[MUD-Dev] DGN: Why give the players all the numbers?

[Russ Whiteman]

From: "Ben Chambers" <gtg983q at mail.gatech.edu>

> I agree.  I have seen in Diablo and Diablo II sites where the
> speed formulas have been determined.  But the catch here is that
> in order to find the formulas you have to determine what numbers
> are used as an input.  In Diablo I and II this is easy -- look at
> your amount of % Increased Attack Speed, look at your Dexterity,
> then record how long it takes you to swing.  But, what happens
> when you don't know what the variables are, or what values you
> have?  It is easy to find an equation where the coefficients are
> variables, but what about when the coefficients AND the values of
> each input is variable?  That would more then double the number of
> variable terms, making the solution to the equation much harder to
> determine.

> Hiding everything hasn't *really* been done before, so it is
> difficult to determine whether or not the formulas would be
> derived.

OTOH, I -have- seen players develop effective measurements even
without any numbers, and knowing neither inputs nor coefficients.
Deus Ex, one player calculated the effective increase in speed for
each available leg mod, by killing guards, laying them out head to
head (in order to get an accurate measure of distance), and then
running/walking/crawling/swimming alongside the bodies under various
conditions.  He gave his final results in terms of miles per hour,
which likely didn't exactly match up to the developers terms, but
was certainly good enough to have a clear understanding of the
effects.

I've also seen our players (in GemStone III) reverse engineer a
highly complex formula to the point that while it may not have been
an exact match, it gave results within less than a tenth of
percentage point of the actual system.  Not bad for a formula
involving some 12 different variables...an error rate of 1 in a 1000
is pretty good for anything practical.

You simply cannot hide the mechanics from determined players, unless
said mechanics have -no- visible effect on the performance of a
given task, which would kind of defeat the purpose of the mechanism
in the first place.  ;-)
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