[MUD-Dev] Playing catch-up with levels

[John Buehler]

Cruise writes:
> John Buehler wrote:

>> I used to be in the "use it or lose it" camp.  I even have a
>> primitive skill system simulator lying around somewhere that
>> includes an atrophy mechanism.  There are a few problems with
>> such systems.

>>   1. The automatic rebalancing of skills is defined by the
>>   software, not the player.  If I do nothing but practice short
>>   sword, all other skills will fall by the wayside.  But the
>>   player might well have wanted to sacrifice the magical skills
>>   that they had accumulated. Just as likely is the possibility
>>   that the player wanted to switch from longsword to short sword.
>>   And that leads into the second problem.

>>   2. A player is obligated to keep using skills that they want
>>   available, even if they're not interested in actively using
>>   them.  A solution to this is "offline activities" where when
>>   the player is away, the character makes sure that it practices
>>   certain skills.  That's the same problem as setting up a set of
>>   skills that the player wants to retain, and the level at which
>>   they want to retain them.

> Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but I don't see this as a
> problem. It's logical, surely, to expect a character to not be as
> skilled at something they don't do very often? Naturally, for
> skills which are occasional use skills by their nature, the decay
> rate is tweaked appropriately.  Likewise, if I do nothing but
> practice shortsword, again it's reasonable to assume everything
> else is weaker. Naturally, this incrase and decrease is not linear
> - lower levels increase quicker, higher levels degrade quicker -
> so it's easy to pick up a skill to an adequate level and keep it
> there, but to be absolutely king of the hill requires time and
> focus, as you'd expect.

The goal of a game is to entertain.  It's the reason that when a
character is killed, it is recovered in some way so that it can be
used again.  That doesn't match expectations, but it sure is
entertaining.

By the same metric, I don't believe that it's going to match
players' desires to atrophy all accumulated skills while only one or
two are employed.  Because it doesn't match their desires, and
because there is nothing inherently entertaining about losing
skills.  A conscious tradeoff?  Sure. But a lack of control over
which skills are sacrificed? No.

Further, we are making different assumptions about the sort of
entertainment being provided through the skill system.  You make
mention of the desire to be king of the hill through time and focus.
I'm not interested in systems that even invite a king of the hill
mentality.  The downsides to that sort of entertainment on the
internet are too great.

I'm perfectly content in letting a player create the toughest,
meanest swordsman in the game with the touch of a button (and a
7-day waiting period).  After all, he paid his money. He should be
able to experience all that the game has to offer.  If he wants to
go up against another perfect warrior, then it'll be a case of their
skills as players instead of who plays more or who spend more money
on equipment.

The compulsion aspect might be natural for a lot of gamers today.  I
choose to try to eliminate it.  I want players to come back and play
my game because they enjoy it, not because they're afraid they'll
lose the race to get their skills up.

>>   3. Not all skills are suited to "use it or lose it" approaches.
>>   Skills that do not involve a physical object are going to have
>>   to be dealt with in some way, and that will break the
>>   "non-existent interface" model.  Players will have to
>>   understand that the skill exists so that they can tell their
>>   character to do it.  Of course, the game could just ensure that
>>   every skill involves an object unique to that skill.  So ivory
>>   wands would only cast one type of spell.  Ebony another, etc.

> Not necessarily - simply moving increases the "hiking" skill (by
> tiny amounts), so that movement slowly becomes more
> efficient. There is no command or physical object to interact
> with, just an action that improves an underlying skill. The skill
> won't be mentioned anywhere. But those players who do a lot of
> exploring (a typical "ranger" character), will be able to move
> much further for longer.

How would you tackle magical spells?  Or are you relying on the fact
that players already expect to have to learn the "magic system" as
they do in other games?

>> "Use it or lose it" goes a certain distance and solves certain
>> problems.  It's a good approach.  But I believe that there are
>> other ways of solving the problems of a large skill system than
>> "use it or lose it".  It may well be that "use it or lose it"
>> could be a first-cut presentation of what I'm talking about, with
>> other ways of presenting the more extensive capabilities.

> I'm sure there are many, many solutions to such a problem. Why
> this attracts me is because it so intuitive. It's how we expect
> things to work from real-life.

Well, kinda sorta.  The atrophy process isn't how stuff works in
real life.  Once we learn something and then stop using it, we get
rusty, but the ability doesn't fade.  The next time we approach the
skill, we recover the expertise very rapidly.

Doing that in a game predicated on achievement would be suicide.
Old characters would have experienced every skill in the game and
would be able to recover their proficiency in the skill in a very
short time.

So if I walk from Washington, D.C. to San Francisco I'm not going to
atrophy my skill as a software engineer or as a writer.  Or as
anything else, except perhaps as a weight lifter.  Physical atrophy
takes place, but our knowledge just doesn't work that way.

>> By the way, unless all skills have the same cost of learning,
>> there is an element of "classness" to all skill systems.  My own
>> skill systems tend to make magical skills more costly than
>> mundane ones.  That's an element of "classness".

> But are your magic skills proportionally more useful? Otherwise,
> as someone else (sorry) mentioned before, no one will bother to
> learn them once they work out that sword-fighting is quicker and
> easier to learn.

The purpose of increasing the cost of magic skills is to require
characters to quickly specialize if they want to pursue advanced
magic.  With weapons, the cost is reduced so that a greater breadth
of weapons and moves can be accumulated.

At the same time, the higher cost does tend to keep the masses away
from magic.  Raising the cost of magic skills relative to melee
skills encourages a greater number of melee characters at any one
time.  Everyone can fool with every skill, but magic will only
really appeal to a certain segment of the population.

In the case of my magic system, the skills themselves are devoid of
killing power.  So those who are into personal power must use a
sword.  Magic is more about influencing situations than controlling
them.

But as usual, I'm getting way off the original topic of "Playing
catch-up with levels".

JB
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