This is my personal philosophy on the whole skills issue, and I doubt it applies to 80% of the games people here are making. (i.e. CRPG)

Why make skill-building a central aspect *at all*? Assume a base level of skill for all players, allow players to pick a few "gifts" to begin w., if your game calls for it, and let there be large jumps in skill, as opposed to be bean-pickingly slow "skilling" bouts. (. . .the valiant knight approaches the foreboding tree, a worthy foe if ever there was one. He leaps! But ah, it was for nought. The knight lands upon his plated butt, vowing to return another day. . .the valiant knight approachs the insidious ladder. . .)

umm yeah. so I guess a big problem is the granularity of most skill systems. How many distinguishable levels are there *really* to climbing? Novice/Intermediate/Pro/Master/GrandMaster? Even that might be stretching it a bit. But you need twenty-plus levels to a skill if your game revolves around building levels.

The other big problem with skills is how limited they are. If I spend months building up my climbing skill, I expect to be able to apply that to situations where I may be able to avoid combat, whereas someone who spent those same weeks slaying innocent woodland creatures would be able to well, slay innocent woodland creatures really well. . .but that''s a whole ''nother can of worms and I''m sure you see what I''m saying.

That''s the *real* problem of skills. The emphasis shouldn''t be on making the _building_ of skills more entertaining, but on better _application_ of skills, whether that''s combat, mainframe hacking, or pest extermination. That''s where the *fun''s* at, that''s where the *interaction''s* at, that''s where your player has an opportunity to *change* his environment, ergo- _there_ is where you will find your *game*, sirs. ( and sirrettes, of course :] )

Who _cares_ about killing v. skilling. . .I mean, really. The issue here is mindless _blank_ v. strategic _blank_. Some games implement combat very well, some not so well. . .but there''s the second issue. We as designers going for the "quick-fix" of filling up gameplay w. what has already been done. . .dressed up as an alien here, martial artist there, a little smarter here, a little nip ''n tuck and throw in an extra polygon or two. . .*blleeeech* Pure vanilla game design. Who needs it?

Obviously a game where climbing/swimming/fill-in-the-blank was implemented less intriguingly than combat is now would be sub-standard. The problem is that we will eventually run out of new ways of "spicing up" combat, and will have to seek out entirely new modes of gameplay & interaction.

But that will require thought, and oh yeah, umm work. So lets get to it, shall we? Yeeesh, the way we bicker here you''d think we were some big happy family.

If you see the Buddha on the road, Kill Him. -apocryphal

Yep, I agree completely, AP. Application is where things get interesting.

If you''re going for the skilling concept, I suppose having different equipment for different jobs. I don''t know anything about climbing, but perhaps you''d use different types of equipment for different types of material that you''re climbing. Although, I don''t think that will really fix this. It could help it be a bit more interesting, but I still think application is the key as AP said.





"All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be --Pink Floyd
Need help? Well, go FAQ yourself.

Ok, AP.. admittedly, there''s only so high you can go. i''ve realized this.. and having too many ranks is stupid. But i''ve got to convince my girlfriend and co-designer of this fact. My personal view on it is having infinate skills with 10 ranks each.. but that''s impossible right now
So, assuming you couldn''t nessicarily reduce the number of levels of a skill, how do you make it so that it''s not a pain to gain those ranks? Or do you make ways around it.. such as items that allow you to have assisted climbing? Or do you make it so that having over 50 levels worth of climbing isn''t beneficial cept the fact that you can shimmy up a tree like those natives in South America?

J

Just popping in to check, and showing my face:
No more references to Landfish vs. Niphty, on any side, please. Don''t make me start editing messages. You''ve done a great job here keeping it on topic, and so far nothing here has really been (very) inflammatory in nature. Keep it that way.


People might not remember what you said, or what you did, but they will always remember how you made them feel.
Mad Keith the V.

quote: Original post by Nazrix

Niphty,
In your example, my vision of the goal of climbing would be to see what''s around. Although, I see that you''re particularly thinking in terms of gaining skill through practice, so I see that I was totally OT...sorry about that...

Perhaps the whole practice the skill thing shouldn''t be included. It is rather pointless. It could be better to just allocate a certain number of points throughout the skills then just have them stay the same throughout. This would simulate which skills the player has been trained in throughout their life and thus which ones they''re good with.

I will have to think more of this...

As far as this goes.. I can understand your point.. of wanting to look around. In that case, i can see a good door opening up for rangers and other types like that.. but it still wouldn''t help theives. if you think of any way to make thieves useful.. let me know
As far as only having set skills.. then it wouldn''t be a very highly played MMORPG. again, your thoughts work well on the CRPG level

J

quote: Original post by Niphty
As far as only having set skills.. then it wouldn''t be a very highly played MMORPG. again, your thoughts work well on the CRPG level

See, why does an MMORPG or single-player alike have to fill the playing time w/ practicing skills. There must be better ways to spend time. I know I''m going OT again though...

The only solution to this I can see is to try and increase skills by other means besides practice. Although, to decide what should increase skills, I think you have to figure out what you want players to spend most of their time doing....questing, participating in politics/society, etc.





"All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be --Pink Floyd
Need help? Well, go FAQ yourself.

What a plight we who try to make a story-based game have...writers of conventional media have words, we have but binary numbers

About practicing skills to raise them:
In AD&D there was a rule about magical or bad weapons where you could not tell what the weapon was like until you used it in actual combat. This could be extended into skills.
Climbing up and down a tree fifteen million times when it''s not to achieve anything should not count towards advancing a skill. Only when you are actually climbing the tree to get something out of the tree that you need, or to get a better vantage point, or anything like that, should you get better (because you''re using climbing as a way to advance toward your goal).
The difficulty of course lies in knowing when the player is advancing toward her goal. First off, the computer may not always have a clear way of telling what exactly the player''s goal at that point is. Secondly, it will not be easy to know if that particular action has anything to do with the goal she''s trying to achieve.

AD&D solved this problem in a rather unelegant way: you could only get so much experience from just doing stuff. The really juicy amounts of experience came from reaching the conclusion of an adventure or campaign successfully.
This should be easy enough to incorporate into a game though. Only give out improvements at the end of a set adventure (this doesn''t mean the player is not allowed to choose which adventure he/she goes on, but it unfortunately DOES mean that the game will be based around adventures ). An intelligent system is possible: i.e. if you give out 100 improvement points at the successful end of a game/adventure, it could be spread proportionally among the skills that you''ve been using a lot. If you spent 60% of your time climbing trees, you''ll get 60 climbing advancement points, etc.


Of course, these are all very "mechanical" ways of dealing with mindless skilling, and might not be what you''re looking for.


People might not remember what you said, or what you did, but they will always remember how you made them feel.
Mad Keith the V.

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster.

Why make skill-building a central aspect *at all*?

Assume a base level of skill for all players, allow players to pick a few "gifts" to begin w., if your game calls for it, and let there be large jumps in skill, as opposed to be bean-pickingly slow "skilling" bouts.

Now this, I shall call wisdom.

What does skill building accomplish? It''s a method of

1) Lengthening the game
2) Simulating growth
3) Allowing choice via resource allocation (time, money)
4) Forcing exploration (because you can''t beat a challenge)

#1 should be handled with more content

#2 can be compensated for by being able to grow in other ways (reputation, for example)

#3 pales when there are other, far more interesting choices

#4 means that we probably aren''t making exploration interesting enough in and of itself

quote:
The other big problem with skills is how limited they are. If I spend months building up my climbing skill, I expect to be able to apply that to situations where I may be able to avoid combat, whereas someone who spent those same weeks slaying innocent woodland creatures would be able to well, slay innocent woodland creatures really well. . .but that''s a whole ''nother can of worms and I''m sure you see what I''m saying.

Yup. New post?

quote:
That''s the *real* problem of skills. The emphasis shouldn''t be on making the _building_ of skills more entertaining, but on better _application_ of skills, whether that''s combat, mainframe hacking, or pest extermination. That''s where the *fun''s* at, that''s where the *interaction''s* at, that''s where your player has an opportunity to *change* his environment, ergo- _there_ is where you will find your *game*, sirs. ( and sirrettes, of course :] )

When you play an RPG, don''t you want to get on with playing the game? Shouldn''t anything that gets in the way be minimized?

Consider if "skilling" were interesting. Wouldn''t we be locking the player up in training rooms, gyms, and schools instead of letting them get out and adventure?

I say abstract it. If it''s not central, compress time or allow resources to be spent and get on with the meat of playing.

quote:
Yeeesh, the way we bicker here you''d think we were some big happy family.

Aw. I can feel the wuv!!!




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Just waiting for the mothership...

Wav, the only problem is.. what do you do with player''s free time in a game? Do you make it so they just socialize (MUSH) or what? This is the only problem seperating an MMORPG from a CRPG. a CRPG is straightforward.. begin to end. But with no end, you have to find ways to hold people in.. etc.

J

quote: Original post by Niphty

Wav, the only problem is.. what do you do with player''s free time in a game? Do you make it so they just socialize (MUSH) or what? This is the only problem seperating an MMORPG from a CRPG. a CRPG is straightforward.. begin to end. But with no end, you have to find ways to hold people in.. etc.

I have no problem with socializing if people are in to it, but I have to ask this question: What (hypothetically) is wrong with your game that people have to spend hours hacking at a training dummy just to get on with playing.

I suspect that for games like Ultima Online it was simply tolerance and the novelty of the experience. People had to hack at trees, dig for ore, and do other mindless stuff just to get on with the interesting meat of exploring and fighting and such.

What do you give them to do? Well, what is there that''s interesting to do?!?! If it''s solely fighting, then cool: But that fighting better be detailed and intricate enough to hold them for months! If you''re putting in time sinks just to keep them, then you''re kind of like the old arcade designers that threw in impossible obstacles just to make the player drop a few more coins in the machine.

I would say maximize the fun. In RPGs in general, people are engaged as long at there is something new to see. I''d favor deeper interaction (esp. w/ community in MMORPGs) over blockades that are designed to obstruct the fun.





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Just waiting for the mothership...