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Re: Skills!
> Several things:
> 1) You get your 'points' by killing monsters, presumably, this
>is how you advance in levels. I disagree that killing monsters
>should enable you to become a better lock-picker.
Proposal: We add the race system. We add the skills and stuff of my
system, and the 4 xp pools of yours. As one aquires xp in the
different pools, skill points for that pool are also aquired. Then,
the skills are divided into 4 categories, fighting skills, thieving
skills, magical skills and clerical skills. One may buy skill levels
on skills in a category with the skill points aquired using other
skills in the same category. This would mean that you after picking a
lock (and aquiring the nessecary xp/skill points) would be able to
practice your stealth, but any further splitting of the xp aquired
would keep us busy into the 21st century. I think this is a good
compromise, and I do agree with you that one shouldn't be able to
practice lockpicking after having killed monsters with spells.
> 2) I do not like the idea of 'guilds' to which you must go
>for advancement. This REQUIRES a certain map set, and removes
>much discretion of the server maintainers. I dislike the idea
>of enforcing any required objects in the maps for playing the game,
>because if someone wants to chuck all existing maps and start over,
>he MUST put in guilds. All of them.
I agree to some sense, BUT: is this really a possibility we should
consider? And, if somebody wants to make the world anew and be his own
god, isn't it only reasonable that if she/he doesn't give his
inhabitants schools/universities/bars/guilds to practice skills in,
they will not receive skills? Sounds good to me.
But, to prevent this, I propose adding a new type of books to the
game, books which give you the nessecary theory to practice the skill
on your own. You must agree, one simply cannot learn Monster Lore
without some theory to back it up. "book of Monster Lore".
For some skills, like weapon skills, all you need is the weapon.
Likewise for shield and armor. For spells, perhaps one could learn the
spell up to skill level 10 or something without other guidance than
the spellbook, but then you need the book of Advanced Fireball Theory
to improve further.
As for learning a skill, how about clicking RMB thrice with the needed
item on top of your inventory?
>>Here, you can learn skills like "General Weapon use", "Broadsword" and
>>"Small Shield". If your "Broadsword" skill is 3, and you'd like to
>>improve it, you pay a certain amount of skill points. It's easier to
>>learn skills at low levels than at high.
> Why would anyone want to specialize in Broadsword instead of
>General? Then he'll be handicapped when he finds the Long Sword of
>Holy Avenging, which he would DEFINITELY want to use, or some weapon
>like the Axe of Biff, or the CSUA Bat.
Because General Weapon Use would be much more expensive. A skill level
in Broadsword would (initially) cost 2 points, whereas General Weapon
use would cost 8 points.
It costs more to improve the skills as the skill level becomes higher.
The first level costs the standard cost. In this example I use a skill
with base cost 2. Like Broadsword. Formula:
cost(lvl) = base_cost*lvl
The table for broadsword/general looks like this:
lvl broadsword general
------------------------
1 : 2 : 8
2 : 4 : 16
3 : 6 : 24
4 : 8 : 32
5 : 10 : 40
6 : 12 : 48
7 : 14 : 56
8 : 16 : 64
9 : 18 : 72
10 : 20 : 80
11 : 22 : 88
12 : 24 : 96
13 : 26 : 104
14 : 28 : 112
15 : 30 : 120
16 : 32 : 128
17 : 34 : 136
18 : 36 : 144
19 : 38 : 152
20 : 40 : 160
Sums: 420 1680
This is - A LOT. Let's say the skill points you get in each category
is equal to the standard skill point amount in that category times
your "level" in that field (for instance fighting). If the standard
skill point amount is 2 (which the costs for broadsword/general are
adjusted to), you will not be doing an awful lot of training at first.
The table looks like this:
(The 'lvl' is the characters level, 'this' is how many points you
receive this level, and total is the total number of points received.)
lvl this total
-------------------
1 : 2 : 2
2 : 4 : 6
3 : 6 : 12
4 : 8 : 20
5 : 10 : 30
6 : 12 : 42
7 : 14 : 56
8 : 16 : 72
9 : 18 : 90
10 : 20 : 110
11 : 22 : 132
12 : 24 : 156
13 : 26 : 182
14 : 28 : 210
15 : 30 : 240
16 : 32 : 272
17 : 34 : 306
18 : 36 : 342
19 : 38 : 380
20 : 40 : 420
21 : 42 : 462
22 : 44 : 506
23 : 46 : 552
24 : 48 : 600
25 : 50 : 650
26 : 52 : 702
27 : 54 : 756
28 : 56 : 812
29 : 58 : 870
30 : 60 : 930
31 : 62 : 992
32 : 64 : 1056
33 : 66 : 1122
34 : 68 : 1190
35 : 70 : 1260
36 : 72 : 1332
37 : 74 : 1406
38 : 76 : 1482
39 : 78 : 1560
40 : 80 : 1640
41 : 82 : 1722
42 : 84 : 1806
43 : 86 : 1892
44 : 88 : 1980
45 : 90 : 2070
46 : 92 : 2162
47 : 94 : 2256
48 : 96 : 2352
49 : 98 : 2450
50 : 100 : 2550
51 : 102 : 2652
52 : 104 : 2756
53 : 106 : 2862
54 : 108 : 2970
55 : 110 : 3080
56 : 112 : 3192
57 : 114 : 3306
58 : 116 : 3422
59 : 118 : 3540
60 : 120 : 3660
61 : 122 : 3782
62 : 124 : 3906
63 : 126 : 4032
64 : 128 : 4160
65 : 130 : 4290
66 : 132 : 4422
67 : 134 : 4556
68 : 136 : 4692
69 : 138 : 4830
70 : 140 : 4970
71 : 142 : 5112
72 : 144 : 5256
73 : 146 : 5402
74 : 148 : 5550
75 : 150 : 5700
76 : 152 : 5852
77 : 154 : 6006
78 : 156 : 6162
79 : 158 : 6320
80 : 160 : 6480
81 : 162 : 6642
82 : 164 : 6806
83 : 166 : 6972
84 : 168 : 7140
85 : 170 : 7310
86 : 172 : 7482
87 : 174 : 7656
88 : 176 : 7832
89 : 178 : 8010
Give or take some, but I think it looks pretty all right. It depends
on the number of skills one may aquire in that field, but for fighting
I guess this is ok. I'll need to test it out, though.
For a fighter using this table, he'll have a skill level of 20 in
General Weapon use at a character level of 41. That is, if he
concentrates on that skill only. I might add that the 42 excess points
for that level will enable him to buy 5 levels of Broadsword. So, at
higher levels, it's pretty easy to aquire very good skills, if you
specialize in only one weapon.
I might also add that at lvl 12, a character may have a Broadsword
skill of 20, which is the highest possible. The character is a very
good fighter, WITH THAT WEAPON. He cannot use any other weapon.
If a character finds an Artifact of any kind, he simply places it on
top of his inventory, and types 'train', 'practice' or anything
similar. Then, the skill is added to his skill list in his skill box
(which replaces the hp/sp/food bars under the action window), in the
following format:
"<skill> <cost_for_next_lvl> <right_justified skill_level>"
Which would look something like this:
.---------------------------------.---.
| Broadsword (16) 7 |XXX|
| General Weapon use (40) 4 |XXX| <-- Scroll bar
| |XXX|
| |XXX|
| | |
| | |
`---------------------------------'---'
>>at a high skill level (10-20) reduced sp cost (all the way down to
>>none) and increased efficiency.
> This is an extremely bad idea. Omega had a system in which:
>players gained mana each level, relearning spells reduced their expense.
>Powerful spells quickly become costless, and soon i had a character
>capable of killing ANYTHING by frowning at it. Playing crossfire
>would reduce to learning a broadly-applicable spell, and getting
>so good at it (zero cost, high effectiveness) that you could kill
>anything.
Ok, so maybe not all the way down to zero/none, BUT: as the
information needed to learn a spell to this level (20) is only
available in the Long Lost Tome of Abysmal Icemagic (soon to be found
in your local branch of Gandalf's... NOT!), it should be pretty good.
>>want to, you can be a Jack-of-all-Trades, but those who devote their
>>life and time to Karate will definetly whack your butt. (KAI! *whap*)
> Do I scent an installation of a system which would make it impossible
>for characters to succeed alone?
No, but a system where a Jack-of-all-Trades WILL be whacked by someone
who have devoted their life/skill points to Karate.
> The race idea is a good one, readily implementable with stat bonuses.
Agreed. And, it wouldn't be all that much of a change either. We
already have elves, fireborns and quetzalcoatls, it's really only a
matter of changing the names of what we now call "classes".
> Bjorn, you and I are aiming in sort of the same direction, but
>we have these fundamental disagreements:
>
> 1) I think that advancement in a skill area should come from
> in-the-field practice of that skill. You think that it should come
> from in-the-field gain of any type of experience, then paying for
> training. I happen to think it'll be more fun to be rewarded
> directly for practicing skills than to acquire experience-currency
> in whatever manner, and then spending it on skills.
I agree (now).
> 2) You would like to hard-wire guilds into the game. I think that
> maps should be extremeley flexible, and that there should be very
> few things required in the maps for the server to work properly.
You don't really need'em, but some books on theory of skills is
needed. (like spellbooks exist now, let's add skillbooks)
> 3) Your proposal is a lot more complicated than my 4-skill proposal.
> A multitude of new skills would have to be added. My proposal is
> a good deal of work, but clerics are in the game, mages are in the
> game, and fighting is in the game. Thieves are NOT in the game.
You'd have to add quite a few new skills, yes. But not really all that
many "unknown", when you think about it. Weapon skills are easy to
add, magic-spells too. And then maybe some non-magical healing in the
clerical group in addition to clerical spells, and
lockpicking/stealth/pickpocketing etc in the thievery group.
I don't know... It's pretty much only another way of seeing things,
you'd like thieving-abilities to come automatically and everybody to
be able to use any weapon, I'd like people to be able to choose what
to learn. That's the main differences. And, not to be forgotten, you'd
like mages/clerics to be able to learn as many spells as they want.
I'd like there to be a possibility to learn a spell very good and
perhaps not to be equally good at another spell.
In general, not making everybody know the same things equally good
gives each character more personality.
>I suggest that you and I are going in the same direction, however.
>My 4-skill proposal is sort of a stripped-down version of your proposal.
>mage-cleric-fighting-thief are like general skills in your description.
>Perhaps it might be easier to go to your system FROM mine, rather than
>trying to put yours in to start.
That might very well be the case, indeed. But what I don't know is if
the audience would be pleased with implementing your system and stopping
there, or if they'd like my system on top of yours.
Would you like to stop after implementing your system, or would you
agree to my compromise mentioned on top of the message?
>I also would like to note that it would be bad if you installed your
>system, and made a bunch of skills such as lock-picking, only to
>find that there are NO LOCKS in the game to pick!
One could of course pick any lock, including the ones on the doors
which you now have to bash down if you don't have a key. I'd say there
are a lot of locks out there, just waiting to be picked.
>I think that in the immediate future, our paths are together:
>before making radical changes to the basic philosophy of the game,
>we should build the prerequisites. Let's put in the locks to pick
>the traps to disarm, the chests to loot, before we install any
>system of skills.
I agree on the traps. As for doors, what kind of doors would you like
to add so that we may pick the locks on them? And the chests, did you
have trapped chests in mind?
>Let us first put the things in the game to which the skills shall be
>applied, because:
> 1) it won't leave crossfire broken if we proceed in small steps
> to our goal but one of us finds our will to continue the
> project gone
That's a good point. But, how about adding your xp pools and my skill
system, and THEN adding the SKILLS at the same time they come into
effect? Having traps without being able to disarm them isn't very
cool, and I think it would be a rather big addition to add your entire
system as well as traps in one batch. But adding both our systems
together, save the thievery-skills of Disarm/Spot Traps, and then
adding them when traps come into effect...
> 2) everyone seems to agree that adding Thiefly Things is Good,
The reason thieves had no purpose before, was that characters had no
skills. Thieves are skill-based characters, as opposed to all other
classes (in crossfire).
> 3) it serves your skill proposal, my skill proposal, AND those
> who think the current system is just fine.
Those who think it's fine as it is will like it for a while more, but
then what? I say we change it as soon as possible - if the public
agrees.
Well everybody, do ya?
- Bjorn
- Follow-Ups:
- Re: Skills!
- From: Peter Mardahl <peterm@soda.berkeley.edu>
- Re: Skills!
- From: Tero Jyri Michael Pelander <tpeland@utu.fi>