[CF-Devel] New Skill System

[Mark Wedel]

Yann Chachkoff wrote:
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      (This is my own proposal for a renewed experience system. I don't pretend it 
     
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      is the way to go - it is just a proposal. I announced this two weeks ago on 
     
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      IRC, but since luckily my whole life isn't Crossfire-aimed, I was only able to 
     
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      post it today)
     
     

  Interesting ideas.

  Moving exp from generalized categories to specialized skills fixes the 
problems of some skills not having ways to advance yet still having abilities 
that should increase in level (say like mountaineering).

  The ration of cost between generalized and specialized is really key.  If 
ratio is too low, or that category has enough subskills, it won't be worth it 
for people to move the exp into speicialized areas.

  One issue is how to deal with exp rewards.  IF for example action X is 
currently worth 1000 exp, under the new system, is that 1000 exp for the general 
  category (and thus 2000 exp in a specialized for example), or is that 500 exp 
general, which gets converted to 1000 specialized?

  Such a question is relevant, because it otherwise can become much easier to 
gain levels and what.

  I'm not sure I like the idea of using exp to learn new skills.  First, I would 
think you would need to allow the general exp to go negative for such purposes 
(otherwise, if you have no skill in that exp category that gives you exp, you 
could never learn one that does).  But this just adds more issues to balance - 
if cost is too low, cost then becomes pretty pointless.  If cost is significant, 
you'll probably find that some skills are just not worth learning (why would I 
burn exp to learn something like sense curse/magic when I can use 
spells/scrolls/wands/minor amounts of god for the same effect).

I'm also not sure how keen I'm on the idea of a maximum earned exp cap.  The 
idea you can only learn so much is somewhat disturbing on principal.  But the 
bigger issue is you might get players who have gotten say their wizardry to the 
point they want it and want to improve physical.  However, to play to the point 
you don't want to cast any offensive spells because you don't want to limit what 
you may get in physical would be a bit bizarre.


  However, this perhaps bring up another question.  If we're going to change all 
this skill stuff, should we perhaps look at other changes?

  For example, currently there is a max level of 110.  However, spells for 
example max out in terms of needing about level 30 to learn them all.  Many 
other skills and other bits may have upper limits of usefulness roughlyu in that 
same range.

  So the question might be - instead of level 110 being 2 billion exp, should we 
make the max level 50 at 2 billion exp?  Increase the exp table accordingly, so 
it gets a lot harder to gain levels after 20 or something.  This in itself may 
forcce people to focus more, especially if we stretch out the spells so that 
ther are level 35, 40, and so forth spells.

  Max level has crept up over time to keep players happy who want to be able to 
keep advancing their character.  Cutting the max level lower would make things 
tougher for higher levels - if your max level is 50, that cuts down on your 
hp/sp/items you can use and whatnot.