Stats system need to be changed

[DaveG]

I know there are posts about the balance issues associated with the pp & tria needed for the skills.  (aka: surplus of pp, and flat broke)  This post is not about that.

1)  In my opinion, the pure level based skill system is not the way to go if you want \"realism\".  While I like the idea of needing a master to train you in a new skill, at a certain point you are capable of practicing on your own.  Using the sword should increase the sword stat; defending more should increase armor stats; running more should increase endurance stats; etc.  And, vice versa as well: If you don\'t use the sword as much as you used to, your sword stat should go DOWN.  Stats should go as in real life.  Use it or lose it.

2)  Training sessions should be more involved.  I should not be able to just buy a point or two in a stat.  You should need to find a master, and actually train.  You should switch into a mode where you can use the skill under the direct the instruction of the NPC (or frankly, a master player) and have to complete some sort of simple training task.  This would also have the added benefit of being a tutorial for newbies.

3)  Stats should be interrelated.  If I am a master swordsman, I should be able to pick up dagger use faster than the average person.  Similarly, I should be able to more easily learn magic ways allied with ones I already know.  It should also be distinctly harder to learn opposing ways.

4) Unlearned stats should be hidden.  If my character has never heard about a certain ability, he/she should not have a zero listed for it; it shouldn\'t even be there at all.  Essentially, this is just a matter of turning the filter on permanently.

5)  Stats should affect the character\'s look.  If I have high strength, I should have extra muscles.  Greater magic abilities could add an afterglow after their use.  Etc.  (It\'s obviously a long way off to implement this sort of dynamic character modeling.)

6)  Progression towards stat levels should be hidden.  I don\'t need constant reports that I\'m gaining points towards something.  It should just be assumed that I will get practice in whatever skills are associated with what I\'m currently doing.


If I missed a post on any of these subjects, feel free to give me a link to it.  (I\'m new here and haven\'t exactly read the whole forum...)

[zinder]

for
1) Use it or lose it has been asked for some times already. IIRC the view was it could be a nice feature, but the speed would be hard to balance.

2) Im not sure if you know, but what you buy is the theoretical knowledge. An implementation would be like a classroom lesson, you sit and watch how it should be done. What you describe here is the part you dont buy.

3) could be done by a liitle boost in the theoretical knowledge. But i think it would be mainly for the crafting skills. Beside sword fighting has more in common with axe than with dagger fighting. If you try to use a dagger in sword style, you wont survive. Daggers let an enemy bleed to death.

4) From where does your char come, to not have heard about an skill? I mean my char has 0 in polearms. So he doesnt know what a polearm is? Or that it can be used as a weapon? And for tradeskills is it even more strange.  Your char cant make leather from skin, so he hasnt the faintest idea that leathermaking is possible?

6) Well, PS is still in pre-alpha TESTING version. That means some things may be onbly in for the benefit of testing. I think the progression messages are in to help the testing.

[zabeal]

1) I\'d love to see a system like that, but it\'s just way too complex for anyone to make. Give PS time, and they get clsoer then anyone else I bet

3) This is already somewhat done with attributes. Of course, there is still the balance issue....

5) surpisingly this is already possible- the problem is, there are not as many modelers working as one would like. We could have, say 3 differnt bisepts possible, but multiply that by 2 for each side, 2 again for each gender ,and 12 races, just that one feature would require a lot of work. Anyone up for it?

6) Indeed, there has already been a few thigns that were removed- falling used to give a system message of \"you fell and recieved damge!\".

[Seytra]

However, one cannot do completely without feedback. Dialog closure, for one thing: the player must get feedback in order to see that the desired result has been achieved. No feedback would mean uncertanity if the system actually did what it was supposed to do.
Furthermore, if you train something IRL, you do notice your own progress. Since these things cannot be made to show through the gameplay, there must be another way of indication, which is the stats screen.
I agree though that the actual levels could be hidden eventually, and the messages replaced by the trainers saying something like
\"You have made some progress in your learning, but more lies before you!\"
\"You have made good progress\"
\"I am sure you will soon harvest the fruits of your training work\"
\"Now it is time to supplement the theory with practice\"

Things like that that give an indication, even if corresponding 1:1 with the progress made (green bar), would do. A set of randomised messages, say, 10 per progress, would add more variety, but not change the system and can be added later.

[DaveG]

Oh, I agree completely that during the testing proccess we still need the active feedback.  That\'s the sort of thing that should hold off until we\'re sure the system is working flawlessly.

The \"use it or loose it\" system shouldn\'t be that hard to implement, really.  (Yes though, of course there are more pressiing issues before that...)  All you\'d really need to do would be to attach negative experience points for opposing skills to the skill you advance.  It\'d go something like this:

Get 1 point sword -> get -0.01 for bow
Get 1 point Blue way -> get -0.1 for Red
(though we should we the minimum stat to 0)

Also, the fighting stances you use could influence stats more:

Use bloody stance allot -> more strength and weapon stats -> lose a bit of armor stats
Use defensive stance allot -> more endurance and armor stats -> lose a bit of what ever weapon stat you\'re using

As of right now, I belive the stance can give you more or less points if you\'re in the procces of training.  What I\'m suggesting is for it to give your stats preference to whatever style you use.

A more advanced method would be to attach a multiplier to the advancement of each stat, and to increase or decrease it depending on the situations already mentioned.

[Kannen]

I think you guys are right because what if you can\'t find a certain trainer, then you are doomed to be not as good as you would of been if yo did find that trainer. the normal level up and stats is the way to go i think.

for example:
Level 1  -         Level 2

Str 10    -        Str 13

Def 9       -      Def 11

Agi 11       -     Agi 14

Int 10         -   Int 13

Wis 8           -  Wis 10

Dex 12          -Dex 13

[Seytra]

No, no normal level up. This is just plain silly. The level system is an outdated kludge, devised to get some means of gluing stat increase to progess ingame. Today\'s relation systems are beyond that, and there is no reason to revert to an inferior system.

It is quite common that the particular trainer for some skill isn\'t nearby. If you don\'t know who it is, then roleplay the search for him. If You are just far away, travel there, possibly roleplaying it, maybe gather a group for a safer and more interesting journey.

As for the use it or lose it thing: I don\'t see any connection between opposing stats or skills. In fact, I don\'t see anything \"opposing\" with them at all. The onnly thing that might be a problem is STR vs. AGI, because it might be detrimental to agility if you\'re packed with muscles. However, I still don\'t think it will be noticable.

So the dimishing factor, if anything, would be time, not training / use of another stat.

However, that entire thing will decourage use of skills:

- if time is the factor, people will grind and grind to not lose stats. Obviously no time to roleplay, and no time to waste on non-essential skills
- if training is the factor, people will focus on the most important skills and not bother with non-essentials. It would also punish people who want to have mixed chars, like mage-fighters. Furthermore, such a system can never foresee the possible, even if only RP\'d, special uses of a skill to augment another and hence limit creativity and options for the player.

So basically, in no case we would see the adoption of non-essential skills unless they\'re artificially made essential, and even in that case only to the barest minimum.

This is something that IMO speaks against any form of lossy system.

[Kannen]

if u are say that method in inferor tell that to the game designers and see what they have to say because that is insulting to them

[DaveG]

We must avoid the generic levels based system at all costs.  It\'s the lazy way to go.

Stats should evolve independently based on individual use.

As for the use it or lose it thing: I don\'t see any connection between opposing stats or skills. In fact, I don\'t see anything \"opposing\" with them at all. The onnly thing that might be a problem is STR vs. AGI, because it might be detrimental to agility if you\'re packed with muscles. However, I still don\'t think it will be noticable.

The magic skills are the big ones.  Some of the various other skills have some \"opposites\" too, like offensive stats vs defensive stats, but the main ones wouldn\'t need much of this.

What we want is the character advancement to be determined by the style of the player.  I agree, the time method has issues.  It forces the player to be an addict to get the highest stats.  I would say that a total dependence on time would be decremental to gameplay.  (I might consider gameplay time instead of world time, but I don\'t know.)  That\'s why I suggested the counter-balancing points thing.  You\'d be gaining small amounts of experience in every skill you\'re using, at all times.  The counterpoints would be used to neutralize the advancements other than your focus.  Additionally, with the weapon skills we don\'t want everyone to be experts in all skills.  We want to force characters to pick a role.  This is most easily done by requiring skills to be maintained, one way or another.

[DaveG]

if u are say that method in inferor tell that to the game designers and see what they have to say because that is insulting to them

This game is here for the purpose of testing it and making it better.  This is constructive criticism.  I don\'t imagine they would be insulted by such a thing.

[rosmerelmer]

all very nice, those ideas but hard to do.
what i think is useful is a more clear stats screen. for example: the red bars and the blue and green together seems confusing, just make it for ev every skill 1 bar, and you need to fill it in whole. just 2 colours. i didn\'t actually knew where the blue thing was for until i started training.

[odd2k]

1) This sounds like a good idea, and as far as I know it should be quite easy to implement. The main thing is that people should be forced to specialise, we don\'t want people with too much time at their hands becoming some sort of superman with all their skills and stats at max. That\'s ridiculous, and it\'s against all that the stat/skill system stands for.

I also have a similar idea: At character creation, you must choose how good your character is at learning the various skills. In other words, you assign a multiplier to each skill so that some skills will progress faster depending on your preferences. Only problem with this solution is that, given enough time, it\'s still possible for someone to be good at everything. Maybe it could be combined with the above?

2) The whole skill system should, given time, be made less visible, that is without all the bars and such. Making everything into plain text would be a good idea, I think. Really encourages roleplay.

3) That should at least be the case with magic, it even says so in the user guide; each way has a way that opposes it.

4) I guess it might as well be hidden, this way you don\'t really know how many skills the game has to offer. There might be some secret and hard to find skills in the game, and you wouldn\'t know until you found it. Brilliant!

5) I think allowing the character to adjust his or her own appearance would be better, just for roleplaying reasons. Sometimes the numbers clash with the actual roleplaying.

6) Well, the least that should be done is to hide the two trailing decimals for everything. Like you hit someone for 23.57 damage.. Should rather be something like you hit someone \"very hard\", \"extremely hard\" etc. I say hide all the numbers! Not while we\'re testing it of course, like already mentioned we need our feedback while testing.

edit: eek, just noticed this thread is several months old. How did that happen?

[hramrach]

Originally posted by DaveG
Oh, I agree completely that during the testing proccess we still need the active feedback.  That\'s the sort of thing that should hold off until we\'re sure the system is working flawlessly.

The \"use it or loose it\" system shouldn\'t be that hard to implement, really.  (Yes though, of course there are more pressiing issues before that...)  All you\'d really need to do would be to attach negative experience points for opposing skills to the skill you advance.  It\'d go something like this:

Get 1 point sword -> get -0.01 for bow

How exactly does using a sword get in the way of using a bow?
Sure, you could not advance as quickly as you could if you used only one because you would have to divide your training time between the skills. But that\'s about all..

Get 1 point Blue way -> get -0.1 for Red
(though we should we the minimum stat to 0)

The question wether opposite magic ways should exclude each other is quite interesting. Though you could not make combined Blue-Red spells (partially because combining ways will probably never happen at all) you could make use of spells of both ways effectively. For example, freezing a wall and then heating it a lot could break it.

It is possible that mages attuned to one path (gained some experience already) would have trouble advancing in the opposite path - harder gaining of experience, weaker spells.
This would play nicely with the forgetting part - if you change your mind, you will slowly lose attunement for the old path and advance in the new.


On the other hand, the opposite paths could be the two sides of the same coin: When you cast a snowstorm (if such massacrespells are ever allowed) you would protect yourself with the heat of fire. Either as a part of the blue spell, or separately so that you do not kill yourself with your own magic.

Also, the fighting stances you use could influence stats more:

Use bloody stance allot -> more strength and weapon stats -> lose a bit of armor stats

The same thing as with sword x bow, except you may be forgetting how to use the shield if bloody stance does not make use of it.

Use defensive stance allot -> more endurance and armor stats -> lose a bit of what ever weapon stat you\'re using

Cannot imagine how you do not use your weapon while fighting. You still have to hit your opponent from time to time, even if you try to be defensive.

Generally, these stat exclusions are quite limiting. Give me two stats, and with a bit of thinking I can almost certainly find a role that uses both.

Forgetting stats over time is much more realistic. And if you want to become master of some skill you really have to be addict to it.

For example the best fisherman of the world would be known as \"the guy that sits at the river almost all the time, chatting with the other people that are trying to fish, and amazing by his unbeatable skill\".
Other poeple that are fishing only occasionally would never get so skilled - that is only fair. If that guy stops fishing and starts doing something else, he will start to forget fishing. But he will still be a master fisherman for a long time.

As it was discussed earlier, the skills have two wo parts - theoretical and practical.
If you do not take any theoretical classes, your progress at any skill would be very slow at best. It may take a long time to rediscover the wheel.
The common practice now is that you gain experience and then you go to classes to make an advance (or so it looks from the posts I have seen, I haven\'t tried myself).
IMHO it should be the other way around. Based on the character background it has already some theoretical (and possibly practical) knowledge of skills common in particular area.
During practicing the skill it is easy at first, as the character has in-depth theoretical knowledge of the problems that arise. As it advances, the problems that arise are those only slightly touched during the theoretical teaching as laying \"farther ahead\". The progress slows down (which should give some feedback revealing that the character is becoming clueless) and it is time for more theoretical classes.
The theoretical teaching allows to progress one more bit or to progress faster if attended more often.
Of course, the best way to learn the skill would be to have a teacher with you while you are practicing.

If a character stops practicing a skill and starts \"forgetting\" it only the practical part should be forgotten. That way re-learning a skill would be easier than starting from scratch.

Another thing is that nobody can notice that the skill is forgotten when it is unused. If there is no skill level displayed, you would get something like \"Oh, I used to be able to catch a fish every few minutes, and now I am sitting here for qarter an hour to get my first today!\"

One interesting bit would be that the NPC teachers could be only average or above-average at the skill. But to gain true mastery one would have to learn on their own.

Aww, this got long..

As of right now, I belive the stance can give you more or less points if you\'re in the procces of training.  What I\'m suggesting is for it to give your stats preference to whatever style you use.

A more advanced method would be to attach a multiplier to the advancement of each stat, and to increase or decrease it depending on the situations already mentioned.

This last part is somewhat vague, I do not get it.

[DaveG]

Originally posted by hramrach

Originally posted by DaveG
Oh, I agree completely that during the testing process we still need the active feedback.  That\'s the sort of thing that should hold off until we\'re sure the system is working flawlessly.

The \"use it or loose it\" system shouldn\'t be that hard to implement, really.  (Yes though, of course there are more pressing issues before that...)  All you\'d really need to do would be to attach negative experience points for opposing skills to the skill you advance.  It\'d go something like this:

Get 1 point sword -> get -0.01 for bow

How exactly does using a sword get in the way of using a bow?

The idea was that you\'d be gaining and loosing points all the time, and this would cause a general net trend in the direction of skills you use, and a trend to forget opposing skills.  Thus, it would force specialization.

Though, this quote is a bit old now.  I\'ve since decided a better way would be to have a multiplier attached to the number of points learned in a skill/stat.  Though, it seems I didn\'t explain this that well:

Originally posted by DaveG
A more advanced method would be to attach a multiplier to the advancement of each stat, and to increase or decrease it depending on the situations already mentioned.

This multiplier would get bigger to focus on skills similar to those you are good at, and smaller for opposites.  Though, the multiplier would only go below one for opposing magic ways.  (and never zero or negative)  So, skill advancement would go like this:

Good in sword:  gained 0.5*(1.5) in dagger
The multiplier of 1.5 from sword helps you learn the skill faster.

Good in Blue way:  gained 0.5*(0.5) in Red
The multiplier of 0.5 from Blue makes you learn the opposing skill slower.

Originally posted by hramrach
And if you want to become master of some skill you really have to be addict to it.

We want to avoid this at all costs.  We want to de-emphasize power-leveling, and make skills progress naturally.

[hramrach]

Originally posted by DaveG

Originally posted by DaveG

A more advanced method would be to attach a multiplier to the advancement of each stat, and to increase or decrease it depending on the situations already mentioned.

This multiplier would get bigger to focus on skills similar to those you are good at, and smaller for opposites.  Though, the multiplier would only go below one for opposing magic ways.  (and never zero or negative)  So, skill advancement would go like this:

Good in sword:  gained 0.5*(1.5) in dagger
The multiplier of 1.5 from sword helps you learn the skill faster.

Good in Blue way:  gained 0.5*(0.5) in Red
The multiplier of 0.5 from Blue makes you learn the opposing skill slower.

I still do not get this - where does the first 0.5 come from? If this multiplier affects \"similar\" skills, does it also affect the same skill? If not, what would happen if somebody learned sword and axe and got high multiplier on both that way? Would\'nt he advance faster than somebody that learned only sword? Would the multiplier become even higher with more advances? If not, at what point you gain it? Do you need some set of multipliers for all combinations of skills at different levels or how they would be calculated?

Edit: Now that I think of it - learning several related skills and getting bonus to all of them could be good to discourage overspecialization. But it could get easily out of hand. When determining the multipliers, you would have to consider what happens when the character reaches near the highest possible level - if there is any. What happens if multiple stats are learned - that is if you multiply all the possible mulitpliers, half of them, etc.

With a \"forgetting\" mechanism, you get only one parameter - the forgetting rate.
Or if you want to do this, the parameter that says how much are the opposite magic ways repelling.
That\'s all, quite simple. Would need some tuning, but looks manageble. No need to determine correlation of each pair of skills (at the very laest) to calcualte multipliers.

Originally posted by hramrach
And if you want to become master of some skill you really have to be addict to it.

We want to avoid this at all costs.  We want to de-emphasize power-leveling, and make skills progress naturally.

But that is natural:
you fish occasionally - you get average over time.
you fish more often - you become good.
you want to be the best fisherman ever- you are fishing almost all the time - this is also a possible role.

Powerlevelling should be discouraged by
- not showing the stat level - you cannot powerboost what you do not see
- not showing the decaying either
- not making some action only allowed on certain level
 - - bad: I must be level X to do Y
  - - good: As I am unskilled it is unlikely I would accomlish Y. But with a bit of luck or a bit of trying I should be able to do it (ie for a quest - or for anything else)