Author Topic: Ramblings on a Future without GM, with Action Points and Skill Trees  (Read 47201 times)

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Offline Once

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Re: Ramblings on a Future without GM, with Action Points and Skill Trees
« Reply #30 on: November 11, 2011, 11:59:47 am »
Do you feel that attitude is productive? Artis aren't done, there's plenty of follow up there and new artis to be drafted. I don't personally think 2000tp for the detector is fair but that's my opinion and I can be swayed. I think something in between as part of the detectors "epic" function in the 400-800 tp range makes sense. Maybe even 1k. We just can't cut out everybody but 3 people from using it or it isn't worth the development hours.

Offline Virisin

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Re: Ramblings on a Future without GM, with Action Points and Skill Trees
« Reply #31 on: November 11, 2011, 05:53:55 pm »
Every single time I go to outer space I buy a spacebike for 30TPs and at least 2 gemclusters for 6tp each. That's 42TPs for running around in outer space. That's pretty much the only thing most people use TPs for, other than some people that do very well off levelling with them. People have gone over 100,000 TPs. Currently the MAIN reason to collect TPs is for use on spacebikes. The reason only 3 people are any good at getting TPs is because the majority of people have never bothered to try collecting them.

Jaros is absolutely right, if we want to revamp the artifact system we don't want this system to be available to everyone just for the sake of the development work and your sense of gratification. If it costs 1000 TPs to detect the zone of an artifact, even that is minimal to the people that actually go about hunting artifacts. You want artifacts to be worthwhile and for people to like them, you can't just let any old idiot use the detector and the top players to just leave the spam going like it's hunger or thirst.

To detect an artifact loaded: 100TPs
To detect an artifact loaded + dimension: 1000TPs
To detect an artifact loaded + dimension + zone: 10000TPs

I don't really get why we're trying to cater to the poor newbies who won't be able to detect the artifact all the way down to the zone? There are things we can do to increase newbie retention, but ruining a good feature by trying to make it compatible with a totally unrelated target audience is a typical 4d maneuver and a very bad idea.

Offline Once

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Re: Ramblings on a Future without GM, with Action Points and Skill Trees
« Reply #32 on: November 11, 2011, 06:01:21 pm »
Thanks for the post Virisin, that was quite helpful.

When I did a rough analysis (with Molly statting people) of about 8 regular people, we didn't really see anyone with over 4000 tp online. Most had far less (around 800 I think was the average). Did I misread that? I'm under the impression that it's actually half a day's work to get 5000 TPs when you consider repop rates in Kush.  Am I acting on bad data here?

Offline Virisin

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Re: Ramblings on a Future without GM, with Action Points and Skill Trees
« Reply #33 on: November 11, 2011, 06:43:35 pm »
Yeah no one really has many TPs because there's not much value to keeping them atm. Once you have them you spend them on experience or buy the odd thing with them. I know for certain Xeriuth I think it was had over 100,000 for a while, and I've been over 50,000 a few times.

My memory's a bit hazy on the whole sitch but if I remember rightly I could get around 200-300 just on first run through Punt and part of Punt at least repops very regularly so that after about an hour long wait I can then run through again on the hour every hour for about another 100 each time. That means that after about 3 hours work I can have 500 just with one zone. If I increase my run to begin at the Greek archipelago, move through Egypt along the Nile and then into Punt, my take goes up significantly. I'm pretty certain Molly made some of Alpha Centauri TPs too, because I remember being able to earn a lot there.

5000TP in half a day is too big by my estimate, I'd say around about 1000TP in a full day is a pretty good haul. But even that means that if I spend 10 days I have enough to get a detection of an artifact pinpointed to the zone - which is just the bare minimum if we want artifacts to last more than a month as a new feature.

Offline Once

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Re: Ramblings on a Future without GM, with Action Points and Skill Trees
« Reply #34 on: November 11, 2011, 07:03:20 pm »
Maybe we should revisit pricing.  That's a very very easy fix. In terms of "how we make classes more useful" that's not a very clear and easy fix. We could use some competent thought on this issue. I've got some time for raw coding right now, but my thinking time is pretty much all dedicated to work at the moment.

Offline Tor

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Re: Ramblings on a Future without GM, with Action Points and Skill Trees
« Reply #35 on: November 11, 2011, 07:12:39 pm »
I think that Virisin's estimate of the availability of trade points is probably much closer than the 5000 TP in half a day mentioned by Once.
5000TP in half a day is too big by my estimate, I'd say around about 1000TP in a full day is a pretty good haul.
I can't match his average of 1000 TP in a full day, but his knowledge of where and when to obtain them is better than mine. I can't see anyone playing all day, much less 10 solid days to pay for one detector fire. I usually experience several each time I'm on line.
« Last Edit: November 11, 2011, 07:18:18 pm by Tor »

Offline Once

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Re: Ramblings on a Future without GM, with Action Points and Skill Trees
« Reply #36 on: November 11, 2011, 07:30:30 pm »
How much do you make in a day Tor?

Offline Virisin

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Re: Ramblings on a Future without GM, with Action Points and Skill Trees
« Reply #37 on: November 11, 2011, 08:21:51 pm »
Yeah on that note the detector seems to work oddly. Every time it goes off it just shows me the same artifact.. Is it not meant to 'zing' you as an artifact loads - so only players online with their detectors on benefit? Rather than every player that subsequently comes online getting repetitively pinged for the same artifact that's in Medieval? I think it'd be better if they just detected the initial ripple in time that caused the artifact to load, rather than picking up some constant ripple.

Tradepoints are actually a pretty alright way of leveling, and if you level in a zone you can collect tradepoints your efficiency in collecting tradepoints goes way up. It just becomes part of the hunting and you suddenly have 40,000 tradepoints which will take you through a good few remorts.

Being able to detect an artifact ping down to the exact zone is a serious advantage in hunting artifacts. If someone active is online to see that, the artifact is essentially their's.

Let's project in that 2 years lots of people know the locations of lots of artifacts. If I just have artifact detector on 1000 which is 1 days work I will see the dimension of where artifacts load. Let's say there are 30 artifacts equally spread over dimensions, I have to go check the locations of 7 or 8 artifact loads that I know and the artifact is mine.

If we want artifacts to be actually really good and sought after, we can't make them easily sought.

Offline Once

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Re: Ramblings on a Future without GM, with Action Points and Skill Trees
« Reply #38 on: November 11, 2011, 08:42:50 pm »
The detector only goes off when an item loads. What you're seeing is that items get deleted and reloaded in the build process as part of a zone reset. Good post otherwise, definitely food for thought.

Offline Virisin

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Re: Ramblings on a Future without GM, with Action Points and Skill Trees
« Reply #39 on: November 11, 2011, 09:01:35 pm »
Also I'd like if the scheme was aligned with the current worth scheme: eg in line with the Ethos stat and with similar colorings

Offline Once

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Re: Ramblings on a Future without GM, with Action Points and Skill Trees
« Reply #40 on: November 11, 2011, 09:05:28 pm »
Sure, I'll do that right now.

Offline Jaros

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Re: Ramblings on a Future without GM, with Action Points and Skill Trees
« Reply #41 on: November 12, 2011, 04:27:45 am »
Do you feel that attitude is productive?

No, but I don't think you're productive either so it balances out.

In terms of "how we make classes more useful" that's not a very clear and easy fix. We could use some competent thought on this issue.

My what an ingenious idea.  Oh look, someone already did it: http://4dimensions.org/forum/index.php/topic,724.msg5001.html#msg5001

It's not an easy fix because no lasting fix to gameplay is going to be quick and easy.  It is an actual project that will require some sustained effort to achieve.  No one is going to waste their time making an exhaustive list of twiddled skills that will shift the imbalances around a bit until you get bored next week and stop.  I wrote up a core system that is balanced and works with the current code; the rest is much less important and can be dealt with as the core is tested and I can work out where to concentrate on expanding it.
« Last Edit: November 12, 2011, 05:00:47 am by Jaros »

Offline Once

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Re: Ramblings on a Future without GM, with Action Points and Skill Trees
« Reply #42 on: November 12, 2011, 06:07:03 am »
I'm not seeing the rationale of how these effects are balanced. Can you explain it a bit more? Are they balanced per stamina point, or is there some other metric?


Skill                               Cost                               Effect                                                     Type                                   Class

Bladedance                20sta/sec                  x2 damage on all hits                       Buff                              Hunter

Behead                     200sta                       x10multi                                        Attack                          Hunter


Agility                       20sta/sec                  2 for 1 hits                                    Buff                              Thief

Backstab                   200sta                      x10multi opening                             Attack                          Thief

Blackjack                   70sta                        7sec sleep & -70sta                        Debuff                          Thief
                                                     (works in battle but ends fighting)

Phase                       16sta/sec                  40% chance of dodge+hit                 Buff                              Gypsy

Slit                           100sta                      x0.5multi every sec for 10sec            Attack                          Gypsy

Midas Touch               60sta                       +30% stamina cost                         Debuff                           Gypsy


Dodge                       10sta/sec                  50% chance of dodge                      Buff                              Ranger

Encircle                     50sta                        multi = sta / opponent_sta x 2          Attack                           Ranger

Hamstring                  50sta                        -5sta/sec                                      Debuff                           Ranger


Brace                        10sta/sec                  x0.5 damage taken                          Buff                              Warrior

Grapple                      50sta                        thrown from room                           Debuff                           Warrior
                                                         opp.sta = x(opp.con / your.str)

Offline Jaros

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Re: Ramblings on a Future without GM, with Action Points and Skill Trees
« Reply #43 on: November 12, 2011, 08:05:41 am »
At tier 4: 100sta corresponds to a skill multiplier of x5, or five extra hits.

It's not airtight.  The balance varies depending on context, so:

Bladedance is more powerful than agility if your speed gives you more than 1hit per second, which it probably does.  I don't know the conversion rate for speed to hit frequency so just used a 1hit/sec assumption.

Bladedance vs brace looks ridiculous, I know.  Head to head they cancel each other out even though brace is half the cost.  But then, bladedance over 10secs costs 200sta and doubles your total damage so assuming 1hit/sec and 2000damage/hit, that's 20k extra damage over 10s.  Brace for the same duration costs 100sta and saves 10k damage.  I don't really know how to reconcile that except by seeing how they both pan out in action.

Dodge and agility are basically similar to ^^^ but again, speed is unaccounted for.

Encircle I did some numbers and estimated that it would fall in a similar bracket depending on how long the fight went on.

The debuffs are straight guesses because their value is so hard to pin down.

My main problem is that there are too many factors for me to account for on paper even though this is the simplest system I can come up with for skills that are actually useful in different ways.  Like I said, it can't be done without commitment and I can't see much point in trying to take it any further without coding.

Blunt alternative:
Take evasive skills off thief and give them to ranger, so thief is aggressive with encircle and ranger is evasive with dodge/phase, and then make warrior's brace more potent while blunting cleave to make a similar difference within fighters.  That is a viable option I think, making thief and hunter purely aggressive; ranger and warrior purely defensive; gypsy in between.  Then spells are still ridiculous but you could take mind electricity/ice off priest and that would halve their damage and leave heal as their primary strength, which is enough; then confiscate high level aggressive spells from priest, give them all to mage and remove the delays, thus granting mages huge damage; then esper would go somewhere in between I guess.

All of that would make a difference but likewise you obviously know that every step there throws something else up in the air and all of it would need so much testing and balancing to actually make it worthwhile that I don't even know if it would be worth it.  I think it would more likely wind up just as half-assed and unbalanced as it is now.

The OTHER possible way forward is uncapping str, con, dex, int, wis and cha.  tie str firmly to melee damage, con to damage taken, dex to chance of skill success, int & cha to magic damage and wis to magic damage taken.  Skill success rate would then depend on dex vs opponent dex or something, and practicing it to increase proficiency could instead reduce cost.  in my world it would reduce stamina cost such that a high tier allows you to use skills much more cheaply.  AGAIN the factors involved scare the shit out of me but this would allow different players to specialize in damage as opposed to defense, etc.

I really can't see a way to get anything worthwhile out of gameplay one way or another without committing to it as a long-term project and investing hours on end in the balancing, and I can't see that happening.  I see half-finished efforts and a bunch of people annoyed with a new set of imbalances that haven't fundamentally changed anything.  I honestly think the maps are a better option.

lastly yea, the detector could still be fun. there are about 15 new artifacts sitting on the buildport that are ready whenever the pricing is, bar a couple that i think still need locations.  i haven't looked at them in a few weeks.
« Last Edit: November 12, 2011, 08:10:56 am by Jaros »

Offline Once

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Re: Ramblings on a Future without GM, with Action Points and Skill Trees
« Reply #44 on: November 12, 2011, 08:11:21 am »
Good post. Will follow up more thoroughly when I'm not still awake at 5am. What specific imbalances are you referring to that have been introduced?