Re: Skills!

[Bjørn Georg Ludvigsen <bjornlu>]

>  Several things:
>  1)  You get your 'points' by killing monsters, presumably, this
>is how you advance in levels.  I disagree that killing monsters
>should enable you to become a better lock-picker.  

Proposal: We add the race system. We add the skills and stuff of my
system, and the 4 xp pools of yours. As one aquires xp in the
different pools, skill points for that pool are also aquired.  Then,
the skills are divided into 4 categories, fighting skills, thieving
skills, magical skills and clerical skills.  One may buy skill levels
on skills in a category with the skill points aquired using other
skills in the same category. This would mean that you after picking a
lock (and aquiring the nessecary xp/skill points) would be able to
practice your stealth, but any further splitting of the xp aquired
would keep us busy into the 21st century. I think this is a good
compromise, and I do agree with you that one shouldn't be able to
practice lockpicking after having killed monsters with spells.

>  2)  I do not like the idea of 'guilds' to which you must go
>for advancement.  This REQUIRES a certain map set, and removes
>much discretion of the server maintainers.  I dislike the idea
>of enforcing any required objects in the maps for playing the game,
>because if someone wants to chuck all existing maps and start over,
>he MUST put in guilds.  All of them.

I agree to some sense, BUT: is this really a possibility we should
consider? And, if somebody wants to make the world anew and be his own
god, isn't it only reasonable that if she/he doesn't give his
inhabitants schools/universities/bars/guilds to practice skills in,
they will not receive skills? Sounds good to me.

But, to prevent this, I propose adding a new type of books to the
game, books which give you the nessecary theory to practice the skill
on your own. You must agree, one simply cannot learn Monster Lore
without some theory to back it up. "book of Monster Lore".

For some skills, like weapon skills, all you need is the weapon.
Likewise for shield and armor. For spells, perhaps one could learn the
spell up to skill level 10 or something without other guidance than
the spellbook, but then you need the book of Advanced Fireball Theory
to improve further.

As for learning a skill, how about clicking RMB thrice with the needed
item on top of your inventory?

>>Here, you can learn skills like "General Weapon use", "Broadsword" and
>>"Small Shield".  If your "Broadsword" skill is 3, and you'd like to
>>improve it, you pay a certain amount of skill points. It's easier to
>>learn skills at low levels than at high.
>  Why would anyone want to specialize in Broadsword instead of 
>General?  Then he'll be handicapped when he finds the Long Sword of
>Holy Avenging, which he would DEFINITELY want to use, or some weapon
>like the Axe of Biff, or the CSUA Bat.

Because General Weapon Use would be much more expensive. A skill level
in Broadsword would (initially) cost 2 points, whereas General Weapon
use would cost 8 points.

It costs more to improve the skills as the skill level becomes higher.
The first level costs the standard cost. In this example I use a skill
with base cost 2. Like Broadsword. Formula:

cost(lvl) = base_cost*lvl

The table for broadsword/general looks like this:

lvl  broadsword  general
------------------------
  1 :     2 :     8
  2 :     4 :    16
  3 :     6 :    24
  4 :     8 :    32
  5 :    10 :    40
  6 :    12 :    48
  7 :    14 :    56
  8 :    16 :    64
  9 :    18 :    72
 10 :    20 :    80
 11 :    22 :    88
 12 :    24 :    96
 13 :    26 :   104
 14 :    28 :   112
 15 :    30 :   120
 16 :    32 :   128
 17 :    34 :   136
 18 :    36 :   144
 19 :    38 :   152
 20 :    40 :   160

Sums:   420    1680

This is - A LOT. Let's say the skill points you get in each category
is equal to the standard skill point amount in that category times
your "level" in that field (for instance fighting). If the standard
skill point amount is 2 (which the costs for broadsword/general are
adjusted to), you will not be doing an awful lot of training at first.
The table looks like this:

(The 'lvl' is the characters level, 'this' is how many points you
receive this level, and total is the total number of points received.)

lvl    this   total
-------------------
  1 :     2 :     2
  2 :     4 :     6
  3 :     6 :    12
  4 :     8 :    20
  5 :    10 :    30
  6 :    12 :    42
  7 :    14 :    56
  8 :    16 :    72
  9 :    18 :    90
 10 :    20 :   110
 11 :    22 :   132
 12 :    24 :   156
 13 :    26 :   182
 14 :    28 :   210
 15 :    30 :   240
 16 :    32 :   272
 17 :    34 :   306
 18 :    36 :   342
 19 :    38 :   380
 20 :    40 :   420
 21 :    42 :   462
 22 :    44 :   506
 23 :    46 :   552
 24 :    48 :   600
 25 :    50 :   650
 26 :    52 :   702
 27 :    54 :   756
 28 :    56 :   812
 29 :    58 :   870
 30 :    60 :   930
 31 :    62 :   992
 32 :    64 :  1056
 33 :    66 :  1122
 34 :    68 :  1190
 35 :    70 :  1260
 36 :    72 :  1332
 37 :    74 :  1406
 38 :    76 :  1482
 39 :    78 :  1560
 40 :    80 :  1640
 41 :    82 :  1722
 42 :    84 :  1806
 43 :    86 :  1892
 44 :    88 :  1980
 45 :    90 :  2070
 46 :    92 :  2162
 47 :    94 :  2256
 48 :    96 :  2352
 49 :    98 :  2450
 50 :   100 :  2550
 51 :   102 :  2652
 52 :   104 :  2756
 53 :   106 :  2862
 54 :   108 :  2970
 55 :   110 :  3080
 56 :   112 :  3192
 57 :   114 :  3306
 58 :   116 :  3422
 59 :   118 :  3540
 60 :   120 :  3660
 61 :   122 :  3782
 62 :   124 :  3906
 63 :   126 :  4032
 64 :   128 :  4160
 65 :   130 :  4290
 66 :   132 :  4422
 67 :   134 :  4556
 68 :   136 :  4692
 69 :   138 :  4830
 70 :   140 :  4970
 71 :   142 :  5112
 72 :   144 :  5256
 73 :   146 :  5402
 74 :   148 :  5550
 75 :   150 :  5700
 76 :   152 :  5852
 77 :   154 :  6006
 78 :   156 :  6162
 79 :   158 :  6320
 80 :   160 :  6480
 81 :   162 :  6642
 82 :   164 :  6806
 83 :   166 :  6972
 84 :   168 :  7140
 85 :   170 :  7310
 86 :   172 :  7482
 87 :   174 :  7656
 88 :   176 :  7832
 89 :   178 :  8010

Give or take some, but I think it looks pretty all right. It depends
on the number of skills one may aquire in that field, but for fighting
I guess this is ok. I'll need to test it out, though.

For a fighter using this table, he'll have a skill level of 20 in
General Weapon use at a character level of 41. That is, if he
concentrates on that skill only. I might add that the 42 excess points
for that level will enable him to buy 5 levels of Broadsword. So, at
higher levels, it's pretty easy to aquire very good skills, if you
specialize in only one weapon.

I might also add that at lvl 12, a character may have a Broadsword
skill of 20, which is the highest possible. The character is a very
good fighter, WITH THAT WEAPON. He cannot use any other weapon.

If a character finds an Artifact of any kind, he simply places it on
top of his inventory, and types 'train', 'practice' or anything
similar. Then, the skill is added to his skill list in his skill box
(which replaces the hp/sp/food bars under the action window), in the
following format: 

"<skill> <cost_for_next_lvl> <right_justified skill_level>"

Which would look something like this:

.---------------------------------.---.
| Broadsword (16)		7 |XXX|
| General Weapon use (40)	4 |XXX| <-- Scroll bar
|				  |XXX|
|				  |XXX|
|				  |   |
|				  |   |
`---------------------------------'---'

>>at a high skill level (10-20) reduced sp cost (all the way down to
>>none) and increased efficiency.
>  This is an extremely bad idea.  Omega had a system in which:
>players gained mana each level, relearning spells reduced their expense.
>Powerful spells quickly become costless, and soon i had a character
>capable of killing ANYTHING by frowning at it.  Playing crossfire
>would reduce to learning a broadly-applicable spell, and getting
>so good at it (zero cost, high effectiveness) that you could kill
>anything.

Ok, so maybe not all the way down to zero/none, BUT: as the
information needed to learn a spell to this level (20) is only
available in the Long Lost Tome of Abysmal Icemagic (soon to be found
in your local branch of Gandalf's... NOT!), it should be pretty good.

>>want to, you can be a Jack-of-all-Trades, but those who devote their
>>life and time to Karate will definetly whack your butt. (KAI! *whap*)
>  Do I scent an installation of a system which would make it impossible
>for characters to succeed alone?  

No, but a system where a Jack-of-all-Trades WILL be whacked by someone
who have devoted their life/skill points to Karate.

>  The race idea is a good one, readily implementable with stat bonuses.

Agreed. And, it wouldn't be all that much of a change either. We
already have elves, fireborns and quetzalcoatls, it's really only a
matter of changing the names of what we now call "classes".

>  Bjorn, you and I are aiming in sort of the same direction, but
>we have these fundamental disagreements:
>
>  1)  I think that advancement in a skill area should come from
> in-the-field practice of that skill.  You think that it should come
> from in-the-field gain of any type of experience, then paying for
> training.  I happen to think it'll be more fun to be rewarded
> directly for practicing skills than to acquire experience-currency
> in whatever manner, and then spending it on skills.

I agree (now).

> 2)  You would like to hard-wire guilds into the game.  I think that
> maps should be extremeley flexible, and that there should be very
> few things required in the maps for the server to work properly.

You don't really need'em, but some books on theory of skills is
needed. (like spellbooks exist now, let's add skillbooks)

> 3)  Your proposal is a lot more complicated than my 4-skill proposal.
> A multitude of new skills would have to be added.  My proposal is
> a good deal of work, but clerics are in the game, mages are in the
> game, and fighting is in the game.  Thieves are NOT in the game.

You'd have to add quite a few new skills, yes. But not really all that
many "unknown", when you think about it. Weapon skills are easy to
add, magic-spells too. And then maybe some non-magical healing in the
clerical group in addition to clerical spells, and
lockpicking/stealth/pickpocketing etc in the thievery group.

I don't know... It's pretty much only another way of seeing things,
you'd like thieving-abilities to come automatically and everybody to
be able to use any weapon, I'd like people to be able to choose what
to learn. That's the main differences. And, not to be forgotten, you'd
like mages/clerics to be able to learn as many spells as they want.
I'd like there to be a possibility to learn a spell very good and
perhaps not to be equally good at another spell.

In general, not making everybody know the same things equally good
gives each character more personality.

>I suggest that you and I are going in the same direction, however.
>My 4-skill proposal is sort of a stripped-down version of your proposal.
>mage-cleric-fighting-thief are like general skills in  your description.

>Perhaps it might be easier to go to your system FROM mine, rather than
>trying to put yours in to start.

That might very well be the case, indeed. But what I don't know is if
the audience would be pleased with implementing your system and stopping
there, or if they'd like my system on top of yours.

Would you like to stop after implementing your system, or would you
agree to my compromise mentioned on top of the message?

>I also would like to note that it would be bad if you installed your
>system, and made a bunch of skills such as lock-picking, only to
>find that there are NO LOCKS in the game to pick!

One could of course pick any lock, including the ones on the doors
which you now have to bash down if you don't have a key. I'd say there
are a lot of locks out there, just waiting to be picked.

>I think that in the immediate future, our paths are together:
>before making radical changes to the basic philosophy of the game,
>we should build the prerequisites.  Let's put in the locks to pick
>the traps to disarm, the chests to loot, before we install any
>system of skills.  

I agree on the traps. As for doors, what kind of doors would you like
to add so that we may pick the locks on them? And the chests, did you
have trapped chests in mind?




>Let us first put the things in the game to which the skills shall be
>applied, because:
>  1)  it won't leave crossfire broken if we proceed in small steps
>      to our goal but one of us finds our will to continue the
>      project gone

That's a good point. But, how about adding your xp pools and my skill
system, and THEN adding the SKILLS at the same time they come into
effect? Having traps without being able to disarm them isn't very
cool, and I think it would be a rather big addition to add your entire
system as well as traps in one batch. But adding both our systems
together, save the thievery-skills of Disarm/Spot Traps, and then
adding them when traps come into effect...

>  2)  everyone seems to agree that adding Thiefly Things is Good,

The reason thieves had no purpose before, was that characters had no
skills. Thieves are skill-based characters, as opposed to all other
classes (in crossfire). 

>  3)  it serves your skill proposal, my skill proposal, AND those
>      who think the current system is just fine.

Those who think it's fine as it is will like it for a while more, but
then what? I say we change it as soon as possible - if the public
agrees.

Well everybody, do ya?

- Bjorn