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

[Ron Moore]

Fri, 22 Dec 2000 03:15:19 -0800
"Gabriel" <gjsfaun at hotmail.com> wrote:

> One of the major problems I've had with systems which have
> skills/attributes/etc increase through use is it promotes people to
> script or bot actions. For example, if I wanted to fletch the best
> arrows in the land, I'd go to a nice quite place and through the use
> of macros or a program to automatically execute key or mouse
> strokes, I'd have my character fletch over and over again. I'd then
> go off to work or school, maybe take a nap and come back in six,
> twelve, fourty hours later and see how fast my character is
> learning.
>
> With a fairly decent player base, such practices are abored and many
> players will think it a form of "cheating" and will demand the Staff
> to do something about it. The designers then get together and start
> patching together systems which they hope will prevent it, and the
> players develop ways to get around it. I've seen this in several
> games, sometimes it ends up working but by this time the damage is
> done.

Dragonrealms, by Simutronics, had a nice cure for this.  You had a
knowledge pool for each skill, the size of which was dependent upon
your level in the skill, and I believe intelligence.  As you used a
skill at sufficient difficulty to learn from, you gained kernels of
knowledge which were stored in a pool.  The pool drained at a modest
rate, I believe dependent on wisdom.  If a player just sat and spammed
a skill the pool would overflow and any additional kernels of
knowledge would be lost until the pool was drained sufficiently.  I'm
not sure if they implemented it, but it might be a good idea to to
keep a global pool for all skills which reduces drain rate
proportional to its fullness.  This would hinder players from spamming
multiple skills or gaining too much benefit from switching weapons
during combat when their primary weapon skill is overflowing.

Ron

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