Training "Level"

Jezz · Post by **Jezz** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 5:54 am

I was curious to see what others players thought of possibly removing the process of training levels and just advancing as you have the experience points. This would coincide with the removal of using exp for skill training and use what would be called skill points which would function similar to feat points.

J

Mele · Post by **Mele** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 7:18 am

And exp for spells/skills? You could wrack up an unwanted level during a large RP that you fight mobs etc through most of it. Something would have to change there. :)

Jezz · Post by **Jezz** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 7:38 am

Jezz wrote:This would coincide with the removal of using exp for skill training and use what would be called skill points which would function similar to feat points.

J

Horace · Post by **Horace** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 8:28 am

like every level is an epic level!...except with feats

it becomes a lot easier to min/max the more freedom you're given in a mechanical progression. that'd be my only concern.

Dalvyn · Post by **Dalvyn** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 11:52 am

So, what you mean is that, each time you reach "Enough Experience to Level Up", you would automatically

- level up
- get a bunch of skill points that you can spend to learn/improve your skills

Is this correct?

Sounds familiar.

Good luck convincing the huge population who believes (1) that the only worthy "currency" on a mud is the time spent training the same task over and over and (2) that people who spend 500 hours typing the same command again and again are the only one who deserve to be GMs.

Horace · Post by **Horace** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 12:06 pm

I was under the impression to the point of adding a bunch of different feats that would be available for classes. Where instead of XP you'd receive these feat points, or even glory which would be converted to feat points.

Fighters would have "feats" like HP raise, attribute stat raise, attack bonus increase, AC increase (etc, etc) - things that happen naturally through level progression, plus the options of all the regular feats a fighter can get...plus feats that would increase skills. Essentially the entire progression of the character would be feat based with no consideration of level...unless you consider X many feat points to be within Y levels, and after so many feat points you "level up" eventually putting a cap on how many feats you can aquire based on what level is max.

The more I think about it, Jezz, the more I like it.

Amalia · Post by **Amalia** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 12:16 pm

I for one would love to see the removal of levels, and a simple "character point" system, if it were feasible (and not more twinkable than what we currently have). That way, if I want to start out as a master thief that can't fight, or be able to drink almost anyone under the table but not be able to do much else, I can. Whatever you want your character's natural fortes to be, you start with, and anything after that takes practice, roleplay, etc., which in turn yeilds the skill points and feat points and the like to improve one's various statistics (as Horace mentioned, not just the six base stats, but AC, HP, and other things as well-- like for example, one could get more HP by increasing CON, but it would be more "expensive" for the same number of HP than increasing only HP and leaving all the other values affected by CON). It sounds more like a White Wolf character progression, which I like.

Edit: and then we wouldn't have the issue of the poor newbs being unable to walk across Waterdeep without becoming exhausted-- it'd be based on CON and maybe some sort of Endurance feat/skill :->

Ceara · Post by **Ceara** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 2:30 pm

Perhaps I'm not really understanding the suggestion. But how does this differ to training levels? Other than taking the need for exp out of training skills? You still gain exp and by getting exp you gain the ability to train higher level skills or spells. I don't really see how it's different other than not 'seeing' the level increase.
In D&D even though you use ranks to increase skills instead of training them with a trainer, you still get levels and exp.
Could you clarify please?

Amalia · Post by **Amalia** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 2:50 pm

My notion of it-- and what I like about it-- is that it takes out the "power level" as an actual statistic on the character. Yes, how powerful a character is will still be a reflection of how much XP he or she has accumulated, but the uses to which that XP can be put are more precise and flexible. Instead of having jumps in power-- levels-- the player buys specific attributes, skills, spells, etc., directly with XP, the more powerful/higher ranked the skill is, the more XP it takes. This (in my experience) yields a more organic and believable progression, as a character (presumably) spends his or her XP on abilities that he or she has been using, and not on things that just happen to increase when one's level goes up even though the PC has done nothing that would actually cause that particular attribute to increase.

One thing it does is makes it so even a pretty young PC whose focus is a particular kind of combat (say, bows) would easily defeat a much older PC who knew nothing about bows if they were to duke it out using that particular fighting style. As it is, I'm pretty positive a 50th level character who'd never before picked up a bow could still use one to snap in half a level one character who'd GMed bows. This likely applies to almost any skill, in fact, just because having levels makes you cooler at *everything*.

Now, I have to note that I think switching to this system would probably require a complete overhaul of the game, quite possibly to the extent of all characters having to be remade... so though I'd be game, I doubt most people would.

Those who commented above, please tell me if I've misread your idea.

Alvirin · Post by **Alvirin** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 3:12 pm

What I think is that he proposes a closest approximation to D&D rules (which I would welcome), meaning that in the moment your xp is enough to level up, you automatically do it, and you get skill points according to your class/int that can improve ONLY skills.

This system in the mud would have a problem since spells, second attack, third attack, weapons skills, or you have them and they never improve (like martial weapons proficiency) or they increase in power as you level up (magic missile the most simple example)

Anyway these problems could be solved if non-trainable "skills" and spells increased in power without training as you level up.

Selveem · Post by **Selveem** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 4:41 pm

Based on what I'm reading, part of me likes this and another very large part of me does not.

For those of you who have been here as long as I have (or longer, in many cases) you understand how hard you have worked on your characters and the amount of time you have taken to learn the game to put your character where you have envisioned they 'should be.' This amount of time spent also amounts to IC coin that you have already used to train up a massive number of spells, skills, feat points, and attribute points.

There are many wizards in this game who are very old characters. People who have spells that currently are no longer available to their 'class.' These players enjoy a luxury that does not just benefit them, but also benefits other newer players by having things such as scribe - even for something that their current specialized school no longer gets. Oftentimes, these people are the only way that others like the Drow and Orc can even get spells because they are so inaccessible to their race. If the system is completely overhauled, those casters that currently have brew/scribe will no longer have it.

What you are proposing also has a bigger impact, as I understand it:

Every time someone goes to a City/Town/Village and trains, it increases the wealth of the City. Sometimes (if we're lucky) the MUD is up for months at a time. Even with what few players we have who sell things to merchants (at highly discounted prices :/), we often find that the merchants available begin to run out of coin. This is not as big of a problem for players who start off in larger cities as much as it is for people who play characters such as the Orc.

To take away the current system which is a 'pay as you go'-type system, you also limit the amount of funds pouring into these cities so people CAN sell gear for the much-needed repairs/components.

More than anything, I find it discouraging to have to start over. Especially on characters I have logged well over 2K hours on (actually more, but because of an accidental 'auto-logon', they got halved at one point

). I'm sure most of you can respect and understand that. The amount of time we put into our characters is significant. Their backgrounds, roleplays, social networking, loops we went through to accomplish all we have..

I have been on 2 MUDs that have had a complete character purge due to code changes. Neither of them turned out too pretty. Is there an alternative to this so that a purge is unnecessary?

Jezz · Post by **Jezz** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 4:45 pm

To impliment this along with skill points wouldn't be so hard but it is a large task for the coders. The system would word similarly to the one now. 0 = unknown, 25 = GM. My take on it however is not that you gain them on new levels. You gain them as you progress period. Skill points would be used to learn a new skill, not progress one you allready know. Those would progress as you use them.

Secondly I like Horace's suggestion, however that would better replace our stat system then it would our skill system currently. By saying it would be like feats I meant as in you have points you spend to learn skills.

Dalvyn,

Half right. See above about how they would gain, I figure after so much exp you gain a point not just upon a new level. This brings more balance to a leveling system in that instead of progressing to get to the next level, and gaining everything at one time, you gain skill points as you progress your way to the next level. The only thing to happen is that when you reach "enough exp to level up" you level up. You gain access to skills and spells just like you do now that were once one level out of your reach.

Convincing this population set on what you said shouldn't be hard. If everyone contributes to this discussion and says what they don't like, and like and even if nothing changes with our system, It is a win. Merely because the discussion existed.

And people still would advance with sitting there typing their commands for 500 hours to advance their skills.

In this space I originally answered about current characters, and after reading it myself, I didn't like my answer. I will think more on this for a feasible solution.

Jezz · Post by **Jezz** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 4:50 pm

I have come prepared for you Selveem.

Look my suggestion of skill points is that you spend a point on say swim to be able to learn it, not to advance it. We could still have the pay as you go, it just wouldn't require exp. My intentions is to cut the tie of exp from skills.

Selveem · Post by **Selveem** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 4:52 pm

Then what of the people who have already trained aforementioned skills? ...I want my tumble skill and AC increase yo.

Ceara · Post by **Ceara** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 4:53 pm

I found a mud with vampires while the mud was down that uses a system much like this, where you use rank points to train your skills and they don't improve with use. Frankly I don't like it. There is an option to 'buy' credits either in game or with real money that you can convert to 'lessons' however this is extremely expensive and not a lot of ppl can afford to do that. Also I don't really like the idea of having a set amount of ranks or skillpoints per level. I like that we can train any of our skills and improve them with use. I like that I can save my exp instead of levelling in order to train skills. I REALLY would not agree with a character wipe, I do have a lot of older chars who I spent a long time on as well as new ones.
I did agree with earning exp via roleplay by time spent actually roleplaying you get x exp per tick or per 5 min or whatever. That I would agree to. Though I do like the level system we have now. I've already been through a code change and other major overhauls, so many changes that I've needed to make new characters just to learn the new system. I don't want to go through that again especially to a system I will dislike. It was frustrating enough the first time and that was without a character wipe.

Selveem · Post by **Selveem** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 5:00 pm

*senses Mask is about to go on another long Vacation after re-reading this thread*

Lathander · Post by **Lathander** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 5:05 pm

Here we go again.

We can't please everyone. There are very valid points on all sides of this issue (we've discussed it a TON as imms). What we have is the best balance that can be expected, and we continue to tweak things here and there to provide even greater balance among player-types. But I really think that unless the VAST majority of the player-base shows a difinitive desire for one, specific style of play, this debate, while informative, serves no practical purpose.

It really boils down to a choice: We try to balance the game and make it work for as many varieties of player types as possible, or we choose one way only and become that play style only.

Dalvyn · Post by **Dalvyn** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 5:58 pm

Jezz wrote:To impliment this along with skill points wouldn't be so hard but it is a large task for the coders. The system would word similarly to the one now. 0 = unknown, 25 = GM. My take on it however is not that you gain them on new levels. You gain them as you progress period. Skill points would be used to learn a new skill, not progress one you allready know.

So, in effect, the only change that you suggest is that people should learn/"open up" new skills by spending skill points on them instead of going to a mob (or PC) trainer and learning from them, did I understand correctly?

If so, I'm not really sure what such a change would bring to the game. The only benefit I can see is that you wouldn't have to kill 50 mobs (or gain exp through another way) before you can learn a skill from a mob; that is, the only benefit would be a reduction in the amount of "grinding" required. But grinding would still be required to improve the skill afterwards, once it's been opened up? That sounds like a half-measure to me.

Unless perhaps you mean that the first "skill point" would increase the skill up to a level that could be described as "usable", and additional training would only provide marginal benefits. For example, the first skill point for magic missile would grant you 5 missiles doing 1d4 points of damage each, then training it up would only add, at most, +10% to the damage. That would still mean that those who train it up gain something, but it would remove the idea that you really have to train it a lot to make it effective. Similarly, "basic" mining would let you mine all types of metal, and GM mining would modify the chance you have to actually mine something by +15%.

Jezz wrote:And people still would advance with sitting there typing their commands for 500 hours to advance their skills.

Yay! Let's keep players occupied with mind-numbing tasks as their only way to gain power.

Ceara wrote:I found a mud with vampires while the mud was down that uses a system much like this, where you use rank points to train your skills and they don't improve with use. Frankly I don't like it.

That's a common misonception that there are only 2 possible systems: (A) one with training as the only way to improve something, and (Z) a second one where training is useless. I believe there are many more options in-between, and I am sad that FK is stuck with the old, run-of-the-mill, used mostly everywhere, "let's not be innovative" system A.

Ceara wrote:There is an option to 'buy' credits either in game or with real money that you can convert to 'lessons' however this is extremely expensive and not a lot of ppl can afford to do that.

Yuck. I agree that OOC currencies (be it time or money) shouldn't be used.

Ceara wrote:Also I don't really like the idea of having a set amount of ranks or skillpoints per level. I like that we can train any of our skills and improve them with use. I like that I can save my exp instead of levelling in order to train skills.

Having a set amount of ranks/skillpoints per level is not only about limitations.

Switching to such a system would also make it possible to open up more options. For example, we wouldn't have to limit the set of available skills per class. If a warrior wants to learn to hide, he can spend the skill points there; if a wizard wants to learn to bash down doors, he can spend the skill points there; if a cleric wants to learn to pick locks, he can spend the skill points there; and so on.

That would allow for players to really personalize their characters skill-wise.

Gathing several of the ideas listed here, I came up with the following proposal.

A) This system uses the separations of skills into weapon skills, miscellaneous skills, and spells. I have not thought it completely through, so it's quite likely that we would have to make trades fit somewhere in there, and that some skills might need to be reorganized into feats or into other categories.

B) All skills would be available to all guilds. Skills that are currently given to a guild (e.g., doorbash for fighters) would be "favoured" for this guild. Other skills (e.g., pick lock for clerics) would be "unfavoured"/"out-of-guild" skills.

C) For a given character, each skill can be either Closed or Open. All skills start as Closed; that means that they cannot be trained or used.

D) Characters can spend weapon/skill/spell points to move a weapon/miscellaneous/spell skill from Closed to Open. Only one point is required to open a "favoured" skill; two points are necessary to open an "unfavoured" skill. Skills that are Open can be trained (and then used).

Ceara · Post by **Ceara** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 6:19 pm

I've actually thought of something similiar that I would implement, that anyone can learn any skill if they really wanted to and put the rp and effort into it. It does add a lot to both rp and realism, why can't a wizard learn to pick locks if they really wanted to. Naturally it would come easier to a rogue who is used to a delicate touch to detrap things and pick pockets but they could still learn if they really wanted to.
It seems as though it would be a lot of work however to grant all classes all skills and spells they don't have in their class as other skills and currently other skills can't be trained other than through use. Therefore it would require a lot of recoding. I do like the idea however, but I also would still want to go to trainers in the manner we do now and not be limited to skillpoints unless they are for out of class skills only. It makes sense to limit the skillpoints for out of class skills and spells otherwise we could percievably become all powerful and that would become an inbalance, if however skillpoints were used to control the amount of out of class skills one can learn, we will be more choosy about what we choose to train and it wouldn't create such an imbalance.

Zuldere · Post by **Zuldere** » Thu Jul 26, 2007 12:26 am

I be in favor of any system where my skills/spells can gain without the endless cast lightning 4-5 times than rest. I rather spend what limit time I do play rping.

Training "Level"

Training "Level"

Re: Training "Level"