a skill to unlearning and then sitting around AFK or logged out while you wait out a timer.
