Perhaps replace the big blue aura with a simple arrow that shows up after their name (which can be turend on or off in the option menus). Like if a player is stronger than you, then you see a red colored arrow pointint upwards, and a weaker player has a blue arrow pointing down.

It would be a bit more discrete than a big shiney aura, and if a person with a big shiney aura started casting spells... would they just start to look too shiny?

I personally like this system (at least the way I understand it) and I think it provides a decent bit of uniqueness to characters.


From what I see, this system is designed so that not all people will develop at the same rate in the same ways. Primarily, so that we won't see people becomeing 'Masters of Everything'

Basically, there would be several types of people:

The Average Man: This character has exactly average aptitude in all stats (essentially, the default character when you start character creation). Theoretically, they can take on any endevor, be it fighting, crafting, baking or whatever and should not fail at the basic tasks. They lack that extra push to truly excel at any task but should have no problem doing a decent job at anything if they put their mind to it. They are neither the village idiot or Einstien.

Good at Some, Bad at Some: The average character, but has great potential in some areas and less potential in others. He may be great at casting magic spells, but can't stand the thought of working hours under the hot sun to farm or mine ore. He could mine ore, but either wouldn't be very good at it or would suffer some loss of confidence or whatever if forced to. This results if a player decides to specialize a little.

Master of One, Awful at others: This character put all their aptitude into one or two skills, they can learn and cast spells at an amazing speed but is basically useless in practically all other areas. Expect him to slice bread and he'll fail miserably... he might have tried examining the bread on the atomic level with his incredible intellect... or perhaps tried conjouring up a pile of pre-sliced bread out of thin air with disasterous consequences. Basically, if he needs bread sliced, he'll find a professional bread-slicer. Again, this is made by a player with a good idea on what they want to become.

Village Idiot: This is what happens when a player decided to deduct all the aptitude stats from their character and not reassign them elsewhere. From what I gather, than in this case the unassigned affinity would still exist but would require that the player do something to unlock that hidden talent. This would be like a village idiot who fails miserably at everything could go to a hospital or school to help unlock that talent thereby 'curing' them and letting them live a normal and sucessful life as their aptitude is unlocked over time. Unless the player wants to RP as a handicapped person in which case they only have to unlock that potential as they see fit.



So, from what I understand. Each character will have the exact same number of total 'affinity points' which would be exactly half of the amount of points needed to max out all the skills. If exactly evenly distributed, they can be average in all areas, but most players will want to specialize in some areas while full knowing that doing so will require a trade-off in some other area. They can also choose to keep some in reserve and save them till a later date when they know what they want to 'spend' them on. But doing so leaves them 'a few cards shy of a full deck' until they finally do decide to spend them.

/**********************/

As for the basic stats you mentioned:

Aptitude- a modifier between 1 and 100 that determines the max 'level' that a player can attain in a skill and how fast they gain competence in same skill. With any given aptitude score then the max level they can attain is ( Max_Possible/100 * Apptitude ) so a player with 50 can only become average at maximum, 100 they can be the best swordsman possible, and at 1 they can barely use it at all.

Competence- It sounds to me that there will be 'levels' of skill and that competence will something like the growing XP needed to grow from one level to the next. Competence is the act of learning the skill through both sucess and failure.

Confidence- Sounds like a sort of temporary modifier/multiplier for aptitude. One that changes from sucess and failure and along with aptitude determines the competence gained for an action.

Level- basically the same as levels are now. once competence fill up to 100% then the player needs to go to a trainer, read a book, or something else in order to take their knowlege 'to the next level' and advance.

/*****************************************/

All in all, it sounds like a good system. If I misunderstood any important points please let me know.

One possible 'problem' could exist if people are able to draw aptitude points from skills that are not implemented yet... essentially, a player decides to excell in sword fighting with aptitude of 100, and take a severe hit to his 'cooking' skill and only have 1... however cooking hasn't been implemented yet so its no loss to him.

The result would be that right now people could choose to become Masters of Everything with current skills, which could unbalance the game a little.... but when new content comes along they find that thay completly lack the aptitude to use those skills.


Master Swordsman(trying to make a sandwhich): Spread peanut butter onto a slice of bread with a knife...

*thinks for a bit and then starts slashing away at the food with a sword, cutting it up into a ruined mess*

Master Swordsman: ... okay, I am officially over my head with this newfangled 'cooking' thing. Where do I find somebody who knows how to make food?


A solution might be to make non-implemented skills inaccesible to grab aptitude points from. Then when they are implemented people either get an 'average' score for that ot the points are put into their 'hidden' pool and older characters have to unlock those points before they can properly make use of new skills.

/*****************************/

Anyway, this sounds to me like a pretty good idea for a system and it would allow for a great deal of diversity in characters.

Yeah, that would provide a pretty nice level to interaction... of course it would be pretty tough to pull off on those of us who simply never eat.

(usually the only times I eat bread or apples are when I realise that I can't sell them conveniently. I don't think apples sell for anything and bread is worth less per weight than other loot. I just eat them because there isn't a proper garbage can in the city)

Funny that I just started playing Nethack again recently, having to constantly track down food to stave off starvation does add a bit of urgency not found in many games.

Well thought out Shadow Nose. I would add to this that you do not get a % of the EXP that the actual attacker is earning, but rather a % of EXP times level of learning that that character already has. Such as, you will get more EXP from watching a master swords-man or smith at their craft, rather then someone like a journeyman. Also, I would say a master would earn no EXP from watching an apprentice.

I had actually had ideas based on this before, but in conjunction with a teaching skill. The teaching skill would activly 'show' anyone watching you, or linked in a teaching group with you, what skills you are using, and therefor improve thiers.

(sorry if that did not make much sense. very tired right now.)

*edit*

To get rid of the want to killsteal, you have to get rid of the need to killsteal.

Yeah that makes sense, a dedicated master to a certain skill would be better able to train people... how... to...

*stops for a moment and thinks*

*looks at Harnquist who trains all those crafting skills*

*looks at all the other NPC trainers who take XP and money to advance skills*

*remembers that once bought, people need to get practice points to level up skills*

*imagines going to dedicated player teachers to get XP to train at NPC trainers*

*remembers that this game is still in beta*

*remembers that the origional post was about killstealing instead of the level system*

You know... this might be better off if it didn't involve experience points within the context of this game. More like if it were to add to the training system (like use up XP to gain in theoretical knowlege on a skill or something... though that adds a differnt question all together).

Using it to gain XP in this game where there is no attainable level cap or even rudimentary limits on how far you can powerlevel would just make it more unplayable than it already is. In fact it would probably encourage people to NOT play it. So in essence I realise my idea was short sited, and will not fit in the context of this game... perhaps in another game but not this one.

As for the killstealing, I think my idea on only rewardin XP for actions taken instead of monsters killed would be a better solution than the /watch thing.

Another problem is, that the whole concept of actual experience is really getting weird in games like this. Its almost treating experience like a resource that you can only get by killing animals. If instead experience was rewarded for each action in battle (such as each strike of the sword) then kill stealing would not really effect people as much. If you bring a monster down to 3% and somebody swoops in and kills it, you should have already gotten all the experience from that previous 97%. He might get the XP from that 3%... but who cares? You already got your XP and they can't steal that from you.

There is already the code that lets people gain practice points for each combat action (like attacking with swords or axes or melee combat) a little change in the code should be able to let people get their experience points from actions instead of just from killing monsters.
 

might be more of a solution... just limit the amount of damage getting a kill stolen will do. Other than that, I don't think there can be much done for it.

I am sorry Nose but I think your logic has one big flaw.

You say you shouldn't have to need to fight to get experience, but you are proposing that we do get experience from watching FIGHTING. Now is it me or is this seriously OOC if you then use that exp to train skills nothing to do with fighting?

Not saying there shouldn't be other ways to get experience but that reasoning is as OOC as it gets and in my eyes would only worsen the problem and not fix it to be more IC about how you get experience.

Also getting something for nothing ruins the game a lot faster in my opinion then the "paranoia" I apparently seem to have. If you get something for nothing you don't value it anymore. Aquiring something is no longer a challenge and so people would lose interest.

Ofcourse if you are not interested in the system in the first place that isn't a problem to you, but perhaps then you are simply playing the wrong game. Do keep in mind that the system in place right now is obviously still not finished and other ways of gaining experience are scarce but it has already been said more are planned. Don't forget it's a beta at best.

Yeah, I see that now. Actually, I haven't been playing this game as much as I have before, been playing Goonzu Online lately and it has some good solutions to problems.
For killstealing there just are lots and lots of enemies.

@Shadow Nose:  Very interesting concept about learning by watching 'a master at work'.  In a way, it makes a lot of sense that our characters could learn by observing others apply the skills that they have learned.  But, the biggest problem would be how to avoid an exploit by differentiating between 'studious observation' and 'being in the general area while AFK for an hour and gaining experience for basically doing nothing at all'.   

Well, one sort of idea that comes to mind... have a /watch command that you use to target one specific player character. Then as long as that player is targeted in your little target window (so that the red pattern marker is showing them) then you will get a little stream of XP coming in as you watch that person. If your target is killed or runs away to that you no longer target them then you no longer get that XP.

In theory, if you did something like stand in the arena stands, target one player that is repeatedly fighting one monster, then leave to go get lunch... you MAY be able to get away with constantly getting XP from them. But if that player runs off to go train a skill, stops to let someone else train at the monster, or if he gets killed then you lose sight of him and no longer get any XP from watching him.

I imagine that the idea situation using a /watch command in this manner is to have several people in the stands in the arena watching combatants fighting monsters. The spectators would be getting experience and while still targeting their respective fighters they could be chatting among eachother... roleplaying. If combat gets a bit more exciting and there is a bit more variety among the monsters released it could get pretty interesting. Get experience for PvP battles and then people may have to chose which combatant to 'root' for to get XP... though I may be getting ahead of myself there. I doubt PvP would become a fun arena sport if people have to trudge their way through the DR after every defeat.


Also, a healer could /watch the fighter he is paired with and since he has him targeted he can cast healing or buffing spells on his companion and would still get some XP by watching him in combat (I also agree that a healer should be able to get a little XP for each time they cast a spell to heal someone... heck I would say that even crafters should get a little XP when they make swords or melt iron or whatnot... but that's just me). Though if he ever takes his eyes off the fighter to combat a monster or pick up an item or whatnot, he may have to /watch his friend again to resume getting XP.


I suppose it might help the fighter know what is going on if whenever he gets /watch ed by a player he gets a message saying '<playername> is watching you' or something. Could help let them know is someone is gaining from their combat it that is something that worries them. Or if they think its a complement or if they are just wanting to help a newbie out by getting them a few XP to start out with.


Anyway, a /watch command that lets you get XP from examining a single target in combat would be most effective when you know that the target is going to stay near you and keep fighting. Some people may use this to powerlevel while AFK but it could only really work if the target is alright with that. Someone that doesn't like being watched could just walk away until they get out of sight to sever the 'connection' and then resume fighting or could just go to train their skills elsewhere.

It could also help roleplaying because people might tend to go to certain spots to watch the fighters and then would chat among themselves. They could roleplay while still getting some XP.

It has always puzzled me why EXP is only awarded on killing something. I agree with Mr. Nose on this completely.

Thank you very much. Personally, the leveling systems I liked the best are in Final Fantasy Tactics where each action you made gave you some experience and in The Sims where you can study or train in an area as long as your overall happiness level is good enough. In the Sims you really have to balance out a lot of factors to get the happiness you need to train in the tougher subjects for very long, I think thats why I like that better than the regular kill-stuff method.

Of course, those are different games but still the principle remains. I think that the idea of awarding XP primarily through monster combat is a rather nasty cliche that is perpetuated too much in other MMORPGs... mainly as a timesink to keep people playing to collect subscription money.

Anyway, hope those help.

Random though:

Personally, I liked the magic system in NetHack. Wizards could do so many cool things because they could read spellbooks to get new powers. But then they need to have enough knowlege in that particular area to even learn the spell in the first place. It has a sort of simplicity in it that I like. (plus the fact that those spellbooks were so hard to find, buy, or iidentify...

Anyway, having spellbooks that teach specific spells sounds really good for me.



One other random thought: Thief vs. Wizard

Theif: I have a skill that lets me steal items from another persons inventory.

Wizard: Oh yeah! I can summon bolts of energy to strike down my enemies... as long as I hold these little glyph things.

Thief: *steals the wizards glyphs* Yoink!

Wizard: ...


Moral of the story: Skills are better than items, because nobody can steal your skills.

I think the basic problem is that each 'character' is essentially two characters. The role-paying character with the feelings and story and the game character witht the actual in-game stats and skills (I think Under the Moon pointed this out).

And those two can have probelms actually conforming with eachother. For example, the only way in-game for a person to get XP to train anything is to either kill monsters or to mine for ore. This pretty much prevents anybody who wants to either never kill animals (like a pacifist character) or someone who never wants to mine ore (like the wizend old wizard who studies books on ancient magic) from ever really being able to advance their skills without going out-of-character.


So, essentially the present sytem of leveling up skills is defective. If people want to do get access to better skills and ability they need to either kill monster for XP (which is boring) or mine up ore (which is even more boring and really stupid for that purpose since you get really low XP and in order to make use of the ore you have to take huge long walks on foot in and out of town).

If you want to encourage role-playing, find a way to actually reward role-playing in-game. I think pestilence's idea on eliminating leveling all together and replacing it with GM bonuse may have some actual appeal to it. Or have some way for people to award others with experience, possibly through character created quests or something.