[MUD-Dev] Systems and concepts

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

On 02:58 PM 6/8/99 -0700, I personally witnessed Matthew Mihaly jumping up
to say:
>
>Our
>combat system is a _system_. A change in it ripples through the whole
>system. Without understanding the system, you cannot hope to make
>reasonable suggestions regarding it. 

Good point. I think I mentioned here once that I decided having to roll for
a hit *and* damage in AD&D struck me as being in the way of the combat
round process. So I decided to combine them into a single die roll. That
created a need to change armor classes in order to simplify the math. That
created a need to change the way to-hit rolls were calculated. That created
a need to change the way damage was applied. That created a need to modify
the damage done by each and every weapon and spell in the game. Simple
change... big work. Took over a year to get it working well in play. Takes
about a month of weekly gaming sessions to get someone used to it.

Worth it? Well, gee, I don't know. Probably not. It *does* speed combat
when everyone knows it, but whenever you get a new player your combat slows
down immensely for the next month while you get him acclimated. Do I think
my system's "better"? Well... um... not really. All things considered, it's
just window dressing. I like to pretend it's a faster better more effective
system, but really I'm just proud of it because it's mine. ;)

>I don't post suggestions, for
>instance, to Caliban as to how to improve his combat system, because I
>don't have any real understanding of it. 

Primarily because there is no system. It's very zen... "when you look for
it, you cannot find it." ;)

Combat in UU is simplistic. It all comes down to one number you whack up
against another number, and the bigger number wins. There's a slight skew
in the numbers from a random number generator, but nothing worth worrying
about. You can buy bonuses to your own number, and penalties to your
opponent's number, but in the end it's basically a case of... umm... well,
basically, "mine's bigger than yours". (Damn, I'm on a roll tonight.)

Instant combat is a neat idea. I like it better than protracted combat,
because it lowers the most prominent level of waste I see on MUDs: time. I
like games where a quick mind and fast reactions are more effective than
just having lots of time. I like games that actively save me time. Anything
that makes it possible for me to do more on the game in less time is Good. 

The concept I've been holding in mind is to make the game interesting for a
certain period of time, but boring beyond that period of time. UU gets a
little tedious after an hour or two. Currently, it has a configurable time
limit of up to four hours and a configurable limit on logins per day. I've
been debating whether to remove this; it used to be there primarily because
only one person could be logged in at once, and because the game operated
on time-limited BBS accounts. Both of these have now gone away, but I'm not
certain what the totality of effect will be upon removing the time limits.
It's under examination. I'd *like* them to go away entirely. There are,
however, certain issues involved there. 

And, of course, the help system has some trouble. If you've looked at it,
you know why: it uses ANSI carriage control and VT52 emulation to simulate
a menued interface. This is just plain not going to work for the guy on raw
telnet.

And while this wouldn't really be appropriate for UU, something I've been
thinking about for a little while to help newbies out without insulting
experienced players is a sort of MUD proficiency test. What I was thinking
along the lines of would be a multiple choice thing that starts with
questions like "What command should you use to get help with other
commands?", expecting the answer "help", and then proceeds to deeply
philosophical questions like "Which of these items is not necessary to
acquire the key to Castle Krak?", expecting the answer "Colonel Mustard in
the study with the wrench". (No, wait, that would be too obvious. You'd
need a better answer for that. But it illustrates a further point: you can
make the quiz entertaining enough that people won't mind taking it.) 

Basically, you start out your game with a fifty-question quiz. Players may
quit the quiz at any time, but can never retake it with the same character.
Divide the questions into levels: start with basic information for 1000 XP,
then more advanced information for 10,000 XP, then environment-specific
information for 100,000 XP, and then really minute trivial things for a
million. Have a selection of a couple hundred questions for each category,
and randomly select (shuffle) the ones any given player gets asked. 

After he answers ten questions and doesn't quit, start watching his
average. If it drops below fifty percent, terminate the quiz. When a player
answers ten questions correctly, he moves to the next level of questions.
So as long as he gets five out of the first ten right, he can continue the
quiz -- but as soon as his rate of success drops below 50% he gets tossed
out. Nope, you're through. You're out of your depth now, so it's time to
move on. Obviously, if you get 25 questions right, you get to finish the
whole thing. 

In the end, a perfect score would net you 21 million XP, and the worst
possible score (missing all ten questions or just quitting immediately)
would net you 0. In any case, it's a win-win situation. Especially if you
tell the player what the right answer is after each question. If the player
does badly, he learns something. If he does well, he gets handed some XP to
help him avoid the tedium of the lower levels. 

I'm divided on the idea of announcing results. Should they go into the
player's public record? Should they be announced once to the MUD? Should
you keep a "top ten" file?  Or should they just be thrown away? Or is this
just a really stupid idea? 

-----
| Caliban Tiresias Darklock            caliban at darklock.com 
| Darklock Communications          http://www.darklock.com/ 
| U L T I M A T E   U N I V E R S E   I S   N O T   D E A D 
| 774577496C6C6E457645727355626D4974H       -=CABAL::3146=- 


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