Coding Idea

[Jbes]

I do not know if this would be possible to implement, or it could be implemented, to the extent of my idea.

Also consider this less of an idea and more of a theoretical suggestion, and I may be wrong and this is implemented unbeknowist to me.


Would it be possible to implement a way for other characters in Armageddon to learn from watching others? For instance, you watch someone else do a particular move in a sparring match or combat. After seeing that move, and if you have seen it multiple times, eventually an option would come up that would allow you to learn that move and eventually add it to your list of skills.

The process to this idea would not be, "Oh, I saw this guy do a move once, now it is added to my skills" but rather a slow learning process where eventually you get to try that move or skill in a very experimental manner in a controlled sparring match to get to the point in which, once you have mastered the fundamentals it would be something added to your list of skills at the rank of novice eventually.

We could get even more complex then that and go into a more complex code and allow the learning process by simply watching be several steps. As to those steps I would have no clue.

[Qzzrbl]

Mmmmngh....

Codedly? It's probably possible.

The real question here is if we'd want that, which.... If you take a long, hard look at the implications, I'm not so sure we do.

There's comes a point in every player's life when they've just gotta take a long, hard look at their character and say, "Man.... I should'a just picked a guild/subguild with that skill."

[KankWhisperer]

I think it would be alright if you already had the skill. If you are novice watching a master do whatever I don't see why you wouldn't have a chance to pick something up.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I dunno. It's certainly possible, code wise. I just dunno if I like the idea of picking up the skills. I frankly always wanted a classless system, but being that we don't have such a thing, I'd probably not go this route, either.

[BuNutzCola]

In theory, and it's rare to my understanding, you could roleplay out the learning of a particular discipline and submit a request asking for the skill to be added. I seem to remember hearing about a policy change in regards to this, but I had at one point many moons ago a merchant guild eventually learn slashing weapons (which he went on to be somewhat respectable with)

[Jbes]

If this were to become a fully embodied part of Arm, I would like to see a chance at learning something by watching or listening or other variables other then the classic trial and error. If I want to go even more indepth and qoute a very famous Darwinian passage, Human's and sentient being's like humans, in this case, are the only animals that can learn through means other then just trial and error. If I understand the language system correctly, this very same type of code could be applied to all skills.

[Drayab]

With all due respect, I suspect that you don't understand how improving at languages works. In general, coded learning in Arm is based on the concept of failure. Learning languages by listening therefore works because of your character's failure to understand what's being said. In other words, your character failed a comprehension roll based on their current skill level with the language. I don't think your idea cleanly fits into that model; it would require extra work.

I'm sure this sort of thing could be coded if an ambitious programmer took up the task, but I predict that this will never happen because,

• Arm has a class based skill system, and this idea steps outside that.
• There is already support for this kind of stuff via logs and the request tool.
• Coders probably have higher priority tasks to do already.

[Narf]

If I want to go even more indepth and qoute a very famous Darwinian passage, Human's and sentient being's like humans, in this case, are the only animals that can learn through means other then just trial and error. If I understand the language system correctly, this very same type of code could be applied to all skills.

Nitpick: As a biologist, I assure you this is not true. Human's have the greatest ability to learn through intuition, but other species have some as well. It's been studied extensively in chimps, and I recall that dogs, cats, and to a small degree rats have all been observed to be able to learn without trial and error.

But back to Arm; What's the benefit from a gameplay perspective to making skill acquiring work off this system? I don't think historically code overhalls like this have been made without offering a significant benefit to the game environment.

For significant code changes staff is probably going to need more than 'it makes more sense this way' as a reason.

[evilcabbage]

I do not know if this would be possible to implement, or it could be implemented, to the extent of my idea.

Also consider this less of an idea and more of a theoretical suggestion, and I may be wrong and this is implemented unbeknowist to me.


Would it be possible to implement a way for other characters in Armageddon to learn from watching others? For instance, you watch someone else do a particular move in a sparring match or combat. After seeing that move, and if you have seen it multiple times, eventually an option would come up that would allow you to learn that move and eventually add it to your list of skills.

The process to this idea would not be, "Oh, I saw this guy do a move once, now it is added to my skills" but rather a slow learning process where eventually you get to try that move or skill in a very experimental manner in a controlled sparring match to get to the point in which, once you have mastered the fundamentals it would be something added to your list of skills at the rank of novice eventually.

We could get even more complex then that and go into a more complex code and allow the learning process by simply watching be several steps. As to those steps I would have no clue.

This is what requests are for, to be honest. I don't want someone just watching me and scoring themselves some nice lootskeelz just because the coded skills allow them to do so. It would kind of ruin the point of the class-based system that we currently have.

And make me less useful to whoever I may be useful to.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

If we had a classless system with a max skill points cap, this idea would rock. As it is, I'd rather not see this.

[evilcabbage]

If we had a classless system with a max skill points cap, this idea would rock. As it is, I'd rather not see this.

I'd rather not have a classless system with a max skill points cap, because it didn't work very well in the other MUD I played.

If you raised one skill above your max, you would lose in other skills. That's dumb. Very dumb. Imagine a merchanty character... who suffered from this.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

If you could lock 50% of your learned skills, thus choosing which skills you did lose points in to learn the new skill you were learning, I don't see how this would be too much a problem. The points cap could be the numerical equivalent of a full class, in order to offer the ability to be fully featured as you saw fit.

[evilcabbage]

If you could lock 50% of your learned skills, thus choosing which skills you did lose points in to learn the new skill you were learning, I don't see how this would be too much a problem. The points cap could be the numerical equivalent of a full class, in order to offer the ability to be fully featured as you saw fit.

You don't see how it's a problem, but I do see how it could be a problem for a merchant who is limited by skill points to a select number of skills, and cannot learn all of his merchanty skills to the maximum possible level he could have attained.

[Cendell]

The MUD I used to code on was classless...worked great, but did make PC's with lots of connections/money and lots of time a little bit...overpowered.

But in that, all skills starting level and caps were based on stats. So stats got a lot more importance.

ie. Sword Use, Open=2xDex, Cap=5*Dex + 2*Int

So you'd never be great at everything...but you could be at least mediocre at most everything.

Of course, the only way to open a skill, was to have it added by Staff (Through RP) or Taught by a Master level PC (After lots and lots of RP) And we checked a list of skills taught and trawled run logs to enforce it. Worked well...but would need a big shift in Arm to run that way.

[MeTekillot]

You mean Atonement?

[Cendell]

You mean Atonement?

Forever's End...back in the day. Though we were using Harshlands old code back then. The base for the first SOI as well, with much extra work by Traithe.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

If you could lock 50% of your learned skills, thus choosing which skills you did lose points in to learn the new skill you were learning, I don't see how this would be too much a problem. The points cap could be the numerical equivalent of a full class, in order to offer the ability to be fully featured as you saw fit.

You don't see how it's a problem, but I do see how it could be a problem for a merchant who is limited by skill points to a select number of skills, and cannot learn all of his merchanty skills to the maximum possible level he could have attained.

Given that we assume that the cap for all skills is, say, 100, sure. But what if the caps for skills are adjusted so that numerically, its possible for a person to either be a fully featured warrior, or a fully featured merchant, or a fully featured ranger, etc? Because of the way we can check for x=success in code, we could say that a fully featured player might have all of his 10 warrior skills cap at 100, or all of his 20 merchant skills cap at 50.

There's no difference when you don't know the numbers. 

[DustMight]

I dunno. It's certainly possible, code wise. I just dunno if I like the idea of picking up the skills. I frankly always wanted a classless system, but being that we don't have such a thing, I'd probably not go this route, either.

I feel so much less alone now.
And while I also wish for a classless (and rationally thought out system), watching to learn doesn't sound very good.
Besides - I can watch karate videos all day and when I walk into the dojo get my ass handed to me.

[evilcabbage]

I like how Arm does its classes. Some people, even in real life, are just naturally good at certain things. Arm just takes it into a more specialized area. Some people are really good fighters, some a really inventive, some are really good at nicking shit.