Stalker and Archery.

[Namino]

And even if we're going by the kung-fu movie analogy, the rub here is that seeking out the most perilous foes you can won't result in mastering your kung-fu in Armageddon. Wimp-lo staying at the dojo chasing the chickens (who happen to be rather dodgy) will result in a much higher mastery even though you've been kicking cyclops ass on your 10 year journey.

[X-D]

Now, if I was to play, say a celf, and get REALLY high wis and agi and end, and twink some, go against the celf docs some, I could max more then one weapon skill in a few RL months....

You know, join the Byn...sneak out every chance I get to go after stuff...make sure when sparring to always be outnumbered at 3-1 or better...

[Brokkr]

Well, there was that guy in college that went to study Filipino stick fighting with some master that would break people's arms if they came to him unprepared, but that is a different story.

I'm pretty sure I've said it before, but you won't probably get to the upper echelons of fighting prowess unless you put your character at risk. Some would say this is crazy.

[X-D]

As has always been the case....does not stop it from being stupid Trick is to do it without staff calling you on it being stupid.

[Namino]

Well, there was that guy in college that went to study Filipino stick fighting with some master that would break people's arms if they came to him unprepared, but that is a different story.

I'm pretty sure I've said it before, but you won't probably get to the upper echelons of fighting prowess unless you put your character at risk. Some would say this is crazy.

I branched tridents on two characters in a row (I'm not counting my elf that fell into a one room climb exit with a dujat) fighting nothing but turaals while laying on my back. I wouldn't consider this risky, save if a staffer decides to animate an entire delf tribe to prevent you from fighting turaals (cough cough). Mastering combat skills in Armageddon requires patience, and a willingness to dispense with strict IC behavior. It does not require risk.

It could require risk, if we're willing to acknowledge this problem and take steps to remediate it.

[MeTekillot]

Are you trying to say Kung-fu movies are realistic?

I suppose you think prof wrestling is real?

The desire to improve oneself is real.

[Namino]

Pre- or post- Nergal change to learning?  Anything before that change is pretty irrelevant.

Tawil branched tridents in December 2017/January of 2018. Solan branched tridents in... August of the same year? These skills brought to you by the Turaal Training Co, LLC.

Long after Nergal was gone.

Moreover, hunting Mekillot or Bahamet would not have worked, either. They don't dodge. Dodging is strictly tied to ones ability to skill up, and the most risky, dangerous game in Zalanthas are bad at dodging, which is an unfortunate fact. A brief brainstorming session as to how to make truly dangerous game on Zalanthas commensurately valuable for learning, while decreasing the value of speedy yet harmless blighters would be of great value for the health of the game.

I did bring this up previously in a less public forum, as an aside. I still have the graphs. THE GRAPHS.



Here's the problem as I described it then. You can see that the correlation coefficient (R²) between the perceived or real risk of enemies and their actual propensity to teach a character anything (ie, dodge their attacks) is widely out of proportion. Bringing those more into line solves all your problems. Note that I don't have access to the NPCs actual stats here so I'm going by my perceived risk, but this figure is largely just supposed to illustrate the larger issue here.

[Bushranger]

The only other way I see to "fix" the problem is make getting skill gains mildly easy but make the gains themselves stupidly tiny, so that it takes MANY days of play to get maxed, but that just means a truly boring grind...I am not advocating such a method.

See this is how I always thought it was done where you would slowly gain your combat skills as you fight. For at least 15 years I just tried to get many days played as, on the few times I asked for some help from staff, I was just told to keep doing what my character does ICly and eventually weapon skills would improve and combat skills would branch.  I followed the T'zai Byn training schedule (or whatever clan I was in) or I kept hunting scrabs and raptors and giths with my hunter or tribal type rangers and I never got a weapon skill above journeyman. To put my ability to skill up in focus on all my rangers in 20 years I've only ever branched parry twice and neither was under 45 days played.

It's really only recently when the GDB has loosened up and there have been some threads like this that I've learnt things like just because you miss someone in combat doesn't mean it counts as a fail; you have to go out of your way to fight specific types of npcs if you want to get the type of failure in combat that will count as a failure to bump up a weapon skill; or you need to spar with someone who has gone out of their way to fight the specific npcs that will produce the correct type of failure. If you're in a role/clan that doesn't go out fighting these types of npcs or you don't have anyone to spar against who has gone out and fought these types of npcs to raise their skills then you're completely out of luck and you're back to 45 days played to get to Journeyman in the weapon skill that was bumped because of your starting location.

Or am I still wrong and there is something else I'm missing about training characters who have a role where combat is a part of their daily life?

-Fake Edit: I've been playing for so long that telling me won't ruin some sort of 'sense of achievement' for figuring it out on your own and I won't miss the pat on the back I give myself. Help me understand or not I will probably still play as I always have I just might actually know what I'm doing.

[Delirium]

Bushranger,

- you need dodges, not parries (I know it was supposedly updated but the chance is so minimal it may as well not exist if it was)
- your opponent needs to be as good or better than you at the weapon skill for the best chance of a skill raise
- alternatively, your NPC opponent needs to have high enough defense that it can dodge you, and you need to be able to fight it long enough to get at least a handful of dodges, without being murderized, which is difficult at the higher echelons.

So you need to fight other PCs, with a good defense, on a very regular basis, i.e. be in the same clan and have the same playtimes.

You need to train intelligently instead of trying to pound on each other (i.e. switch off with each other, one of you playing defense, the other offense, take breaks if one of you is getting too tired i.e. codedly hurt). This is one of the best and most realistic IC ways of training, but if you don't have anyone you can currently train with you will have to train someone else until they're good enough.

The problem is you need other PCs which you can train with (difficult for off-peakers), or you need to take big risks in extremely dangerous areas.

[Bushranger]

Yes I can see that and it's the sort of things my characters would do when they were training in a clan like the T'zai Byn. None of that matches with the "Have to do dangerous and ICly crazy things." that Brokkr says for mastering a weapon skill nor the "Have to fight with specific Turaal npcs while on your back with a blindfold on when the wind is blowing southerly and the silt is low." sort of crazy situations that players like X-D or Namino talk about for mastering a weapon skill. So is all of that hyperbolic or is that actually what players who want to train their weapon skills do?

[Namino]

Suuure. I'll do it, Bushranger.

Regrettably I don't timestamp these things very well. My last character (old warrior) went from novice to apprentice in a weaponskill in 23 hours played. He went from apprentice in that skill to journeyman in an additional 106 hours (4 days 10 hours). I don't know when he hit advanced and branched trident, but I think he died with something like 24 days under his belt and I don't think it was many days before that. I was roleplaying and interacting with my clan during all those times, but it was a relatively iso-role so I had a lot of boring solo time to kill in this manner. YMMV.

I am not a staff member. I don't know how, precisely, these things work. I don't have evidence and cannot verify by examining the code. However, I have had pretty good success at achieving reasonable levels of skill gain on my characters. Here's how I believe things to work.

Missing your target rolls a chance to tick a skill gain.
A parry is not a miss.
A block is not a miss.
An armor bounce is not a miss.

So and so swiftly dodges your stabbity-stab.

That is the only line you are looking for. You can increment your weapon skills and offense in this fashion against any foe in the game, NPC or PC, as long as you get that line.

I can't say for certain what the roll is. DIKUMUD is strongly dice based in the traditional sense (one of the reasons it tends to be pretty... coarse as a codebase), but I'd imagine that the staff have modified this extensively during their years of augmentation. My gut says it feels like a d10. That means, on average, you need to miss 10 times (not parried, not blocked, not bounce, swiftly dodges x 10) before you tick your skill. This begins your timer countdown. When this expires, you are free to increment your skill again. I strongly suspect that this timer is not static, and increments to longer and longer durations as the skill increases, or alternatively requires more and more triggers before you acquire an incremental increase in the numerical skill. As I am not a staffer, all of this is largely just observational data, but it meshes well with the experience if nothing else. 90 minutes, again, feels about right until your timer expires. It worked for me anyway.

Your ideal pathway to success is to find people or things that dodge you and maximize the odds of those dodges happening, get ~15 misses (in case you're rolling badly on the hypothetical d10 on that day), then go home, drink an ale, wait 90 minutes, and go do it again. Against wildlife that means turaals, or other things that dodge you. Nothing dangerous. Dangerous things, even Rantarri, do not dodge very well and there's no point in risking your hide for no gain. Stick with canyon rats, fail a bash against them, then ep your weapon and hope. Nice thing about turaals is they tend to team, too, so if you can get them to pile onto you, you're a beaut. It will get very grindy as you end up at late-advanced having to chew through four or five turaals to get your ten misses, but nobody said this was easy (or even fun!).

Against people, that means ep attack, etwo defend, defender mounted if you want to get very saucy. If you see the two biggest badasses in the clan fighting in this fashion... well, now you know how they got 1337 in the first place.

Follow this simple guide and you too will feel hollow and empty inside.

See, the issue with statements like this:

The prevailing reason is that we do not want folks to focus overly much on min/max of their stats.

Which is the same reason I am not going to give you the information as regards to age.

Is that obscuring how your game works doesn't prevent people from 'gitten' gud'. It just means that the people who lab shit get a massively unfair advantage and repeatedly catapult themselves to high echelons of skill levels while people like Bushranger who diligently play the game are shut out because they're not labbing shit (because they've been told they shouldn't be concerned with getting good anyway, in many cases).

If the balance of the game rests on people not understanding how shit works, then you need to go back to the whiteboard and hash out a system that can survive actually being understood by your players.

[Strongheart]

I would like to see the logs of how you got misses at that level, Brokkr.

Laying on the ground fighting turaals like the rest of us, probably. Edit: Or ep attacking another staffer who is etwo, mounted, and defended. That's actually broken. Or blindfighting. There's a static miss chance in total darkness so no matter how good you are, you'll get some misses even fighting a noob. The one thing all these techniques have in common is that they require you to sacrifice all pretense of staying IC. People who are campaigning for a change in this system are the CHAMPIONS of IC behavior, because most of us know how to get around this problem, we just find it distasteful that RP has to die in order to accomplish it.

The argument isn't that it's impossible, it's that it:
A) Forces people to unrealistic extremes like laying on the ground fighting turaal or ep attack/etwo defend sparring for 10-15 minute spars while the rest of your clan yawns in the background
B) Isn't fun

And then when you point these out and attempt to start a conversation about how this unfullfilling and unpleasant aspect of Armageddon might be alleviated, you get called a filthy twink and berated for caring about it in the first place.

I made you graphs, Brokkr. GRAPHS.

As someone who played their elf around Namino's at the time, I can say that he resorted to things I had been chastising his character as my character for what I now realize to be necessary in the current state of the game. He was playing in such a way that made sense for a combat-focused character to be a true threat, training to be a warrior worth their salt. It's saddening that IC believability has to be sacrificed to "git gud" or at the very least be marginally useful. I feel stupid for ever getting on him ICly, so for that I apologize Namino.

[Namino]

The thing is, Strongheart, you were right to criticize. That shit is worthy of criticism, what I just described in the bigger post up there. It's not in character. What in character reason do you have for 'coincidentally' falling off of your mount into a pile of dodgy foes? There's none.

The issue is, we're faced with this stupid choice between never achieving your character's true potential, or violating what makes IC sense for you character. That is the nature of how skill increasing works in this game and it's dumb.

Is it really unreasonable or outlandish to ask that we find some sort of solution here where our characters can both stay in character as well as become badasses? Is it truly impossible for advanced achievement in regards to skills and roleplay to coexist in this game?

[mansa]

I made a chart of an estimate of skill progression over time:


Here's some statements that I think we all can agree upon:

In this game, we're limited by a few things:
a) skill prowess does not depreciate over time
b) for weapon skills, we know very basically that it increases quicker at lower levels and increases slower at higher levels.

As players, we want to have a sense of progression of our characters strengths and skills.

As game designers, there should be some sense of risk and danger with the combat mechanics for characters, and I think there is a general sense to maintain risk at even the highest levels of combat. 
In that, I believe the game is designed to have some very dangerous mobs that shouldn't be able to be killed by a single character, unless that character is extraordinary.


The definition of extraordinary and the time spent to reach that level is where I think people disagree

[Namino]

Hell yeah, we're doing graphs. I have one of those of my own but yours is so much prettier, dude.

The issue is less about the amount of time investiture in my opinion, but your graph does a gorgeous job indicating what I think is the real problem.

The orange series for the current system will NEVER intercept skill level of 100. The blue one will.

That is the key difference. The gap between the limit of the orange line (somewhere around 60 probably?) and 100 is the 'zone of unfullfillment' that causes so much irritation.

[Delirium]

is all of that hyperbolic or is that actually what players who want to train their weapon skills do?

it's mostly hyperbolic but is an actual problem in that it's almost impossible to train without another reliable PC partner or extensive gameworld familiarity. If you are an ISO character by circumstance (renegade, offpeak, empty clan) your options are far more limited - you have to train against NPCs.

I will say however you don't need to, and shouldn't do, stupid stuff like lay down on the ground and fight turaal. That's blatantly abusive.

[mansa]

The orange series for the current system will NEVER intercept skill level of 100. The blue one will.

That is the key difference. The gap between the limit of the orange line (somewhere around 60 probably?) and 100 is the 'zone of unfullfillment' that causes so much irritation.

I don't think it's necessary for skills to be "100" or MAX.

For me, the question becomes - what is required of me to have near top weapon skills?
Is it:
a) branching a new skill?
b) killing a certain mob?
c) killing a certain PC?
d) showing "master" in the skill list?
e) other?

If the intent is to branch a new skill, I'd probably want to branch it after day 20 (500 hours) if I worked at it, or day 30 (720 hours) if I didn't work at it.

If it's for killing a certain mob, that really depends on the mob.

If it's for killing a certain PC?   I'd probably want to do it with multiple people rather than a lone gunman.

If it's for showing "master" in the skill list, I'd probably set expectations correctly for specific skills, and say you should see MASTER at 2000 hours played.  Remember - your skills will never degrade.

[Namino]

The orange series for the current system will NEVER intercept skill level of 100. The blue one will.

That is the key difference. The gap between the limit of the orange line (somewhere around 60 probably?) and 100 is the 'zone of unfullfillment' that causes so much irritation.

I don't think it's necessary for skills to be "100" or MAX.

Many people who play games do want to see that 100 though. An entire quarter of the Bartle's Taxonomy is dedicated to them. I think dismissing people who want to see the outer limit shouldn't be something we encourage. Same people who collect all the stars in Mario, beat all the optional bosses, get all the legendary quality gear in MMOs. Even if it's not required for anything but a sense of achievement, there's a whole quarter of players who still want it, just because they can. There's no point in setting the maximum to be something that is not actually achievable. Mind you, these people don't generally achieve these limits because they want to poop all over people who are weaker than them. It's more akin to climbing a mountain -- it's because it's there. People who want to cover that gap between 100 and the limit of the orange line are rather stigmatized in the current system.

[Eyeball]

Many people who play games do want to see that 100 though. An entire quarter of the Bartle's Taxonomy is dedicated to them. I think dismissing people who want to see the outer limit shouldn't be something we encourage. Same people who collect all the stars in Mario, beat all the optional bosses, get all the legendary quality gear in MMOs. Even if it's not required for anything but a sense of achievement, there's a whole quarter of players who still want it, just because they can. There's no point in setting the maximum to be something that is not actually achievable. Mind you, these people don't generally achieve these limits because they want to poop all over people who are weaker than them. It's more akin to climbing a mountain -- it's because it's there. People who want to cover that gap between 100 and the limit of the orange line are rather stigmatized in the current system.

It's like the achiever sort has been systematically shut down. Why amass coins, it's not like you can buy property or titles or NPC minions with it, or even put it into Nenyuk now past a certain point. Why go out into the wastelands, you only hear tales of every area having it's own set of hostile guardians, not of great treasures found and returned. Why play a sorcerer or mage, they've been fragmented and centers of population largely rogue-mage-proofed. Now why aim to become a great fighter, it's a quixotic goal.

Might there be a certain class of players (socializers?) who just want semi-potent, interchangeable, undistiguished minions that stay in their places, instead of the genies of powerful characters that kept popping out of bottles to disturb their supremacy?

[Namino]

First they came for the Explorers, and I did not speak out—
     Because I was not an Explorer.

[mansa]

Many people who play games do want to see that 100 though. An entire quarter of the Bartle's Taxonomy is dedicated to them. I think dismissing people who want to see the outer limit shouldn't be something we encourage. Same people who collect all the stars in Mario, beat all the optional bosses, get all the legendary quality gear in MMOs. Even if it's not required for anything but a sense of achievement, there's a whole quarter of players who still want it, just because they can. There's no point in setting the maximum to be something that is not actually achievable. Mind you, these people don't generally achieve these limits because they want to poop all over people who are weaker than them. It's more akin to climbing a mountain -- it's because it's there. People who want to cover that gap between 100 and the limit of the orange line are rather stigmatized in the current system.

It's like the achiever sort has been systematically shut down. Why amass coins, it's not like you can buy property or titles or NPC minions with it. Why go out into the wastelands, you only hear tales of every area having it's own set of hostile guardians, not of great treasures found and returned. Why play a sorcerer or mage, they've been fragmented. Now why aim to become a great fighter, it's a quixotic goal.

Might there be a certain class of players (socializers?) who just want semi-potent, interchangeable minions that stay in their places, instead of the genies of powerful characters that kept popping out of bottles to disturb their supremacy?

Eyeball, what is your definition of a great fighter?

Namino, by maximum do you mean the display of the text master in your skill list?

[Eyeball]

Many people who play games do want to see that 100 though. An entire quarter of the Bartle's Taxonomy is dedicated to them. I think dismissing people who want to see the outer limit shouldn't be something we encourage. Same people who collect all the stars in Mario, beat all the optional bosses, get all the legendary quality gear in MMOs. Even if it's not required for anything but a sense of achievement, there's a whole quarter of players who still want it, just because they can. There's no point in setting the maximum to be something that is not actually achievable. Mind you, these people don't generally achieve these limits because they want to poop all over people who are weaker than them. It's more akin to climbing a mountain -- it's because it's there. People who want to cover that gap between 100 and the limit of the orange line are rather stigmatized in the current system.

It's like the achiever sort has been systematically shut down. Why amass coins, it's not like you can buy property or titles or NPC minions with it. Why go out into the wastelands, you only hear tales of every area having it's own set of hostile guardians, not of great treasures found and returned. Why play a sorcerer or mage, they've been fragmented. Now why aim to become a great fighter, it's a quixotic goal.

Might there be a certain class of players (socializers?) who just want semi-potent, interchangeable minions that stay in their places, instead of the genies of powerful characters that kept popping out of bottles to disturb their supremacy?

Eyeball, what is your definition of a great fighter?

Namino, by maximum do you mean the display of the text master in your skill list?

(edited out IC info, please don't do that. -- delirium)

He proceeded to beat the living shit out of everything the arena masters threw at him. Including eight muls simultaneously, and a gaj. Finally the staff stepped in and just shot him dead with staff arrows.

That was a great fighter. Will we ever see his like again? I don't see how.

[Namino]

Many people who play games do want to see that 100 though. An entire quarter of the Bartle's Taxonomy is dedicated to them. I think dismissing people who want to see the outer limit shouldn't be something we encourage. Same people who collect all the stars in Mario, beat all the optional bosses, get all the legendary quality gear in MMOs. Even if it's not required for anything but a sense of achievement, there's a whole quarter of players who still want it, just because they can. There's no point in setting the maximum to be something that is not actually achievable. Mind you, these people don't generally achieve these limits because they want to poop all over people who are weaker than them. It's more akin to climbing a mountain -- it's because it's there. People who want to cover that gap between 100 and the limit of the orange line are rather stigmatized in the current system.

It's like the achiever sort has been systematically shut down. Why amass coins, it's not like you can buy property or titles or NPC minions with it. Why go out into the wastelands, you only hear tales of every area having it's own set of hostile guardians, not of great treasures found and returned. Why play a sorcerer or mage, they've been fragmented. Now why aim to become a great fighter, it's a quixotic goal.

Might there be a certain class of players (socializers?) who just want semi-potent, interchangeable minions that stay in their places, instead of the genies of powerful characters that kept popping out of bottles to disturb their supremacy?

Eyeball, what is your definition of a great fighter?

Namino, by maximum do you mean the display of the text master in your skill list?

For argument's sake, let's say yes, we'll consider that the maximum. From the perception standpoint of the players, there is no distinguishable continuation from that point that we can observe because master is the highest tier we can hit on the skill-list.

I would argue the primary disconnect for me is that in order to maintain a growth curve that stands a reasonable chance of intercepting master level for a combat skill, one has to participate in contrived activities that are neither realistic nor fun. It's not necessarily the slope of the curve, you see, it's the foundation on which the curve is built. There is no impetus to pursue real challenge in the world. Real challenge has been decoupled from the mechanism of skill gain.

[mansa]

..Namino, by maximum do you mean the display of the text master in your skill list?

For argument's sake, let's say yes, we'll consider that the maximum. From the perception standpoint of the players, there is no distinguishable continuation from that point that we can observe because master is the highest tier we can hit on the skill-list.

I would argue the primary disconnect for me is that in order to maintain a growth curve that stands a reasonable chance of intercepting master level for a combat skill, one has to participate in contrived activities that are neither realistic nor fun. It's not necessarily the slope of the curve, you see, it's the foundation on which the curve is built. There is no impetus to pursue real challenge in the world. Real challenge has been decoupled from the mechanism of skill gain.

Ahh.  I see.

I have a potential solution for weapon skills.

Lower "master" to current lower rung advanced levels, shuffle advanced between journeyman and the new "master" level, and introduce a new level called "supreme master" in the old "master" tier.



Here's another chart of the 5e D&D Challenge Ratings and XP:


Let's transpose that to the current discussion and how I believe it's designed:
Novice is challenge rating 1 - 6
Apprentice is challenge rating 7 - 12
Journeyman is challenge rating 13 - 18
Advanced is challenge rating 19 - 24
Master is challenge rating 25 - 30

If we want to change this, how to we also make sure people can still have risk and adventure during the top challenges?

[Namino]

..Namino, by maximum do you mean the display of the text master in your skill list?

For argument's sake, let's say yes, we'll consider that the maximum. From the perception standpoint of the players, there is no distinguishable continuation from that point that we can observe because master is the highest tier we can hit on the skill-list.

I would argue the primary disconnect for me is that in order to maintain a growth curve that stands a reasonable chance of intercepting master level for a combat skill, one has to participate in contrived activities that are neither realistic nor fun. It's not necessarily the slope of the curve, you see, it's the foundation on which the curve is built. There is no impetus to pursue real challenge in the world. Real challenge has been decoupled from the mechanism of skill gain.

Ahh.  I see.

I have a potential solution for weapon skills.

Lower "master" to current lower rung advanced levels, shuffle advanced between journeyman and the new "master" level, and introduce a new level called "supreme master" in the old "master" tier.



Here's another chart of the 5e D&D Challenge Ratings and XP:


Let's transpose that to the current discussion and how I believe it's designed:
Novice is challenge rating 1 - 6
Apprentice is challenge rating 7 - 12
Journeyman is challenge rating 13 - 18
Advanced is challenge rating 19 - 24
Master is challenge rating 25 - 30

If we want to change this, how to we also make sure people can still have risk and adventure during the top challenges?

In a document I sent to the staff many moons ago, I advocated something that made more dangerous animals more worthwhile for skill increases. While your proposal is probably more optimal, I was, at the time, attempting to avoid major reworkings as to the foundations of the skill system.

The solution to this problem (in light of caveats) can be visualized on figure 3 as any process that brings the outlier points closer to the midline. This is accomplished by more tightly correlating the risk of a particular mobile to the reward. In the case of turaals and verrin hawk, this can be accomplished by either altering their established biology to make them more dangerous (right shifting them until they intercept the line) or making them less agile, reducing their reward (down-shifting them until they reach the line). This will solve the issue of highly experienced hunters mindlessly grinding on turaals when they should, in reality, not find that experience challenging or educational.

For animals occupying the area below the line, they should have their potential adequately tweaked so characters learn more from the experience of hunting them. Given our reliance on dodges to represent the potential for skill increases, this leads to some difficulty. The best solution would be to alter the skill process so that natural armor (ie 'bounces') count towards a character's failure. This would instantly incentivize people to hunt massive megafaunal creatures with thick hides and high danger. This may not be the easy fix I am envisioning. Alternative solutions would be to decrease megafauna's reliance on natural armor and increase their agility if the current skill-increase system cannot be altered, which will lead to a new IC/OOC disconnect (as to why this building sized animal is so fast and difficult to hit). Potentially the easiest solution would be to add additional content to the game of highly agile, but highly lethal wildlife to populate the currently empty upper right portion of the line, and would offer both challenge and improvement for players at that period of growth.