The yin and yang of sparring/training now

[Armaddict]

Not sure why people who don't play feel the need to weigh in on game mechanics.

Why wouldn't they?  If they care about the game and its success, appreciate the experiences they have, and have things to say about it, why shouldn't they?  Do they simply cease to have relevant things to say?  Why only for mechanic discussions?  Do years of experience from ex-players (temporarily or permanent) have merit when applied to knowledge of the game world, but not for the interactive framework you use to experience it?

The repeated assertion/implication that being able to attain mastery by NOT engaging in poor play is somehow anti-RP is preposterous.

It is.  But just as much, the entire shuffle of mechanics in a direction to make it so that sparring->mastery is just as preposterous.  The suggested changes always lead that way; I want to be able to safely skillgain to mastery.  Even when other motives come into play, the suggestion leads to that being the side effect, and that is -boring-.  The insinuation that I just want things to be hard for no reason or never want people to attain mastery is also preposterous (not saying Synthesis made this insinuation directly, I just responded to his quote before making a statement about how disagreement on this topic is treated from the other side). 

I have always, always, tried to make it so that danger, risk, and calculation are as present within the game as possible.  If your proposal was 'Hey, can we make more fauna that is dangerous and 'up to scale' with agility so that risk-takers have a skillgain benefit to risking death?', I'd be all for it.

But it's always about changing code to allow you to never have to face that risk.  To make it so that by the time you face risks, you're already ready.  And that's just not a very Zalanthan atmosphere, where everyone has plenty of and equal opportunity to get to that mastery.  People should push and shove for it.  Being head and shoulders above the others should be a true struggle in and of itself, a true dwarven focus.

Considering the Jman plateau makes for a pretty badass warrior altogether, insisting that it must change so that most everyone gets past it is ultimately degrading, not enhancing the game.  All my quips about 'brief skills'?  It's because the amount of people scrambling to get changes made to allow mastery has risen -exponentially- for little to no reason...the game is -less- dangerous than it was before, more predictable, and tamer in the pvp realm, but people got that twisted up into the need to continue progressing with their new-found consistent longevity.

It has nothing to do with slaps in the face, or (for me) code restrictions.  It has everything to do with a (relatively) newfound need to be placated with how far you expect characters to be able to progress, or how much to attain, in safety.  Just play a character.  Make them a combat character.  Stop saying things 'force' you to do things when that's the drive in you, not the game, that forces it.  Direct that drive into the behavior that -does- work, and take the risks.

[Synthesis]

A different sort of tack than what I was talking about.  First, it is essentially static.  I think you'd end up with a bunch of really, really skilled folks under that system assuming folks lived long. Whereas I am talking about a system where folks end up pretty much where they are now in terms of combat effectiveness.  For this example, lets say that is middle of the scale, at 50 in a 0 to 100 scale.  It then decreases likelihood that you can increase past that point, but it isn't tied only to your static scores, but your entire history of combat vs the entire history of combat (at that point) of all people who have ever surpassed the point you are at.  Based on that, maybe someone at 65 is a master, but two years later, maybe someone at 60 is at master.

Can you quantify what you mean by 'history of combat'? What values or actions would contribute to that? Every time a person swings a weapon? Every killing blow they land? A variable could increment with either (both, or additive to many other things) and then the SQL database approach would work if you just show the top 10% of the column as master. Essentially you can build a distribution of the SQL values in the column from all player characters alive or dead and base people's current skill rankings off where they sit in the distribution before returning the value to the character. The distribution will naturally shift up and down as characters become more 'experienced in combat' (right shift) and new characters are spawned into the world (left shift) but I think the first step is to determine what factors of a character's existence or history you feel should contribute to their 'history of combat'. In my example the proficiency score is simply a function of weighted combat skills but it could be used to build this distribution. Based on your reply it feels like you think there's more to one's 'history of combat' than just skill. The formula could simply be altered to include as many factors as you like, ranging from number of killing blows to amount of HP damage received throughout one's lifecourse. It'd simply be a new variable * weight coefficient in the formula.

Making it relative on any "scores" from a "lifetime of the MUD" database will introduce an infinity grind:  every player to reach the magic top 10% makes the grind that much more difficult for players coming behind them.

Not necessarily. For example, for every person who hits master, there are two characters created who either never train, or die before they hit apprentice. The left shifting overpowers the right shifting in that example. Your fear is only realized if we limit the people contributing to distribution to those who achieve mastery. If we draw the distribution from ALL players, then master reaches a stable state equilibrium between newly created characters pulling the distribution back and highly skilled, longevity characters pulling it up.

It's not necessarily the way I personally would handle bracketing skillgain, but I'm working inside the bounds of the stated idea of the current administration.

In that case, you could game the system by rolling throwaways.

At any rate, I feel like this system could not be transparent at all, or people would game it mercilessly.  E.g. if you know that landing a killing blow on a carru gives you +10 points, you can just go out and spam sling-stones at carru until they're crit-wounded, then ride in and gank them.

Or if you know that each critter you kill gives you +1 to your final distribution rating, you can go out and spamkill level-0 mobs to boost your ratings.

There isn't a way to do the stat math in a transparent way that doesn't introduce new powergaming modalities.  And if it isn't transparent, it's still going to be frustrating.

[Synthesis]

Not sure why people who don't play feel the need to weigh in on game mechanics.

Why wouldn't they?  If they care about the game and its success, appreciate the experiences they have, and have things to say about it, why shouldn't they?  Do they simply cease to have relevant things to say?  Why only for mechanic discussions?  Do years of experience from ex-players (temporarily or permanent) have merit when applied to knowledge of the game world, but not for the interactive framework you use to experience it?

The repeated assertion/implication that being able to attain mastery by NOT engaging in poor play is somehow anti-RP is preposterous.

It is.  But just as much, the entire shuffle of mechanics in a direction to make it so that sparring->mastery is just as preposterous.  The suggested changes always lead that way; I want to be able to safely skillgain to mastery.  Even when other motives come into play, the suggestion leads to that being the side effect, and that is -boring-.  The insinuation that I just want things to be hard for no reason or never want people to attain mastery is also preposterous (not saying Synthesis made this insinuation directly, I just responded to his quote before making a statement about how disagreement on this topic is treated from the other side). 

I have always, always, tried to make it so that danger, risk, and calculation are as present within the game as possible.  If your proposal was 'Hey, can we make more fauna that is dangerous and 'up to scale' with agility so that risk-takers have a skillgain benefit to risking death?', I'd be all for it.

But it's always about changing code to allow you to never have to face that risk.  To make it so that by the time you face risks, you're already ready.  And that's just not a very Zalanthan atmosphere, where everyone has plenty of and equal opportunity to get to that mastery.  People should push and shove for it.  Being head and shoulders above the others should be a true struggle in and of itself, a true dwarven focus.

Considering the Jman plateau makes for a pretty badass warrior altogether, insisting that it must change so that most everyone gets past it is ultimately degrading, not enhancing the game.  All my quips about 'brief skills'?  It's because the amount of people scrambling to get changes made to allow mastery has risen -exponentially- for little to no reason...the game is -less- dangerous than it was before, more predictable, and tamer in the pvp realm, but people got that twisted up into the need to continue progressing with their new-found consistent longevity.

It has nothing to do with slaps in the face, or (for me) code restrictions.  It has everything to do with a (relatively) newfound need to be placated with how far you expect characters to be able to progress, or how much to attain, in safety.  Just play a character.  Make them a combat character.  Stop saying things 'force' you to do things when that's the drive in you, not the game, that forces it.  Direct that drive into the behavior that -does- work, and take the risks.

The current winning system isn't that risky, though.  It's just grindy.  There are several mobs out there that are super dangerous to a noob, but are really not that dangerous at all once you have master parry, master shield use, and master flee--even with a novice weapon skill.

Yes, those mobs will whip your ass most of the time when you're at master/master/master/novice, but they typically won't whip your ass in a way where you're legitimately at risk of dying.  You just take your HP loss and go back to town to rest it off.  Or you mitigate the risk by fleeing as soon as you get the 4 or 5 dodges you need to reasonably guarantee a skillgain.  I mean, it's not rocket science here.  I feel like people don't understand how legitimately bad the current system is.

[Brokkr]

Beyond a point, transparency isn't really desirable. Although obviously we have gone in the direction of more, that doesn't mean we need complete transparency, or that it would be a good thing.

[Synthesis]

Beyond a point, transparency isn't really desirable. Although obviously we have gone in the direction of more, that doesn't mean we need complete transparency, or that it would be a good thing.

The lack of transparency has always created two problems:

1) Shadow information:  it always spreads through OOC channels, and Staff members are people who can be socially engineered.  This also creates cliques:  when one person figures something out, or gets secret information from a Staff member, other people want to create or maintain contact with that person.

2) Frog's-eye grinding:  lack of knowing what works leads people on a quest to find the thing that works, meaning they spend a whooole lot of time and energy on trying to perfect the grind instead of playing well.

Overall, that produces dissatisfaction with the game, because everyone behind the curve is scratching their heads wondering why they suck so much.  And as an empirical matter...I feel like there were way more hardcore powergamers back in the day when everything was super hush-hush, except in the private chatrooms on dalnet.

[Namino]

I think there is a direct relationship with a system's balanced design and the amount of transparency around it. A very well designed system can be fully understood down to the exact formulae involved and suffer not at all. It's only when the system is not well designed -- ie, when there are aspects of it that can be exploited in ways that are not intended -- that transparency has to be sacrificed.

For an example of this, take a look at EVE online. Aspects of that game are so well balanced that the formulae have been fully defined by the players and the game still doesn't suffer, because the systems are designed so that understanding them doesn't break them. The formulae behind the game design are so well understood, you can easily pull up mathematical explanations and graphs defining their functions at all possible values and the game still doesn't suffer. That's an ideal to strive towards, imo.

https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Capacitor_Management_101#Graphs.21

https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Falloff#Tracking

[Brytta Léofa]

Contrast: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law

[Synthesis]

I think there is a direct relationship with a system's balanced design and the amount of transparency around it. A very well designed system can be fully understood down to the exact formulae involved and suffer not at all. It's only when the system is not well designed -- ie, when there are aspects of it that can be exploited in ways that are not intended -- that transparency has to be sacrificed.

For an example of this, take a look at EVE online. Aspects of that game are so well balanced that the formulae have been fully defined by the players and the game still doesn't suffer, because the systems are designed so that understanding them doesn't break them. The formulae behind the game design are so well understood, you can easily pull up mathematical explanations and graphs defining their functions at all possible values and the game still doesn't suffer. That's an ideal to strive towards, imo.

https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Capacitor_Management_101#Graphs.21

https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Falloff#Tracking

Agree.

Where I disagree is whether you'll be able to define a set of statistics that adequately captures the idea of "challenges faced," and is gaming-resistant, and doesn't require unusual behavior or methods to advance, in the context of ArmageddonMUD.  I think that's a rabbit-hole you're going down to prevent what I believe is a bogeyman scenario:  too many skilled PCs.

I mean...I'm old enough to remember the days when people were shitting all over proposals for a point-buy skill system to replace the class-based system, and the bogeyman scenario was "warrior with backstab and fireball spell."  And now we can have Enforcer/Krathis.

(And nothing has significantly changed.)

[mansa]

Beyond a point, transparency isn't really desirable. Although obviously we have gone in the direction of more, that doesn't mean we need complete transparency, or that it would be a good thing.

Right, but you don't need to say 'You need to have 19 more hours played before you can skill up again'. 
You can say, "We have put into effect a system that has a progression of proficiency in weapon skills so that you should get to 'advanced' after approximately x days played"

The tricky thing is to tell the players - this is the expected ramp up of skills we want combat players to follow.   Because right now expectations are not defined and it's a mad rush to find the quickest way to reach said goal.

[Armaddict]

I feel like people don't understand how legitimately bad the current system is.

For what it's worth, I don't think it's the epitome of all systems, but it -has- performed in its function for a pretty long time.  Just like crimcode, it's nowhere near perfect but it legitimately adds its portion of mechanics to interaction with the world.  That in no way says, 'Never change this', it just says 'any changes in it should enhance it in its function within the game.'

As I said, if people were coming up with ideas other than 'make sparring work more better', I'd be for it.  But I just genuinely think you lose more as far as 'game enrichment' when you make it so that far more people are reaching a state of badassery from a state of relative safety.

Put those qualifiers into place that limit one thing from the other, minimize the side effect, and you'll probably feel a lot less stingy disagreement.  Most of that disagreement, I think, stems less from 'We're fine' and more from 'Ehhh, these proposed fixes don't sit right with me.'

[gotdamnmiracle]

Here is my concern.

How do I become one of those vaunted few? We've said risk it for the biscuit, and that's cute, but I have zero desire to play something where it is luck of the draw or coveted knowledge to progress into a "master" type character. We can boast about how we've created a system that only makes a select few into something exceptional and that's great, sure. But if I, a layman, will not have equal opportunity to have one of those exceptional characters? Then you've made a poor system.

The things you seem content with, Brokkr, startle me. The fact that you are endorsing such a poor system happily most of which.

What should I tell a friend who would want to play? "You'll never be the best. No. You will never figure it out nor draw the golden ticket. But we need more bynners to die to spiders so you should check it out." Why would anybody waste their time with that?

On a related note; how much money have you spent on lottery tickets in your life?

[Eyeball]

For an example of this, take a look at EVE online. Aspects of that game are so well balanced that the formulae have been fully defined by the players and the game still doesn't suffer, because the systems are designed so that understanding them doesn't break them. The formulae behind the game design are so well understood, you can easily pull up mathematical explanations and graphs defining their functions at all possible values and the game still doesn't suffer. That's an ideal to strive towards, imo.

I find EVE to be as dull as dishwater. It's too well defined. It's like playing a spreadsheet.

[gotdamnmiracle]

I don't care whether the system is well defined or not. Can we just get rid of the half-truths? How many asterisks have to go after "fight an opponent more skilled than you" for it to be true in this game. I don't care what has to happen so long as the end result is you can give me a simple direction to follow and if I continue to do it I'll get better. 0 other skills are as obtuse as combat skills. No one is laying down flat on their back in the desert glazing kalans to improve their cooking to master.

If we turned it into a simple spreadsheet everyone could understand maybe we could focus on the fun parts of the game like exploring, scheming, and socializing. I don't care what solution gets figured out. I'm just exhausted with the lies.

[Armaddict]

What should I tell a friend who would want to play? "You'll never be the best. No. You will never figure it out nor draw the golden ticket. But we need more bynners to die to spiders so you should check it out." Why would anybody waste their time with that?

If this is the way you think/talk about Arm, you probably weren't going to recruit them anyway.  Not because you need to cover truth, but because you're clearly targeting an audience or aspect that is not historically prevalent in the game.  This is at best hyperbole, and at worst a misconstruction of the premise of the game.

Try this:
"You'd probably want to join a combat clan, like the desert merchants or the mercenary group, since you like action.  It's not like most games, they'll actually train you, and they'll -need- to train you, but as long as you don't do anything really stupid and your commander doesn't get into politics over their head, you'll hit a point where you're head and shoulders above most that aren't your buddies as far as combat goes.  They have it designed so it's really an achievement to be legendary, but almost everyone who wants to makes it to being a known, capable soldier, and it's all about where you go from there.  If you decide legendary swordsperson is the way to go, it's going to be -really- hard but you'll probably run into some killer stories along the way.  Until you die.  Muhahahaha!"

[gotdamnmiracle]

"Thanks, Armaddict! That's really cool! So is it like Skyrim where I can be killing dragons? How do I get to that point where I'm a total bad ass?"

Tell me. How do you get to that point? A totally reasonable question that I would ask. No one picks up a Fallout looking to be the most mundane wanderer.

Lastly, yes. I think not being a current player invalidates your opinion. It's like expatriating and continuing to vote. But I don't care to argue with you. I can't stop you from posting.

[Armaddict]

Uhm.

Aren't you killing dragons in skyrim long before being maxxed out?  Before being a 'master'?

Shit.  Killing braxat and dujat worms and siltfliers and giant spiders is pretty fuckin' epic dude.

[John]

This entire argument is based off the assumption that it's impossible to get past a plateau in weapon skills.

That was never my experience in the past.

If it's due to the starting offense levels of specific new classes, couldn't we just lower that?

It'd make them less powerful out of the gate, but with more potential down the road.

Honestly though, one of the benefits is that you DO start out more competent, if you chose to be, which allows for quicker exploration or involvement in "kill all da spidahs!" plots.

I think the high start, with the rapid advancement in offense just leaves the weapon skills stunted without some odd behavior on the part of the player. You actually advance to this "grindy area" so quickly that it frustrates some people to be at 6days played and feel that they can't codedly advance along their main goal.

If there goal was more than "get master next to my weapon skill" I'd have a lot more sympathy. Becoming the best fighter in the Known is possible and it doesnt require seeing "Master" to do so.

[gotdamnmiracle]

Oh. The above is wrong. If you believe that then you will simply never be better than the people who do get to that point. I have no idea what point you were trying to make but this isn't the Karate Kid. Unless there's a hidden "heart" stat (lol).

No. Statistically if a guy is better than you, be it master or whatever, then he will be better at killing you. Out of more situations.

Please feel free to tell me how I can backstab said guy and pray that the poison takes effect before he etwo mercs me while I am paralyzed from the cool down.

Armaddict, you've dodged the crux of my question, but I can appreciate your point. Learn to appreciate the status quo. It's a very adult view and a valuable lesson. Probably not an exciting way to market a game though.

Why is having something be reasonably attainable such a battle? Currently it's closer to "see that mountain? You can climb it".

[John]

No. Statistically if a guy is better than you, be it master or whatever, then he will be better at killing you. Out of more situations.

But this whole thread is bitching about how people can't get past the plateau. Ergo if no-one gets past the plateau then the fact it says journeyman instead of master is irrelevant if your goal is to be better than everyone else.

[Brokkr]

How do I become one of those vaunted few?

Step 1.  Join Kurac.
Step 2.  Spar with Ruke, Bjergar, etc.
Step 3.  Profit.

[Eyeball]

Step 1.  Join Kurac.
Step 2.  Spar with Ruke, Bjergar, etc.
Step 3.  Profit.

In a curious coincidence, Ruke himself posted this gem years ago:

[Synthesis]

No. Statistically if a guy is better than you, be it master or whatever, then he will be better at killing you. Out of more situations.

But this whole thread is bitching about how people can't get past the plateau. Ergo if no-one gets past the plateau then the fact it says journeyman instead of master is irrelevant if your goal is to be better than everyone else.

You can't get past the plateau

UNLESS YOU ENGAGE IN MEDIOCRE PLAY

How many times does it have to be said?

The entire point of the thread is that your character can be a longtime member of an elite military unit (the Tor Scorpions, the Borsail Wyverns, the Oashi Elite) and still be vastly codedly inferior to some idiot scrub who spent 15 days grinding tarantulas and disarming gith for no reason other than to git gud.

[John]

The failure system is fine, feels a bit like I'm playing Morrowind or the Burning Wheel, it's enjoyable. What doesn't feel good is that to attain even basic competence (and god forbid I get good) in weapons skills I have to subject myself to a grind so slow and tedious it's like I'm working an irl job, only to have those gains eliminated in the blink of an eye because it's a permadeath game. Which means now I have to do it again. It's frankly disrespectful of my time.

Even very simple bootstraps solutions recommended in this thread, like making parries count for skilling up. could alleviate this. I don't want an overhaul I just want to be able to get good without dedicating real life days to it.

If nothing can dodge you (which is the premise of this thread) I would argue you have reached competence at a bare minimum.

---
Synthesis: So your argument is that because twinks are able to advance their weapon skills to master faster than intended /through safer play than intended, we should make it easier for everyone to get their weapon skills to master?

Just because you know how to abuse the code doesnt mean the code should be abused. Staff have outright said that master weapon skills are meant to be near impossible to achieve and furthermore they have added a recent change so that there is always a chance sparring can cause a skill up. Using those poor play techniques you boast about knowing doesnt make you a better player.

I look forward to your next long winded post with petty nitpiks.

[John]

Overall, I think the best method is to a) make parries and blocks count as failures and b) gate the final steps to mastery behind longevity.

Then there are multiple ways to implement a longevity gate:
1) Single hard gate:  If master is skill level 80, you can get to 79 as fast as you can possibly do it, but you will never get that skill bump to 80 until you pass the longevity gate.  Worst-case scenario, you start at 79 at chargen, and never get a skillbump until you hit 20 days (or whatever the gate is).  Worst-case scenario, you mudsex for 19 days and suddenly become a master at 20 days 1 hour when you suddenly begin training.

2) Skillgain timer gate:  Your skillgain timer for each weapon/style skill is set at chargen, based on your starting skill and the skill level at which mastery occurs.  If you start at jman (e.g. 40) slashing because of a skill boost, and mastery occurs at 80, that's a difference of 40 skill points.  If the skillgain gate is set to 20 days played, the fastest you can get to mastery is 40 points in 20 days, so your skill timer for slashing is set for 12 hours of logged-in time.  You can get a skillgain to slashing weapons every 12 hours played, so it will be -at least- 20 days before you progress to master slashing.

3) Multiple-step longevity gating:  There are four "steps" on the way to master (apprentice, journeyman, advanced, master).  Each of these steps is longevity-gated.  It's not necessary for them to be proportional, but for simplicity of explanation, they'll be proportional for this discussion.  20 days divided by 4 steps is 5 days apiece.  You can't achieve apprentice before 5 days.  You can't achieve jman before 10 days.  You can't achieve advanced before 15 days.  You can't achieve master before 20 days.  If you start at jman out of chargen, it will still be 15 days before you can hit advanced.

4) RL-time gating:  replace each of the above scenarios with real-life time as the metric instead of logged-in time.  This prevents padding the login clock by idling.

I think the longevity gate will work better for clan sparring, because once you hit the gate, you know that it's pointless to grind for yourself at a certain point.  (I'd argue that the best "location" for the gate is right -after- the word-based-metric.  E.g. you technically can hit advanced before 15 days, but it will be locked in at minimum advanced.  This way, you know you hit the wall, and that it's pointless to grind until you hit 15 days.) Back to the point:  if you know grinding for yourself is not going to be effective, you now have two options open 1) help your clannies grind, by being a good sparring buddy (much easier to do if you aren't worried about your own gains); or 2) go out and get into some shit instead of worrying about losing time not sparring.

OMG! This solution sucks! It's awful game design! How dare you make something that requires hours upon hours of play! I know a bug that lets me exploit the code so therefore the longevity cap should be removed! This is just bad game design and encourages idling! No-one will try to do anything until they reach the abritrary longevity hurdle! I might as well quit the game and come back in 1 year's time when I can finally reach master!

Yes, that's a bit over the top. But some of those points are very close to real quotes we've gotten from those who keep championing that the code be changed.

First everyone complained about skill levels not being shown, and then they were displayed.

Then everyone complained about how it takes too long to become competent, so the classes were overhauled and each class was made easier to reach competence.

Then there was a complaint that you just can't get a skill failure on combat skills no matter how much you spar, and so a change was introduced to give you a chance at skilling up from every sparring session.

Now the complaint is that it takes too long to get skill ups beyond a certain point and so it's being suggested that the amount of time required be reduced (or be codified to some OOC concept of playtime hours).

Guaranteed if the staff make the game easier to reach master on combat skills, then the next complaints will be:
1) The game is too easy.
2) You might as well not exist until you get master on all your combat skills.
3) There's no more game progression.

A good design team will listen to player feedback. A bad design team will let players dictate what changes occur in the game's design.

Every time staff has changed the game to address concerns, the old concerns have been replaced by new concerns. Some of these changes have been good for the game. I believe some of them have been a detriment to the game. I believe making doing any of the changes synthesis has proposed will result in more people leaving the game then we currently have.

I do think the game might benefit by having weapon skills be somewhat easier to master. But I don't know for sure. I do know that synthesis's solutions will simply make the game flat out bad.

Although I do expect to have this post met with a tirade by synthesis.

[oggotale]

Don't change anything except skill display.
Club advanced and master as "expert" in  the skill display menu, does this solve the problem?