[MUD-Dev] Re: CGDC, a summary

[Koster]

On Sunday, May 17, 1998 10:16 PM Travis S. Casey [SMTP:efindel at io.com]
said:
> This is the primary reason why I favor learn-by-using-based skill
> systems.  In such a system, players are free to define their own goals
> (at least, as far as character advancement goes), and the means of
> achieving those goals to is to exercise the skill in question.
> future.

As many of you know, Legend has been moving towards a highly detailed
skill tree system for some time, and a component of this was improvement
in skills through usage. UO lacks the tree, but kept the usage part. And
I believe M59 also made use of usage for skill improvement.

And now those who made those choices are sorta in backlash against it.
Quite aside from the difficulty of balancing a skill-based system (as
opposed to a class-based system, and yes, there are many half-and-half
systems that can be designed) it's the usage part that is problematic.
It led to a lot of sitting and macroing, and the advancement rates for
differing skill are hellish to balance out.

A couple of issues/approaches/etc

* What UO did: each time a skill test is done, chance of increase,
weighted by an advancement table (UO actually tries to generate said
table based on skill usage frequency)
* Make it time based--skills must achieve a certain minimum number of
tallies in a given span of time, and learning takes place after that
span of time
* Put in a traditional "practice points" system or something to serve as
barrier of entry
* You've got the nasty "atrophy problem" too--players hate losing skill
points, but a usage based system implies eventually maxing out in
everything. Either this or some form of "skills in opposition" table or
something encourages specialization and doesn' t preclude later change
of character emphasis (which we have found to be popular).

-Raph

--
MUD-Dev: Advancing an unrealised future.