Quote from: Halaster on April 23, 2024, 09:44:08 AMWe're not trying to be like them.  I think it's a good idea to pay attention to how other games do things, and if something is a good idea, maybe consider doing the same.  But just because other games do something doesn't mean we need to, or should, or want to.

I completely understand that, I don't think you should copy other games just because they're successful or popular, but I do think even discussing it in a vacuum, the amount of RnG in Armageddon character creation is pretty heavy. I've played characters with both abysmal stats and godlike stats and it's pretty night and day. But it's also such a subjective thing that It's a little difficult to discuss.

Maybe I have a bit of a bias, on several occasions I've written up a character I was really excited for just to roll terrible stats, which usually takes the winds out of my sails for the excitement I once had. I understand wanting to have some variety in character creation, but I guess personally I just feel as if there are better ways to go about it? One way for example is having it so stats are random, but always total the same amount, post-modifiers. I've actually seen a few other muds do this, and it results in characters that are either well-balanced, or lop-sided, which can be interesting in it's own way.

At the end of the day I do know that it's a 'design vision' thing, but I do think it's important to keep in mind that I doubt many people enjoy rolling a character with bad stats. And once you do, there's nothing you can really do about it aside from 'deal with it until you die/store', which kinda just sucks. I think I wouldn't be so sore about the topic if it wasn't for the fact that there's nothing you can do once you're stuck with bad stats.

Quote from: Kavrick on April 22, 2024, 11:13:48 PMIt's a drum I've bashed since I've started playing. The complete RNG in character creation stats feels like a relic of a bygone age and there are good reasons why modern day rpgs, both tabletop, text-based and any other type of roleplaying game have pretty much completely removed RNG from character creation.

We're not trying to be like them.  I think it's a good idea to pay attention to how other games do things, and if something is a good idea, maybe consider doing the same.  But just because other games do something doesn't mean we need to, or should, or want to.

Quote from: Bogre on April 22, 2024, 03:21:00 PMI agree with Windstorm's point. Skill timers are such that you are cannot go up 10 ticks in an RL day, or whatever, which discourages constant  grinding of skills. Decreasing that means you can maybe get a couple more gains if you stay logged in for a long time, but it doesn't really change the more casual play pattern of log in once or every couple days and train. One main 'grind' people feel is that people feel like they start really weak and don't get up to capable for a few days played - this change might make it slightly quicker for those who play a lot, but matters less for those people who log in far more intermittently.

The other grind is that some skills (combat skills, namely) simply won't increase because the rate of failure is low, and sometimes the rate of skill gain even if failing is low. Reduced timers won't really matter if you're never triggering the timer by gaining.

I moreover think that the characters to benefit, if they were spending that long online, would be high-stat, combat-stat prioritized characters, and helps out already powerful races (dwarves, muls, elves) that need very insanely godlike in PVP and very dangerous to other PCs. And that's not even considering ways to boost stats, which presumeably would then help timers.

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My thought would rather be help the initial curve out and make the top-end progress require investment (but not impossible flailing like now). That would be to increase the % chance to gain from novice->apprentice, apprentice->jman, and then once there you have a bit tougher of a time. You could even make it so novice->apprentice combat skills bump by 2 per gain, and then slow to 1, keeping offense/defense where its at, which I believe would starkly improve the time-to-not-newbie, get people on an even playing field faster.

 Obviously I don't think anyone wants it to be laughably easy to get maxed out combat chars, since those are overwhelmingly powerful vs PVE and PVP balance, and makes it hard for new PCs to catch up or be meaningful. But in a season, there is a limiter in the eventual end of season so you don't want everyone frustrated at a 'plateau' and trying to metagame past it.
 

Just because a change doesn't fix all scenarios doesn't mean a change shouldn't happen.  You guys are right, this doesn't do much for some groups of people, but it does for other groups.  It's still OK to make the change.

Folks who say this would not help the grind, what in the world?

If the stat you would naturally prioritize then helps you gain skills faster, you are grinding less. Couple that with higher starting skills for mundane classes and subclasses, and we are on fast-track baby.

Based on Halaster's first post. The worst case scendario with low wis and secondary stat is it remains the same as before... so your grind is either the same or it's better. Neutral is your worst case scenario.

Randomized stats is a completely different topic.

Halaster's post:

- High wisdom, low secondary stat - It will be a little slower in that skill than if you just had a high wisdom in the old system.
- High wisdom, high secondary stat - It will be noticeably faster in that skill than the old system where if you just had a high wisdom.
- Low wisdom, low secondary stat - It will be about the same as the old system if you had a low wisdom.
- Low wisdom, high secondary stat - It will be noticeably faster in that skill than the old system where if you just had a high secondary stat

Tongue in cheek:

double the timer on combat skills
double the gain when a fail tick occurs


The only people it "punishes" are people who play multiple-hours per day, but if you log in every day you'll still be able to keep up, as it were. It would require less Days Played, but a similar amount of Time Played (10d played won't matter as much as you playing for a month consistently).

Numbers obviously could change, but I feel this would help "the grind", as I see the grind being affected more by opportunity to fail than by the timer being less. If I find that opportunity to get my fails once a week, and only get one point out of it, it feels bad.

With many posters feeling this doesn't lessen the grind, and Dresan's idea for gains, perhaps something else is also worthy of consideration?

Maybe a decent idea would be to take the timer reduction away from secondary stats, and replace it with an increased skill gain based on said stats? A time reduction is nice for very busy/active players, but for many, they won't really notice a change in the timer when they're not constantly working on skills, are out rping, attending this event, etc.

Say, as an example that a PC's sneak skill gains come in increments of 1 with each failure.

PC has an agility score of X, and each time they fail now, that X translates to additional gains. Say that X is a .25 increase, (with higher values meaning more?) making a failure now a 1.25 increase in the sneak skill for each fail within the timer.

This lets people get more out of their skill ups, without trying to work around timers to level as quickly as possible. The timers stay the same, but the gains increase, making a notable difference without impacting play preferences.

Quote from: Dresan on April 22, 2024, 10:17:35 PMJust a quick summary of thoughts:

1. As its been said above this makes wisdom more of a dump stat. For some ideas how to make wisdom more desirable and just some ideas on stats in general to improve mundane selection (especially in this setting) see the following threads: Wisdom and Discussion on stats

2. This does nothing to fix skill grind. I recommend just doubling the learning gains at the beginning of the season, then upping that to times X5 at the 50% mark of the season, and then upping that further to X10 learning gains around the 85% mark of the season. One thing the game is missing is a way to keep the player-base coming back especially as a season ends and your character dies. I think from experience we've seen once a game is closing people just stop logging in, doubly so if their character died. Slowly upping skill gains through the season would help with that.

3. Ultimately the main concerns with learning skills too quickly is often centered around combat. More so these days since the natural weaknesses of heavy combat classes (like the scary poisons) have become harder to pull off over time due to changes in the game. I think by solving that first as discussed here: Combat, it'll be easier to improve skill gains across the board without suddenly ending up with combat juggernauts everywhere.

Anything we can do to continue to encourage people to play mundane characters instead of mages/high karma options is strongly recommended as well.

Absolutely fantastic post, with suggestions that really attempt to solve The Grind. The current proposed changes simply don't, and in ways I'd even argue exacerbate them.

Quote from: Roon on April 22, 2024, 09:53:16 PMThere should be no such thing as characters who have godlike stats, or crappy stats, through sheer luck. Each race should have a fixed pool of total stats, and then some degree of randomness can determine their exact distribution. That leaves plenty of room for characters to be different, but you never just get shafted or handed a character that's objectively superior.

It's a drum I've bashed since I've started playing. The complete RNG in character creation stats feels like a relic of a bygone age and there are good reasons why modern day rpgs, both tabletop, text-based and any other type of roleplaying game have pretty much completely removed RNG from character creation. Sure there are still some stragglers, but the most popular ones have completely gotten rid of it. Even old editions of Dungeons and Dragons had stat arrays as an alternative to rolling dice for your stats.

I like the proposed changes to combat and HP, but only if they also apply to critters/npcs, because I know it's largely a RNG game but I swear it feels like NPC animals and the like once they get to critical/near death, they get a resurgence or something. It's messed me up more than once. And we already see disparities causing big lethality with stuff like how npcs can charge in and reel lock you quicker than you can even respond to seeing something enter the room.

Just a quick summary of thoughts:

1. As its been said above this makes wisdom more of a dump stat. For some ideas how to make wisdom more desirable and just some ideas on stats in general to improve mundane selection (especially in this setting) see the following threads: Wisdom and Discussion on stats

2. This does nothing to fix skill grind. I recommend just doubling the learning gains at the beginning of the season, then upping that to times X5 at the 50% mark of the season, and then upping that further to X10 learning gains around the 85% mark of the season. One thing the game is missing is a way to keep the player-base coming back especially as a season ends and your character dies. I think from experience we've seen once a game is closing people just stop logging in, doubly so if their character died. Slowly upping skill gains through the season would help with that.

3. Ultimately the main concerns with learning skills too quickly is often centered around combat. More so these days since the natural weaknesses of heavy combat classes (like the scary poisons) have become harder to pull off over time due to changes in the game. I think by solving that first as discussed here: Combat, it'll be easier to improve skill gains across the board without suddenly ending up with combat juggernauts everywhere.

Anything we can do to continue to encourage people to play mundane characters instead of mages/high karma options is strongly recommended as well.