[MUD-Dev] Skill-Trees & Skill-Webs (was: Curing skill spam (was: Moving away from the level base system))

[Christopher Allen]

Batir wrote:

> Seems to me that if you really want to have usage based (which I for
> one particularly like, despite the current downfalls), you need to
> have a tree based skill system (not necessarily with prerequisites
> and all the other bruh-ha, though those can be included as well) so
> that macroing one sub skill has little to no effect on the parent
> skill.  At the very least it would even the field, so that a mage
> could not macro one spell to become master of all, and would require
> combat spells to be practiced in - imagine this - combat situations.

Ben Chambers wrote:

> What about a skill web, where the each interconnected skill has flow
> direction and percentage.  When you practice a skill, it goes up say
> 1 point, and if there are any flows off of it, each of those goes up
> by that percent of 1 point.  The obvious disadvantage would be you
> would need to store numbers in double but this could be worked
> around by simply storing proficiency on 10000 instead of 100 scale,
> the first 3 digits are used in skills, the last 2 are used for skill
> increase, they would be the decimal equivalent.  This also has the
> added ability of allowing each skill to possibly teach you another
> skill, again this would be set up by the links between skills.

I have yet to see a really good skill-tree or skill-web -- most of the
ones that I've seen only work well or seem complete are for different
colleges of magic spells.

We running into a need to have a skill-tree or skill-web in our 3rd
game. I have a hypothetical start for how one might be written up in
our internal XML syntax:

<skills>
    <skill groupname="thief" skillname="hiding" dif="0" learningspeed="1.5"
vis="true">
        <factors>
            <factor skillname="size" val="-0.2"/>
            <factor skillname="agility" val="0.2"/>
            <factor skillname="dexterity" val="0.05"/>
            <factor skillname="intelligence" val="0.05"/>
            <factor skillname="thiefgeneral" val="0.1"/>
        </factors>
    </skill>
    <skill groupname="thief" skillname="spothidden" dif="0"
learningspeed="1.5" vis="true">
        <factors>
            <factor skillname="hiding" val="0.2"/>
            <factor skillname="intelligence" val="0.1"/>
            <factor skillname="detailvision" val="0.1"/>
            <factor skillname="distancevision" val="0.05"/>
            <factor skillname="smell" val="0.05"/>
        </factors>
    </skill>
    <skill groupname="thief" skillname="sneaking" dif="100"
learningspeed="1" vis="true">
        <factors>
            <factor skillname="size" val="-0.2"/>
            <factor skillname="agility" val="0.2"/>
            <factor skillname="dexterity" val="0.05"/>
            <factor skillname="hearing" val="0.1"/>
            <factor skillname="thiefgeneral" val="0.1"/>
        </factors>
    </skill>
    <skill groupname="thief" skillname="pilfer" dif="200"
learningspeed="0.7" vis="true">
        <factors>
            <factor skillname="size" val="-0.05"/>
            <factor skillname="agility" val="0.05"/>
            <factor skillname="dexterity" val="0.2"/>
            <factor skillname="hearing" val="0.1"/>
            <factor skillname="thiefgeneral" val="0.1"/>
        </factors>
    </skill>
    <skill groupname="thief" skillname="thiefgeneral" dif="0"
learningspeed="1" vis="false">
        <factors>
            <factor skillname="size" val="-0.05"/>
            <factor skillname="agility" val="0.1"/>
            <factor skillname="dexterity" val="0.1"/>
            <factor skillname="hearing" val="0.1"/>
            <factor skillname="hide" val="0.2"/>
            <factor skillname="spothidden" val="0.05"/>
            <factor skillname="sneak" val="0.2"/>
            <factor skillname="pilfer" val="0.2"/>
        </factors>
    </skill>
</skills>

Any comments on other attributes I should add to the structure?

Does anyone have a complete skill-tree or skill-web that they could share?

-- Christopher Allen

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