Posted by Proud Blade(VIP) on June 7, 2000 at 13:53:36:
In Reply to: we've gone over this, but if you really want... posted by Smacky on June 7, 2000 at 12:56:51:
> We've gone over the alternative power-gain thing before, you could probably run one of your famed forum searches on it..
I did. "Smacky" hasn't talked about it. If you posted it under another name, let us know. Otherwise, I assume that it's someone new, and they might have some ideas to contribute. Or they might be one of those people who says "System X sucks!" without proposing a fix. It's good to see you aren't one of those people.
> First of all, fuzzing %s into name ranges, with no 'perfect' point, like pre-level-20 stat numbers. This would encourage people to go out and kill and roleplay and stuff and cut down on all the times pre-30 when everyone is 'sorry, practicing' 'apologies, I work at my art'. The time -> power thing is worthless as far as roleplaying is concerned. The paladins are a great step in the right direction.
I'd be fine with that. Of course, the super-anal players would just keep track of these things on paper, and assume an average of 2 points per "Learn from mistakes". But I agree that numbers tend to convince people to focus on them, when they should be thinking about other things.
> One of the ideas was guildquests.. ie, you can only learn certain skills from certain places. This could be expanded by breaking skills into brackets, then you must seek out the master in whatever city before being able to pass a certain skill/spell %. This could be coupled with random item-to-mob quests (it can be done fairly stylishly with a little clever writing and code.. I've seen it on other muds) and experience rewards in addition to the % restriction being upped.
Yep. I'd love to see two types of quest rewards become popular:
1) Completing a quest for a bonus to a skill. Example: Some ranger sends you to gather some rare ingredients (marshweed sprigs from Ysigrath?), and if you do it, your herbs skill goes up quite a bit, say 5%. If a druid did it, they'd get a similar bonus to herbal medicine. If any other class did it, they'd get a warm pat on the back, or maybe some xp. Once one of these quests goes in, the corresponding skill can be tweaked to be a little harder to learn, to encourage people to use these quests when they can. Now, instead of watching people spam things in their guild, people are running all over Thera. Some of these quests should be easy to find out about... maybe the one I suggest is mentioned on a sign outside the Galadon ranger's guild. Others might be harder... what lengths would an Invoker go to for 5% on vortex? What deathfullness would a trannie risk for 5% on shapeshift?
2) Accessibility, like you said. The simplest coding thing I could think of is to make it so each guildmaster knows a finite number of skills. Maybe the Warrior Guildmaster teaches bash, but not trip. Maybe the one in Darsylon (being small and nimble) teaches trip, but not bash. Maybe fourth attack is only taught in some odd guild (Battlefield?), or by mobs in certain areas (Lord Captain Dan? The Rager dude in Udgaard?). Most of the lowbie skills would remain taught pretty much everywhere, so newbies don't suffer very much.
> The paladins, as I said, are a good example of where to go, but the imms need to revamp it a little to ease the logistics of two individuals happening to play the same game at the same time. Mortal avatars, morality quests, and multi-imm participation would help. By the last, I mean, make an imm rung devoted to watching/critiquing/giving feedback to players. Maybe as a step in between 52 and 53, or possibly a requirement to make 54.
I haven't played a paladin since the changes... I'm a one-char kind of guy, and I'm happy with my current one. But if the rumors of how the system works are true, I agree it's a step in the right direction for empowered classes.
> There's other possibilities that are done on other muds. Make improvements crappy and un-pushable at low levels, then have them naturally pop up to near-perfect/perfect as you get higher. Invokers, well... they're kind of beyond hope, maybe a bunch of quests run supposedly by the masters on elemental study, or in-game mobs in hard to reach elemental places to teach them, or make it known that the imms will reward any player who does RP research in an element and writes about it.
Again, a good idea. It might also discourage rank-sitting, which would be a huge perk in my eyes. Certain skills could even be "capped" according to level... for example, bash (for non-giants) might not go over 85% until you reach 20th level, and not over 95% until you reach 25th. As an exchange, you make practicing bash a tiny bit easier. Result: People are encouraged to go and rank up, practicing along the way, and you don't have level 30 thieves running around who are masters of every skill, yet not promoted to hero.
> Anyhow.. almost any fix would be better than the current cycle we have of making push practice harder until a few people discover the new tricks, then everyone does them, and it takes longer with each cycle.
I agree that the current system is not very exciting, but it is realistic to an extent, and balanced. However, game balance, playability, and realism need to find a happy middle ground. Practicing should still be tough for veteran players.
> I'm sure other people have better ideas, and this strikes me as the singlemost suckiest thing about being new to CF. Not much of a problem for me, since I do one char then stick with it for a while, but it's a stupid way to make CF newbie unfriendly (muhaha, I spent 20 hours practicing, newbie! either spend 20 hours too, die, or play 400 hours to learn how to live without!). Of course, I guess in a sort of sadistic way it encourages people to not care about dying and focus on roleplaying. I mean, my first few years in CF I didn't even bother to practice, and I sure sucked PKwise and got my ass kicked, and blew as a tank and in groups, but my chars were solid with imms/quests/RP.
>
> Got any ideas yourself, Blade?
Yep. I wasn't implying you didn't.