[MUD-Dev] Advancement considered harmful (long)

[Batir]

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Buehler" <johnbue at email.msn.com>
To: "MUD-Dev" <mud-dev at kanga.nu>
Sent: Tuesday, May 30, 2000 5:37 PM
Subject: FW: [MUD-Dev] Advancement considered harmful (long)
>
> One big problem with PvP is that newbies typically are
> trivial prey for more experienced players.  Why?  Because of a vast
> differential in personal power in characters.  This is something that
> must change as far as I'm concerned.  As characters advance, their
> personal power cannot be increased significantly.  That's PERSONAL
> power.  A first way that personal power can be constrainted is by
> eliminating or drastically reining-in the increase of damage that a
> character can withstand.  In EverQuest, a 50th level character has
> roughly 50 times the damage resistance of a 1st level character -
> 50 times as many hit points.

I am by no means a proffesional, and not even to the hobbiest level yet, but
I've been playing with an idea on advancement.  It involves skill aptitudes
set by the player when the initialy create a char.  Your stat's all start at
100 (that being an abrutary number I came up with as being average).  By
setting your Aptitudes you change the stats, but not to a large level (I
believe what I have worked out so far has the max a stat can go at 140, and
conversly, the low end is 80).  For instance, raising you 'Combat/Armor'
aptitude increases your strength and dexterity.  Those stats are with you
for life.  Aptitudes range from 1-10, 1 being in effect a mental block on
that subject (skills in that area are very hard to increase, by what ever
means; be it cost in skill points in games where you buy skills, or by
requiring more usage to increase for games that have usage tracking for
skill gain.) and 10 being and idot savant (very easy to learn those skills),
and 3 being average.  I have it set up in a way that only one aptitude can
be set at 10, and that means the rest must be on 1.  It scales down from
there, with the ability to have all of them set on 3 (the average).  For
most 'typical' char types, you require more then one aptitude, such as a
warrior would want high 'Combat/Armor' (the fighting skills), 'Body Control'
('withstanding pain' is a skill I like, lets you take more damage to your
arm before it's useless to you and so on), and would probably want a decent
amount of 'Outdoor Skills' (for such things as camping, tracking and what
not).  A Mage would want high 'Magic', 'Knowledge', and a decent 'Body
Control' (for the meditation skill, which would regen mana faster).

Some things to note with this system is that I see mana storage not to be a
directly related to the Intelligence stat, but a learned skill (still based
on Int, but not Int=mana).  I also am working on a system where combat would
not be a matter of how much damage you can take, but where it's mostly
defensive.  In this system, a single landed blow, after much clashing of
weapons mind you, could cut off a head (or break your sword arm, or what
ever other crit you can think of).  The hit and hit and hit till one persons
HP's are gone kinda sucks, IMHO.  The combat system does require 'area HP'
and the ability to have crits in the game.  Your arm gets hits rather softly
(relitively anyway) with a mace, didn't break or anything, but sure does
hurt.  After so much 'pain' in one area that area is useless (varies area by
area); using the arm hit softly by a mace example, after a few such blows,
your arm would hurt to much for you to move it (making it hard to swing that
sword).

I'm sure this is nothing completely original, just some things I've put
together from all those games that have influenced me (with a little realism
added in ;-p ).  FYI, I currently have 12 aptitudes, 8 stats, and am
thinking of a usage based skill gain system.  I am looking at a very large
skill list too (I have in the neighborhood of 200 skills right now, it needs
to be trimmed, but each spell is a skill, as is each weapon (sub-skill
really, 'swordsmanship' is a skill, a 'broadsword' would be a sub-skill,
allowing player to specify in one weapon (faster gain, and cheaper in skill
cap cost), or to range it out to weapon type (more versatile, more costly in
skill cap cost)).

I have rambled on quite enough now (and strayed from the topic quite a bit).
The point was (in case you missed it, not hard to do in all that) that
stat's really shouldn't change that drastically.  One does not generally
become smarter (raw IQ) by learning something (please don't respond with
'Playing chess raises your IQ'.  I have seen these studies, but how much
does it really rise?  Nothing compared to how much your int stat can rise in
most games).  They become more knowledgeable (which is reflected as skills
in games).  This system would not completely reduce the difference in skill
level, but would allow even a newbie to have some sort of chance against the
veterans (i.e. no one swing, one hit kills if done right).

Batir,
Strat's & Stat's, UOSS
http://uo.stratics.com




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