Some learn by doing...

[Raxuss]

First of all, I'm not a "grinder."  I train and I roleplay.

I never said you were. I make no distinction, for I discuss for the sake of the goal, not of another's preference of play.

If you use stats like this, then what are you complaining about?  Training is hard.  But it's hard for EVERYONE.  If you're comparing skills during your RP, does it matter if one person has 40 and the other has 20, or one person has 120 and the other has 60?  The person with who spent more time training still has the advantage.  The actual numbers don't mean anything ICly.

You must really misunderstand me. I make no complaint. This thread was created because someone said that they would like to acquire stats by running and traveling. It evolved into a discussion about making the skills and and stats less complex, as to draw in players.

Training should consume time, but it should not unnecessarily consume time. I am of the opinion that allowing stats to build during activities for all players and keeping the ability to train stats with tria (and that PP, I guess) would make stats more useful and engaging for RPers.

This would let grinders get stats faster (but only by a little tiny bit, so they can still grind) and for RPers to get stats as they RP as whatever they are. So they DO NOT have to go grind. Just as grinders should not be forced to RP, Rpers should not be forced to grind.


And yes, comparing skills matter to me when playing RP. I gave you an example above. Let me give you another:

Suppose an Azure Mage attempts to cast an illusion of spiders crawling all over my body to keep me from fighting. His Azure Way skill is 50. My will power is 70. Common knowledge applies: it is far easier to obtain 70 will than 50 Azure Way.  I mean, a lot easier. So, his number is scaled over mine. I see spiders all over me and freak the blast out, knocking over chairs, burning my own teammates, and eventually fall off the nearby cliff.

My character is not strong of will. My mind could not repel the mental attack. And the numbers say so.


Again, could we have ignored the stats and still played? Yes. However, it would require the exchange of experiences, information, and the step-by-step discussion of which person wins or loses. Pivotal talks, especially in a fight where the winner effectively wins the RP.


The numbers themselves mean nothing in-character. Same as the dice mean nothing in D&D and damage indicator numbers mean nothing in RPGs. Despite being able to ignore them, they really help, really immerse the players, and make RP a lot easier. Again, speaking for myself.

[Rigwyn]

For example, during our battle the enemy cast Flame Burst. I cast it right back. We decided that, because their rank in the Red Way was higher, their Burst would blow through mine, with greatly lessened damage (they were, like, one rank above me in RW).

This is how I used to play. Sometimes this worked and sometimes it ended in sheer disaster. It raises a few problems, unfortunately:

1. It makes stats a requirement for fellow players - who may not wish to level.

2. Those with high stats and zero role play history for their character will have an unrealistic advantage. They would be able to just storm their way into an RP and take over using their stats to end any argument over who won or lost. I and others simply won't put up with that nonsense.

3. If a shaky old man puts a razor to a super amped up mage/warrior's neck and cuts his jugular with a tiny jerk of his wrist, reality dictates that he will kill the man, while stats and game mechanics dictate that he will be unable to score so much as a scratch - or that the well trained mage/warrior will be able to dodge or resist somehow.

This last example illustrates a gap in how stats mesh with rp. Yes, at some point, if you are going to play stats, then you need to make exceptions for exceptional cases. This leads me to my last point.

Lastly, people tend to be very protective of characters with high stats. This sometimes leads to all sorts of godmoding and ooc justifications for why they can't be harmed.

Ultimately, its on the player to play well regardless of their stats or lack thereof.

[Raxuss]

I agree with your post completely, save one point: that the system used is flawed of itself. Every instance you had shown was a problem wrought not of the system, but of the players playing. Let me answer each problem with my own opinionated answer:

All three cases are only in the case where this system is the only rule. As tman stated, the numbers need not matter. They only matter when it adds to the fun and immersiveness (<--- not a word, apparently). If it takes away, I would expect no single person to apply it in that situation. Just because it can be used in every situation does not mean it should be.

RP smart and with fun in mind.


If people have low stats, let them play anyway. RP that they have larger stats or simply hand-wave the stats completely.

If people are new and want to play larger roles, do the same as the above.

Your last example makes it sound like you have a slight misconception on how I believe stats should be used. So, I'll explain.

Stats are more indicators than concrete, comparative attributes in RPs of mine.

"More like guidelines, than actual rules." - Best Pirate

If in the case that an old man slits your throat, no amount of stats can save you from that. This is Role Play; we try be realistic here. Even in reality a buff, seasoned veteran would die to that stuff.


So, yes. Always exceptions with exceptional cases. That is what I like to think of as RP's flexibility; grand. It's whatever the players want it to be. It is up to the players to play regarding all available resources suitable for the situation.


Godmodders and OOC justifications are simply ignored, far as I'm concerned. Unless you specifically tell me you value your character's life more than your own, your character has a chance of getting their butt handed to them.

[tman]

Suppose an Azure Mage attempts to cast an illusion of spiders crawling all over my body to keep me from fighting. His Azure Way skill is 50. My will power is 70. Common knowledge applies: it is far easier to obtain 70 will than 50 Azure Way.  I mean, a lot easier. So, his number is scaled over mine. I see spiders all over me and freak the blast out, knocking over chairs, burning my own teammates, and eventually fall off the nearby cliff.

This isn't a problem with the stat system.  This is just doing a comparison incorrectly, because the players are incorrectly translating the OOC number to an IC "trait."  For a skill, a level of 50 shows a decent proficiency (far above the average citizen).  A skill level of 100 is high enough that you're probably better at that skill than 95% of the dome.  Whereas for stats, a level of 100 is roughly an average citizen level.  You probably need to get up to 250-300 to be considered "very strong" or "very intelligent" or whatever.  It's up to the players to know this and convert their skills/stats into character abilities accordingly.

For the record, you shouldn't ever compare a skill directly to a stat.  Skills go up to 200 and stats go up to 400.  So the scale is off immediately.  If you REALLY want to compare a skill to a stat easily, just double the skill level.  That's still not great, but it's ok.

A better system in that case would be to use magic skill to determine what spells the character can cast, and compare the attacker and defender's willpower directly to determine the effect.  If you want you can roll dice with the sides equal to your willpower, and the higher number succeeds.  So, if the attacker and defender have equal willpower, the spell will be a 50/50 chance.  If the attacker has 160 willpower compared to your 80, their chance of success is much higher (75% if my simulations are accurate).

[Volki]

I don't know what you mean by "No casuals."  I grind and RP, and pretty much everyone I talk to in game is the same way.

You are not a casual MMO player. Casuals rarely use the forum. Casuals never spend more than a couple hours in a game per day, and they usually do not play every day. Casuals, in most games, very rarely roleplay. They don't really care for the game. They just want to have fun.

Casuals should make up the largest percentage of a game's playerbase. In this game they don't, largely because it's so complex, training is too difficult, and the graphics are outdated (or not there at all).

But you're proving my point.  Grinding is boring, but PS mechanics don't offer anything else.  So instead of making grinding easier (which won't make it any less boring, guys...  I don't see why people aren't understanding that) how about making fun things for people to actually DO with the skills they're training?

Grinding, by itself, is boring in any game. However, it does not have to take so much of our time. Boredom plays into this, of course, but it's not the sole reason. Grinding in this game is ridiculously hard, and only serious players will be determined enough to max levels.

Your suggestion is what I suggested earlier. (I wrote something about that earlier in this thread or another.)

[Raxuss]

This isn't a problem with the stat system.  This is just doing a comparison incorrectly, because the players are incorrectly translating the OOC number to an IC "trait."  For a skill, a level of 50 shows a decent proficiency (far above the average citizen).  A skill level of 100 is high enough that you're probably better at that skill than 95% of the dome.  Whereas for stats, a level of 100 is roughly an average citizen level.  You probably need to get up to 250-300 to be considered "very strong" or "very intelligent" or whatever.  It's up to the players to know this and convert their skills/stats into character abilities accordingly.

For the record, you shouldn't ever compare a skill directly to a stat.  Skills go up to 200 and stats go up to 400.  So the scale is off immediately.  If you REALLY want to compare a skill to a stat easily, just double the skill level.  That's still not great, but it's ok.

A better system in that case would be to use magic skill to determine what spells the character can cast, and compare the attacker and defender's willpower directly to determine the effect.  If you want you can roll dice with the sides equal to your willpower, and the higher number succeeds.  So, if the attacker and defender have equal willpower, the spell will be a 50/50 chance.  If the attacker has 160 willpower compared to your 80, their chance of success is much higher (75% if my simulations are accurate).

That was not the point of the post at all. It was an example to show you that stats and skills (and their numbers) matter in deciding who wins and loses and stuff. That RPers, such as myself, actually use them for RPing.

As far as accuracy and all that, I explained quite thoroughly above that the stats system is very flexible. Exceptions are common and definitions are not concretely set. It IS up to the players on how to play. We both agree on that point. However, that means the more options available, the better. And if using stats to determine outcomes makes it more fun for the players, why not do that? Not everyone is going to be so thorough or care enough to get deep into percentages and numbers to get the most accurate sort of play. 'Casual' players, I would say.

Which, I must add:

You are not a casual MMO player. Casuals rarely use the forum. Casuals never spend more than a couple hours in a game per day, and they usually do not play every day. Casuals, in most games, very rarely roleplay. They don't really care for the game. They just want to have fun.

Casuals should make up the largest percentage of a game's playerbase. In this game they don't, largely because it's so complex, training is too difficult, and the graphics are outdated (or not there at all).

Describes casuals and why they aren't present very well.

Back to my original point, however, is the idea on making the stats rank up whilst RPing (just doing skills, really). As players do skills or actions, their stats should gain progress similar to training, but by a much smaller margin. By exp standards (200 per PP), I'd say around 20-60 exp for action. Or somewhere around 5 exp per sec for, like, reading or something continuous like that. Very small, but large enough to make a notable difference is the player plays their character a certain way. If a character likes to write, have them gain intelligence as long as they are typing on the page.




Also I must make a note that I am perfectly fine with adding fun things to do with the skills we train up.

[tman]

That was not the point of the post at all. It was an example to show you that stats and skills (and their numbers) matter in deciding who wins and loses and stuff. That RPers, such as myself, actually use them for RPing.

I get what you're saying and I agree with you, because I like (and choose) to roleplay a character with similar abilities to what my skills/stats dictate.  But from what I've gathered in the time I've been playing and reading the forums, most RPers tend to ignore the stat and skill systems entirely.  It isn't just limited to combat.  People want to play master chefs but not take the time to train cooking/baking.  People want to play a healer/doctor without taking the time to train magic or herbal.  Some people just like making a bunch of characters but don't develop them with any in-game skills.

My point is, if you find someone who also wants to base stuff on stats, great.  But don't expect it to be the norm.

You are not a casual MMO player. Casuals rarely use the forum. Casuals never spend more than a couple hours in a game per day, and they usually do not play every day. Casuals, in most games, very rarely roleplay. They don't really care for the game. They just want to have fun.

Casuals should make up the largest percentage of a game's playerbase. In this game they don't, largely because it's so complex, training is too difficult, and the graphics are outdated (or not there at all).

I've been playing for almost 3 years any my highest stat on any character is 200.  My highest combat skill is 77.  I've never had more than 300,000 tria on me at any one time.  That seems pretty casual to me...

Back to my original point, however, is the idea on making the stats rank up whilst RPing (just doing skills, really). As players do skills or actions, their stats should gain progress similar to training, but by a much smaller margin. By exp standards (200 per PP), I'd say around 20-60 exp for action. Or somewhere around 5 exp per sec for, like, reading or something continuous like that. Very small, but large enough to make a notable difference is the player plays their character a certain way. If a character likes to write, have them gain intelligence as long as they are typing on the page.

I'm all for this.  Mining should give small bonuses to strength.  Running to endurance.  Melee/knives/LA practice to agility.  Spells to mental stats (each Way has a governing stat, right?), etc.

I just don't want these to be the ONLY way to raise stats.  That would make training take even longer and be even more painful.

[Raxuss]

I get what you're saying and I agree with you, because I like (and choose) to roleplay a character with similar abilities to what my skills/stats dictate.  But from what I've gathered in the time I've been playing and reading the forums, most RPers tend to ignore the stat and skill systems entirely.  It isn't just limited to combat.  People want to play master chefs but not take the time to train cooking/baking.  People want to play a healer/doctor without taking the time to train magic or herbal.  Some people just like making a bunch of characters but don't develop them with any in-game skills.

My point is, if you find someone who also wants to base stuff on stats, great.  But don't expect it to be the norm.

I'll keep that in mind. Thank you.

I'm all for this.  Mining should give small bonuses to strength.  Running to endurance.  Melee/knives/LA practice to agility.  Spells to mental stats (each Way has a governing stat, right?), etc.

I just don't want these to be the ONLY way to raise stats.  That would make training take even longer and be even more painful.

Certainly not! I stated several times that the way you train for stats now should stay the same, only adding this aspect to the current system.


Thank you for reading and for your feedback on the idea. I hope I contributed more than irritated; I saw myself starting to repeat annoyingly there.

[novacadian]

I stated several times that the way you train for stats now should stay the same, only adding this aspect to the current system.

That was my original point in requesting some learn by doing as well. We have seemed to have taken a very interesting and worthwhile round about discussion yet with some consensus at last.

[Eonwind]

My suggestion would be to leave the stat training as it is, but add the trickle so that stats go up as you RP. Depending on your activities, the stats go up on their own (strength with sword play, intelligence with reading, charisma with talking, etc.).

This way, the grinders can grind and the RPers will have stats that reflect how they RP.

how can a computer understand what skills or stats you're using while RPing?
this is simply impossible from a technical point of view and in fact I've never heard about a game with such feature.

But I want to hear your suggestions. What can we do, Eonwind, to solve this problem?

I don't have a magic wand but my thoughts on the subject of improving the "learn by doing" and the need to lower unnecessary trips to trainers, all without remaking the current system are:
- having one or more trainers able to train you in the most common skills (especially in the 0-50 range as it's more annoying to frequently sotp an activity to travel far when you take less time to train) next to the areas where players can train more (an example could be the arena)
- each time you raise a skill by 1 there is an associated stats that will be risen by 1 with no further need to practice or anything. I'm not sure it's a good or desirable solution but it's the only way I see to keep the current system (where you can buy stats) and avoid requiring to grind stats too to get practice.

The work it would take to overhaul the skills system completely, just to fit your idea of what's "good," is not worth the time.  The skills system isn't what's wrong with the game.  It's the fact that there aren't enough fun things to do with the skills once you have them.  I'd much rather see the devs focus on events, minigames, challenges, etc.  Increase the fun factor instead of just changing the way people grind.

tman: it's what we're trying to do but I cannot disclose a lot (not because I want to hide what I'm working on but it will take a lot of time and I don't want to cause too much expectations).

[tman]

Btw Eonwind I know you don't hear this enough but thanks for taking the time to respond.  I know devs in most games get a lot of flak from the community for not listening to players or taking suggestions seriously.  But I feel like you guys (you and Ven in particular) are making a good effort to reach out and have a dialogue with us.

So, thanks for that.  I know progress is slow, but it's coming. 

[Volki]

Eonwind is different because he actually plays the game.

[Raxuss]

That was my original point in requesting some learn by doing as well. We have seemed to have taken a very interesting and worthwhile round about discussion yet with some consensus at last.

I know that you had the same thought. It was with tman that I had the lengthiest discussion. He did not understand my stance. Now that he does, I'm content.

how can a computer understand what skills or stats you're using while RPing?
this is simply impossible from a technical point of view and in fact I've never heard about a game with such feature.

Does the game not currently do that very thing? When you hit a rat, and you paid for training, does the green bar not expand? While people RP, they use skills and do actions, correct? Let the stats increase by a small amount every time, as was originally suggested. Do not replace the system, but add the feature alongside the current stuff.

Stat increases as you do activities, as stated many times, in agreement with both tman and novacanadian. If you cannot understand what I'm trying to say, then I apologize for my poor explanation. I would inquire to tman or nova for further explanation. Perhaps they can explain it better than I.

I don't have a magic wand but my thoughts on the subject of improving the "learn by doing" and the need to lower unnecessary trips to trainers, all without remaking the current system are:
- having one or more trainers able to train you in the most common skills (especially in the 0-50 range as it's more annoying to frequently sotp an activity to travel far when you take less time to train) next to the areas where players can train more (an example could be the arena)
- each time you raise a skill by 1 there is an associated stats that will be risen by 1 with no further need to practice or anything. I'm not sure it's a good or desirable solution but it's the only way I see to keep the current system (where you can buy stats) and avoid requiring to grind stats too to get practice.

I simply disagree that any modification to the current system would do anything but ease the pain of what's happening.


But, I learn you are a developer! I did not know that and I now understand your very staunch defense of the current system as it is and your complete confidence that changing it would take too long and consist of too much work and resources.

But while I understand, that doesn't change my opinion. I believe a entire change is in order.

But as with every game forum I've been to, I'm not a Dev and certainly don't understand the inner workings of the system. You know what you're doing. I will watch the player count and wait for the solutions and fixes.

[tman]

how can a computer understand what skills or stats you're using while RPing?
this is simply impossible from a technical point of view and in fact I've never heard about a game with such feature.

Does the game not currently do that very thing? When you hit a rat, and you paid for training, does the green bar not expand? While people RP, they use skills and do actions, correct? Let the stats increase by a small amount every time, as was originally suggested. Do not replace the system, but add the feature alongside the current stuff.

Stat increases as you do activities, as stated many times, in agreement with both tman and novacanadian. If you cannot understand what I'm trying to say, then I apologize for my poor explanation. I would inquire to tman or nova for further explanation. Perhaps they can explain it better than I.

When people say "RP" in regards to the game, the vast majority of the time they are usually talking about using "/me" and "/my" to describe their character's actions.  So no, skills don't raise when you "RP" in that sense.

When you train skills that are aligned with what your character would naturally do, this can also be considered "roleplaying" in the sense that you're playing the role of your character but people don't generally refer to this as RP.  They call this "training" or "grinding."

[Venalan]

Btw Eonwind I know you don't hear this enough but thanks for taking the time to respond.  I know devs in most games get a lot of flak from the community for not listening to players or taking suggestions seriously.  But I feel like you guys (you and Ven in particular) are making a good effort to reach out and have a dialogue with us.

So, thanks for that.  I know progress is slow, but it's coming.