24 Dec, 2009, Brinson wrote in the 1st comment:
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I'll assume we've all played games where the skill of the character is a heavily weighted contributor to pk outcome. You train skills, you get the best eq, and you hardly lose. Most people consider this a "bad" or "unbalanced" game. However, in a strange way, its realistic. A poor pker can play a strong character, whereas their role would otherwise be inhibited. On the other hand, in a mud where player skill is heavily waited, it becomes an issue of the "veteran" players who know the game the best. Not only are they better at the pk itself, but they have a better idea of how to build strong characters.

Where do you think the line is drawn? Does a heavily proficiency oriented system weight to those with the most free time, and damn all others? Would you favor a proficiency-less system which relies upon your personal typing and thinking ability to win the fight. A blow has X chance of landing every time, but in making that decision you forsake another, meaning that pk comes down to decision making, rather than training, or do you prefer training, and allowing the person who cares and tries the most to have an advantage?

I'm planning to write a pk system from scratch. The base I'm using doesn't even have stats…or skills, or spells, or…even health. I'm going to add all this in, and am trying to figure out where I am being trapped by thought that I've learned, versus what I legitimately think is best.
24 Dec, 2009, quixadhal wrote in the 2nd comment:
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An important distinction to make is exactly what you mean by "skill of the player".

Some games favor players who are 12 years old, hopped up on caffeine and sugar, and can twitch-respond to a one-pixel grey-on-black movement faster than your screen refreshes. :)

Since I am not 12 years old, and my blood is so saturated with caffeine that it has no effect on me, I prefer games that put the emphasis on strategy and tactics. Let's suppose I find a trainer who teaches some obscure fire-magic explosive crane kick skill. To pull it off, you have to do a combination of simpler martial arts moves and instant-cast fire spells in the right order. Miss one, or have it countered by someone who recognizes what you're building up to, and you get to try something else… but if it hits, BOOM!

That's different than the up-up-left-down-up-right-right-triangle-X combos the twitch people use. Timing itself doesn't matter as much as doing them right and having them work. If you screw up (or are countered) partway through, you might be able to salvage the first part of the combo to do something else.

I'm also a big fan of placing the weight in the player's skills and experience (levels, if you use them), rather than equipment. Equipment should augment your character, not define them. One of the big grips with World of Warcraft is that you don't really play your character, you play a pair of epic purple pants, which happens to do the same stuff your character does, only better.
24 Dec, 2009, KaVir wrote in the 3rd comment:
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I consider PK/PvP to be one of the most competitive styles of gameplay in a mud, and IMO player skill should be an important element of competitive gaming.

As quixadhal pointed out, there are many different ways to emphasise player skill. But the more your combat effectiveness depends on your character, the less opportunity you'll have to pit your wits against your fellow players (and in my experience, that's what most PKers enjoy).
24 Dec, 2009, David Haley wrote in the 4th comment:
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It's worth noting that "character" in this sense means something rather particular. If one's skill involves designing one's character – and being able to redesign as many times as you like – then the importance of that character is becomes much more tied to skill than to the amount of time spent on the character.

In other words, "character" here means that you have a rather large number of fixed, and persistent, attributes, that grow over time (but cannot otherwise really be modified). It certainly means nothing like starting up a character in a hypothetical FPS where you design attributes, weapons etc., and then use it once and it disappears at the end of the play session. If everybody has access to the same character building tools, you have shifted the balance toward skill of using those tools rather than on time spent developing that character.

(Of course, one can always argue that time spent developing player skill isn't hugely different from time spent developing the character itself, especially if the character is very malleable.)
24 Dec, 2009, Orrin wrote in the 5th comment:
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If you're designing a system from scratch it would be a good idea to make a list of the kinds of player "skills" that could have an impact on PvP and think about to what degree you want your system to emphasize each one. I think any MUD PvP system is going to have elements of character and player skill, but as KaVir says most players who are drawn to PvP want to feel that their own ability, rather than the character, is the deciding factor.

David Haley said:
If one's skill involves designing one's character – and being able to redesign as many times as you like – then the importance of that character is becomes much more tied to skill than to the amount of time spent on the character.

Character builds can be shared among players so I don't think too much emphasis should be placed on character design if you want a true player skill system. It's much like client side scripting IMO. I used to play the MMO Shadowbane and that had quite a complex character building system where people were always trying to come up with new character builds. What tended to happen though was that everyone played the same FoTM template until it was nerfed, then a new FoTM would emerge.
24 Dec, 2009, David Haley wrote in the 6th comment:
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Orrin said:
Character builds can be shared among players so I don't think too much emphasis should be placed on character design if you want a true player skill system.

I was thinking more along the lines of choosing your "bag of tricks" (skills, spells, weapons, helper items, whatever) based on the situation at hand. For example, knowing that you'll be doing close-quarters fighting and bringing a shotgun rather than a sniper rifle. Certainly not referring to the kind of build that you start at character creation and continue working on, but where you cannot really undo previous choices. It's analogous perhaps to games where you select a character based on the mission.
24 Dec, 2009, Brinson wrote in the 7th comment:
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So far, my design for a combat system is largely proficiency-less, class-less, and level-less. Every player has the ability to learn new moves, but it is difficult. You can learn new moves by combining ig-systems, like a training point system that lets you have X special skills learned (not sure on this one) with having to learn that skill from a player who already knows it.

Every player has access to basic "skills", such as: Parry Mode, Dodge Modge, Block Mode, Swing, Pierce, Thrust.

You wear items with your two hands. Not all weapons support every mode. Lets say you want to parry. You'll need a parryable weapon in that hand, so you…

wield sword left
wear shield right
parry with left
block with right

Now, when someone uses thrust on you, you can block it. If they swing at you, you can parry it. You are very defensive. If you thrust yourself, however, you are always doing so with your left hand. If the person has a shield in their right hand, it is very likely your thrust will always be blocked. When you leave combat, and choose to enter a rest state, your modes all drop off. You cannot dodge and parry at the same time, forcing you to choose based upon your enemy and weapon choice.

On the other hand, if I do…

wield whip left
wield whip right
dodge
swing whip

You get two attacks that are very hard to block, but you have no defense except for dodge. So when someone uses a thrust on you, if you don't dodge it, you take alot of damage. Dodge will be dependent largely on the weight of all items you carry. Harder to dodge wielding axes than whips, so you do have an advantage, but are still very open to attack.
24 Dec, 2009, Runter wrote in the 8th comment:
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Also I think terminally penalizing people on character builds is a poor idea in any case. Unless it's extremely easy to make new characters.
24 Dec, 2009, KaVir wrote in the 9th comment:
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Orrin said:
Character builds can be shared among players so I don't think too much emphasis should be placed on character design if you want a true player skill system. It's much like client side scripting IMO.

I think that depends on how static the builds are (much like DH mentioned). I drew inspiration from Magic the Gathering for my approach to character builds, allowing players to redesign their characters between playing sessions with relative ease. While it's certainly possible to share builds, if one becomes very popular then the more skilled players will usually design new builds that are particularly effective against the old one.
24 Dec, 2009, David Haley wrote in the 10th comment:
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Indeed, I forgot to mention that the malleability I was talking about is in large part a reference to players being able to "respec" their characters on GW2. In this case, you're not really talking about "character" in quite the same way as you are on a standard DIKU – or indeed the vast majority of RPGs!
24 Dec, 2009, Orrin wrote in the 11th comment:
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KaVir said:
I think that depends on how static the builds are (much like DH mentioned). I drew inspiration from Magic the Gathering for my approach to character builds, allowing players to redesign their characters between playing sessions with relative ease. While it's certainly possible to share builds, if one becomes very popular then the more skilled players will usually design new builds that are particularly effective against the old one.

Whether or not the build can be changed doesn't alter the fact that if certain builds are found to be superior then they will become the standard among players. It may be that MUDs are too small for this to have much of an impact, but on most big MMOs players tend to gravitate towards one of a handful of preferred builds, even when you can respec freely.
24 Dec, 2009, KaVir wrote in the 12th comment:
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Orrin said:
Whether or not the build can be changed doesn't alter the fact that if certain builds are found to be superior then they will become the standard among players.

Well the point is that "superior" is a relative term.

Look at Magic the Gathering (which as I said earlier provided a lot of inspiration for my approach to character builds). Is there a "best deck"? What happens if one particular deck becomes very popular?
24 Dec, 2009, Brinson wrote in the 13th comment:
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That's exactly what my system is class-less, proficiency-less, and level-less, and stat-less. When you create a character on my mud, you will immediately be on an almost level playing field characterwise to the people who've been there years. The spells they've learned can be learned fairly easy, especially as I'm implementing it so you can enter "analyze" mode and learn moves your opponents use on you. Its a low chance, but have them use it enough and you'll suddenly have it on your skill list.

The age of mudders is rising. We aren't all high school students who can play 40 hours a week to stay on top. I want to create an RP/PK mud aimed at the average person.
24 Dec, 2009, Orrin wrote in the 14th comment:
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MTG actually makes my point very well. There are lists of the top performing decks based on tournament play so anyone can put together a strong deck. You could just throw in whatever cards you like the look of, but most people will probably read up on what the "pros" are doing and use an established deck and strategy.

Despite this, MTG manages to be a game which takes player skill into account very well so clearly the design doesn't place too much emphasis on deck selection, which was what I was cautioning against. I believe the current "best deck" for Standard is "Jund".
25 Dec, 2009, KaVir wrote in the 15th comment:
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Orrin said:
MTG actually makes my point very well. There are lists of the top performing decks based on tournament play so anyone can put together a strong deck.

But there are many decent decks, and strategies vary over time - you don't see the same deck winning every tournament. Even the "Jund" deck you mentioned has a number of "Anti-Jund" decks designed to counter it.

Applying that approach to muds doesn't mean that every build should be effective (just as not every deck is effective), only that there should be a range of effective builds. As the common player adopts a certain strategy, so the more experienced players would design counter-builds (while at the same time avoiding overspecialisation).

Thus while builds could indeed be shared, it would require an experienced player to remain cutting-edge.
25 Dec, 2009, David Haley wrote in the 16th comment:
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Brinson said:
That's exactly what my system is class-less, proficiency-less, and level-less, and stat-less. When you create a character on my mud, you will immediately be on an almost level playing field characterwise to the people who've been there years. The spells they've learned can be learned fairly easy, especially as I'm implementing it so you can enter "analyze" mode and learn moves your opponents use on you. Its a low chance, but have them use it enough and you'll suddenly have it on your skill list.

The age of mudders is rising. We aren't all high school students who can play 40 hours a week to stay on top. I want to create an RP/PK mud aimed at the average person.

It sounds almost like you're aiming to make a "deathmatch MUD" of sorts. This idea has come up a few times IIRC, the idea being that the emphasis is on rapid entry to play and subsequently on tactics rather than on developing a character over (a potentially rather long) time. I think that this is certainly extremely interesting, although it might sound heretical in some circles to suggest doing away with the traditional RPG aspects that our genre is steeped in.

(That said, I view MUDs as far more of a medium than a genre. What rule says that all text-based games have to be the same?)
25 Dec, 2009, Brinson wrote in the 17th comment:
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Its going to be slower paced than that, though. I do this intentionally to allow time for thought, and roleplay during combat. Attacks will have between 5 and 15 seconds between them during which you can emote and think over your next move.
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