skill questions

From: namhas
Date: 2002-01-29 10:16:23

I want answer to few questions.

Learning without a teacher, possible or not?

Can character learn everything by himself or does he need a teacher? I think we quite much want it so that player couldn't learn everything without a teacher. That is because the skill can be so exotic so that you just can't come up with instructions how to do it all in your head without a teacher.

How does teachers teach?

For all these skills that people aren't born with we need to have a teachers so people could learn these skills, if we chose so that people couldn't get them by themselves. I see Sages a most natural choice as first teachers. These Sages would teach skills to first mortals and these first mortals would then teach skills to second mortals etc.

But the question is, -- how? How does it happen in practice. Do they push a "teach skill" button and then they will teach the skill for 30 seconds and the student gets it. I see our Theory & Practice system good for this, and I think we have agreed to use it.

Okay, the student just gets "theory" points for the skill and thus that is not enough for the skill. The mortal still have to use the skill in order to get actual %'s (or whatever) to the skill. But couldn't the mortal just go through all the teachers in the world in five minutes and thus get maxed theory percent for all the skills.

I think they should be some kind of "memory" variable or something limiting the amount of theory knowledge you could get. You could have only certain amount of theory knowledge in your head. If you decide to learn only one skill you could get "maxed" theory for it, but if you want to go to learning theory for many skills at same time, you couldn't get more theory knowledge than your head can hold at the time. Then, when using skills you would at same time "free your memory" for more theory knowledge to come in. That would happen automatically.

What will teacher lose & get from teaching?

In order to avoid situations where all the teachers would go in to row to teach mortals 24h/day without limitations -- maybe they would just leave their chars online -- we need some kind of system to counter this. Maybe teachers will lose something for teaching. If they would lose something, then the students would do favors or pay money in order to get training. We
can't expect them not to give them freely.

One is to have some kind of "delay" for teaching skills and that both would need to do something all the time, like in MUDs "use teaching at student" like 100 times etc. But that sucks! Second would be perhaps to have some kind of "teacher endurance" that you would lose your teaching ability each time you teach someone and you would need to wait a day or two to be able to teach again with full power. Perhaps this could also affect the % (or whatever) of skill you could teach, so you could still teach a few newbies. Thus, teachers would be more selective will they teach stuff for someone or not. But is this enough?

Percentage system for skills or not

What kind of system we are going to use for skills for checking if you fail or success. Percentage system is limited. You can only have 0-100% and when you have 100% you can't go further. Anyone want to suggest some alternative system for this or do we just stick to percentage based? Would rock if someone would have skill at 100% he still wouldn't be able to teach it to someone to the same percent. Perhaps only could be able to teach 25%.

Initial skills

I would like to get a list of initial skills every player would have in beginning of the game. The system should be consistent and well-thought. I think we kinda need to do it as soon as possible. Adding skills later "when needed" sucks. Special skills can be added later.

Separate teaching skill

Does teachers need a separate teaching skill or something or could anyone teach anything (that they know) for anyone that they happen to meet. Or would we have some other rules for this.

Let's try to distribute this thread to smaller threads.

From: Trampakoulas
Date: 2002-01-30 17:28:34
In-Reply-To: 401

A teacher could get someone as an apprentice for some time. That way he has the benefit of an extra pair of hands while the apprentice learns the craft. Also as ti takes take some time the teacher wont be able to teach 100 people at once, avoiding memory systems teach points etc. Btw Im against percentage systems, everything should be unlimited, but going beyond your teacher or the knowledge you can gather should be extremely difficult and require a special feat..

From: darshan
Date: 2002-01-31 11:39:41
In-Reply-To: 401

A percentage-based system has the flaw that it has a maximum value. Either we implement an open-ended skill proficiency, or we make a skill learning curve that resembles

f(x) = 1 - 1/x, x >= 1


where nobody can ever reach 100% and it would take years to get even 95%.

From: raeky
Date: 2002-01-30 01:25:12
In-Reply-To: 401

IRL teaching something improves your own knowledge of the subject. Possibly some of the skills like weaponsmithing isn't a skill one will learn at the click of a button. A player could possibly take an apprentace in and teach him what he knows, possibly takeing a certian timeframe, the player who is learning works for whos teaching and thus can draw on the knowledge of that person (as in do what the teacher can do while in his shop/under his guidence) but if the player learning leaves he wont be able to do what he was doing anymore, or a very limited learning of the subject he will have. To fully master weaponsmithing he would have to apprentace for a specific time frame, where he will be able to learn the skill fully and be able to start his own weapon shop.

From: Yendor
Date: 2002-02-17 09:48:03
In-Reply-To: 401

Now. About learning. Take yourselves as example : Do you know how to : cut wood, shoot a bow, sell stuff at some counter, how to smith something basic, how to sew etc? Ok. At least I know the basics on it and should be able to do something simple. Then ask if someone needs to be teached to be able to do it at all or is it like : "I'm sorry. I can't shoot a bow because I haven't been trained in it even though I've seen the procedure at least a hundred times." Only if you've lived in a barrel for all your life you would have very narrow skills.
The point is that if you leave your character on the main street or crossing of some town, the skills will raise rapidly when you see other people in action. Of course, this would not count as learning the theory, but after you've seen it a couple of times, you should be able to reach 'maximum' of that skill by doing it in a remote part of the land all by yourself.
Then of course not everyone likes when they're watched by a dozen of curious eyes just when they're about to finish the sword of their lifetime.
Therefore the initial skills of an player should be very wide. Also remeber that the player may have been the child of some ranger or something and should know a lot about skills that ranger uses even if he never really accompanied his father on a trip longer than a day.

From: yorkaturr
Date: 2002-01-29 10:55:12
In-Reply-To: 401

1. Players can only self-teach skills that they themselves
are able to try out. I would imagine that most skills fall under this category, but there are exceptions such as magic channeling or very specific combat skills that require the player to rather specifically know their basic properties. Once such skills are learned, however, they can be improved by using them, as this is something that applies to all skills. However, being taught should always be a more attractive way of acquiring know-how, because it is much more effective.

2. Teaching requires the teacher to know the skill and have a knack for teaching. There should be some skill that contributes to the effectivity of teaching. This needn't be "teaching" skill if for some reason we find it superfluous, but it must be a skill that deals with interpersonal communication.

In practice, since our UI is not decided upon, neither can the scenario for teaching be decided. However, it must be somehow usable from the user interface. And in my opinion teaching should take some time and the effectivity of learning theory could also be affected by practical experience, but not limited by it. What this means in practice is that a person can learn all the theory in the world, but without actually having to clue how to apply in practice, it would be very hard. Learning a bit of theory at a time and using the skill accordingly would be the best way to improve a skill. This also solves the possible problem of a player learning everything in five minutes. As a matter of fact, only the very basics of whatever skill could be learned in five minutes. Also, once skill theory is improved, there could be a delay of a few days or something before more theory could be learned.

I don't like the memory variable because it would be hard to logically justify, it would only serve as an artificial solution, unless it were better defined, but I do not rule it out, as some logic can be applied to it. A player's intellect etc naturally would affect how well one learns a skill, so I really don't think it is necessary.

3. The teachers' main motivation would be financial gain in addition to a possible increase to the skill himself. Often, teaching newbies something improves your understanding better than discussing things with professionals. In addition, teaching skills to someone who shares your views is a way of improving the potential of your group, and we really want players to identify with groups.

4. I don't think anyone has ever suggested using a percentage system. Rather, as before, we should use something similar to Rolemaster. A skill could be between, say 1-200, and a roll of dice with stat modifiers etc would be added to it and the end result would be compared to the difficulty of the performance. And the difficulty of the performance would be defined by the opposing force and other affective elements. Negative/positive bonuses would be easily applicable to such a system.

5. This I agree with, initial skills should be defined, but there is no hurry yet. I want initial skills to be defined by your race heritage and I want some randomness here as well. First, we could just list all the skills the players would surely have, regardless of race or culture.

6. I think I answered this in part 2.

From: Zugreb
Date: 2002-01-29 10:53:53
In-Reply-To: 401

Percentage system for skills or not

Well we might use logarithm to define
skills so it would take more and more
work to get better @ something but there
will be no theoretical upper limit for
skill.

That would make a blacksmith that makes swords
and only swords and a lot of them so good at it
that the swords would be one of the best available..

:P

From: beregar
Date: 2002-02-01 11:00:05
In-Reply-To: 403

Why don't we just use teacher's skill % to determine how well he can teach the skill? After all, he or she should never be able to teach the skill better than he or she knows it.

Also, I support system where theoretical skill learning raises your mental stress level: the more you study things in a day, the more difficult it will become and this also reflects to your other actions (possibly slowing the pratical learning too). I think studying should be a thing which is HEAVILY affected by the mental stress modifier.

- Beregar

From: Archantes
Date: 2002-01-29 22:19:49
In-Reply-To: 403

About initial skills. Are you going to include skills like running and jumping as skills or are the running speed and jumping height just determinded by other characteristics, like agility?

And if we think initial skills that every character possess..

* A martial skill of somekind (Common unarmed fighting?)
* Cooking
* Navigation
* Loyalty
* Leadership
* Speak Languge
* Write/Read Language
* Teaching
* Barter
* Belief
* Climbing

I'm not sure if there is something that we do not really need yet, like barter.

Not many anyway but it's a start.

From: yorkaturr
Date: 2002-01-30 11:01:53
In-Reply-To: 433

I would ditch "Loyalty" and "Leadership" and "Belief"

From: Zugreb
Date: 2002-01-30 09:14:50
In-Reply-To: 433

We don't need things as loyalty skill comoooon
It's the player loyalty that counts we shuld not
make skills that are property's on physical player
and not the char.

From: sweatshop
Date: 2002-01-30 00:44:53
In-Reply-To: 433

maybe a teaching skill wouldn't be superfluous: it could be almost like mana, which depletes the more it is used; creating an automatic limit on how much a teacher can teach. Or maybe teaching makes your strength/endurance go down, so you need to sleep to make them go up again.

From: Nahl_Shadore
Date: 2002-01-30 04:38:38
In-Reply-To: 435

maybe some stats such as patience, confidence, and diplomacy would adjust the effectiveness and duration of your teachings. As you teach someone, your patience would either decrease of increase depending on the amount of progress the student shows. Mental stamina should decrease while teaching, as well as physical if you are demonstrating a skill. Confidence in your own abilities affects how well you teach them. For Diplomacy and charisma, it could help you encourage your student (or something like that), making your teachings more effective.

From: sweatshop
Date: 2002-01-30 00:56:11
In-Reply-To: 435

anyway... IRL people can teach for free if they really want to also. :)

From: raeky
Date: 2002-01-30 01:26:51
In-Reply-To: 437

ooops forgot something to add, this way you can limit how many people a player can teach at once, say two apprentaces at once. And to learn a skill takes a fair amount of time from both the teacher and student.

From: Yendor
Date: 2002-02-17 09:29:48
In-Reply-To: 441

Ohh. Just what I was thinking of. Just remember that patience, "confidence and diplomacy" (or rather communication skills) apply to the person being teached.

From: Archantes
Date: 2002-01-30 16:20:42
In-Reply-To: 446

Ok, now we have

* A martial skill of somekind (Common unarmed fighting?)
* Cooking
* Navigation
* Speak Languge
* Write/Read Language
* Teaching
* Barter
* Climbing

Any others?

Swimming? Are everybody able to swim in the beginning?

And what should we do with running and jumping?

From: darshan
Date: 2002-02-16 12:55:29
In-Reply-To: 456

Upon request, this is how I'd add the skill difficulty variable into the formula:

f(x) = 1 - (d / (x - (1-d)), x >= 1


The larger d is, the longer it takes for f to grow. Here are some examples of how long it approximately takes for f to reach 0.98 with different values of d:

d = 0.001x = 1.49
d = 0.1x = 5.90
d = 1.0x = 50.0
d = 10.0x = 491
d = 100.0x = 4901


So each skill should have a fixed d value denoting its difficulty, the higher the harder.

From: raeky
Date: 2002-01-31 16:55:00
In-Reply-To: 456

at what level would sages start out knowing these skills.. heh, since they would be the inital teachers of them to players.

From: Archantes
Date: 2002-01-31 21:36:27
In-Reply-To: 460

Sages, hmm almost 90? 80? (in 0-100)

At what level are the Pcs starting?

From: beregar
Date: 2002-02-01 11:15:58
In-Reply-To: 464

Depends on your culture and background: Brahjians have survival skills that are already learned as a shild and one might be son of a bit... err, smith, and learn some craft skills.

- Beregar

From: Archantes
Date: 2002-02-04 22:15:12
In-Reply-To: 483

Will the players be able to choose which skills they have learned and practiced during childhood? Of cource in terms of the culture he is in. Or are they random?

How much are the players able to choose anyway?

From: raeky
Date: 2002-02-04 22:18:01
In-Reply-To: 556

Thats a good idea, like allow them to already be created with a profession, and the basic skills needed for say blacksmithing, or something..

From: darshan
Date: 2002-02-16 12:56:50
In-Reply-To: 724

Mrrgrrr, the formatter ate my table.
d = 0.001 -> x = 1.49
d = 0.1 -> x = 5.90
d = 1.0 -> x = 50.0
d = 10.0 -> x = 491
d = 100.0 -> x = 4901

From: darshan
Date: 2002-02-17 11:40:00
In-Reply-To: 735

Yendor, nobody ever asserted that players would start with no skills. And mere watching can never make you learn anything; you still have to perform the skill to actually learn something.

From: beregar
Date: 2002-02-17 12:52:48
In-Reply-To: 735

Besides, It is obvious that stat modifiers apply to such things. Even people with low dexterity can gain some results from for example sewing attempts. Besides, you tend to make a few mistakes before you actually learn doing things which means that you get quickly at least meager profiency to skill.

Like Darshan said, players won't start from empty table. I'm sure I'd have a lot more trouble learning to rear a horse than someone who has spent his entire youth with animals simply because that person has received some training from his/her background.

I already mentioned that (imo) players should have background related stuff which affects to their starting skills:

First skills come from basic cultural background and represent learning forced on the player by the parents and society. Player's shouldn't be able to choose these skills as they should be defined by their culture and starting location. Obviously first players (in Nemen) too are adults and thus received some sort of cultural "education". These skills should be quite common and not tied to any specific profiency as a boy grown among the thieves is certainly different than the son of the village leader.

Then players obviously have hobbies, these skills should be available for a player to choose freely but limited to things offered by the surrounding terrain (ie no swimmin in middle of the desert).

Finally player's should be able to a) choose some sort of apprenticeship which should be limited only by available teachers in the location or b) live life of a lone wolf without teachers. Such person will obviously have more wide range of skills than the person with apprenticeship but he or she will be less skilled in them as he/she had to learn them all by him/herself.

I'm not sure how much I repeated from previous post but who cares? :)

- Beregar

From: Yendor
Date: 2002-02-17 19:09:49
In-Reply-To: 738

I wasn't saying that everyone should have 0 skills when they start. Actually I was aiming at completely different. Before this player character is taken over by an evil entity who will from that point on follow that entity without any doubt (ie. the evil entity is the player) he has wandered around and learnt all kinds of skills. Therefore everyone should have a few points in smithing and horseback riding even they've never done it before, just seen it. They will obviosly fail (or mysteriosly have enormous luck to succeed) the first attempts, but that won't stop them from learning the skill to the 'fullest' when in other hand if someone has lived on a place that has no iron or any other material to smith, would have no possibility to start and learn it even if given the proper tools.

And I'm sure that if I had an eye plugged on an shoulder of an farmer for a year I would be able to grow something the next summer with that knowledge. A far shorter times are sufficient.

What I'm aiming at here is that ppl should have a VERY wide array of skills but most of them in a 'seen it, not done it' -level. Not zero anyway. And that 'seen it, not done it' -level should be enough tó do some very basic stuff with some success rate.

From: sweatshop
Date: 2002-02-19 18:34:10
In-Reply-To: 753

and, imo, that should apply to which items can be created with an item making skill like blacksmithing. Thus, whatever a person has seen, he can attempt to make (assuming that he has the right raw materials), however, without teaching, the success rate would be extremely low. Of course, the success rate would be affected by other items they can create, but i believe this aspect has been discussed elsewhere.


Anyway, those are just unorganized thoughts, but I think that such a system (or something similar) would prevent what causes so many people to tire of an mmorpg: repition. We should not have a system where:

Oh boy! I'm a level 23 blacksmith now! I can create an iron chainmail!

instead:

I saw that one guy with that cool sword! I have the ores here in my pack, i'll see if I can make one


Tell me if I'm being too unclear...