[MUD-Dev] Re: skill system

[Richard Woolcock]

Mike Sellers wrote:
> 

[snip]

> I could see keeping a list of "enemies" tied to each character: how have
> you done vs. monster type <x> and against PC/NPC <y> in the past.  Given a

This is how I would do it; I already store 'known' data about/within players
and specific types of mob - I would simply add in animals as generic types
and have a parallel system which only catered to how well you could do against
them (I'm not interested in players recognising the wolf who savaged their
leg for now, although I can see the possibilities for it).

> UID for each PC/NPC/monster type, and a numeric rating, it might not be
> _too_ much data (you could limit it to storing the most recent n enemies,
> where n increases with character power, or something).  This could easily
> be tied in witha  personal name-space, and could give you neat messages like
> 
> There is a hobbit here.  You grin as you think of all the hobbits you have
> slain in the past.
> 
> or
> 
> Bubba is here.  Your legs go weak remembering how completely he has
> trounced you in the past.

Yes that would be nice, although I would probably try and squeeze the data
up as much as I could.  The recognition system would only need to store the
data about that specific person, while the generic combat data could afford
to hold more information, thus you could have something like:

Bubba's knowledge:
   Boffo - he beat you badly
   Biffo - you beat him up and almost killed him
   Buffy - it was a very close fight, then she ran away
   WOLF  - you've killed 5 of them, 1 of them hurt you badly
   BEAR  - you've fought 1 of them, and it bit your left arm off

[ consider bear
Looks like you might need a hand with this one!

In this way my recognition data might store say 4 bytes about the known
combat ability of each person you've met - when you first see them fight,
you 'rate' them a score between 0 and 15, and it varies over time.

> OTOH, one thing I don't know how to measure is how many fights you've
> "watched", and how that would affect your ability to "consider"
> someone/thing.

You could just rate them according to your own fighting abilities.  Bubba
the swordmaster might think you sucked, while Biffo the student might think
you were a great warrior.  How would you rate them?  Well you could see how
well they fought against someone, and rate it according to your rating 
against that other person (if you have one) and/or how well they fight,
mainly taking into account their fighting skills.  This could create some
interesting affects when the person you thought was 'rubbish' slaughters 
you, due to the unfortunate fact that you'd only ever seen them fighting
against swordmasters - but this doesn't seem unreasonable.

KaVir.