[CF-Devel] skill musings.

Tue Nov 19 12:21:33 CST 2002

On Mon, 18 Nov 2002, Mark Wedel wrote:

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        More musings:

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      1) It seems unlikely that everyone will agree what the best/proper

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      way to do a skill system is.  

You can say that again.

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      3) Personally, I think lowering exp requires for first 10 levels is

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      a bad idea.

I would tend to agree with you here. IMHO, the harder the game is, the
better (up to a point).

The counter argument though is that most players will be coming into
level 1 gaining only a percentage of the current experience they would
gain. If that percentage is 33%, its going to take them 3 times as long
to level. This does however provide them incentive to improve a combat
skill quickly.

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      4) Given where this discussion is, I think talking specific numbers

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      or use of what variables to use is premature.  I think first we need

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      to decide what the general idea for skills should be.

Tim, Phil and I have been kicking this around a bit in IRC and email. I
think we are close to something that at least the three of us can agree
on. Personally, I would rather have a well thought out proposal ready to
present to the development list rather than have too many ideas all at
once which makes the overall design too complicated.

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      6) While the idea of skill attenuation has merit, if it is done, I

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      think the cast of going from no skill to beginner to medium to

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      expert should all be the same (eg, 1 gem in each case).  If you make

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      going from medium to expert cost 18 times what it would take to just

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      learn a new skill, the end result is that probably most all

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      characters will just get basic in all the skills, and if they get

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      enough gems, make some of the medium, and probably make all of them

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      medium, and then perhaps make some of the expert.

I would have to disagree with you on this, but also I think you may have
misunderstood the example Phil gave. The example he gave cited '18 total
skill points' to progress from a denied skill to expert level with a
cost of 3 points for basic, an additional 6 for medium and 9 more for
expert.

The reason for this is mostly character differentiation. Simply put,
people will have to decide what skills are worth advancing and which
aren't. I think its perfectly reasonable to have a perfectly balanced
character, but while they are well rounded, they won't be nearly as
effective in many situations as a specialized character. Similiarly an
over-specialized character will have a lot of problems in situations
that call for skills they have ignored.

Another key factor here is that various skills will have a lower base
cost. Something like 'sword use' may start at 4 skill points for basic
compared to literacy which may start at 1. Assuming you have both of
these at 'basic' it will cost another 2 points to go to 'low mid range'
in literacy or 8 points for sword use. This is a tough choice to make,
as it really boils down to 'spend 2 levels to be able to read high level
spellbooks' or 'hold off for 8 levels so I can really whack things with
my sword and gain more skill points'.

In this respect, gaining skill levels works quite a bit like the
experience system - its harder to improve than it was to start.

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        I say this for a few reasons - unless the max level for beginner

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      is very low, getting to level 30 is going to be sufficient for most

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      aspects.  

Well, the current model (which isn't out of review yet =) is looking at
a cap of '10' for a basic skill and 4 levels of proficiency. This makes
those 'low cost' decisions even tougher, probably leading to quite a bit
of specialization. I think you'll end up seeing a LOT of specialization
in some of the current 'mental' skills and most extremely high level
characters ending up with 1-3 'high mid range' combat skills or 1
'expert' skill and 2 'low mid range' combat skills.

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      And having a bunch of choices in terms of spells or attacktypes is

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      almost certainly going to be more useful than being really good in

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      just one or two skills.

Spells are something we're looking at currently and while we still
haven't agreed on a definate model, the consensus seems to be that
characters will start as DENIED in all spell paths and have to pay to
unlock them. Additionally, they will have to pay to improve them to a
point where they are effective. Exactly how is something we're fighting
out in committee.

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      2) Gaining new skills - get one every X levels, quest completion,

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      completely fixed based on what you start with

This is a key point. Players will no longer be 'expert at everything'
because they can't afford the skill points. I think pretty much everyone
that has replied to this thread agrees on this.

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      3) Skill particulars - max level allowed in some skills?  

I think this is something everyone pretty much agrees on with many
people wanting the freedom to improve a skill all the way to 110. We're
trying to address both aspects by allowing a character to do so at the
cost of improving other skills. Under the (still in committee) draft, a
character that wanted to advance 'sword use' to 110 would have to spend
around 44 skill points on it.

To reach expert in either praying or spell casting would cost 22 skill
points. Additionally, they will have to pay from 1-3 as a base cost for
spell paths (on a 3 step scale). Generally useful combat spells tend to
be 2 or 3 as a base cost.

If we take (out of thin air) 30 starting skill points and 1 per level,
theres a total of 129 points available.

Under the very rough draft of skill / attunement costs, it would take
196 points to reach expert in prayer, spell casting, 'sword use' and be
able to cast every spell path as 'normal attunement'.

To reach expert in the above skills and cast every spell as 'repelled'
would cost 124 skill points. To cast everything as 'attuned' would cost
304 skill points.

Also, you have to take into account that players will almost certainly
need things like disarm traps. Given some of the benefits being added in
item creation (revised alchemy) theres a lot to be said for paying
for those skills and even advancing them.

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      Different rates of gaining exp in different skills (attenuation?)  

This was proposed because there was an opinion that people should
advance slowly in a skill that they will be limited in. Additionally I
think it adds quite a bit of choice for the player in deciding just
how they want to advance their character.

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      Linked skills (gaining exp in one skill means you gain some portion

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      in another related skill)

This is something we need to look at. I can definately see a case for
linking find traps / disarm traps / lockpick all into a single category.

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      4) Number of skills - how finely divided should the skills be.

This may be a bit of a point. Our current model is looking at a separate
category for each current skill - somewhere around 25-30 skills. Some of
these aren't improvable and just bought at a base cost (mountaineer,
jumping, meditation, etc).

While its a lot of skills, I don't think we're likely to hit any
problems where its necessary to raise the size of maxexp due to the
built in limitations.

What I see this system likely to do is make it quicker to 'max out' a
character, but leave many things undone - encouraging a player to try a
new character and optimize it differently.

Ok, sorry for being so damn long winded. After saying all of the above,
I'm afraid I've mostly just confused people that haven't seen a copy of
the base system we've been kicking around the past few days. I think
we're very close to a point where we have a workable system and some
rough base costs. No doubt many of the skill costs will need tweaking to
get rid of the 'super characters' currently wandering around crossfire
servers, but at least we'll have a place to start from.

I would like to have a draft proposal ready to present to the list in
the next day or two, at which point I'm sure there will be lots of
feedback and a few firebombings.

johnny

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