Appraisal/Assessment of Weapons

[Leafmint]

Rational:
If you are not a skilled appraiser of weapons or a skilled swordsman it stands to reason that you would not really know a silverweave /10 from a fancy /0
In the same way that you need some intellignce to know accurately if you are stronger or weaker than someone else the same could apply to weapons.
If you loot a sword from a corpse it does not come with a training manual after all.

Assume for a moment you do the following:
Removing the damage stats of a weapon from player view. From a RP point of view how would you know??
Introducing good looking but inferior weapons (like fake silverweaves)
Removing the combat damage numbers. (system tab). If you want rather have something like: tickle hit lightly, bludgeon, oblitterate and so forth if you have towrite anything informative.

The Result
You wont know if a sword is any good unless you have tried it or you have some kind of skill that tells you.
Also with good looking but useless weapons out there it will bring trading prices down to a more reasonable level.
If you cannot accurately appraise a sword then you may just be selling a /10 for a pittance and not know.

[DaveG]

We need the numbers in there because you can\'t actually inspect the weapon.  It\'s essentially a substitute for physically examining the thing.  We definitely need it.

There is a guild based reviewing/appraising thing in the code, but not fully ready or in use.

[Leafmint]

I understand. Thanks. If you need to examine the weapon your reason is satisfying.

If you go one step further, imagine for a moment that you do not have the damage available as a number to look at. Then the only way to find out is to actually use it in combat and derive a value...

Example.... This one worked well against this opponent. This one did not .... therefore the first one must be better. In this type of scentario it does not come down to playing the numbers but to actual experience and RP.

But I do understand your point. The pity being that in having the abstact so readily available it does affect RP to the point where swords are better currency than trias.

Additionally. If the damage that you do in combat (you hit xxx for yyy damage) is not readily readible then whoever is watching can only guess and look at the speed with which you complete combat.)

Not having access to the abstract is not necessarily harmful but may actualyy contribute to RP experience.

[zanzibar]

Originally posted by DaveG
We need the numbers in there because you can\'t actually inspect the weapon.  It\'s essentially a substitute for physically examining the thing.  We definitely need it.

There is a guild based reviewing/appraising thing in the code, but not fully ready or in use.

We don\'t need it and it isn\'t necessary for it to be in terms of numbers.

When you look at another character, you don\'t see their HP and skill in sword.   Instead, you get a description telling you if you don\'t have a clue how strong that person is, if the person will be no challenge, if the person is about as strong as you, impossible to defeat, etc etc.

Just have it so it\'s the same for weapons.

\"You try to determine the quality of the weapon, but you have no clue.\"

\"You determine that this weapon is of average quality and average condition.\"

\"You determine that this weapon is of the finest quality and is broken.\"

\"You determine that this weapon is of above average quality and average condition.\"


What about that, G?

[DaveG]

Yeah, things like that are good too.  But, numbers won\'t kill you.    I think we should just limit them the best we can, but there\'s nothing wrong with using a few here and there.  I\'d much rather have a 1-10 little stat, then a cryptic generated sentence with no baseline.  Or, maybe some sort of mini-chart, with low, average, good, great, etc in the boxes (color coded, to boot ).

The problem with making it vague, is that it becomes hard to discern between different items.  I\'m leaning towards a little chart with a half-dozen traits and the color coded words describing them.  Using generated sentences works for a small amount of stats, but I\'d like to have a fair amount of fairly vague stats.  (if that makes any sense...)

[derwoodly]

Numbers or text desriptions are more of an estectic thing for me.  However text descriptions of items or powers have tendency to get abnoxious at the high levels.  For example:

 1 = rusty
 2 = worn
 3 = fair
 4 = good
 5 = excelent
 6 = very excelent
 7 = super excelent
 8 = very super excelent
 9 = godlike
 10 = uber godlike
 11 = super uber godlike
 12 = 133t
 13 = 133t +
 14 = 1eet ++
 15 = Spongebobilocius

That list is only to \"level\" fifteen  if you need to go to level 100 matters are worse.

[zanzibar]

Originally posted by DaveG
Yeah, things like that are good too.  But, numbers won\'t kill you.    I think we should just limit them the best we can, but there\'s nothing wrong with using a few here and there.  I\'d much rather have a 1-10 little stat, then a cryptic generated sentence with no baseline.  Or, maybe some sort of mini-chart, with low, average, good, great, etc in the boxes (color coded, to boot ).

The problem with making it vague, is that it becomes hard to discern between different items.  I\'m leaning towards a little chart with a half-dozen traits and the color coded words describing them.  Using generated sentences works for a small amount of stats, but I\'d like to have a fair amount of fairly vague stats.  (if that makes any sense...)

Don\'t you remember the discussions that happened before the wipe, about Falchions versus Sabres and so on?  They had colour.  A gold falchion wasn\'t just a stat (\"omg /10!!1\"), it had a sort of legendary quality to it.

So ok, maybe one weapon has speed 2.0 and slash 2.5 while another has speed 1.9 and slash 2.4.  So you aren\'t quite sure which is better, and you\'d need to see the exact numbers to be certain.  Big deal!  Maybe it\'s better that way.

In my opinion, we shouldn\'t know the exact stats of weapons.  We shouldn\'t know which weapon is better than another of they\'re very close to one another.  At least, not without trying them out.  It makes things more interesting.



And if that\'s not enough for you, then dwell on this:  If people can\'t see slash values, then we won\'t have people saying slash values in the open chat.

[Zan]

Actually I have to say I\'ve grown to dislike the slash and speed numbers myself ever since I started playing shopkeeper.

It often happens that I\'m having a great RP session which then suddenly gets interrupted by \"Im looking for 6/ (the / meaning slash) you have any?\" I\'ve tried leaving the slash measurements out of my roleplaying but it\'s just not possible because that\'s all what people look at.

I really would appreciate a system with words like rusty, blunt, sharpened, razor sharp, cuts steel like butter, ... and clumsy, heavy, well balanced, light, ... in the description instead of the numbers.

I\'ll have to disagree with not knowing the weapon\'s effect until you use it though. Something like that will make it too easy to abuse trades since the person buying needs to trust the other one in what the weapon is capable of.

[zanzibar]

When they first introduced numbers, I didn\'t like it.  I thought it took away from the atmosphere of the game.  I still feel that way, even though the numbers are extremely convenient.

[Leafmint]

Originally posted by Zan
I\'ll have to disagree with not knowing the weapon\'s effect until you use it though. Something like that will make it too easy to abuse trades since the person buying needs to trust the other one in what the weapon is capable of.

Sounds a bit like RL, doesnt it
I agree with you there. Being able to appraise (as a skill either based on the appropriate weapon skill or some other skill) might smooth that over for the buyer.

At the moment my charatcter has no skill in axe whatsoever. Yet (since i have access to the absolute numbers) I can go stand next to a dwarven hero of many years and proclaim boldly. \"Aye, you can tell from the --insert bs here-- that this is indeed a mighty fine axe.\"

The idea is not to simply replace numbers with text (as a previous poster has pointed out that leads to nonsense)but to have a RELATIVE measure of a weapon as YOU would experience it as opposed to an absolute. My current character would not know a good axe from a can opener.

The same goes for combat statistics.
Its nice to know that i do xxx damage.
But from a RP point of view look at the following:
You bludgeon the chicken.
Now bludgeon sounds cool but remember what you are fighting. You are heroic relative to the chicken doing 10 points of damage
Now put up against a gladiator...
You barely scratch the gladiator.

Now the changes i propose may seem small or even petty but consider this:
Not having absolute values available to all and sundry will go a long way to economic stability. At the moment money is cheap and swords are almost essential currency.
Look at people playing. A lot of sword wielding hitters standing around bashing away at their personal pp delivery vehicle in the hope that it drops that /10 like it did for Bob yesterday.


And do not misunderstand me. I admire the mechanics of how it all is put together. But game mechanics are a bit like special effects in movies. The best ones are always the ones you do not see

[zanzibar]

Originally posted by Leafmint
The idea is not to simply replace numbers with text (as a previous poster has pointed out that leads to nonsense)

I don\'t recall anyone proving that point.

[derwoodly]

I see your point Zan about having rp interupted with I need a 6/ comment.  However, having almost meaning less titles also interupts rp.  Having that same person come in and say do you have any gold weapons?  Sure it sounds good, but since when is gold a good material to make a sword.  

As far as proving my point just look at the items list for any of the other MMORPG\'s.  Does Planeshift have to have weapons made out of cheese, no they do not, but the odds are if they use descriptions instead of numbers they will exhist.

In case you don\'t want to look for yourself here is one I found on Casters Realm for EQ

 
Slot: PRIMARY
Atk Delay: 65
DMG: 75 AC: 45
AGI: +18 DEX: +18 INT: +12 WIS: +12 HP: +125 MANA: +125 END: +125 SV FIRE: +25
Recommended level of 62
WT: 10
Class: WAR PAL SHD BER RNG
Race: ALL

Item Lore
Plankton Laced Greatsword

[dfryer]

It would be interesting if different people\'s assessment of the stats of a particular weapon were different, based on some appraisal skill.  Hiding the numbers behind names is also viable, although I think it would have to be a different scale for different weapons (i.e. compared to the \"average\" dagger or \"average\"shortsword)

It would also be difficult to get right, like everything else