[MUD-Dev] Moving away from the level based system

[rayzam]

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Vanderbeck" <agathorn at cfl.rr.com>
To: <mud-dev at kanga.nu>
Sent: Tuesday, December 12, 2000 8:58 AM
Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] Moving away from the level based system


>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "rayzam" <rayzam at home.com>
> To: <mud-dev at kanga.nu>
> Sent: Monday, December 11, 2000 9:31 PM
> Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] Moving away from the level based system


<SNIP>

>>   1) Okay, but how are the attributes increased? when do they
>>   increase?  are they trained up with experience? Is there an
>>   exponential cost scale: IQ of 9->10 is cheaper than 20->21?
>
> There isn't any experience per se, not in the traditional sense.
> Atrributes mainly raise by doing things wich would affect them.  If
> you swing your sword alot, your Strength will go up.  There are also

Okay, I can see that. But will it take a lot more sword swinging to up
your strength from 20->21 or 9->10. In other words, is the power
derived from the attributes linear, and hence their increase also
linear? Or is either nonlinear/exponential? In terms of determining
how big your batteries are/etc, it seems like it'd be linear power
based on stats. However, if the power of the spells by the cost isn't
linear, then you're actually gaining nonlinear power even with linear
stats. This isn't a large point, I'm just trying to understand the
system more, because I like the concept :)

> certain turning points in a characters life where he or she will
> receive character points to enchance stats.  These arne't levels but
> milestones such as a caster finally becoming a priest, or a warrior
> becoming a swordsman.
>

> It works off of what I had originally called a "Discipline Tree",
> but then EverQuest used the word so I will probably change it.  What
> it means is that at the start of the game, everyone is the same.
> Your actions, and even inactions, move you slowly along this tree.
> A snippet of the tree:
>
> BASE
>  |_ Caster
>           |_ Priest
>                   |_ Priest of Whoever
>                   |_ Priest of .... etc
>           |_ Wizard
>  |_ Warrior
>           |_ Man-at-Arms
>                   |_ Various Specializations
>           |_ Wrestler
>                   |_ Monk
>
> Thats just a snippet.  Characters advance through this tree based on
> actions they take, skills they use, spells they cast, and other
> events in the world.  When they move from one branch to another,
> they get to distribute new characters points, but there attributes
> still go up on thier own by usage, regardless of the tree.  On the
> surface this looks and sounds like a level based system with another
> name, but I assure you it is not.  Its more of a classification
> system.  I wanted to design something that, like I mentioned before,
> allows two characters to essentially start the same and simply grow
> into the role they naturally play.

At Retromud, we have a level based system. You have an overall level
or race level. With that, you can take those levels in various
guilds. The guilds follow a tree such as that above.

Example:

  Mage [Hermetic mages are Elemental based]
      |_ 8 different Elemental guilds these give specialized skill/spell
access, and more damage with that type.
              |_ further guilds specializing in that element, allowing for
faster casting, more critical successes, cheaper costs, etc
     |_ Telemancer [teleportation/travel guild]
     |_ Kon path [abilities with a staff]
           |_ extra staff damage, extra staff attacks, extra parrying
ability with a staff, etc in a variety of guilds
<etc...>

So you can make an Illusionist versus a Pyromancer. You can be more
general instead. Or you can become a Pyrowizard and eventually a
Pyromagus. Or you could be a mage, then a telemancer, and then become
adept with the staff.

In this system, the player just chooses and joins the guild [after
performing a joining quest, and having the correct prerequisites]. By
appearance, it seems the same as yours. The nice benefit of your
system is that it's determined by actions/usages, so you can't act one
way and then join something else. Actions speak louder than words. Of
course, it seems to also mean you can't give up a career and switch to
a new one [and the RP aspects of that]. I'm not convinced that your
disciplines isn't the same as a level system, it's just not a linear
level system within a single homogeneous class, i.e. Necromancer goes
from level 1 to 75, and every level 50 Necromancer is basically the
same. Which is a good thing :)

>>   2) In a level-based system, levels determine what skills or spells
>>   you have access to. In this system, your stats do. So there is
>>   still a level effect, however, the level number is just more
>>   abstract or requires a formula. A caster able to handle lightning
>>   storm is a higher level than one who can only cast up to lightning
>>   bolt.
>
> Yes.  I submit there will always be some sort of level effect, but
> something more abstract like this is more flexible and doesn't seem
> as artificial to me.  Your second statement about the lightning
> storm vs lightning bolt however is not true.  Alot of this I didn't
> post, but basically this more abstract system allows characters even
> of the same type and general power range to develop differently.
> For example, you could have two casters of equal "power" and yet one
> may be able to cast a much more "powerful" spell than another.  This
> comes about fromt he fact that 1) Each and every spell is treated as
> a seperate skill, and 2) Spells are grouped into "types" wich allows
> specialization.  The better you are at a spell, meaning you use it
> alot or practice, the less energy required touse that spell (to a
> point).  Again its a rough overview, but the end effect is that you
> may be much more "powerful" than I, but since I have devoted my life
> to the spells of illusion, I can go invisible alot easier than you
> could.

Aha! This is a very key point in your system that wasn't in the
original post. Now that makes a lot of things clearer, and removes
some of my later comments, because its not truly an open skill/spell
system. Abilities in a spell are also based on usage. Hence its more
like a skill-based system affecting both skills/spells and attributes,
in a classless system, where the Discipline per se is determined by a
variety of these factors. It's sounding more like Champions/Hero rpg
in many ways [have you ever checked it out?].

It's very cool that the more you use a spell the cheaper you get to
cast it. But how can you cast a more powerful spell? Like if a spell
requires a certain amount of points to cast [before you have any
experience with it], then neither of the 2 casters could cast it at
all, before 1 could cast it a lot and have a cheaper cast. How doe the
'spell types'/specializations work in this system? If you practice
magic missile a lot and are very good at it, is your cost for magic
bomb, magic icbm, etc decreased too, even though you've never cast
them?

<SNIP>

>>   It seems that this system isn't different in spirit with level,
>>   class, or skill-based systems. It's slightly different in
>>   mechanics:
>
> I argue that anything will essentialy be the same, at least the same
> effetc, but with different mechanics.  I'm trying to propose a more
> flexible system.

Yep. I'm not saying that level is the end-all be-all. Just that in
terms of player-advancement, these systems are in some respects all
level-based [unlike the suggestion someone made for a set pool of
points to distribute around, removing the level aspect, or rp-mushes
with storytellers, where there isn't that sort of advancement system].
More flexibility is good. I have a penchant for liking more
options/choices/abilities/things to do. Complexity is the spice of
life!

>> And there's the rub. With this attribute only system, 2 players
>> with the same values of those 3 caster stats are the same
>> casters. No specialization.  No individuality. That's why all the
>> attribute heavy RPGs still had the ability to train specific
>> skills.  > > Without building some of that into there, you're not
>> opening up more character possibilities [if that is the intention],
>> you're homogenizing characters even more.
>
>
> That is the serious problem, and thats why as I mentioned above, the
> system is designed so this shouldn't happen.  I could be wrong
> though.

The first post that I inferred to mean it was only based on attributes
led to that. With skill-use based skill advancement, spell-use based
effects, spell groups, Disciplines determining access, then it's
really a large mix, with many things affecting advancement, than an
attribute-based advancement. Because of that, it seems less likely
it'd be homogenized, unless in actual practice players find some power
imbalances, in which case they may gravitate to specific
endpoints. That is, if one group/type of spells is more powerful or
more useful, it'll get used more, and that makes the next level of
specialization easier to achieve, funneling characters into specific
roles. It's equivalent to something in neural net designs wherein the
functions [of many variables as this], when run through, may reduce to
a series of local minima, even when the initial or early values
encompass all the available space/variance. So the hard part will come
in balancing it across everything, which is the rub in any system..

  Rayzam
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