Recent changes and the direction of the mud

[Dalvyn]

To be honest, I would think that we could just get rid of the learning by practice... and it wouldn't even mean that bashing mobs would become useless: it would still let you gain experience, coins, and loot. But that will not be coded I think (well, from past discussions, complete removal of the practice-to-increase-skills system is not something all the coders would agree with).

What I would really like to see though, is a system where skill-improvement by practice is clearly much efficient than skill-improvement through roleplay rewards ... if only to be consistent with the "roleplay enforced" label that FK has.

And what I hope to avoid is the option to see a character with 500 or so hours online spend 350 of those in Hartsvale to become GM in all attacks and longsword or to become GM in cone of cold or lightning bolt. It would be great if a character with 500 hours online could only be GM thanks to his/her roleplay rewards.

Actually... that makes me think about another possible refinement for this system: make it impossible to become GM only through practice or through "normal" skill points given just for being online, but only by spending "special" skill points received as a reward for good roleplay. For example, you might get up to expert with training, up to master with skill points, and up to GM only with those special skill points.

That would obviously require that rewards can be given more often (i.e. more imms, or perhaps a system where such a reward could be given if 3 mortals "nominate" you for a reward, or something).

[Zach]

Balek... i believe his first post said that in addition to mindless hacking you could have the point system

BTW... it is a very good idea... I am liking the way it sounds... not knowing a lot of D&D and the in depth world of FK... i kinda just sit back... enjoy the RP i have with others and hope that when i go to help someone that i don't drop my weapon

[Duranamir]

I would like to explore Dalvyns idea further. I have played and dungeon mastered tabletop D&D for many years but i have also played and run other games from runequest (completley skill based) to the ICE rolemaster series which uses a skill point system similar to what Dalvyn describes.

I always found the skill point system allowed flexibility in character development whlist still keeping characters at a similar level of power. Because if a character spent a lot of skill points becoming a master of a skill he would short change himself in some other way. This usually meant a warrior for whom weapons skills were relativley cheap would develop two or three favoured weapons and familarity with two or three more. Whilst clerics and rogues tended to only develop one or two weapons skills. Mages also tended to specialize in certain spells they used all the time but kept some knowledge of a set of general utility spells. If they wanted too they could devote skill points into less mage specific skills such as weapons or stealth skills but the costs meant that they were not able to develop there spells as effectivley giving a trade off which tended to produce quite varied and interesting characters.

Applying a system like this to the MUD seems like a great idea. The trick will be balancing the aqusition of skill points from RP and other means with the costs assigned to different skills. Certainly in the ICE model the cost of skills varied by class so that even though a druid and a ranger might have access to most of the same skills the costs for them varied making it more efficent for the druid to develop spells than the ranger and more efficent for the ranger to devlop combat skills. This principle could be extended to the different schools of magic so that for example a specialist invoker would learn fire ball at cost X and a non specialist mage would learn it at 2 * X. This would not block the mage from learning fireball but he is unlkiley to be as good at it as the specialist invoker.

One model for aquistion might be that all characters get a base level of skill points per level reflecting ther improving skill within there class (kind of like the D&D model) whilst extra skill points can be awarded by the IMM's or via other means to reward good rolepay. This should mean (barring some very silly choices) all characters can progress at a reasonable speed but well RP'd characters will gain more skill points and therefore be able to develop a broader and more interesting character. I am not sure that rewarding the number of hours online is that good an idea, just because someone is online does not mean that they are actulay roleplaying, or even doing anything at all. It would be nice to measure RP in some system way, but i can not think of any thing to count that would equate to 'Good' RP. I think rewards will have to be down to the IMM's with possibly some player means of suggesting an RP award for some other player.

The end result of a system like this at level 50 would be that well RP'd characters should have had more skill points and therefore have some more skills than a standard hack and slash character. Though the hack and slash character would still be fine for adventuring (which is probably what the player wants). And the well Rp'd character could still hope to gain more skill points whilst at level 50 from RP awards meaning they could still advance and broaden there characters.

A second source of skill points might be quests. Currently most quests give out glory maybe they could give out skill points instead or as well as glory. This would reward the players who like problem solving and all the other fun elements of questing ?

There do need to be some limits on how fast you can spend skill point otherwise some people will spend all there skillpoints in comabt skills and effecticley GM them at quite low levels. In the ICE model you could not bump a skill more than two steps in a single level. I am not sure how this would work on the MUD but i think some kind of 'speeding' trap should be built in or else we will end up with boring combat monster characters at mid level.

In my opionin training new skills/spells should still be tied to trainers so keeping the current control and quests to start learning certain skills. But once a skill is learned it could be increased using skill points representing practice and training the character is performing off screen.

Duranamir

[Caelnai]

To be honest, I would think that we could just get rid of the learning by practice...

There's a lot being proposed here, but the idea above I find particularly disturbing. Especially for my ranger character, the process of working with other rangers to learn skills, and spending oodles of time out in the wilds, 'practicing' has been probably the single most important aspect of her RP.

I think this one idea represents a significant step away from the concept of naturally developing characters, who evolve and grow into who they are...and I can't think of anything more "twinkish" than being handed a set of skills. But then again, I tend to concentrate on one or two characters and play them for years....Perhaps the palette of fifty ready-mades in the account is what you are aiming for?

[Dalvyn]

a specialist invoker would learn fire ball at cost X and a non specialist mage would learn it at 2 * X

That would allow us to remove the max skill level on spells for mages. Mages would then be able to train up nearly all spells to a basic level from trainers, but they would have a hard time reaching very high mastery levels in any of those.

I am not sure that rewarding the number of hours online is that good an idea, just because someone is online does not mean that they are actulay roleplaying, or even doing anything at all.

I suggested that to support the idea that there is always something "more" you can aim to. In my opinion, reaching level 50 should not mean that you have learned all you could. The slow trinkling of skill points each hour online or so would especially be interesting then.

I agree though that there should be some protection so that people can't just idle on there and let the skill points slowly accumulate. Perhaps something as simple as: there is a check every X minutes to see if you gain skill points, and you gain a skill point only if you are in a room with at least one other character, and you are not AFK, and you have issued a action command (= say, sayto, cast, kill, smote but not who/look/account/...) within the previous Y minutes. Though, obviously, that could be abused by carefully set bots. But repetitions would be quickly spotted by imms and dealt with.

There's a lot being proposed here, but the idea above I find particularly disturbing. Especially for my ranger character, the process of working with other rangers to learn skills, and spending oodles of time out in the wilds, 'practicing' has been probably the single most important aspect of her RP.

If you roleplay with other rangers to learn skills, then you'll be rewarded for good roleplay by skill points. You might also be rewarded for good roleplay if you practice with others while roleplaying. Roleplaying does not mean not bashing mobs... what would not get you any roleplay reward though would be killing mob after mob alone or within a group, with no say, no smote (i.e., no roleplay).

I think this one idea represents a significant step away from the concept of naturally developing characters, who evolve and grow into who they are...and I can't think of anything more "twinkish" than being handed a set of skills.

Characters can still develop naturally and grow into what they are in the skill point system. I see no reason to think otherwise. The only difference would be that it wouldn't suffice to spend 5 hours bashing mobs to become GM, that you would have to roleplay and be rewarded for it.

And the skills are not just handed out: you still have to deserve and get the skill points. Skill points wouldn't mean that you can become a swordmaster in 2 weeks. You would still have to work towards that goal... but this time, your work (= good roleplay) would benefit more people than just you (as is the case with mindless training) and would require some attention and effort (a bot can't roleplay, but it's easy to set a bot to raid an area again and again). ICly, the training occurs in the offline hours... and that's good: what's the point of logging in to do repetitive brainless tasks that a bot could do?

But then again, I tend to concentrate on one or two characters and play them for years....

That's fine to concentrate on one or two characters (that's what I do/did too). Concentrating on a few characters will mean that they will get more skill points than the characters of a player with 20 characters. And your few characters will thus reach higher skill levels, and be more developped, and so on. The skill system does not penalize you for concentrating on one or two characters.

Perhaps the palette of fifty ready-mades in the account is what you are aiming for?

Huh? I honestly have no idea what makes you think so in the skill point system. Skill points are not handed at creation for free... you would gain skill points progressively, as you play your character and as you are rewarded for good roleplay. Is it possible that you misunderstood the explanation of the skill point system?
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[Andreas]

I think your solutions are an excellent balance, Dalvyn. Those who want to go KRR (kill-rinse-repeat) are welcome to do so without penalties. Those who want to role play are also welcome to do so and finally get a more tangible in-game reward for it without being penalised with a lack of skill improvements because they sacrifice mob-killing time for role play.

I don't want to see Forgotten Kingdoms become a MUSH/MUX. There are times when I enjoy the mindlessness of killing dummies until the cows come home. I might be working on something else (building or term paper) but still want to be on the game to help field questions or on the off chance that someone I'd like to role play with logs on. I might only have a short time available to play. I might just be in a bad mood and not want to role play at that time! KRR does have its place and I feel that excluding it entirely will only hurt the game.

I enjoy seeing my PCs' skills (blanket term to encompass skills/spells/abilities/levels) improve. Yes, it's very minor in the grand scheme of things, but it does give me a sense of accomplishment. If those skill improvements can be role play based, that would be even better.

Hopefully this all will lead to more role play and more personalisation of characters. If John Doe Fighter wants to become a famous dragon slayer, then he can role play, gain skill points, and buy the unique combination of skills like polearms, dragon lore, toughness, etc. to make himself into a great dragon slayer. Meanwhile, Jane Doe Fighter wants to become a bounty hunter, so she role plays, gains skill points and buys the unique combination of skills like bola, tracking, alertness, etc. to make herself into a superb bounty hunter. Both base fighter classes but both very different character concepts.

Just as each player is a unique individual, I see all characters as unique individuals and hope that the inclusion of a skill-points system will allow for greater diversification. I like the idea of being able to buy non-guild skills at a greater cost than guild skills. In table-top, the usual rule of thumb is that a PC pays two or three times the amount of skill points for a non-guild skill as opposed to the normal amount for a guild skill. This would encourage players to think carefully about their character development and maybe, instead of John Doe Fighter pumping all his skill points into every weapon so he can master them all, he GMs polearms but spends a number of skill points on dragon lore (a mage skill) to get that +2 advantage when fighting dragons and some more skill points on healing and herbalism (both priest class skills) so he can patch himself up after a hard day of dragon slaying.

If someone wants to KRR, they can still do so and gain coin, experience and slow skill improvements. If someone wants to role play, they can still do so and gain kismet, skill point rewards and the benefit of role play ties with other PCs. It looks like a win-win situation to me.

[Solaghar]

One thing that it would also be possible to do with this would be to separate those skills given to each character class which are appropriate to it for balance issues such as special attacks and number of attacks and those skills which shouldn't be available to everyone, and those skills which act a lot more like non-weapon proficiencies like disguise and knowledge-religion and others of that sort which should e available to everyone through RP. Getting a skill that is outside of your general class list should, ala D&D, cost more 'skill points' or whatever system we come up with, but for skills that have purely RP purposes like those, it should be possible to get them. Perhaps adding a lot more knowledge- category skills, as well as other sorts like that, to reflect different categories of knowledge and interest, so that it could be determined for instance, which character is the most IC'ly knowledgeable about something, which is only due to them having RPed it in such an excellent manner for so long.

[Argentia]

I must say, that when I first read Dalvyn's idea, I dang near fell in love with it. A way to build up skills while still roleplaying at the same time? An alternative to repetitive mob-bashing to become a half-decent character skill-wise? I must say that I like it a lot.

I want to ask, what about spells and weapons? We have discussed skills, but have not touched upon the distinction between the three categories of skills, spells, and weapons.(Four if you count languages) Would spell points be seperate from skill points? Would weapons be included with skills? I ask this because wizards and priests literally have hundreds of spells. I would not want to see them having to spend their skill points on these spells, especially if all classes receive the same amount of points. This would horribly limit the casting classes, and unnecessarily, I feel. It's those sort of restrictions that my original post was about, and that I'd like to see avoided in the future. I'm not saying every wizard should be able to GM every spell, far from it. But they should at least be able to learn a large majority of their spells, and be able to cast them at at least a decent skill level like journeyman.

But anyway, sorry for rambling. I just wanted to point out the sort of things that the original intention of my post addressed can exist no matter what the code may be.

[Zach]

I love Dalvyn's idea... because one of my chars i like to keep just for KRR for when I am in the bad mood and feel like doing some damage... or am not in the RP mood... but when I am... I log on my other char that is VERY RP orentated... I wish I could be able to look forward to this type...

[Tavik]

Argentia,
I addressed this problem earlier in the thread.

If everyone gets a set number of points per level despite class, then classes with fewer skills (fighters) would benefit a lot more than classes with loads of skills (mages).

Basically, I agree with you that things would be a little unbalanced if everyone got the same number of points per level. However there are solutions to this and keeping it simple in the fact that skill points work for everything (read: skills/spells/weapons/languages)

My suggestion to this would be to vary the amount of of skill points depending on class. Theives and fighters don't have many skills and thus should be given fewer points per level than classes like wizards and priests who now have an obscene amount of skills.

Several options are available. One of them is indeed to give out different amounts of skill points, depending on the class, but I'm not too fond of it, because it does not allow for much refinement. Another option would be to set "learning difficulties" on skills (= skills, spells, everything).

For example, it might take 1 skill point to get better at 'gnome' as a language, but it might take 3 skill points to get better at 'dodge'.

Better yet, the learning difficulty could vary between classes:

For example, hide could be given to all characters... but improving hide might cost 2 points for a thief, and 8 points for a cleric of Oghma.

More... the learning difficulty could depend on the skill level to reach:

For example, it would take only 2 skill points to improve hide when you are inept at it, but it would take 20 skill points to improve it when you are a master.

Hopefully that covers what you were asking about.

[Duranamir]

I want to ask, what about spells and weapons? We have discussed skills, but have not touched upon the distinction between the three categories of skills, spells, and weapons.(Four if you count languages) Would spell points be seperate from skill points? Would weapons be included with skills? I ask this because wizards and priests literally have hundreds of spells. I would not want to see them having to spend their skill points on these spells, especially if all classes receive the same amount of points. This would horribly limit the casting classes, and unnecessarily, I feel. It's those sort of restrictions that my original post was about, and that I'd like to see avoided in the future. I'm not saying every wizard should be able to GM every spell, far from it. But they should at least be able to learn a large majority of their spells, and be able to cast them at at least a decent skill level like journeyman

One way to do this is by the costs you assign to the different skill. I will give a few examples to illustrate this below. I am giving the example of at level increase because it gives a nice number of points to play with at the same time. Let us presume that at level you gain 20 skill points (an arbitraty number).

A pure fighter has weapons skills costed at 3 points this would allow him to put 6 seprate increases onto his weapons skills and have a couple of points left over for other skills. (would need to stop all 6 going into the same skill though)

A specialist mage has spells of his school costed at 1 point, and out of school spells costed at 2 points he could increase quite a few of his spells at each level though the trade of would be weapons skill probably costed at 5 or more skill points.

A cleric (being somewhere in between) has weapon skills at 4 points and spells at 2 points (only as an example). This means that a fighting cleric i.e. Tempus could put up to 4 increases on weapon skills but only be able to increase a couple of spells. Or a spell casting cleric for example Ilmater might actually use all the skill points on spells an increase up to 10 of them. This would give a lot of flexibility in exactly how a cleric could develop. This could be increased still further if the costs for skills was varied by cleric guild.

These examples are just one way it could be done and i hope they aid the ongoing discussion.

Duranamir

[Rhytania]

You can do it like it is in 3ed and put a skill level cap. I think if we can convert the spell system fairly well from 3 ed we can also convert skills. No sense reinventing the wheel.

[Amalia]

I must reiterate a dislike of the skill cap-- all other aspects of 3rd ed skills I like decently well, but the skill cap seems too limiting to me. It makes it so you're likely to have every single level one mage possessing the exact same amount of concentration, spellcraft, etc., and I think there ought to be more variety there. Some people just study harder than others at certain things, and some are so completely obsessed with one pursuit they might put the vast majority of their time (skill points) into that.

[Zach]

Amalia... i think they ment a skill cap per level...

[Dugald]

Something that could represent exceptional ability of a skill would be skill focus allowing to excede the skill cap - and maybe allowing trainers to train skill focus (or spell focus) for a much greater variety of skills/spells than just those they have listed under the train menu.

[Rhytania]

Amalia,
Thats fine you can be the best that you can be in a skill but its going to reflect in lacking of your other skills. Beleive it or not the skill cap per level in 3 ed is to keep people from pounding all their skillpoints into one skill and screwing the char in the end. honestly on a d20 skill check if your invest 10 skill points into a single skill plus your modifiers even a dc 25 check which equates to about a fairly difficult task in dnd now become moot and pointless. remember the max skill cap is per level of the char not the skill so the more levels you gain the "higher" your cap is. It simulates both experiance and dedication to that skill by allowing a long term char to be able to perform better than a freshly rolled one.

Dugald,
As far as skill focuses and what not those can be added as bonus modifiers to your skill points, what would be interesting to see along with that are the skills that have a codepency on each other come into play for the circumstantial bonuses.

[Gruumsh]

To be honest, I would think that we could just get rid of the learning by practice...

I have been here for a long time. Back when it was a different mud with a different name. Then during alpha and then beta testing. I have had characters that cover quite a range. I have a character that was one of the first few created after we went live, and it is still below level 10. I have one character that took nearly five years to level to 50 and had spent three exactly at level 30. I have also had one or two that I leveled to 50 before ever really getting involved with any roleplay.

I do not often post to the public areas of the board. For the record though, I get a great amount of joy out of doing something and seeing it improve on occassion.

Now to clarify... I like the general ideas being batted about. And for the record, I have a couple of young characters that have succeeded in raising skill levels through practice. It just is not as fast as it may have been before.

Summary:

• *Lots of good changes being talked about
  *Skills occassionally improving during use brings me joy; and
  *Bringing joy to the Orc God is good - its gooooood.

[Amalia]

I understand the skill caps are there to help, but I still don't agree with them. If I remember the math right, you can only get that 10 in a skill once you're level 7-- or 14, if it's an out-of-class skill-- which would equate to, what, 20ish or 40ish in FK? I think it's reasonable, in not-so-rare scenarios, to have young, green characters who are pretty experienced in a certain area-- a street urchin who made his living picking pockets being as good or better at it than more practiced rogues who haven't had to make their living on that, or some character that happens to be an amazing cook because his childhood was spent as a cook's assistant, or a young mage who grew up transcribing books and learned a lot of some variety of knowledge that way, but is terribly unworldly as a result.

I think FK's population can handle being allowed to unbalance their characters, and obviously I'll go with it if the IMMs decide skill caps are the way to go. But this is my argument against it. Maybe a warning could be added when someone pushes a skill above what would be the cap for that level, noting that they're giving themselves an exceptional abilitiy and may be unbalancing the character.

[Duranamir]

Skill caps

Amalia, I agree that most of the FK population are responsible and should not need a skill cap but without it there is the oppurtunity to dump all your skill points into a few combat skills for the first few levels and create a one dimensional combat monster. These characters would have the combat skills of someone twice there level and would be super "twinky" (not sure that is a word). So i think the skill cap per level does need to be there.

It should not stop someone specializing so that in your example two rogues characters of roughly the same level might well have very different levels in steal. But not to the point of GM'ing the skill at low levels.

Duranamir

[Dalvyn]

I think FK's population can handle being allowed to unbalance their characters...

But FK's population is evolving... it's not just a small static group of people who can be trusted to balance their character, unfortunately.

At some point in the history of FK, we decided to let newly created characters distribute points between their stats, and to allow them to choose to drop some stats for rp purposes (as in: the very ugly, very dumb orc, or the very weak wizard who can't carry much or anything, and so on).

One day after it was introduced, we had characters whose stats were:

Strength: 18
Dexterity: 18
Constitution: 18
Intelligence: 18*
Wisdom: 3
Charisma: 3

*because they knew that Int influences how quickly your skills improve

And this character was made by a long-time player.

So... no Unfortunately, we have to set some limits to prevent people from just twinking their characters.

I must admit that I like having level-dependant caps (though not strict caps). With no caps, I can imagine a rash of new fighters or wizards who would be GM in a single weapon/spell at level 10 just to make it easier to kill anything they want. Actually, I was going to say that I am therefore in favour of a level-dependant cap on skills but... I'd rather have an "age"-dependant cap (where age = amount of hours spent online). It would ensure that new characters do not put all their points in a single skill and make themselves GM in a skill before they even leave the training temples.

I don't think that will force all characters of the same class to be copies of each other... we will just have to make sure to provide a wide enough variety of skills. That's one of the reasons why I suggested to break down the weapon skills into individual weapon skills for example. I actually see fighters as the main problem class with this change, because - as someone pointed out before - they have fewer skills. That's something that will have to be examined closely before/if the system comes in.

Edit: And while I was writing, Duranamir posted a similar answer