covert encouragement of PC cooperation.

From: hook
Date: 2002-06-17 15:54:16

The following are ways we can covertly encourage cooperation and group development among PCs. There are suggestions with "Hard Coding' solutions to the problems of anarchy and min maxing. but these particular suggestions are to be invisible to the player's interface. The theory behind them is to force player interaction (roleplaying) and encourage the development of cities, guilds, countries, communites etc. Essentially to help solve the problem of why these things should exist at all. There will be other overt ways to form these types of organizations, and they will be implemented the following is meant to supplement those solutions and hopefilly to add depth and a natural diversity to a dynamic player experience.

I also make no assumption that these are the only ways or even the absolutely best ways to covertly encourage player cooperation. Please discuss, add, and criticize

Skills-

In the game all PCs will have a skill set, from carpeting to smithing to herbalism, to carrot farming. In order to encourage the development of dependence among players most if not all skills need to be coded so that groups will smith better swords, build castles faster, cast bigger spells, and grow more crops then players who choose to do it alone. Example: a PC who would normally take 5 days to make a house with the help of another PC will take only 2 days. Or a carrot farmer who would normally only be able to farm an acre would be able to farm 4 acres with the help of another PC of equivalent skill. Although this is not a direct attempt to encourage players to work together it does give those who do a distinct advantage.

Training-

In order to get skills players must train. To encourage players to work together and form informal bonds teachers of skills should be able to teach more then one player at a time. Not only that but when a player is taught along side another players they will gain skills more quickly then if they are the only one being taught. In the real world consider a class working together in order to learn. Students help each other with problems, share novel solutions, and inspire a higher level of excellence.
\tAlso Players do have to ability to learn skills on their own. But they learn the skill at a much lower speed then those who are trained. There is an opportunity here as well to encourage cooperation. Those that do learn the skill on their own but work with someone else in self training gain the skill more quickly then some one alone. Here is an example brake down.

player training type\t\tTime takes to learn skill

untaught\t\t\t100 days
untaught with others\t\t75 days
taught in 1 person class\t\t10 days
taught in 2-5 person class\t\t5 days
taught in 5-10 person class\t\t3 days
taught in class over 10\t\t10 days (eventually the class gets to big) :P

these numbers are just for proportional sake. Obviously they will be tweaked

By having training time linked to group participation we encourage the development of guilds, trade organizations, and just plain old friendships.

Combat-

This is essentially just an extention of skills, but combat is an important skill in a fantasy roleplaying setting so I make special note of it. Simply put to encourage cooperation we hard code the combat system to give advantage of groups fighting individuals. An example would be a 10th skill level swordsman would kick a single 1rts level swordsman ass, but against two 1rst level swordsman the 10th level swordsmen would be in a tough fight and against three would loose with some casualties on the side of 1rst levelers and against 4 the 10th level swordsman would get his butt kicked and the 4 1rst level swordsman would come out without a scratch. The point is obvious those who choose to fight alone die quick. those who fight in groups rule countries.

Worship-

The first part of this is a no brainier. Larger flocks produce more divine points for a god. The priest of the flock will get more powers if he is able to get more worshipers. This in itself will promote groups to form. But lets reinforce this even more. Lets say a lone traveling cleric of Boobo the god farts is traveling to Areon from Nalor Thaan. He worships everyday and from that gives his god 10 DPs each day. Along the way he meets a wounded fighter who he heals and converts to Fartism. They worship together and give 20 points a day but because they worship together there is a multiplier of 2X. so the god gets 40 DPs a day. They reach Areon and get to a city. There they go around healing the sick, and the fighter with a bless spell is able to beat off any thieves and cut throats. They grow a flock of 10 people that all worship together generating 240 DP's a day. they build a church get the church multiplier generating 480 DPs a day. They get 50 more worshipers and start to generate 2480 point a day. Form all the power the priest gets he is able to send an acolyte to another city who also prays with a flock generating 4960 point a day. Well you get the point. By adding the multiplier we encourage the gods to encourage players to cooperate. even more so then other wise. Not only that but cooperating groups will have a huge advantage in recourses in regards to divine power stabilizing their growth and numbers.

Danger of the Wilds-

From the combat situation you can see where this one is going. We need to make the world out side of groups dangerous. One suggestion is to have mean monsters that not only can easily kill lone players but actively hunt loners, or in other word avoid groups of players. This isn't so much an encouragement as a punishment for those who go it alone. Stick with groups or the boggy man will get you. What needs to be done for this is we need more bigger NPC wild monsters. Things that can kill one or two people but can't win against more. Also we could have huge monsters that attack small settlements...like towns of 7 or less people.

Sage encouragement-

This one is more of a policy then a hard coded solution to group encouragement. Basically sages need to tell players "Hey if you work together you will live longer." Obviously if at the beginning of the game sages are the teachers and skill trains and as such can exert a lot of influence. As sages we should encourage the development of guilds, group worship, government, even the mafia, what ever. In every chance and in everyway a sage can influence players they error on the side of groups. Train in groups, fight to protect groups, participate in groups, talk only to groups. In this way any advantage PC's can gain from sages, such as advice, protection, and training it will be within a group setting giving those who cooperate more chances to succeed then loners.

From: darshan
Date: 2002-06-17 20:54:44
In-Reply-To: 1661

1. Skills: If it takes one playe rfive days to build a house, it takes two players 2.5 days. Therefore there is no need to hard-code group advantages, because they're already there.

2. Training: common sense says that learning is most efficient when training in private with a master. We don't need to inject everything with extra group bonuses, and this isn't a fitting place for it either. Or, well, this could be thought of as being dependent on what exactly is being taught. For a Wilderness Survival 101 class I don't mind seeing 50-strong disciple hordes around Smokeybear the Dwarf, but I do not really want to see a mage doing that.


3. Combat
No reason to hard-code anything here either. Two players inflict twice the damage of one player, plain and simple. Battle will be much deeper and more exciting if players have to think up a common tactic for fights.

4. Worship
Yeah. Why not.

5.
This is perfectly obvious, but implies or demands no hard-coded group functions.

6.
Mm-hmm.

From: Nahl_Shadore
Date: 2002-06-18 01:38:53
In-Reply-To: 1663

well put, darshan

the only things I can think of are:

2. training should not necessarily be more effective in groups, but it would be better for the teacher as it is less time-consuming. this, as you said, would depend on the skill.
I say that we actually make the more advanced skills LESS effective in group training

3. when there are x visible players in the vicinity, a (non-intelligent) monster will become more flustered and confused and attack more randomly (as would a less-skilled human player in the same situation)
against a L25 player, 2 L10 players would be able to take him down because of this, and because they would thus be able to hit from multiple angles, raising the chance of finding a weak spot. monsters should be the same way.

5. again, would be a matter of sensing the nomber of buildings and characters in the area. attacks could occur in small towns, or in the outskirts of cities, but are most likely when in the wild. but if the monster is pissed off enough, it'll work the opposite way and go on a rampage in the highest-populated area possible

From: hook
Date: 2002-06-18 02:55:53
In-Reply-To: 1663

in reply to darchan's post

1. Yes you have to hard code that, what you think it just adds the automatically. The program has to be coded to do that. Computers don't magiclly figure out what to do. In RL there is already insentive to cooperate. Family groups form naturally and natianalism, school pride city pride etc are taught to us at a young age, with the institutions already present to reinforce these groups. Majik dosn't have this. There is no incentive to make these groups and little more to reinforce them. If we implement dispraportianate advantages to groups and cooperation then they are more likly to form and be more stable when they do.. Even if we just allow liniar advantages to completeing skills that still has to be hard coded. One part of my suggestion. The next part is to give even more of an advantage. So instead of just liniaraly improving time by half when someone helps give the group a little bit more of an advantage. the point is not to exactly mirror reality but to mirror the reality we want in a virtual world.

2. again missed the point. We could argue for hours if it is better to learn in the Real world in groups or by yourself under a master. but this isn't the RW. the real world has groups and cooperation majik doesn't. In fact a zit faced hoarde of 16-18 year old geeks in a virtual worldwithout adult suppervision will tend to do the exact opposite. We need to error in the benifit of cooperation and group formation. By making training benificial in groups we reinforce them.

3. combat, well if two players attack one then they should almost always win. it should be more then just twice as benificial. Think one person on each side of thier pray attacking at the same time. the middle person is dead meat. I do agree we should make these advantages only above double damage under certian situations. Like it won't work if the group attacking one person are in a narrow stair case attacking one at a time. or they bunch up behind each other and attack. It should be coded in such a way that the group would have to surround the individual or smaller group for these greater then sum of its parts damage and attack multiplier take effect. Yes commen tactics are good and add depth. My suggestions in no way prohibit this.

5. danger in the wild, well yes the animals behavior has to be coded to attack smaller groups or to hunt down individuals at the same time avoiding bigger groups. That presumaly has to be hard coded. it won't just do it on its own.

From: raeky
Date: 2002-07-26 03:02:06
In-Reply-To: 1663

1. 2 people can build a house faster then just by a factor of 1/2. holding up boards and sawing lumber, etc.. is much harder to do by ones self. if you have someone there to hold the board for you while you nail it, or cut it, it would be quite a bit faster then doing it alone. :P So i think in quite a few cases group benifits are greater then just cutting things by the factor of people: 1/.

2. learning is best done in small groups, usualy the fastest learning is done one-on-one teaching. one-on-two or more usualy slows things up, since the teacher has to divide there time with all the students. two teachers with one student would of course be faster then one teacher, but one teacher with two students would take longer then just haveing one student.

3. I agree, somewhat. Two people in combat usualy draws on eachother for a tactical advantage. One for example can be the bait, while the other supprize attacks from behind. Or one can stab in the gut causeing the person to bend over from pain while the second slits his throat.

4. Yes of course worship would be more effective in groups. thats the whole concept of worship.

From: hook
Date: 2002-06-18 03:01:59
In-Reply-To: 1665

Nahl Shadore wrote:
"I say that we actually make the more advanced skills LESS effective in group training"

this is actually a great suggetion. In fact i think there should be limits to all the suggestions i have made. Such as advantages in conduting skills reduce as the group gets to large. Such as smiths make wepons together quicker up to a group of four but once you hit five the advantages start to lessen, people just get in the way. Obviously it is dependant on the type of skill, or training or combat situation. 20 people attacking 1 person won't have a greater advantage then say 7 people under the same situation. Eventually people just get into each others way.

From: gxest
Date: 2002-06-27 19:15:55
In-Reply-To: 1666

For Hook:

Not commenting on the actual issue here, but reminding of the important fact that I always rave about: We will not have a "zit faced hoarde of 13-18 year old geeks" in the sense that you surely mean.

The whole concept of Majik is _much_ dependant on the player base understanding it, and wanting to make it happen. Everything that makes up character interaction and social situations can not be hard coded, or forced upon the players, though yes i agree that the gamesystem should be made in the fashion that it becomes harder to play without social interaction.

It's all about selecting the initial playerbase individually through applications. After that, the game opens for general public, and the initial players will force the style of playing on them, making it very hard for the new players to do anything by themselves.

Ofcourse that's no foolproof method, but it's the best we can do, and just keep our fingers crossed and hope that the MMORPG community adapts to MURPE principles.

From: Nahl_Shadore
Date: 2002-06-18 04:16:54
In-Reply-To: 1666

maybe a "field of view" type of system, such as the people in your field of view are those you have full defense against, but someone behind you can kill with a blow, or shoot an arrow in your back

actually, this could be covered in "damage zones" (arm, leg, back, etc.)
ie. greatest defence is from the front (except the usual weak points (gut, etc))
the back is a vulnerable zone. you rarely expect an attack from the rear, even if you're facing the person (he parries, turns and stabs you in the back)

this should (with a little tweaking) cover the group combat aspect


I as well don't like the "join/leave group" aspect
for skills, we could code an "assist" function, which would give you benefits like hook discussed, based on skill levels

for training, you would be grouped by the teacher agreeing to instruct you, and leaving the group only involves walking away

combat, I just discussed that

animal/monster behavior, see my other message, above.
this should be not based on "groupings", but on vicinities
if there are 300 random people, none of which are grouped, coincidentally standing in a spot in the woods, the animals still won't attack

From: raeky
Date: 2002-07-26 03:03:19
In-Reply-To: 1667

i agree totaly. the more complex the skill the more one-on-one time one will need with the instructor.

From: hook
Date: 2002-06-18 04:59:51
In-Reply-To: 1670

The combat suggestions look sound and nice ideas.

just to make things clear

"I as well don't like the "join/leave group" aspect for skills, we could code an "assist" function, which would give you benefits like hook discussed, based on skill levels"

I have never nor will I ever advocate such a system. ALL the suggestions I have made will be "INVISABLE" to the player. THAT is why I used the term "COVERT"

Animal/monster behavoior ("groupings") see above...any congrigation of people will be seen by the monster AI as a group. The PC's could be there as a coincidence or activly trying to stay together as a party. The code should not attempt to make that distinction. A possablity to be added to this is stalking animals who will follow large groups but only attack when an individual walks away and can be isolated by the praying animal. This is good becouse it reinforces sticking together :)