30 Apr, 2012, Gicker wrote in the 1st comment:
Votes: 0
Hello,

I am trying to figure out how many build possibilities there are for our game.

Here are the quick stats:

10 classes
26 races
233 feats
6 ability scores
natural cap of 25 on ability scores
18 skills
30 ranks per skill


So here's the fine details:
-they can choose any class at any level, through multiclassing, with no limit to the number of different classes you can have at once. You can be level 10 with 1 level in all 10 classes potentially
-every even level you get a feat. This can be any regular feat you qualify for. Generally at any given level, most people will qualify for about 100 different feats on average.
-every odd level you get a class feat. Different classes have different class feat lists. On average, any given class at any given level qualifies for about 10 class feats.
-every 4 levels you get 2 ability trains to put into ability scores. These must be spent on different ability scores.
- starting off you can have a minimum ability score of 8 and a maximum ability score of 18.
- max level is 30
- each class gets, on average, 4 skill points to spend. Your skill rank cannot exceed your current level.

I think that's about it. I obviously haven't given enough data for anything but an estimation, but I would like to at least have that, for advertising purposes. I feel our mud is well above average as far as character build customization goes, and want to stress that in ads with a 'hard' figure (even if it is just an estimate, which I will express in the ad).

Anyone who's able to figure this out, please let me know. My math skills have gone way down in the past 15 years or so since I took my last calculus class. I never use anything but simple math in everyday life, so, there it is.

Thanks all,

Gicker
30 Apr, 2012, Gicker wrote in the 2nd comment:
Votes: 0
Forgot to mention. 6 ability scores.
30 Apr, 2012, Gicker wrote in the 3rd comment:
Votes: 0
Looks like I got my answer here: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?...

That's what I did originally but was suspicious because the number was a lot larger than I estimated.
30 Apr, 2012, plamzi wrote in the 4th comment:
Votes: 0
Gicker said:
I obviously haven't given enough data for anything but an estimation


Actually, upon a quick glance, there may not be enough info even for an estimate. The key info that's missing for most of the properties you listed are the limits/restrictions. For classes and races, we can assume that each char can only have one. But for your other stats, I don't know what subset of what set a fully developed char can master. The difference can be huge. For instance, if a fully developed char can master all feats available to them, that's 10x26x1. But if they can master only, say, 3 of max 100 available to them, that would yield something like 10x26x(100!/3!).

Here's a better link: http://www.mathsisfun.com/combinatorics/...
30 Apr, 2012, Gicker wrote in the 5th comment:
Votes: 0
Thanks for the link, those are some good points, I will check it out and see what I can come up with.
30 Apr, 2012, Gicker wrote in the 6th comment:
Votes: 0
Ok so this is actually quite a complex calculation. I guess a rough estimate would be in the millions then, because all 233 feats are available to someone during the cours e of their progression, but only about 100 at any given level.

But you're right, with limits and restrictions, that number goes down significantly, so I honestly don't know how best to calculate this, or even if it's worth doing anymore, since it seems without doing all of the nitty gritty work, any estimate I make could be off by several powers of 10.
30 Apr, 2012, plamzi wrote in the 7th comment:
Votes: 0
Gicker said:
But you're right, with limits and restrictions, that number goes down significantly…


It's a bit counter-intuitive, but most limits/restrictions would actually make the number of builds higher, not lower. Only very low limits (1, 2, 3 out of n) will not have this effect.

If every thief could master all, say, 100 thief skills, then the optimal build for thief in terms of skillset is only one. Even if we measure the sub-optimal builds (i. e. if there's a way to mess up so you can't master all skills available), the number of combinations will be quite small (100-x, for 100 max). But if a thief can master any 10 of 100 skills, then optimal builds for thief would be any combinations of 10 out of a set of 100: a huge number.

Getting a proper estimate won't be that hard when you know how each attribute works. All attributes you listed will add combinations (and not permutations) to the final figure because it doesn't matter whether someone masters backstab first, then sneak, or vice versa.
30 Apr, 2012, Runter wrote in the 8th comment:
Votes: 0
Calculate the number that is most obvious (like class * race), give it an asterisk, and explain it precisely as you did in this thread in the footer/link. Players care more about the facts than an arbitrary over 2billion served tagline.
30 Apr, 2012, Hades_Kane wrote in the 9th comment:
Votes: 0
Here ya go!

Quote
Come play d20 MUD! With 10 classes, 26 races, 233 feats, 6 ability scores with a cap of 25, 18 skills and 30 ranks per, there are countless* build possibilities!

*Countless because I can't count that high! ;)
01 May, 2012, Gicker wrote in the 10th comment:
Votes: 0
I agree about an arbitrary number being pointless, but I do believe being as specific as possible is more important than being vague.

The individual statistics would most of them, be included in the ad anyway.

But I think a player is more likely to gloss over a term like countless than they are a number.

So in my mind, this would be more pleasing to a player:

Quote
Come play d20 MUD! With 10 classes, 26 races, 233 feats, 18 skills, 6 ability scores and 30 multiclass-possible levels, there are literally millions of different ways to build your character


In my mind, a phrase, like countless, is something someone could easily use in eager exaggeration. But a number, whether estimated like above, or a hard approximation sticks out in the mind more.

Are you more impressed by a basketball player who had a really big game or by one who scored 50 points?

That's why all I'm looking for is an approximate number. I know there is a tonne of options out there, I just want to ball park it, because in my mind, as you stated, people are more interested in facts, right?

I never said that my ad was going to be centered around this figure. It's something I want to add to my ad, in addition to all of the information that is already there, such as most of what is detailed in the initial post.

I know that when I heard that the City of Heroes game had billions of different costume possibilities, I was more impressed than I was before, just knowing that there were a lot. I think it's largely psychological as well. I think a number will invoke more of a mental reaction than simply another line of descriptive text. And if they're thinking about the game, they're more likely to try it out.
01 May, 2012, Gicker wrote in the 11th comment:
Votes: 0
I should mention that this isn't a traditional diku style mud with backstab and whatnot. It's a sandbox style character build system. There are 238 feats right now (I added 5 more today). Any of these feats are potentially able to be taken depending on what class you chose that level, your ability scores and previous feat choices are.

The reason why I said that this is too big to estimate, is because most of those 238 feats, or at least 2/3rds of them have specific pre-requisites unique to that particular feat. I'd need one heck of an algorithm I think to calculate that, so it's better for me to just ballpark it, given what I know.

I do appreciate the comments, inasmuch as they were made with the intention to help, which I believe they were. But short of showing my entire feat prerequisite code, I don't think we can get much farther with this. I do know that there are at least millions of possibilities, and millions is a big enough approximation for me, so I will settle with that in my ads. There could potentially be much, much more than that, but it's really not worth it for me to go to that length to figure it out, given how rusty my math and statistical skills and knowledge is.

With as much as I have on my plate these days, it's not really something I am looking to investigate and learn at this time either. So unless a math wizard stumbles along with a desire to do this for me, which I suppose is a bit naive to hope for, I guess I'll stick with millions.
01 May, 2012, Joseph Locke wrote in the 12th comment:
Votes: 0
I'm no mathematician, but I'd guess this is kind of complicated to solve.

That said, you could approach this as an engineering problem. It seems like it might be solvable within your code. I don't know what code you're running or how it is designed, but it might be feasible to create a routine that runs through (or generates a character file) of each possible variation. Write a counter into it, and BAM!

From a pure math perspective, I can only relate this to chess. Figure 8 pawns on a side, 2 knights that can move sans obstruction, and a couple pieces that become eligible to move after various pawns, x2 for sides… you end up with some 194,742 variations of position with the first four moves alone.

Given that you have a greater number of elements - class, feat, race, score, skill - and a greater number of variations per element - like skill ranks - we can assume that the number is going to be pretty damn high. I'm interested in trying out your game, just from what I've read in this discussion.

So for the purpose of attracting new players, I'd say making some accurate calculations here would be extremely beneficial.
01 May, 2012, Rarva.Riendf wrote in the 13th comment:
Votes: 0
Countless is the best bet, because a ridiculously high number of possibilities only means one thing: I am more likely to screw my build.
It is the well known (except for open source zealots) fallacy of choice.
01 May, 2012, Gicker wrote in the 14th comment:
Votes: 0
Haha Rarva, yes that is the other side of this double edged sword. But we have coded a respec command that let's you redo your build from level at any time during your character's life, without having to delete and restart. So yes you can screw up your build, but you can also easily fix it.
01 May, 2012, Gicker wrote in the 15th comment:
Votes: 0
Joseph that's my feeling too, and you've got a good idea there using my code itself to do the possibilities. I will have to take some time to think about what that would look like though. I'm pretty much a self taught coder, I don't have the math background of most CS graduates.
01 May, 2012, Rarva.Riendf wrote in the 16th comment:
Votes: 0
Gicker said:
Haha Rarva, yes that is the other side of this double edged sword. But we have coded a respec command that let's you redo your build from level at any time during your character's life, without having to delete and restart. So yes you can screw up your build, but you can also easily fix it.


The actual useful number for a player is only the 'viable' builds. All the weakers one won't be picked or will be reseted as soon as deemed useless, so no need to count them.
It is like equipment, You could have a shitload of them, if in the end, only two or three pieces are actually used cause way better than any other, in the end, you actually only have two or three pieces of eq. The rest is noise/spam. Those are the meaningful numbers. And only your engine can calculate those.
01 May, 2012, Gicker wrote in the 17th comment:
Votes: 0
Rarva.Riendf said:
Gicker said:
Haha Rarva, yes that is the other side of this double edged sword. But we have coded a respec command that let's you redo your build from level at any time during your character's life, without having to delete and restart. So yes you can screw up your build, but you can also easily fix it.


The actual useful number for a player is only the 'viable' builds. All the weakers one won't be picked or will be reseted as soon as deemed useless, so no need to count them.
It is like equipment, You could have a ####load of them, if in the end, only two or three pieces are actually used cause way better than any other, in the end, you actually only have two or three pieces of eq. The rest is noise/spam. Those are the meaningful numbers. And only your engine can calculate those.


From a practical view you're correct. From a promotional/marketing view, I disagree.
01 May, 2012, Rarva.Riendf wrote in the 18th comment:
Votes: 0
Gicker said:
From a practical view you're correct. From a promotional/marketing view, I disagree.


Since when do you need actual/correct numbers for marketing :)
I can understand the intellectual curiosity about the actual numbers though. But to have the actual number, You will have to make it calculated by your engine, way faster as the rules are coded within.
If there is no problem of compatibiliy between tree paths, then no real math is needed, it is a basic count of tree nodes.
01 May, 2012, plamzi wrote in the 19th comment:
Votes: 0
From a marketing viewpoint, "thousands of great character builds" is a lot better than "countless" or "1.6 million". It's neither vague nor techy-precise, and not likely to overwhelm more people than it intrigues.

If you advertise builds, you should also advertise the ability to respec because you'd be targeting an audience that cares about such stuff.

You may also consider telling people something about feats and how they are different from skills/spells/crafts, etc. Highlighting unique features may be more effective than putting the spotlight on builds, which are arguably in the healthy thousands for nearly any MUD.
01 May, 2012, Newt wrote in the 20th comment:
Votes: 0
Yeah, my question is: how many of these 'char builds' will be competitively playable? I guess that boils down to: have you balanced things so that no one combination of traits/feats/etc gives significant adavantage? If you have…then what's the selling point of having these millions/billions/gazillion builds?

Hopefully you get where I am coming from. This is in no way meant to be derogatory. I get having unique chars is a good thing, but also I understand that more complex systems of accomplishing this can easily lead to probs or just end up being meaningless. *shrug*
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