Experience based on reality...
Scott
I have noticed, on the majority of the MUD's out there, that exp. is based
on one of two things: killing something, or hitting something while killing
it. Has anyone thought of or implimented thier exp. system based a little
more on reality?
In "real life" we gain experience (knowledge of how to correctly do
something) from everything we do. For example, if I am a novice cabinet
maker, I am sure my first few cabinets will suck. Hopefully, as I gain more
experience, my cabinets will reflect better quality. It would be kind of
neat to see something like this in a MUD as well. If I am a cleric, when I
cast heal, if it works correctly, I will gain more exp. If it does NOT
work, I will still gain a little ( we learn from our mistakes) but not
nearly as much as if it worked. This type of system could be expanded to
cover just about everything in a MUD. If I am good at buying items, I will
get a better price, and, more exp for a successfull buy. See where this is
going?
Anywho, all the typos and bad grammer aside, I was just wondering if anyone
has done something like this....?
Narien
Scott wrote:
> I have noticed, on the majority of the MUD's out there, that
> exp. is based
> on one of two things: killing something, or hitting something while
> killing
> it. Has anyone thought of or implimented thier exp. system based a
> little
> more on reality?
Most current EXP systems are generic carry-overs from paper RPGs. When
converting to a computer that can do tons of calculations every second,
the possiblilities become vastly larger.
> In "real life" we gain experience (knowledge of how to correctly do
> something) from everything we do. For example, if I am a novice
> cabinet
> maker, I am sure my first few cabinets will suck. Hopefully, as I
> gain more
> experience, my cabinets will reflect better quality. It would be
> kind of
> neat to see something like this in a MUD as well. If I am a cleric,
> when I
> cast heal, if it works correctly, I will gain more exp. If it does
> NOT
> work, I will still gain a little ( we learn from our mistakes) but
> not
> nearly as much as if it worked. This type of system could be
> expanded to
> cover just about everything in a MUD. If I am good at buying items,
> I will
> get a better price, and, more exp for a successfull buy. See where
> this is
> going?
Let's stop and examine what experience is. According to Webster....1)
observation of or participation in events resulting in or tending toward
knowledge. 2) knowledge, practice, or skill derived from observation or
participation in events. Let's just stop there. Knowledge and skill
gained through participation and observation. Killing something would
improve fighting skills and knowledge...that's pretty obvious. But
becoming better at theft due to killing something....that boggles me. I
believe the solution to this problem is far easier than people think.
Get rid of experience points and levels. Create skills and spells.
Create ways people can first learn these skills and spells. Create
learning system that has learning by use. The difficulty to improve on
a skill increases exponentially, and skill degrading is exponential as
well. This solves learning problems, and allows players to improve
their character without encountering mobs at all. If they want to be an
excellent cabinet makers, then they find someone who could show them the
initial skills, then they get their materials, and start making
cabinets. The more they make, the better they get, the better the
quality of the cabinets become, and the more money the maker gets for
selling them. This jump from experience to learning is IMHO the
difference between a crappy problem-prone mud and a real gem.
Narien
Kevin J. Chen
"Scott" <free...@eznet.com> wrote:
>In "real life" we gain experience (knowledge of how to correctly do
>something) from everything we do. For example, if I am a novice cabinet
>maker, I am sure my first few cabinets will suck. Hopefully, as I gain more
>experience, my cabinets will reflect better quality. It would be kind of
>neat to see something like this in a MUD as well. If I am a cleric, when I
>cast heal, if it works correctly, I will gain more exp. If it does NOT
>work, I will still gain a little ( we learn from our mistakes) but not
>nearly as much as if it worked. This type of system could be expanded to
>cover just about everything in a MUD. If I am good at buying items, I will
>get a better price, and, more exp for a successfull buy. See where this is
>going?
Two points I'd like to add:
1) It may be a cliche, but people learn from their mistakes. When
applying knowledge to a real-world situation, success probably
provides less feedback to the trier than failure, since failure may
indicate action paths which should be avoided in future attempts (of
course, catastrophic failure may not allow you to tell which of the
dozens of things you did was the wrong one). I suppose if you were
really trying to model learning cognition properly, there would be
levels of success and failure, with varying probabilities to determine
whether the attempter of the action noted which of the steps in the
sequence were performed well/poorly. More complex actions will
naturally have more steps, and be more difficult to evaluate where
things went wrong/right.
2) This may stray into the realm of realism vs. playability, but
learning is only one component of ability: talent is the other
relevant one. Some people may have a knack for performing a
particular skill, and will therefore advance more quickly than those
who try as best they can, but should stick with their day job.
It may miff players that the character they generate to be a master
wizard really has all the magical potential of a (non-magical) grain
of sand, when his potential really lies in being a tailor (q.v.
Demolition Man). Of course, perhaps determining what you're good at
might make for an interesting RP experience.
Kevin.
David Baur
Hmmm, most circle muds I've been on do give experience upgrades based on
using it (either for a specific spell cast or a specific skill used).
When I scout successfully enough, I gain some percentage (different on
most circle muds) in scout. Likewise, skills that are automatically used
tend to increase better since they are used more frequently, which happen
to be the fighting type skills. I am not sure whether Scott is refering
to other mud systems I don't play (as I tend to shy from MUSH and LP muds
from preference). I would image it wouldn't be *that* hard to imp on the
other mud systems if desired.
Timothy Philip Vernum
>"Scott" <free...@eznet.com> wrote:
And I would add, that:
Success tends to allow us to repeat that success.
Failure shows us the results of alternative paths.
SO A successful 'heal' spell may allow you to heal in the someway, more often,
but it will take a bit of experimentation (and therefore failures) to learn
to heal in more powerful / effecient ways.
Success gives specific exp for that ability, failure's exp is more general, as
it (almost by definition) strayed from the exact bounds of that ability.
[2nd Point snipped]
- Tim
Alberto BARSELLA
In article <338886DE...@mc.net> Narien <dben...@mc.net> writes:
[.......]
> their character without encountering mobs at all. If they want to be an
> excellent cabinet makers, then they find someone who could show them the
> initial skills, then they get their materials, and start making
> cabinets. The more they make, the better they get, the better the
> quality of the cabinets become, and the more money the maker gets for
> selling them.
You then have the problem of people writing a script to perform the
same action 1000 times and then going away to play some other mud,
only to return when the char is "damn good" at the chosen skill.
Solving this is not that easy, since it requires you to either create
a world so complex than any attempt at using a robot will get you
killed (starving for example) or building a system where skills decay
if you don't use them, so that even if you bot up a skill it won't
last long unless you really need it.
Alberto
--
Alberto BARSELLA
PGP fingerprint = 13 3F 22 D2 0B 0A D3 25 F1 89 FE B5 82 AD 75 2A
Brandon J. Rickman
In article <m2yb92t...@mokulen.univ-lille1.fr>,
Such a tiresome and unjustifiable excuse! Someone mentioned earlier and
in a different thread that the two real problems with bots are 1)
spam-bots and 2) bots taking up connection slots in crowded muds. Yes, if
you allow character skills to improve with practice people will write
scripts to repeatedly do whatever the repeatable thing is. I find it
difficult to believe that this is unfair or inherently unbalances the mud,
it still takes "time" for skills to improve and any overly useful skill
that can be exploited by a practicing script has probably unbalanaced the
game anyway. (The notorious fireball-casting mage from the other thread.)
Think what you can do with easily practicable skills: have the cleverer
monsters practice their skills to keep up with the players. Let the
economic dynamics take care of inflated skills; in a world full of highly
skilled cabinet makers furniture would be in low demand (cheap). Making
healing spells difficult to learn would place a premium on good healers.
- Brandon
Broly
>On 24 May 1997, Scott wrote:
> I have noticed, on the majority of the MUD's out there, that exp. is based
> on one of two things: killing something, or hitting something while killing
> it. Has anyone thought of or implimented thier exp. system based a little
> more on reality?
Thus the complaint that there is really only one profession on
(most) MUDs...MonsterSlayer
>
> In "real life" we gain experience (knowledge of how to correctly do
In "real life" I get screamed at by my boss, I 'learn' not to jump across
my desk and strangle him. Thus I gain experience in my field.
I MUD cause some days RL just sucks. I'm designing a MUD cause RL sucks
for other people too. I want to design a MUD where you _can_ jump across
your desk and strangle your boss, and are encouraged to do so. Its not
_supposed_ to model RL. If it did, I wouldn't let my players log off...
> something) from everything we do. For example, if I am a novice cabinet
> maker, I am sure my first few cabinets will suck. Hopefully, as I gain more
> experience, my cabinets will reflect better quality. It would be kind of
> neat to see something like this in a MUD as well.
If you are a monster/boss slayer you get better at it as the bodies pile
up at your feet.
> If I am a cleric, when I
...kneel at the temple and pray for 12 strait hours or stand in Market
Square and annoy passers-by by screaming religous drivel...
Although very realistic, not very playable. You can have a class
'programmer' that gains experience by writing code all day long that his
boss will delete/alter beyond functionality, but I play that 6 days a
week, so unless you want to offer a comprehensive dental package to your
players, you'd better make your game interesting.
> cast heal, if it works correctly, I will gain more exp. If it does NOT
> work, I will still gain a little ( we learn from our mistakes) but not
> nearly as much as if it worked. This type of system could be expanded to
Now you're talking. Bring on the nasties. Pull the mages outa the
libraries and give them battle-axes (well thats a DIKUism). Giving Exp
for healing players that are killing mobs isn't too different from giving
them EXP for the actual kill. As far as expanding it...sure..give all
players exp for skill usage. I'm all for that. It's no more 'realistic'
than rewarding them for killing mobs, but at least it encourages them to
roleplay enough to kill mobs in ways that aren't foriegn to their chars.
Now you have to be careful. If you go this route, you have to define when
is an acceptable time to use the skill quite narrowly. (e.g. a thief
should gain no exp for hiding when there are no nasties about) Also, if
you want to go whole hog here, switch to a skill-based system in which
players improve in _each skill_ individually, based on that skills usage.
That switch, though, if done right, is a massive undertaking, and you'd
probably be better off finding base code that is already skill based
rather than hack a DIKU to death.
> cover just about everything in a MUD. If I am good at buying items, I will
> get a better price, and, more exp for a successfull buy. See where this is
> going?
Yes. A skill-based MUD. They're good, but nasty to code for the most
part. (I'm sure I'll get flamed for this generalization)
> Anywho, all the typos and bad grammer aside, I was just wondering if anyone
> has done something like this....?
Yes, its been done many times, many ways...and I encourage those who have
done this to list an ftp site where this chap can get started...
Jeff Freeman
On 24 May 1997 13:34:24 GMT, "Scott" <free...@eznet.com> wrote:
> I have noticed, on the majority of the MUD's out there, that exp. is based
>on one of two things: killing something, or hitting something while killing
>it. Has anyone thought of or implimented thier exp. system based a little
>more on reality?
I like the system on DarkMetal. You get XP for time online, not idle
and XP for RP, which other players award. Players are allowed to vote
something like once per day - all in all it seems to work. You play
for a while and if everything just clicks, someone that you just RP'd
with votes to award you XP. I like that the players judge each
other's RP ability, too (sometimes you RP with several people and want
to award all of them XP, but each person is only allowed one vote).
I guess the main thing is to award people (the players, by way of
their characters) for doing whatever it is you want them to do. If
you want an RP MU*, award XP for that. If you want a puzzle-solving
MU*, award XP for that.
'Course that's sort of hard to apply to game in which no one RPs and
everyone is just trying to get The Most Powerful Character.. but, eh.
Diff'rent strokes.
Narien
Alberto BARSELLA wrote:
> You then have the problem of people writing a script to perform the
> same action 1000 times and then going away to play some other mud,
> only to return when the char is "damn good" at the chosen skill.
Simple way of doing this.
1) Have skills progress exponentially. When a player first starts
learning a skill, progression is fast, but it quickly slows down. Only
experts who practice their skills often will become "damn good."
2) As a downside...have skills degrade exponentitally as well...to a
point. If a player doesn't use a skill for a little while, then that
skill will degrade very slightly...if a player doesn't use a skill for a
LONG time, then it will degrade a whole lot. (It's easy to see the logic
behind these two points) The key is to determine a percentage of a
skill that, once a character has learned it, they won't forget. This
may be 20% of the skill...25%...whatever suits your fancy.
This makes those players that decide to write scripts to run a single
set of commands over and over again have a couple above average
skills...but while they are doing that, all their other skills are
degrading far greater than they are making progress in those few
skills. Combined with a 100-150 skills, the character will actually be
loosing. Also, with 200 or so spells, many of which have spell
components...things can be difficult to use scripts. It would be much
better for the player to play their character and the character will
develop how he/she will, with the skills at appropriate levels for how
often they would apply them. The more complex individual skills/spells
work, and other aspects of the world, such as combat, are designed, the
more inefficient and foolish those scripts become...not to mention a
lack on the fun of developing a character's skills and abilities
according to what the character ends up doing.
Narien
Martin Keegan
Jeff Freeman wrote:
> I like the system on DarkMetal. You get XP for time online, not idle
Shurely this is a more blatant playerbase maximisation mechanism than
"rent"? - Nem.
-- "It's the Game, Stupid"
http://cyburbia.net.au/~martin/cgi-bin/mud_tree.cgi
Matthew Griffin
>ou then have the problem of people writing a script to perform the
>same action 1000 times and then going away to play some other mud,
>only to return when the char is "damn good" at the chosen skill.
>a world so complex than any attempt at using a robot will get you
>killed (starving for example) or building a system where skills decay
>if you don't use them, so that even if you bot up a skill it won't
>last long unless you really need it.
Is essence there is no defence against a Bot since they can do what
mortals can do by setting up simple actions. To overcome a bot you would
have to be able to code a program that detects patterns - IE most bots
will keep going round one area doing the same stuff, players that never
respond to anyone else, although this can be overcome if the person
wants to take time to create an advanced bot. Morphing areas or randomly
changing mob names are other ways to reduce the problem but there is a
point where you screw the game up for everyone else.
/ A
>
>Alberto
Broly
On Fri, 30 May 1997, Narien wrote:
> 1) Have skills progress exponentially. When a player first starts
> learning a skill, progression is fast, but it quickly slows down. Only
> experts who practice their skills often will become "damn good."
>
> 2) As a downside...have skills degrade exponentitally as well...to a
> point. If a player doesn't use a skill for a little while, then that
> skill will degrade very slightly...if a player doesn't use a skill for a
> LONG time, then it will degrade a whole lot. (It's easy to see the logic
> behind these two points) The key is to determine a percentage of a
> skill that, once a character has learned it, they won't forget. This
> may be 20% of the skill...25%...whatever suits your fancy.
The problem I see with skill degredation is the following senario:
Bubba the Swordmaster is trudging along when he comes upon Alfred the
Newbie. Now poor Alfred is completely new to mudding and needs a helping
hand. Bubba is forced to make a decision: Do I spend the next two hours
teaching Alfred the basics, not only keeping me from improving my skills,
but risking losing most of them as well? I can't imagine punishing the
older players for helping the newer ones by giving them a tour of Midgaard
(Or whatever starting town you have replaced it with--you _have_ replaced
it I hope). I'm trying to discourage the 'help' of "here's 100k gold, a
sword of anniliation, and a few recalls...knock yourself out.", but if
players are punished for taking time from honing their skills, thats the
only help they'd get.
Mind you, I'm sure there's an obvious solution that I'm missing...
Gunther
Narien
Broly wrote:
> . Bubba is forced to make a decision: Do I spend the next two
> hours
> teaching Alfred the basics, not only keeping me from improving my
> skills,
> but risking losing most of them as well? I can't imagine punishing
> the
> older players for helping the newer ones by giving them a tour of
> Midgaard
> Mind you, I'm sure there's an obvious solution that I'm missing...
> Gunther
Sure is. A few points I might have left out...
1) Skill degrading, like skill progressing, isn't fast at all. A
player could spend a couple hours sitting idle and nothing might happen
to the skills. They could sit idle for 5-10 hours and only see a minor
degrading of skills. It's exponential. If the player sits 15-20 hours
idle, then they would find a signifigant drop of skills...to a point.
2) Using the skills periodically, even once every few hours, will stunt
degrading...to a point. The mud checks how often the skill has been
used in a period of time, and the last time it was used, etc.. Using a
skill once every 4 hours will cause a VERY slight degrading (the player
wouldn't even notice it). Skills such as combat and spellcasting that
the player uses often will not degrade.
Given the above...Bubba wouldn't loose squat helping a newbie for a
couple hours. He would be gaining a lot....with such diverse skills and
spells...having friends will be very advantageous...the newbie might
come along later and teach Bubba the basics of a few skills he didn't
previously have. Get the idea?
Narien
mor...@niuhep.physics.niu.edu
Matthew Griffin <oce...@oceanic.demon.co.uk> writes:
>>killed (starving for example) or building a system where skills decay
>>if you don't use them, so that even if you bot up a skill it won't
>>last long unless you really need it.
>Is essence there is no defence against a Bot since they can do what
>mortals can do by setting up simple actions.
I contend that, in a moderately realistic mud with skill decay and
increasing difficulty for increasing skills, it is difficult for a 'bot
to be overwhelmingly useful.
If you use a bot to bring up one skill to very high levels then all the
other skills will decay. If you really want to write a 1000 line program
to run your bot ... well so be it.
Robert
specify the e-mail address below, my reply-to: has anti-spam added to it
Mor...@physics.niu.edu
Real Men change diapers
jfre...@chrysalis.org
In article <338F8B...@cam.sri.com>,
Martin Keegan <mar...@cam.sri.com> wrote:
>
> Jeff Freeman wrote:
>
> > I like the system on DarkMetal. You get XP for time online, not idle
>
> Shurely this is a more blatant playerbase maximisation mechanism than
> "rent"? - Nem.
Correction, it's the "XP for RolePlaying" part that I like, not so much
the XP for time online.
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http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet
Maddy
Alberto BARSELLA (ish...@lsh01.univ-lille1.fr) wrote:
: In article <338886DE...@mc.net> Narien <dben...@mc.net> writes:
: [.......]
: > their character without encountering mobs at all. If they want to be an
: > excellent cabinet makers, then they find someone who could show them the
: > initial skills, then they get their materials, and start making
: > cabinets. The more they make, the better they get, the better the
: > quality of the cabinets become, and the more money the maker gets for
: > selling them.
: You then have the problem of people writing a script to perform the
: same action 1000 times and then going away to play some other mud,
: only to return when the char is "damn good" at the chosen skill.
: Solving this is not that easy, since it requires you to either create
: a world so complex than any attempt at using a robot will get you
: killed (starving for example) or building a system where skills decay
: if you don't use them, so that even if you bot up a skill it won't
: last long unless you really need it.
Why would you go in the skill straight away. I think RuneQuest (a p&p RPG
system) has got it kinda right. If you do a skill successfully - you mark
that down on your sheet and only when you've rested for a week, do you get
the chance to increase your ability in that skill. Resting for a week
wouldn't work in a mud, but if skills could only go up once a week, a bot
would spend most of it's time sitting around doing sod all. Where as a
player would go around and do stuff and probably go up just as quickly.
Maddy
--
The Gathering ------------------------------------------------------------
Telnet: tg.spods.dcs.kcl.ac.uk 5000
URL : http://tg.spods.dcs.kcl.ac.uk/
Email : gath...@zippy.spods.dcs.kcl.ac.uk
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brian James Green
In <5muohl$2...@corn.cso.niu.edu> mor...@niuhep.physics.niu.edu writes:
>Matthew Griffin <oce...@oceanic.demon.co.uk> writes:
>>Is essence there is no defence against a Bot since they can do what
>>mortals can do by setting up simple actions.
>I contend that, in a moderately realistic mud with skill decay and
>increasing difficulty for increasing skills, it is difficult for a 'bot
>to be overwhelmingly useful.
>If you use a bot to bring up one skill to very high levels then all the
>other skills will decay. If you really want to write a 1000 line program
>to run your bot ... well so be it.
The problem is, then, how does this not penalize a real player? What if
I wanted to manually increase a skill, now I get boned (and probably
spend more time than the 'bot did) with my other skills? That sounds
fair.
I think the best idea came from someone mentioning the palladium RPG
system, where skills that were used over a time period go up after a set
amount of time. That way, the human and the 'bot are increasing just
the same.
"And I now wait / to shake the hand of fate...." -"Defender", Manowar
Brian Green, pch...@iastate.edu aka Psychochild
|\ _,,,---,,_ *=* Morpheus, my kitten, says "Hi!" *=*
ZZzz /,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_ "If you two are so evil, then why don't
|,4- ) )-,_..;\ ( `'-' you just...EAT THIS KITTEN!"
'---''(_/--' `-'\_) - "The Tick", Saturday morning cartoon.
Check out: http://www.public.iastate.edu/~pchild to find out about me!
mor...@niuhep.physics.niu.edu
pch...@iastate.edu (Brian James Green) writes:
>mor...@niuhep.physics.niu.edu writes:
>>I contend that,
>>in a moderately realistic mud
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>with skill decay and increasing difficulty for increasing skills, it
>>is difficult for a 'bot to be overwhelmingly useful.
>The problem is, then, how does this not penalize a real player? What if
>I wanted to manually increase a skill, now I get boned (and probably
>spend more time than the 'bot did) with my other skills?
>That sounds fair.
I agree :)
If you want to have olympic level skills then you have to make sacrifices.
My skill advancement system is relatively complex, there shouldn't be any
problem for an intellegent player to have a number of different skills at
moderate skill levels... given some time invested in those skills.
But the higher you go the more difficult it gets.
If you don't like that level of reality, that's cool, go find another mud.
>I think the best idea came from someone mentioning the palladium RPG
>system, where skills that were used over a time period go up after a set
>amount of time. That way, the human and the 'bot are increasing just
>the same.
I didn't read the details, but certainly something could be worked out.
I realize that realism is a hotly debated subject here, but what I am
aiming for is just that, realism. Along the way I find that that seems
to solve some problems (like 'bots). I fall short in a number of ways
(notably I do not have a piss and defecate function :) yet :), but
that is what I am trying for.
And yes I am trying to keep it playable too, and I am trying to make the
realism interesting as well, allowing players to make choices.
Robert