New Skill system idea

[Neryam]

Okay our skill system is quite unique. But unique doesn\'t equal good, it can but not always.

I agree with all the people in Gentar\'s thread, do away with PP.

Now, I say instead of \"levels\" and the progress bars right now, we could have two big bars (One for theoretical and one for practical) for every stat only using experience. They would list the total amout of experience you have. This is more realistic also, in real life you don\'t train and train and SUDDENLY! \"gain a level\" and get better.
In normal layman\'s terms, technically I guess 150 levels now would equal 15000 levels in the new system. But actually I\'m going for only experience and no \"levels\". You would never become suddenly stronger or better, just slowly and slowly each day until you find that you are doing 10 more damage or are creating more \"polished\", \"perfect\", \"fine\", and \"sharp\" weapons!

Eliminating numbers would aribitate your  true strength and would be more realistic (You don\'t say \"I have 22 sword level and I do 121 damage\" in real life!) and would also serve to make people care less about \"levels\", therefore lessening PLing. To better gauge your strength you could go to trainers or some other npc and get awards such as \"Blademaster\" or \"Master artistain\" or \"Smith of Yliakum\".

And then, the char stats (Strength, agility) would not be able to be trained and instead would inch up while you do all sorts of things. Hitting in combat, making things with smithing, and mining would all inch up your strength and some agility, other things would increase agility more. Using new spells and reading books would inch up mental stats.
Of course, these would use ONE big bar, using the method explained above but using only one big bar because there would be no theoretical or practical knowlege with these.

Now about theoretical knowlege, just using the skill would raise the theoretical bar very slowly. By training with a trainer, you could select how much of the bar you want to raise and pay tria, without PPs, and get theoretical knowlege.
Theoretical knowlege would determine how advanced the weapons you can make with smithing are, how advanced your moves are in swordfighting, etc. More theoretical levels in sword would give you more damage, but not by theoretical levels alone. It would amplify damage done with the practical exp. In magic it would determine how advanced the spells you can cast are.
Theoretical and Practical knowlege shouldn\'t be interdependent, you can raise the one as much as you want without raising the other. You do that in real life. And of course the Theoretical would go up a tiny bit along with the Practical as I mentioned earlier.
You could know every trick in sword but you haven\'t used any of them so you don\'t know the best situations, and you could also be very good at sword but don\'t know any forms or different attacks. Practicing a long time, you would very slowly learn some new tricks and stuff, but of course very very slow. And as snowwolf said, perhaps Theoretical could go up even when not fighting in once-in-a-while random bursts - you could suddenly think of \"HEY! I COULD SPIN CLOCKWISE THEN STAB RIGHT! Then the enemy would be cauht off guard..\" while chatting in the plaza and reflecting of the last Tefu killing..

What does everyone think? I love this idea. Very unique and very realistic and VERY coool! Never done before, and I think it would work marvelously.

[Gravalden]

thats all i have to say about that

[darkw00t]

very good idea, there could also be a training system which helps you do things like different sword swings or grips (just examples) but you are right that you don\'t grow a lvl, if you smithed and smithed and smithed, you could get tired everyday, but you would also gain that bit more stamina everyday just by doing that

If you smithed alot you could learn different methods of using certain items or different methods of heating and etc. so you will naturally become a better smither while if you read about it you could learn how to smith certain things, in real life ( i have seen alot of games do this eg. Runescape) if you smith and smith you wouldn\'t just go \"oh wow now i can make real good armor because i gained a level!\" you could still make real good armor at a very low level but will you know all the secrets of making that armor perfect and you will be exceptionally slow at doing that, because you are not experienced enough..

If you kept running and doing agility courses you will naturally be able to run further so it will upgrade your running/jumping stamina everyday

In strength, if you kept wielding thing/carrying things they will eventually feel lighter and you will get stronger by swinging the heavy weapon and getting used to it, you may be so weak you could only use a basic sword 2 handed though over time you could wield it 1 handed..

[Neryam]

Yeah! Great minds think alike    

Oh and perhaps it would only display the bar, no numbers. The end of the bar would be the max amount of exp you can gain in that stat based on your race and background... Then people wouldn\'t care so much about gaining levels.

Oh I forget to shove in the stuff about theoretical levels. Editing..

[Nikodemus]

Actually practical and theoretical knowledge are dependent. That is why we have schools. To practice somethink you need to know some basics first.
Can you really find out all the physical laws and math by self? If you would, then it would be the same knowledge, but written in completly different way. Additionally it would take you a lot more time to find all this out. That is why theoretical and practical knowledge are dependent. Studying them in the same time, allow you to learn skill much faster.

Also i don\'t know why you wan\'t to eliminate ranks. Ranks are nothing more than your single bar, only thanks to rank number you don\'t have to know how long the bar have to be. Lenght of the bar should be written in numbers, as they take much less space, being at the same time more clear.

If we would have possibility to learn skill without theoretical or practical training then it shouldn\'t be that simple as you propose. The proportion beatwen the two knowledges should be as is now, but with addition... If one wan\'t to alter the theoretical part of training with practical part, then it shouldn\'t be linear, but geometric. This means that if someone want to alter whole theoretical part of sword skill, then he would have to work under it maybe even twice as long as he did under practical part. In sword skill theoretical part is like 1/6 of the whole training. Magic ways ratio is like 2/3. So in this case altering theoretical part with practical would take like 50 times more time than normal practical training of the same rank.

Overal, i think your idea isn\'t that great as you may think. There are many more propositions and if gather them all and sort, then we would have the best idea.
Only someone (or very small group of people) smart and open on options would have to do this.

[Rage McCloud]

actually there are no \"levels\" in ps... there is no base level anyways...

[SnowWolf]

All we would need to do to Neryam\'s system to add in theory would be to have two stocks instead of one. You would have your skill/adeptness/ability bar and another bar for theory.

Theory goes up when you learn something. There is a high probability of you learning something when you are taught by a teacher, and a smaller probability of spontaneously being inspired on your own.

Skill goes up when you apply knowledge. There is a certain probability that knowledge is taken from your theory bar (making it go down, i.e. \'un-applied\' theory bar). This probability might be arbitrary, or it might depend on the ammount of knowledge you have stored, for instance, going up when ideas are so abundant that they simply beg to be applied. Theory might even be applied without actually using the skill (it has been shown that this happens in reality under certain conditions).



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Also, if you\'re up for some light reading...

http://forums.arcane-order.com/viewtopic.php?p=5844#5844

[Neryam]

Right!! SnowWolf that\'s exactly what I mean. Mabye I\'ll edit the original to keep all good ideas in one post.

Rage: Yes there are levels, I have level 23 in sword and level 120 strength etc.

Clears it up for you Nikodemus? Oh and the bars wouldn\'t stretch off the screen i\'d think, it is always the same lenth but of course if the max is higher the bar would fill up slower.

[MonkeyHell]

Ya actually I like this idea a lot more then the thing that we have right now. It\'s really cool I\'d add something to this if I could but you guys pretty much said everything there is to say about this.

[Neryam]

Thanks!

note: The original was updated with more clarifying info, some stuff from SnowWolf and typo fixes.. :]

[Nikodemus]

Originally posted by Neryam
Clears it up for you Nikodemus? Oh and the bars wouldn\'t stretch off the screen i\'d think, it is always the same lenth but of course if the max is higher the bar would fill up slower.

There is no max. Current system dont tell you how much you can learn in some skill. With your bar there is max, because the bar must end somewhere.
As i told there is no difference beatwen bar and a bar with numbers near it. It is only different way to write the same thing. Only if you use numbers you don\'t have to know MAX.
If the bar will be stretched, depending on some factor. Then you will never know how good you are in some skill. Some guy A will have bar 50% full and another B 25%, but in fact B is more skilled than A.
Currently we know we can\'t reach higher rank in sword than 80, but what later? Maybe we will have some hidden teachers who teach only in rare situations. In this case your max will move up and down.
The theory is ours brains are used only in small part, so we can learn some skill very long and we don\'t know max.

Sure people won\'t be telling their rank if they wont see the numbers, but if you roleplay, you can tell someone estimate value, or: \"I kill trepor in 4 blows\"

Without numbers, powerlevel will stay powerlevel and tell how long is bar

Also rank is not the same as level. In some games after reaching  a level you can distribute given points on different things. So two guys with level 50 arent same as strong in everythink. And if two guys have 50 rank in sword, they are always same as strong.

You are creating a new system, but you don\'t know some basics. Also you don\'t try to search for other people ideas in order to create somethink decent. Instead we have another discussion where people add their ideas.
I know I criticize, but it is what i feel. Good idea, but maybe not good enough

[SuburbanPlankton]

I think I like this idea a lot, assuming I understand it properly.  I want to look at it from a different angle: how it differs from the current system.

Right now we have a three step process:

1) You fight a monster, and you gain Progression Points.  (You can also gain PP from mining, and I assume there will be other ways in the future.  For the moment, I will focus on combat just for sake of simplicity).

2) You then go to a trainer and trade your PP and some trias for \"theoretical knowledge\".

3) Then you use your skill, gaining \"practical knowledge\", and  eventually level up.


Neryam\'s idea ......

1) You can gain \"theoretical knowledge\" at any time by visiting a trainer and paying for the training.  You can also gain \"theoretical knowledge\" on your own through independent study, or even through sudden flashes of insight.

2) You can gain \"practical knowledge\" at any time by simply practicing the skill in question.  You might even gain practical knowledge in a different, but related skill (e.g. practicing mining will improve mining skill, and will also improve strength)

3)You only \"level up\" when both your theoretical and practical skills have both advanced a certain amount.  Thus, you could study every aspect of swordfighting for years and years, and accumulate all of the theoretical knowledge imaginable, but still only be able to hack \'n\' slash if you never actually picked up a sword and practiced with it.  Conversely, you could spend your entire life chopping the heads off tefusangs, but never be able to perform more than a simple overhand slice, because you never took the time to do any sort of studying.

Obviously, the actual system would be a bit more complex.  As Neryam said originally, a certain amount of theoretical knowledge would be gained automatically just by using the skill; and it should be impossible to gain too much theoretical knowledge without having a certain amount of practical knowledge of the subject.

So theoretical and practical knowledge would have to be linked, in the sense that neither can advance too far without the other.  And there should be limits as to how far one can progress through \"self study\".



As to the question: \"Numbers or no numbers?\"  I agree in principle that we should do away with numbers entirely.  However, I\'m not sure that is practical.  The game requires numbers in order to function; we must have some idea what numbers the game is looking at in order to know how to play the game.  The only way I can think of to do this without providing the actual numbers is to add a boatload of descriptive phrases to the game.

For example, if I try to equip an uber-weapon, I get a message saying \"you need a lot more strength to equip this weapon\".  Add to that additional messages, such as \"you can hold the weapon, but you lack the strength to swing it\", and \"you are able only to swing wildly, but cannot hit your target\", and a few other messages to indicate that I am getting closer and closer to the required strength to use the weapon, and this approach would work.  But we would need to have similar messages for each type of skill and all possible types of interactions between players, monsters, items, and the environment.

This would be a Herculean undertaking, and I don\'t think it is worth the effort at this point in the game, or for some time into the future.  I would much rather have more skills, a larger world, and all of the other advancements we keep asking for, and keep the numbers.  Once the came is much nearer to being \"complete\" there might be time to work on this aspect, but I don\'t think we should go there soon(tm).

[Rage McCloud]

well first off Neryam i said there are no base levels...

but anyways i like the ide pointed out by Mr. Brandr

as he said it in good words not that Neryam didnt but Alvyn cleared it up more and put t in a timeframe sort of list which is more organized and easier to read... anyways after all this about wording i like this idea as it is logical...

[Neryam]

Okay, I\'ll answer this one at a time...
Nikodemus:
My max I don\'t mean max in the best trainer, I mean max in physical ability. For instance, a Lemur would never be as strong as a well-trained Kran however much he trained, and a Kran would never be as good in magic. That max is physical only, therefore only for the practical knowlege bar. The theoretical bar would technically have no max, therefore in theory one could get more theoretical knowlege than what would ever be trainable by a trainer. (Perhaps that person could become a player trainer too!)

And your \"Level\" is the main overall character level, what I mean by \"level\" is, well, rank. You know, \"Rank 50 in sword\". Which is kinda confusing, I think those are levels. PS doesn\'t have and of the \"levels\" you talk about, only runescape.. :diamond:

Then, sure you can say \"I kill trepor in 4 blows\" but that\'s fine! You can say that in real life! And I didn\'t say it would eliminate powerleveling, I said it may even decrease it.. At least there would be no more people going \"I have level 22 in sword lvl wuts urs?\"

SuburbanPlankton:
Yay you got it almost all right.. everything except #3.
You would never \"Level Up\", there would be experience and experience only. They wouldn\'t be joined, you can advance em however much you want, and if you didn\'t train with a trainer at all, you would still get a tiny bit of theoretical knowlege. Here I\'ll make a example equation for doing damage that should clear things up, where Te is theoreetical exp, Pe is practical, D is enemy defense.
Pe * (Te / 3000 + 1) / D

Numbers
Yea you both talked about numbers. Numbers would of course be used but wouldn\'t be visible to players.. Mainly for the reason that they would be very long as they are using purely experience (Like 4,281,321 exp). I don\'t think it would be that hard to \"wordize\" the numbers, just use connectable phrases. Each sentence would be composed of 3 phrases from 3 groups like this:
Opening: \"You need a lot more\", \"You need a little more\", \"You don\'t have close to enough\"
Stat: \"Strength\", \"Agility\", \"Intelligence\"
Close: \"To weild this sword\", \"to accurately hit the rocks with this pick\", \"to swing the axe\"

Very easy

[SuburbanPlankton]

Neryam, I think we are about 93.047% in agreement here, which is close enough in my book.

Now if we could just get everyone else to see the light...