[MUD-Dev] Re: Levels versus Skills, who uses them and when.

[Andy Cink]

At 08:08 AM 1/8/99 -0500, Justin Robinson wrote:
>I'm currently going through some of the same problems with a "leveless"
>system, with a mud I've been putting together for the last couple
>months.  Everything is based on a proficiency rating and characters gain
>statistics as they go.  I still give out xp, however the player never
>really sees this.

I was planning on doing sort of a take-off on exp, called essence.
Essence is kind of like the force, it surrounds us, blah blah blah :)
Basically, everyone has essence, when you slay someone, you absorb
a portion of their essence (kind of a highlander type deal). You can
then spend essence on improving certain things about your character.
I'm probably going to say essence is also tied in to every object,
and thus when creating things and doing other tasks, essence is also
created and granting it to them also. Either that, or I'll add essence
and experience both, and give experience points for using skills and
such, and essence for things related to killing or creating.

>  Every 'x' number of xp points, they can gain a
>skill-point to put towards a particular skill (xp is typed, so if you
>gained xp in attacking, the point it produces MUST go to an attack
>skill, not defensive, etc).

I was considering "typing" exp, so that people couldn't gain exp
by casting fireballs and killing stuff, and then turning around
and using the experience to get better at say, first aid. I always
thought it wasn't fair that someone could get experience points
by doing one thing, and then raise some difficult to raise skill
without going through the trouble of using it.

>To take care of "level-restricted" items and weapons, I can require a
>certain "knowledge" of that particular item before you can use it; or at
>least before you can use it correctly ;)

That's how we were handling it, each item has a related skill value for
proficiency, and if the person has less than the required skill, they
have a penalty to using it. In some ways it is a little cheesy and
players won't like it, but to wear platemail some training is involved,
and I think you would have a hard time wearing it with no skill. (Not
to mention, you have to be *strong* enough to wear it without falling
over)

>To give players a "level" to make them happy and feel all superior (or
>inferior) to everyone else.  I do some calculations with the xp they
>have gained (different types of xp counts as various amount depending on
>how hard it was for that character to gain it)...then based on the
>"xp-gained" number, I can rank the characters with either textual or
>numeric ranking...

I was considering making a "level" value based on total exp taken
in, which might be used for a few calculations just for fun. (Maybe
give some bonus hp or mana or something for each level, even though
level is not the primary source of it) Still, I rather hate the idea
of holding on to a "level" concept. It just seems like it will be
difficult if nobody knows what to think of anybody else.

>This is kinda an annoying implementation, but I'm hoping it will all
>work out in the end  :)

Me too :P I've still got a lot of work to do..

Andy


------------------------------------------------------
EARTH FIRST! We'll stripmine the other planets later.
Head Coder for Renegade Knights MUD
Ranthor at earthlink.net