PlaneShift
Gameplay => General Discussion => Topic started by: Draklar on March 21, 2005, 06:05:48 am
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Well I have few thoughts about the current Planeshift experience gaining system, whereas the general thought is \"It\'s bad\". I have no idea how other players feel about it, but in my opinion it is kind of dull and not really innovative. Sure, there is a good point in it
and I mean here that you can gain experience not only from fighting monsters, but also by mining and so on, but I think Planeshift could move a little further. Maybe I should start from stating what bothers me most:
First of all, I think the speed with which characters advance in power is too fast. It might be good in early testing phase, but I don\'t think it will bring anything good in the future. Having an overpowered character can often prove to be discouraging for roleplaying, for example: A warrior has a mission to retrieve an item from a castle filled with all sorts of traps. Whilst overpowered warrior could collect various potions and let the traps damage him, a character with lesser power should find a thief with detect traps skill and maybe a mage to back them up with various spells. What is more, if the detect traps skill affected whole group, the thief would have a possibility to leave the group while being between many traps and have certain power over the rest of adventurers. But that\'s just a side note, there\'s also second point:
Generally people can gain experience by fighting monsters all day long. As we all know, that has a strong connection with the phenomenon known as power-leveling. Simply, as long as people see that hack&slash brings lots of experience, they will do that. And that brings me to the point where I share my idea of a little more innovative (I don\'t think it was used in any other game) system.
To give a general picture, here\'s an example that should be quite familiar with the real life:
Normally when someone studies from a book, he won\'t be able to study all day long on same ratio. His mind would keep getting tired and the studying potential would decrease. So let\'s say that this person would take a bath. The results are quite obvious - he would relax and the studying potential would go up. What is more, he could also go outdoors and play football, decreased potential for studying wouldn\'t have many bad effects on playing it.
By using some mathematical calculations, something like that could be brought ingame without bigger problems. Of course, there would be many factors affecting all sorts of things. Besides potentials for studying, fighting and so on, gained experience would be also affected by how tired or hungry the character is.
With that stated, here\'s a more ingame example:
Let\'s say that a dermorian trains on the arena in order to gain more experience. With each hit he gains some experience, however in same time he gets more tired and his fighting potential decreases. After longer time, keeping in mind that the fighting potential is too low for further practice, the dermorian goes to a library to study a bit. His studying potential would be at its full, but still being tired after the fight makes it hard to study anything. The character is slowly getting less tired, his fighting potential goes up while the studying one goes down. However, because of being tired studying doesn\'t go well and the dermorian decides to get some rest at a tavern. There he talks with people (talking should give a bit of experience too, after all we also train charisma and who knows what can we learn from others) and drinks ale (liquids should increase the potentials). After getting some rest, he goes to mine a bit, where he spends his mining potential.
Relaxing would also depend on place where character spends his time. While everyone are doing quite well in a tavern, a dermorian would relax even faster in a forest, while a dwarf or a kran in a dungeon. That wouldn\'t however stop the dermorian from getting used to a dungeon. If he spends lots of time there, after a longer while, his relaxing ratio would be higher in a dungeon, not in forest.
Same goes for potentials. If character does more fighting than studying, then fighting potential decreases slower, while studying one faster.
That could create such characters as gladiators who feel great while fighting monsters on the arena, or druids who while in forests, can study for a very long time.
Also, characters who don\'t fight or study as much (explorers or bards) should have different ways of gaining experience. While everyone would gain minimal experience by talking or changing locations, bards (characters that talk a lot) should get more experience from talking, while explorers (characters that travel a lot) should get more experience from changing locations (note that the biggest variety occurs in the locations, the more experience is gained - switching between same two would give very low ammount of it).
As the last point - experience shouldn\'t be given at once. Rather stored together in a pool (player shouldn\'t be able to see how much there is) and, for example, after every ingame hour certain percent of stored experience would be gained by the character. That would make the character gain experience constantly, no matter what he\'s doing. And with bigger variety in his life, he should gain more experience. Simply, characters would develop just by living.
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Simply, characters would develop just by living.
That is the single most important part of Draklar\'s post and if you ask me how things realy need to be.
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Basically... the Sims method, yes?
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Good idea it would be nice to see this in game. :)
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Some good points and ideas. Firstly I\'d like to point out that we havn\'t done much balancing with the combat, XP, or tria-earning systems. Right now we\'re focusing on populating the world with content and features ready for the wipe which will put everything equal again. From there we can observe how players progress, where the weaknesses are, what can be tweaked. Balancing is a long process, and will take many years of constant attention. Don\'t expect everything to be perfect after the wipe. :)
Your system is pretty much entirely different to what we have encorporated at the moment, and sounds extremely complex to code. Unless all the core PS devs (Talad included) really badly want to use this, I don\'t think it will happen.
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I completely agree with Draklar, but saddly, with Moogie also. I never did like the system of gaining exp and \'spending\' it.
My opinion, you should receive exp as you aquire it. Swing a sword=get a point in sword skill, two if acompanied by a master+ a point for dex+ a point or two for strength, depending on the heft of the weapon you carry and your race.
Magic and other skills basicaly the same thing.
However, to discourage the plague we know as \"power-leveling\' I say impliment a simple concept. Real life. Believe it or not, if you spend all day training, working, or even thinking, you get tired and sore. The next day you get very sore, sometimes barely able to move it hurts so bad. Let power leveler destroy themselves.:evil:
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sorry im a noob but the wipe? is that were every one has to start agian or somethig?
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I agrees the Darklar\'s opinion to gain exp and all. But I heard that the gaining exp system will be altered, but not goiong to be easier
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I posted this on another thread before this thread came into being. I copy it here because it seems more on-topic:
I have been thinking this one over and perhaps every time a task was performed you would get the appropriate attribute or attributes raised WITHOUT training (this may already be in the cards, but if it is I am unaware of it).
What is mean is (for example) you go out killing rats for an afternoon\'s fun. Killing rats takes strength, agility and endurance, so in exercising these attributes, you would naturally grow stronger, more agile and develop more stamina. In effect you would be training and gaining experience. The characters should reflect this in some way, not as is where you kill 1k rats and get not even a point on the scale. Of course, the tougher the opponent (relative to the character) the more attribute points you would earn (I say attribute points to differentiate them from skill points as they would be used exclusively to progress atributes and not be able to be used to train in a skill other than a combat skill).
Even if a player is killed he/she should get SOME credit as in all but the breifest of encounters some experience is gained. Of course, with victory comes a bonus.
Formal training would allow a character to increase attributes even faster just as in RL, but all players would benefit from a scheme of this type (the harder you work the more you earn). New players especially would find this benificial as they wouldn\'t have to die a hundred times (exaduration I know) before being able to make a single kill.
:)
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I agree with Under the Moon on the way exp should be gained.
Although quite a while ago I introduced a what I believe is a good exp gaining CONTROL system. (maybe I didnt introduce but just saw and really liked it, but was some time ago I forgot)
For example right now you can power level all skills to max, but that\'s really un real even for fantasy setting. Who can be good at everything?
I introduced a concept where first of all gaining is grouped into categories. fighting, magic, crafting, etc.
Look at real life for instance, let\'s say you practice sword for long time and you become really good, but you quit and go onto spear. after 10 years of practicing spear you will become great at spear, but your sword won\'t be as good (although still somewhat good, but not as good as before)
The point is, if you train one technique, the other goes down.
Lets say you have 150 points to spend on all weapons where 100 is max. You can\'t have 100 max for all methods of fighting this way, you can have 100 for sword, and 50 for something else. or you can have 75 for sword and 75 for bow so you become efficient in both.
The trick is when you train one thing the other goes down, but slower. For every point you gain in new weapon, the old weapon goes down half a point (or less)
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Well, Draklar, you have my full support. I agree with everything you said. I especially like the idea that you gain experience in talking, travelling, eating, everything you do. The current system definately needs work.
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Sashok\'s idea is nice but should be refined because it obstruct the concept of expert.
For ex., a duellist who earns its living only with primed duels would have to be an expert in both sword and pistol (no gun, I know, but it is an example). He would practice both regularly and should be at top with both.
With a connected vases system, players would practice only one weapon in order to have 100 in it...
But I agree that unused skill should weaken, (cf http://www.planeshift3d.com/wbboard/thread.php?threadid=15461&boardid=11&sid=206236487da8d15d35825978810ef0ac&page=1#8
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Originally posted by Icefalcon
The current system definately needs work.
I\'d say that the system actually needs to finish being implimented. What\'s ingame now isn\'t the whole of what\'s planned.
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Originally posted by Draklar
Well I have few thoughts about the current Planeshift experience gaining system, whereas the general thought is \"It\'s bad\".
Her, as an inspiration, a well designed, price awarded, free-download skill-based ingenious rule-system:
http://www.chaosium.com/forms/coc_quick_start_color.pdf
The system is so simple you can be up and running it within 15 minutes. Anyone telling this would be difficult to implement is simply wrong. Its simpler than D&D AND it is more reealistically, AND more fun. What more can you ask for? Oh yes, and this has been designed 25 years ago...
Strip of the horror-scenario, and there you go.
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Hi,
What Draklar has expressed is, I believe, a common opinion if you are more oriented to role-playing, than power -playing.
It is a well known characteristic of thousands of MMORPGs (and their parents, MUDs, as well, even if with much many valid exceptions) to have a game less and less role-playing oriented.
Just little details would made the game oriented on that direction (output messages from code: ie: instead of having, after you do /who, People online right now, it would be nice to have a \"People visible in Yliakum\" or something), but it is also true that certain things require a bit more than few seconds of fix, and gaining experience is something that needs to be analyzed deeply.
How it is implemented now, we all know very well, it is nothing definitive. It is perfectly true that a criticism can just make a planning process improving and I think this is the case.
What Draklar is suggesting is some deep modification, (and, really, nothing it is impossible to do by code, and NO, I will not implement anything), but also a \"new way\" of approaching things.
If what he suggests is too complicated or too far from what is being planned, some good points can be taken and considered anyway. Especially if the intentions are to make a RPG and not an hack and slash.
It is also true that the status of the game is an alpha test. This means that these aspects can be temporarily ignored, but I remember perfectly that the atmosphere in MB was much different. Of course, gaining popularity means also gaining people that cannot understand what is RPG and, after years of experience in MUDs field, it is the code that must provide an interesting base for stimulating a proper RPG (if, of course, those are the intentions.).
It would be a pity, though, to see such beautiful world (with a setting that needs a lot of details, in my opinion) populated just for hacking and slashing and not some RPG. Because in that case, you could keep legoman and it wouldn\'t make so much difference ;-)
Ary
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Originally posted by Ragnar-GD
a well designed, price awarded, free-download skill-based ingenious rule-system:
http://www.chaosium.com/forms/coc_quick_start_color.pdf
The system is so simple you can be up and running it within 15 minutes. Anyone telling this would be difficult to implement is simply wrong. Its simpler than D&D AND it is more reealistically, AND more fun. What more can you ask for? Oh yes, and this has been designed 25 years ago...
In Call of Cthulhu\'s system, any skill used with success during the adventure was ticked, and at the end a skill dice roll was done. If it failed, you could increase of 1D10. Of course, the stronger you were in that skill, the more difficult it was to loss the skill roll, and so to increase. On the contrary, if you were quite unskilled, you have chances to progress. This logarithmic progression was quite realistic.
Also, anyone has at least 01% in each skill, so if he was lucky he had a little chance to discover something by himself (who taught the first teatcher ?)
But, to prevent too fast progression, there was only one tick by skill by adventure. In a continuous system like PS\'s one, how can this period be implemented ? When shall occur the skill improvement ? There\'s a risk of too fast progression.
Moreover, as for most games, there is no way to loss a skill little by little because you haven\'t used it for long...(*)
So Call of Cth possess interesting ideas, but is not a solution in itself.
(*) And what about a bicycle-effect : if you don\'t do something for long, you loss little by little corresponding skill, but also you regain it faster when you learn it again..?
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First off i don\'t find this current system so bad. It\'s better then any level based system.
The only problem might be the required order...first theory and then practice. Or maybe allowing to gain levels without theory but at a very much slower pace.
Then again this system is just fine....
I find it weird that no one mentioned the morrowind skill gaining system...which was very good if you ask me...
It increases the skill you use...the choice of skills was very good...only it missed some misc skills like cooking and mining but that makes sense since they would not be much fun in a single player enviroment.
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Originally posted by Kaseijin
First off i don\'t find this current system so bad. It\'s better then any level based system.
I find it weird that no one mentioned the morrowind skill gaining system...which was very good if you ask me...
Funny, as you mention it: Morrowind has been designed by Ken Rolston. And Ken Rolston worked on Runequest 3rd Edition. And RuneQuest 3rd Edition is the same system as Call of Cthulu (both are based upon the \"chaosium basic roleplaying rules\", which are the rules of RuneQuest, Call of Cthulu, Elfquest, Pendragon, The prince Vaillant game, Stormbringer, and Ringworld, to just mention a few p&p-games...
Straight: Morrowind is a modified (more actual and computer-enabled) version of the \"chaosium basic roleplaying rules\" - the reasons for the modification also are a matter of \"intellectual property\"...
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Originally posted by Merak
But, to prevent too fast progression, there was only one tick by skill by adventure. In a continuous system like PS\'s one, how can this period be implemented ? When shall occur the skill improvement ? There\'s a risk of too fast progression.
This skill-system will not be implemented in PS, as it needs a pure skill-based system, whereas PS is a XP/class-based system.
Moreover, as for most games, there is no way to loss a skill little by little because you haven\'t used it for long... And what about a bicycle-effect : if you don\'t do something for long, you loss little by little corresponding skill, but also you regain it faster when you learn it again..? So CoC possess interesting ideas, but is not a solution in itself.
But it would be a start. With a server-based system, adding the \"skill-degradation\" would be a breeze. But this would also require ageing characters, which would mean perma-death. etc.
But PS is very D&Dish, compared to CoC or RQ, so I wouldn\'t even ask for such elaborate ideas, before the foundation of the game is more realistic (that is: No XP/classes/alignments, and all that fancy stuff from the Gary Gygax school of never-ending hitpoints).
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well have any of you played Arcanum by troika studios. that was a skill system i liked.
Basically when you leveled up you were given one skill point and you could spend said skill point on any skill in one of many classes which included magery, social skills and and technological item crafting. but here is my point (and this kinda fits in with some of the posts above mine) is that you could gain exp and advance your skills on your own but if you went to a trainer you would get your skills enhanced in certain ways. lets say your char was an archer and he trained himself instead of going to a teacher in the game he would still be a high lvl archer if the person playing put his or her mind to it but said archer would still be weaker then a person who decided after training their archer for a little bit to send them to a trainer who would then train them maybe giving them a bonus to speed and accuracy,or lets say alchemy that would be a bonus to rate of success or something
boy this is getting long ... but in any case all im saying is that maybe you could make the trainers essential not by making them the only way to upgrade your skills but by making you more effective more powerful if you will. And somewhere to store your loot would be nice as well
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I don\'t like it.
i) It\'s messy.
ii) It doesn\'t sound very fun.
A better way to do it:
Limit how much levelling a character can do per RL day.
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/me kicks Zanzibar
Why? It is simple and isn\'t messy =P
A bit more serious:
i)world is messy.
ii)world is fun when you look at it from right side.
But i don\'t know why am I writing when you play a game rather than do somethink else.
Draklar got a nice explanation for not being able to train all day long, thus rp encouraging. Of course i can\'t agree will all of it, but general concept is good. If it was up to me i would make it a bit more restrictive and gave a bit more more clues about training to avoid being completly stuck thinking all is going right.
Too bad such system needs so a lot programming work...
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hmmm, my approach would be yeah, well simple.
For each action you do over a certain per hour limit, your correspodenting attribut goes down. Thus if you cast your 35th crytal/dark spell (I nearly said white/black) your charisma temporary goes down for one point, then if you perform well let\'s say 5 more spells of that kind in the following hour your charisma decreases by two additional points and so on ... and with about every half an hour after your last action from that attribute you get back one point in that attribute.
So if you overdo it you will slowly but surely start to loose any efficency useing that skill...
*disclaimer* the figures (hours, 1 point) I used are not something I have spent hours of my live, for figuring out. They are not balanced out or something..
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At the very least I\'d think it would be easy to implement something like Draklar suggested. his idea about say, taking a bath making training better is good. We\'d need another status bar, something like happiness or the reverse - Tension.
The idea would be that the greater your happiness, or the less tension you have the easier it is to level. The only way to reduce tension or increase happiness, would be to engage in RP activites, like going to the tavern for a drink, taking a bath, or nap, or watching a play. It should be enough of an effect so that it makes it worth while to engage in RP events, also perhaps allow GM\'s to say releive tension for doing RP related things that aren\'t necessarily hard coded in.
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No, it is messy. Think about all the different factors and levels and activities involved. It would be MUCH more convenient to simply limmit how much levelling a person can do in a day. It\'s also more freeing, and it allows people to RP however they please.
The alternative would be people typing 1337 in the tavern until they can pop out to camp gladiators again.
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I like Draklars idea somewhat. dividing the potentials into physical and mental was a good idea, maybe even add an arcane potential, but anyway i think the potential should just act as a bonus to normal experience gaining so that with full physical potential you might gain say 150% normal experience, wheras with no physical potential you gain 100% normal experience. I dont think it would be a good idea to make it so that as physical potential approaches 0, experience gained approaches 0%.
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Originally posted by Ikarsik
I like Draklars idea somewhat. dividing the potentials into physical and mental was a good idea, maybe even add an arcane potential, but anyway i think the potential should just act as a bonus to normal experience gaining so that with full physical potential you might gain say 150% normal experience, wheras with no physical potential you gain 100% normal experience. I dont think it would be a good idea to make it so that as physical potential approaches 0, experience gained approaches 0%.
Well, this way you could train non-stop for eternity without losing anything. It wouldn\'t solve anything.
And zanzibar, keep your idea in respective thread, where it is already discussed.
Plus it isn\'t that hard to warn/kick/ban people who are trolling in tavern.
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while all these ideas have merit...
the key to roleplaying is character diversity...
plus you dont want to totally wreck the game for people who just want to do some occasional hack slash with their friends..
an easy and logical (based on real life situation) way to achieve diversity is to increase the cost of training additional skills (while Carl lewis was a briliand sprinter, i dont think he was also a grea ping pong player, or a chess grand master).
Example (keep in mind this is just to explain the model not to give actual numbers)
u decide to be a swordsman.. so you learn sword..
this costs you a basic no of points to progress...
next skill you choose is blacksmith .. becouse you want to repair your own weapons..
this skill cost you say 50% more to learn..
Then u choose mmmm.... a body development skill..
this now costs you 2 times as much to train as your sword skill.. (becouse u chose to be a SWORdsman, not a body builder... so dont expect to be as developed as a guy whose primary skill is body dev.)
this type of system would creaty a diverse world of PC\'s
and hence encourage roleplaying...
a good party needs their mage specialist , thiev, healer etc..
or a blacksmith , herbalist...
and since each character wont be a combination of
Hercules, Mushashi Myamoto, Einstein, and a brain surgeon. a lot more team work will be involved.