AW: [CF-Devel] skill musings.

Michael Toennies michael.toennies at nord-com.net
Sat Nov 16 16:50:29 CST 2002


I have finished for Daimonin some weeks ago a single skill exp system plus
different weapons skills (cleave, slash,...) + special used skills like 2h
or polearms. If you guys want look at it, the pre-beta test is here

     
     http://mids.student.utwente.nl/~michtoen/d/
     
     

The package includes all about daimonin and full win32 exes.
I compiles without warnings under win32 and linux (linux
make is full working and tested for client & server). Even streaming
music works fine on my mashine (ogg vorbis support now).

This is work in progress and was used for testing the package on other OS -
but it will work fine.

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        It seems that breaking skills off the exp categories is a go -
     
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      didn't see any
     
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      dissents on that.
     
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      Skills from quests - I had mentioned in irc (but not in the mail)
     
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      that perhaps
     
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      skills learned there are automatic - it would be frustrating to
     
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      do the quest
     
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      only to not learn the skill.  The other idea was to perhaps change skill
     
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      learning away from the skill scroll and instead an item (or npc
     
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      script for that
     
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      matter).  OTOH, I know there are some quests to get whatever
     
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      spellbook, and no
     
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      guarentee you'll learn the spell.  I just think it may be a bit
     
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      frustrating/tiring to have to repeat a quest numerous times to
     
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      learn the skill.
     
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        Also, right now learning skills is based simply on
     
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      int/literacy.  That in
     
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      itself may not make a lot of sense.
     
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        Having players learn skills via quests would mean high level
     
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      characters would
     
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      learn all the skills.  I don't have a really big problem with
     
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      that - no matter
     
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      what, most high level characters are going to look pretty similar
     
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      because of the
     
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      items they get.  The main point from my side is to make it so for
     
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      the first X
     
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      levels will be pretty unique for each class.
     
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      Re armor/weapons:  I know various RPG's says xyz can't use such
     
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      weapons.  From a
     
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      realism standpoint, that isn't that good.  Me, as a person living
     
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      on 2002 earth,
     
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      can pick up a longsword and put on chain mail.  I may not be able
     
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      to do much in
     
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      it, but nothing preventing me from picking those up.
     
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        One thought could be to add some idea of different weapon
     
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      proficiences (as
     
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      skills).
     
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        Thus, you may have 'axe', 'sword', 'dagger', 'mace/hammer'
     
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      skills.  You can
     
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      always use a weapon, but if you don't have the skill, you have a
     
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      pretty terrible
     
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      penalty - terrible enough that you probably don't want to do so.
     
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      OTOH, if you
     
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      found a really good artifact weapon, may still be worthwhile to use it.
     
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        I'd hate to limit mages to only using daggers and wearing robes
     
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      - how many
     
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      quests does that now make it pointless for them to go on (since
     
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      the reward is
     
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      weapon or armor)?
     
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        The only problem with weapon proficiencies is that the 'sword'
     
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      is probably the
     
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      best one.  But it creates an interesting situation if that player
     
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      finds a really
     
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      great axe - do I start using it or not?  I wouldn't get too fined
     
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      grained on
     
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      weapon proficiencies - not too many more than above, but I'm sure
     
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      I missed some.
     
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        As for armor, could add proficiences with a similiar idea - if
     
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      you don't have
     
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      the proficiency, the speed penalty for wearing it is worse, as is
     
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      perhaps the sp
     
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      regen penalty and casting penalty (just not comfortable in
     
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      wearing it).  Such
     
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      armor proficiency penalties (light/medium/heavy) would actually
     
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      advance in
     
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      level, but could be used to prevent that mage from deciding to
     
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      wear plate armor.
     
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        Other random ideas:
     
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      For skills that let you identify items, we could key iin on the
     
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      item_power
     
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      (whenever it gets fully debugged).  If the item_power is higher
     
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      than your skill
     
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      level, you can't identify it.  This is better than the random
     
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      approach right
     
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      now.  Also, the exp you get would depend on your level relative to the
     
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      item_power of the item.  Eg, if your skill level is 5, and
     
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      item_power is 5, you
     
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      get much more exp for that item compared to if its item_power was
     
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      1 (eg, more
     
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      interesting item = more exp).
     
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      Should really add a way to award exp to specific skills (via some
     
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      method on
     
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      map).  In this way, quests could award exp to specific
     
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      categories.  Thus, you
     
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      could make a 'literacy' quest which gets you exp, but isn't just
     
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      a matter of
     
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      reading a whole bunch of books.
     
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      Hp/mana/grace:  mana and grace are already derived from your level in the
     
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      appropriate skill category - I would think that should be the same.
     
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        I think keeping overall level for hp (and other things like how much
     
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      item_power you can wear) is fine.  Way back when, it was tried
     
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      with hp being
     
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      from physical exp.  End result is everyone then has to get a fair
     
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      amount of
     
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      physical exp in order to survive.  If anything, I think we want
     
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      to try and
     
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      encourage skill specialization, eg, you can focus on wizardry all
     
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      you want, but
     
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      you'll still have decent HP and being able to use decent
     
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      (magical) equipment.
     
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      If skills have their own exp, I'm not sure I still want the idea of exp
     
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      categories - that complicates the code.  OTOH, it could be
     
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      interesting to have
     
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      some idea where skills evolve.  Maybe at level 10 of wizardry,
     
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      you can now sense
     
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      magic in items, just because you are now so in tune with magical
     
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      forces.  Maybe
     
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      after going on some quest, you get some 'expert armor' skill,
     
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      which lets you
     
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      wear armor with less penalty, etc.
     
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