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

[Corey Crawford]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu [mailto:mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu]On Behalf Of
> Ron Moore
>
> 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.

Hmm.

Ok, so this would accomplish an objective of having a players skills
go "stale" if they don't use them. It also curtails repetitive
spamming of a skill, but I can envision people spamming their skills
right before a fight to make sure their skill level is maxed.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds to me like you have basically
two ratings for a skill.. knowledge and actual skill level. According
to you, the knowledge of the skill determines the "pool" size, I would
call it the skill pool. Keeping the skill pool full allows you to use
the full potential of your knowledge of the skill.

I would assume this type of system was not paired with a "use a
skill->gain in the skill" system, right?

How did they handle increasing the knowledge (or skill pool size)? You
can't use the "use a skill->gain in the skill" system because any
usage will eventually just be negated when the pool is full.

The above may work well with the current incarnation of the system I'm
working on.. you would gain in skill knowledge (increase the skill
pool size) by using allotted exp to increase that
knowledge. Currently, I have each skill/spell categorized into
different areas.. so exp gained casting healing spells cannot be used
to gain skill in teleportation spells; the same could work for combat
I suppose, but I'm still working that all out ;)

Now that I think about it, the best way I can think of to curtail
macroing and such would be to change the exp system (from the above)
slightly so that you only gain exp from skill usage if the tasks were
difficult enough.. this way any fighting skills you have will not
yield exp unless you are fighting something worth fighting, know what
I mean?

But this is still a problem when it comes to trade skills.. how do you
prevent ANY type of trade skills (arrow fletching, cooking, whatever)
from being macroed and/or spammed? The above system doesn't help that
situation at all and may even promote it (since you have to be doing
hard stuff to gain exp, then why not have your guy trying to do the
hardest thing he knows how to do for 2-3 hours?). One of my thoughts
was to make sure the process was a bit more complex than a simple
command (a few at least) but these could still be macroed, and
probably WOULD promote macroing because people are lazy ;)

An example of this would be making a hammer.. you need wood (one
process) then you would need iron (another process) then you'd have to
shape the wood (another) and then shape/cure the iron/steel (another)
and then finally put it all together (the last process). But this
could be refined to the point where you get tons of wood
(spammed/macroed) and tons of iron (spammed/macroed) then sat in a
dark corner and spammed 'shape wood', 'shape iron', 'put it all
together'.. and end up with 20 hammers.

Anyone have any ideas in this area of skills?

Sorry for the questions, trying to go to a class-less/level-less
system myself ;) Not as easy as it sounds! :P

---
Corey Crawford | myrddin at seventh.net | www.seventh.net


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