[MUD-Dev] defeating twinking through game mechanics

[jolson at micron.net]

----- Original Message -----
From: "S. Patrick Gallaty" <choke at sirius.com>
> One of the design failures IMO in everquest is that it follows the 
> old 'weaponcode' model of weapon damage.  I.e. one hits for the 
> 'max damage' of the weapon rather than any sort of measure of 
> player skill.  This means the weapon is tantamount.  Nothing 
> matters except for the weapon stats, in the end.  With armor the 
> same way, you have created a game where heavy twinking is 
> inevitable.  

Heavy twinking seems inevitable in *any* system without hard limits 
(even such as you've proposed below) where items have significant 
importance to a character's abilities or identity.  "So what if I can't 
get full effect from my Megasword - it's better than what I had, and 
more importantly it *looks* cool."  The mechanical problems of heavy 
twinking can be solved for the most part, but the negative social 
effects would seem to remain.

Brad McQuaid once said that he was against item level limits in 
EverQuest because he liked the idea that a low level player could, 
through heroic cunning and skill, defeat a creature twice his level and 
reap the reward in the form of a fantastic item.  A romantic thought to 
be sure, but in EverQuest such a deed became all but impossible.  
Between dramatic differences in skill efficacy between levels and mobs 
that can teleport when stuck, nothing short of outright cheating or 
active assistance from high level players would make such a thing 
possible.  

EverQuest has since implemented level limits in various forms, from 
magic weapons that won't proc their effects until a certain level to no-
drop, no-trade items that come from level-restricted zones.  

> I'll throw out an alternative system here, and let you guys kick 
> it around.  We did something like this on EOTL, but I think it 
> could have been better.  

I was an archwizard on EOTL and I remember the beginnings of this 
debate.  From what I remember, a number of weapons (purple sword, rusty 
cleaver) had been created by various wizards that were unreasonably 
powerful for the mobs from which they were acquired.  Interestingly, 
the debate started not to institute a remedy for twinking, but to 
define standards for equipment design and availability so wizards would 
stop creating so many uberweapons.  

-Josh Olson





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