[MUD-Dev] Classless systems

[David Bennett]

On Sat, 22 Jul 2000, Steve Houchard wrote:

> If you only allow one variable to change then you're stuck with a one
> dimensional character progression.  I'm personally quite fond of multiple
> dimensions of progression.  Tough to balance?  Sure.  I think it's
> worthwhile though because it opens up many more possibilities.  

I don't agree.  Skills are significantly varied already and allow for
much greator depth than any stat adjustment is likely to achive.  Unless
you skill tree is amazingly small.  I would say that adjust stats would
tend to make characters even more the same, since they can then start
to adjust all of their stats to be the best possible person ever.
It is also highly unrealistic :)  Some things can be trained to be
better over time, some things cannot.  I think you can simulate all
the possible ways you can train things to be better by using skills
rather than stats.  If you train to become better at beating people
up with weapons then your overall stamina for doing this sort of
thing will increase.  If you train yourserlf in learning languages it
is as if y ou effectively became more inteligent.  Etc.

> What I've done is implemented a monotonically increasing progression cost;
> each successive level costs more than the last.  As a result, advancement
> can get expensive rather quickly but it keeps the numbers within a
> manageable frame.  Skills and stats are then on a sliding scale somewhere
> on the cost axis with stats and some skills being more expensive than
> others.  Furthermore, stats start on a base 10 scale typically around 6 or
> 7 while skills will tend to start much lower.  

> The end result is a theoretically unbounded progression scheme along many
> dimensions that's in practice bounded by time (sometime after level 15 or
> so, it becomes way to difficult to advance along the character's primary
> skill set).  

All of which you can achieve just using skills as well, with just
as much variation (possibly more variation since people probably
choose different start stats and cannot change them to be the
same).  Discworld's skill system is also theoretically unbounded,
although here is an article on the problems this can potentially
cause (and did cause due to a couple of bugs in our advancement):
http://imaginaryrealities.imaginary.com/volume2/issue4/limited_advancement.html

Advancing his other.critical.thought,
David.




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