[MUD-Dev] Preventing recipe decomposition (why?)

[Sean Kelly]

From: "John Buehler" <johnbue at msn.com>

> So, (to finally get to the point ;), what if you had a recipe
> based system (crafting, spellcasting, etc) with, say, 8 different
> actions that could be combined in sequences up to, say, 10 actions
> long, giving you 8^10 possible combinations, and then every time a
> new player-character was generated, the server randomized which of
> those possible combinations mapped to actual game recipes?

While I grant that such randomization would largely inhibit
web-based recipe perpetuation, I have to ask what the real
motivation is behind this aim, and if this approach really produces
a desirable result.

>From an abstract point of view, it's generally the case that the
same steps should produce an identical result, regardless of who
follows them.  Magic systems can use a few creative outs ("the ether
responds differently to every individual") but IMO this is a weak
excuse.

How is knowledge transferred?  That is, we have developed as a
society because we can build off one another's knowledge in order to
achieve even greater depths of understanding of that topic than the
teacher had... and then we can teach all our knowledge to someone
else.

If there were no such thing as repeatable cause and effect, we would
still be stuck in the stone age.  Everyone would have to start from
scratch because the knowledge of others would be useless.

Another more practical issue is whether a random system is
self-defeating.  That is, if every individual is required to spend
countless hours of trial and error learning various skills, how many
people will actually bother with those skills at all?

Asheron's Call took an interesting approach to this with their magic
system.  A spell is based entirely on components, and each component
has a fixed, universal effect (either verbal, elemental, or
somatic).  So a mage with enough knowledge could try discover a
fireball spell by experimenting with the components for fire,
damage, other (for example), so long as he knew which components
represented these things.  This worked fine for spells from 1st-3rd
level (if I recall correctly).  Beyond this, tapers were introduced
into the equation which were predictably random, based on certain
criteria from your login information.  Until some people spent an
obscene amount of time cracking the formula and wrote an application
to calculate it, discovering any high level spells meant an
inordinate amount of trial and error for each prospective mage.
This would have been fine in and of itself except for the fact that
spell components were both costly and frequently consumed in the
casting, both for success and failure.  Thus the only way a mage
could do any real research was to have an unlimited supply of funds
with which to purchase spell components.  Some argued that this was
only fair as mages are an elite class of individuals who gained
their power from perseverance, but frankly I think this is a weak
defense.  For me, the random factor in the AC magic system combined
with my limited resources in-game (no clan so no cash so no
components) and limited time to play AC meant that I gave up on
spellcasting quite quickly.

If the problem with skill systems is that people rarely use them,
why erect yet another barrier to prevent their use?  It will only
cause player frustration and create an elite class of individuals
who use those skills because they have the free time and will to
play the game 18 hours a day, leaving casual players in the dust.
And it is often the casual players who are most interested in skill
systems in the first place.

And IMO there was a well-implemented skill system and players found
it quite useful: Ultima Online (especially in beta before
overcrowding and a broken ecology).  Crafting was, for the most
part, easy, fun, and very useful.  Players could create furniture
for their houses, weapons to fight monsters, and tame animals to
sell as pets.  If there was anything wrong with the system it was
that items did not wear quickly, creating a glut of products, and
the world was far too overcrowded, which dramatically reduced
available resources.  The other effects were good, though
frustrating for casual players -- resources such as mines were
quickly taken over by guilds and jealously guarded, and their
distance from town combined with the rampant PK problem meant that
there was little chance in getting to them anyway.  I played UO from
beta on as a miner/blacksmith.  My last time online I had just
finished mining a ton of ore and was on my way to a nearby anvil in
the mountains.  A bunch of robed players ran out of the forest and
mauled me, discovered that I had nothing on me but a bunch of ore
and some tools, and left.  I logged off laughing, because if they'd
given me a chance to speak before killing me I'd have offered to
make them weapons and armor with my packload of ore for free (this
shortly after release and I was one of the only GM miner/blacksmiths
on the shard).

Anecdotes aside, rather than ask how to make a skill system
uncrackable, why not ask why you'd want to do such a thing in the
first place.


Sean

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