The game is constantly changing. Heck, it changed today with the addition of a new spell, a new quest, and pages of text to go with both. Saying "I don't want the game to change" is drawing a line in quicksand. Nor do I believe this is actually what people want, even if it might be what they are articulating.

"I don't want this particular change" is an entirely valid opinion to have. It is insufficient by itself to argue against a change that I believe would make DragonRealms a better video game, but it is an opinion and I certainly will not deny anyone having those.

-Armifer
"Perinthia's astronomers are faced with a difficult choice. Either they must admit that all their calculations were wrong ... or else they must reveal that the order of the gods is reflected exactly in the city of monsters." - Italo Calvino

>>If you're voting for more change to previously changed systems then you're not happy with the change.

TDP system didn't change.

>>Why keep changing things?

The same reason you're not using a computer running Windows 3.11

>>I want things as they are left alone and new development.

Either you're asking for the game to continue moving forward or stagnation. You can't ask for the game to never change anything but also keep adding things, especially when those old things are done in a way that is regarded as poor.

>>Why aren't boats fixed? Oh, that's right...

New things for boats aren't coming along (or even more boats) because oceans aren't fixed and the way boats handle, memory-wise, is horrific. Fixing this would go against your own request for a moratorium on changing old things. I'm sure GMs would love to do more ocean stuff, if oceans didn't do things like let players crash their boats deep into continents and then not be able to pilot them back out.

---

Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

>>If you're voting for more change to previously changed systems then you're not happy with the change. Sugar coat it as much as you want with saying it's a far better game or however you like. The point is, why keep changing things? Why does it have to change? I want things as they are left alone and new development. You want something that makes you happy, create instead of change and take away from others. There is only 1 argument for change and it completely ignores what others feel, want or think. Why aren't boats fixed? Oh, that's right...........

No one is taking anything from anyone else.

Stop with the sky is falling garbage.

TDPs haven't been changed yet in like 20 years, so it isn't 'more' change.. it is 'change'.

And change is good. People wouldn't still be playing if this game didn't change.

There is also a TON of new development. Not sure what you are looking for specifically, but it sounds like your time would be better spent advocating for what you want, instead of complaining about things that aren't even true.

>>I can only speak for myself. I'm ok with it changing, just concerned the change will negate countless hours I've put into training all skills while other players will get rewarded for not doing that. I feel that's a valid concern.

That's something I can speak in more detail to.

While I can understand that there is a certain profit-oriented mentality to DR, think for a moment about what is going behind a sentiment such as this. Forgive me if I misread you, but I believe the essence of the issue is that others will get what you have gotten with less work than you put in?

I dislike the ability to equate DragonRealms to work. I have recently taken to calling it "a video game" frequently because I want to focus on this idea that DragonRealms is, as some of you have reminded me this evening, a game. It's supposed to be fun. If we're thinking in terms of investment, time spent in, and other terms I usually use to describe my social security pay-in, we've long since lost that mark.

Do I want to let people reach their max effectiveness without the same hours put in? Yes. I want to reduce the barrier of entry, as someone earlier put it. I absolutely want to make it so that people don't feel compelled to, here we go again with work-speak, put in long hours to see a profit.

Long ago, the GM that hired me told me I should now consider DragonRealms my primary avocation. I gotta admit that I've seen some of you playing and it worries me that I've been party to building a game that prompts people to put in more than I did for my actual job.

Right now we're not even talking about reducing TDPs. Don't get me wrong, I'm not closing the door on us reducing the TDP cap, but it's not even part of the discussion right now. I'm talking about getting there faster, reigning in systems that make it impossible to implement an endgame, and starting to escape the enormous black hole we're in orbit of.

-Armifer
"Perinthia's astronomers are faced with a difficult choice. Either they must admit that all their calculations were wrong ... or else they must reveal that the order of the gods is reflected exactly in the city of monsters." - Italo Calvino

<I dislike the ability to equate DragonRealms to work.>

Whatever you want to call it, if it plays out that way it will effectively downgrade my character while not downgrading other characters. Call it work or call it character development. It feels like a downgrade to me.

>>it still doesn't mean it's a valid thing to just change the game in such a way that countless hours spent training for a purpose is completely negated.

It is very valid. Its an old system in an old game, and it doesn't work the way the GMs want it to. It encourages min/maxing and is heavily skewed to guilds that don't have weapons tert. (a skillset that has almost double the amount of skills in it compared to any other skillset)

Also, the point of training a weapon or any skill should be to USE that skill. Not for TDPs. If TDPs were the only reason you trained that skill, the game has failed.

Like that is the entire point. You admit you didn't do it because you wanted to, or wanted to use that skill or enjoyed it. You did it just for the TDPs. That is a problem. That is bad design.

>>Whatever you want to call it, if it plays out that way it will effectively downgrade my character while not downgrading other characters. Call it work or call it character development. It feels like a downgrade to me.

I get why players feel this way, but it seems so counter-productive to want a bad system to remain bad to justify the work it took to buy into a bad thing. Because that means you have to keep buying into the bad system, and would rather do that than break the cycle and stop everyone from having to do the dumb thing.

It's like wanting people to have to go back to spamming RUB on favor orbs because if you had to spam a macro back in the day, everyone should forever. Or wanting altars to remain dusty and cleric-cleaning-only because of how annoying it was to get favors in Qi because you played during off hours and would have to go out of your way to get new favors that didn't necessarily match your dark-aspect loving Bard. Or wanting spell scrolls to still require a harness minimum because of the amount of work it took to keep Limb Disruption or Venom back in the day.

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Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

>>Reining in the out of control TDP gains could give GMs the opportunity to do this, because it allows them to create systems without having to take into account a much larger stat range.

To be fair, we're probably going to have to create systems with taking into account a much larger stat range anyways. But that's actually reasonably easy because we, through happenstance, soft-capped stats to a vaguely-reasonable spread (growth is completely whacky, but spread is not so insane).

Compare this to conceptually trying to build a system that moves from 0 ranks to 1750 ranks across what even with lowered barriers of entry is still going to be a multi-year character growth arc. That part is silly and a part of why I say that a real endgame is not currently feasible.

-Armifer
"Perinthia's astronomers are faced with a difficult choice. Either they must admit that all their calculations were wrong ... or else they must reveal that the order of the gods is reflected exactly in the city of monsters." - Italo Calvino

<I get why players feel this way, but it seems so counter-productive to want a bad system to remain bad to justify the work it took to buy into a bad thing.>

I feel like that's not what I'm saying. I'm more concerned about the way it's implemented. I would hope I would get some benefit from all the time I spent developing my character in a way that was beneficial at the time. I guess the ability to convert my skills is out of the question (lol at people shooting up to capped skills overnight). Maybe there is some other solution though, I don't know maybe I'll just have to live with it. But thank you for understanding why I feel that way.

OK, let me clarify my position since I've obviously muddied the water. I like the experience system as it is. I know how it works well enough to train my character for what I want from my character. Can it be more efficient? Perhaps for someone else but, for me it works. I don't enjoy having to relearn something to attempt to achieve the same goals over and over and over again. I certainly don't like the idea of losing what I have gained for the purpose of fixing what others perceive as broken. Calling me selfish for that is no less selfish of you for demanding that I do so. I've watched change after change to existing systems and I've never once heard anyone say, it's perfect. I've heard plenty of requests to leave things alone but, that never happens and still there's more demand for more change to the things that apparently never get fixed. Do I dislike change, not at all. I just like some things the way they are or prefer to not have them changed any more. Other things are fair game but, this is The Experience System forum. I haven't once heard anyone say you can't train to your guild requirements or not train at all. I don't like to be told I shouldn't be rewarded for putting forth extra effort. Any way you slice it, taking away TDP gain from learning extra skills is just that.


Vote!
It does a toon good.
http://www.topmudsites.com/vote-DragonRealms.html

I understand what you're saying Ratherdashing. However, from where I'm sitting it just proves my point even more. The mind murk was eliminated. Also, something has obviously changed with pulse sizes or something else to do with learning rates. I'm able to gain experience at a much increased rate now compared to 5 or 6 years ago and I don't think the elimination of mind murk alone is the reason. Now I'm hearing people complain about overtraining and runaway stat training. Nothing else as far as I can tell has changed yet, it was a change that was asked for and now people are complaining. I believe that the argument to keep mind murk would be valid in hindsight however, there are those that will soundly disagree even though it's obvious that we would not be hearing the complaints we're hearing now. Mind murk discouraged over training yet, some like myself still did it. It also helped skew runaway stat training. The way I see it, someone starting fresh is getting an advantage on me already as things sit. A new character starting today can easily make 100th circle in a years time. Beyond that I could not say. I just know it took me almost a year to get my toon to 30th circle which is when I began over training and I'm perfectly fine with that. I remember when 99th was the limit and now we can hit 200. Still I hear complaining. We're talking about end game yet every time the end game gets pushed further out. People then complain that the end game is unobtainable. Then more changes are made so newer players will get it easy again. Then the end game will get pushed out even further because it's too easy then the cycle will repeat.

Vote!
It does a toon good.
http://www.topmudsites.com/vote-DragonRealms.html

>>DR-Armifer: The big question isn't "Should less skills apply to TDPs?" The question we should be asking is "What happens to the number 792,486?" I don't have an answer to that yet and while I'm happy to read opinions about it, nothing should be presumed yet.

In the last TDP thread, you opined, "In my perfect world we ultimately cap TDPs at a level beneath 99-in-every-stat, but I wouldn't mind letting people get to the capping point as fast or faster regardless of how such a cap is implemented.."

That seems to me like an elegant way to address the issue if the goal is to adjust stat growth on the TDP end (instead of adjusting it in more opaque ways, such as changing how stats scale). You can train all the skills if you want to reach the cap faster, but in the end, a character who played the zills for 1,000 ranks is not objectively better (at non-performance activities) than a character who did not.


>>DR-Armifer: I was just telling another GM that I'm prepared to wait and deal with the issue of runaway stat growth another year. I'm not happy with it but I'm willing to live with it, possibly forever if we make certain adjustments to how stats are used in our systems.

>>DR-Armifer: The actual implications of X TDPs on stat growth is something we can approach in other ways if necessary, and can be an entirely separate conversation if it helps keep things here clearer and less panicky.

What sorts of adjustments do you have in mind? (Or is it better not to open that can of worms at such a preliminary stage?)

As a player who has a lot of time to train generally for TDPs, I know I am in the minority, but game balance should take priority over the vocal contingent of players who want to keep broken mechanics in place for no reason other than that they benefit from that style of play. Some players will threaten to quit. A few might actually quit. But in the long run, it makes a better game-play experience, both for existing and prospective players.

Delaying necessary changes (beyond the time it takes to correctly plan and implement them) won't change anyone's minds. It won't assuage the anger of someone who is convinced that change will harm them and/or benefit other players more than them. All a delay will accomplish is to give people another year to add to the "we've been doing this for X years, so why change now?" line of argument.


>>Jwark4: What my concern is what will happen with all those hours I spent training a skill that does nothing for me except to gain TDPs? Performance comes to mind.

The fact that a skill does nothing for you but generate TDPs is the problem. I am sure that GMs intend to develop performance into a robust skill that can stand on its own.

If not, I would not be opposed to letting players roll skills they no longer want (due to the lack of TDPs) into their bonus pools.


>>Jwark4: I do understand this line of thought. While "shouldn't" is not necessarily some fact that is true, it still doesn't mean it's a valid thing to just change the game in such a way that countless hours spent training for a purpose is completely negated.

Conversely, the fact that some skills are poorly developed and were trained solely to generate TDPs is not an argument against addressing unfun incentives and runaway stat growth.

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>>Squanto: It's a funny thing to me, this entire discussion. Only recently (within the past 3ish or so years) have people become obsessed with/more concerned with/more focused on training as many skills as humanly possible. The only thing really going through my head is: why do you suppose that is? I don't remember the game being like this before that period, to be honest.

I think part of it is the proliferation of good scripts, coupled with the fact that hunting is by far the most efficient way to train a character. (If I want to train 20 skills in combat, I don't even need to write my own script. I can just download someone else's script, spend a few minutes setting it up for the first time, and run it in multi-mode for hours.) I'm not saying that scripts are bad -- I actually I enjoy writing them and tinkering with them -- just that the more painless you make it, the more people do it.

Additionally, the "new experience" mechanics of 2009 made it much easier to train generally for long stretches of time. For example, it used to be that in order to maximize the size of your experience pulses you had to keep a skill mind locked. Now, a pulse at 2/34 is as big as a pulse at 34/34, which makes the most efficient training routine the one that keeps the most skills above 1/34. And in the absence of mind murk (which no one misses), it is possible to train at peak efficiency 24/7 if you can get away with it.

In short, if you can add a skill to your hunting routine, it's objectively the right decision, because Elanthians have an amazing attention span that allows them to learn 20+ skills as effectively as if they were focusing all of their attention on one skill -- and they can do this for 24 hours a day.

Also keep in mind that DR characters have an extraordinarily long growth arc for the industry. There are characters who are literally old enough to vote. (Let that sink in for a moment.) Ranks don't decrease (unless you reroll or fail multiple script checks), so over time, the average number ranks just continues to grow. And even if your initial goals are modest and specific, once you reach those, you're likely to branch out into other skills.

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Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall rank!

Paladins: https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Paladin_new_player_guide

Armor and shields: https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Armor_and_shield_player_guide

Based on some napkin math and Elanthipedia's TDP formula, something like double TDPs for the first 4 skills in Survival, Magic, and Lore, the first 8 skills for weapons, and the first 3 skills in in armor, and then 20% for every other non-armor skill should be roughly TDP neutral (up to rounding error) for someone that's trained everything evenly, and a small to largeish gain for people that didn't train weapons #6 through #15. At that point, training broadly still gets a slight TDP advantage (around 10%), and it helps balance where Thieves and Barbs can only learn 4 Magic skills.

> I have a different stomach lining than Socharis did.

I would be bothered if you had the same stomach lining.

>There's a hard limit on how fast you can train a skill, so the easiest and most optimal way is to focus on training on 20 skills really well. Which is to say that usually I can raise Reflex faster than I can raise Evasion, because there is a limit on how fast I can learn evasion, but the restriction on how fast I can raise reflex is more generous.

Training almost all the skills I care to train (Lacking 2 due to location, Athletics and Outfitting for nothing to swim/climb and no society to handle craft processing) in the most optimal way I know of, I earn something like 7 TDP per hour. 6+6+0+5+6, by skillset, not counting the 2 missing, so 23 skills. If TDP were not a factor, I'd drop 2 armors, and 2 lores.

At that rate, it takes me like 40-45 hours to earn 2 points of Reflex (At a -2 racial mod).
In that time, I'd spitball that I could train about 5 ranks of Evasion. Might be around 4.

That said, I consider myself happy with "enough" Reflex that I have and now need to be putting it to Agi, Int, and Wis.

>Only recently (within the past 3ish or so years) have people become obsessed with/more concerned with/more focused on training as many skills as humanly possible. The only thing really going through my head is: why do you suppose that is? I don't remember the game being like this before that period, to be honest.

Even 10 years ago I was training all the armor skills to spread out the exp because of mind murk on armor+weapon tertiary (may that system continue to burn in the fires of purgatory) and training most ALL survivals and lores just because I adopted a generalist approach. Not for the TDP but for being able to pick my own boxes, skin my own skins, be able to swim and climb to get places without begging for Moongates, etc.

These days, it is about the TDP, but I still don't think I train a lot extra, namely just extra in primary skillsets. I think EVERYTHING is stupid, but if I've got time to handle the draining, why not grab an extra skill for TDP.

But I don't think it should be "for the TDP".

>I'd wager you can trace it back to the elimination of mind murk. You literally could not train all the skills! (or it was much more difficult? my mind is a bit murky on that system...)

As I recall Overall State of Mind system, you gained a tiny amount into the overall state as a portion of exp gained. It generally was fine until you mindlocked a skill, and then 100% of the bitgain went went straight into the overall mind. Which hampered draining, which put you in a vicious cycle till you were screwed and learning literally nothing.

There were bandaids such that as long as you were not mindlocked in MO (which was a Weapon skill), then it prevented defense overflow from going into the overall state. Which was a big plus for Barbs, and screwed over the weapon terts because those TINY tert pools locked up QUICK.

>A mechanic that was in place from 1996 - 2009, and yet they tore that sucker right out. Where was the outrage there?

Wrong, there was much rejoicing.

NO ONE, not one player that you will find, enjoyed it. There was tolerance "because that's the way it is", but no one LIKED it. Go on, try to find someone who LIKED it.

Kaeta Airtag

"I have faith in the current crop of GMs to not screw people over"

>>Actually an opinion cannot be changed or corrected. Nice try back of line.-VERATHOR
>>But it can be wrong.-Starlear

>> I dislike the ability to equate DragonRealms to work. I have recently taken to calling it "a video game" frequently because I want to focus on this idea that DragonRealms is, as some of you have reminded me this evening, a game. It's supposed to be fun. If we're thinking in terms of investment, time spent in, and other terms I usually use to describe my social security pay-in, we've long since lost that mark.

Video games should definitely be fun. But I'd just like to point out that different people obtain that fun in different ways. I like building powerful characters. I like optimizing every second of my game play so I am learning the absolute most that I can. It's probably not the normal way people play, but it's how I play DR, and every other game I play. It's why I play in TF.

I agree that some changes need to be made, and I'm for it. But if you make changes akin to EVE where everyone gains skills at the same static rate, with no differences made for player time and or ability to optimize then you've just removed the fun for me.

>I'm talking about getting there faster, reigning in systems that make it impossible to implement an endgame, and starting to escape the enormous black hole we're in orbit of.

Although I'm only quoting a snippet, the post overall is very good. I was thinking about this last night while browsing through the topic in the Paladin forum.

I'm of the unpopular opinion that TDPs and ranks have run away. If the cap were 1000 ranks, which is still arguably too high, rather than 1750 and the creature teaching ranges were tightened at the upper end, things would actually probably work better overall. The only reason the cap is so high is to keep people chasing numbers, and I don't get why players are so willing to do it. There is no significant point outside bragging rights to train any skill passed ~800. PvP isn't the reason unless you haven't caught up to that one person you really want to fight. It's not like it's fun one-shotting people (unless for the lolz) and it doesn't earn anyone more respect.

The only thing that a 1750 rank cap gives us is a greater potential for imbalances and more people complaining about broken abilities that can't possibly scale ideally from 0 to 1750. On the other hand, there isn't any significant end game content unless you call 100th circle or 800 ranks end game. The runaway TDP issue is a symptom of a bigger, skill rank problem.

The reason I dislike the high skill cap and TDP situation is to Armifer's point. The game just feels like work at the high end. I've tried rolling different characters, but the end result is the same. Once I have several hundred ranks and the spells/abilities I care about, it's just a rank-chasing game. Going by the last census, a quarter of the population is already at that point where ranks and a couple of creatures is their end game, and that can't be good for the future of the game when the the vast majority of development is and should be targeted at 0-150th circle.

>>The only reason the cap is so high is to keep people chasing numbers, and I don't get why players are so willing to do it.

People do it because they feel there is nothing else to do, which causes even bigger skill creep GMs can't address, which causes them to feel there's even more nothing else to do, creating more skill creep the GMs can't address, making...

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Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

>>Bavestthemaddest: Please understand I'm not trying to argue per say. Yes, I'm upset at the thought though I'm not unwilling to yield. I'm still trying to understand what exactly is broken with experience. I'm also really curious how we're going to balance things and not make it so bland that it's pointless to choose a race or guild.

In short, the current TDP mechanics provide a strong incentive for every character to train most if not all skills, effectively homogenizing the skill aspect of DragonRealms. At the end game, stats approach homogeneity as well due to a combination of (1) effectively unlimited TDP generation from ranks and (2) skyrocketing costs/diminishing returns for training stats past 100.

A while back, Team Magic decided that players should have fewer spell slots than abilities in order to improve diversity of character builds and to force players to make meaningful choices when spending spell slots. I think there is a strong argument that stats should be approached the same way.

As Armifer once put it, "Most important to me is the issue that skill-gain TDP is a runaway system, with values that were decided 19 years ago. For a community that by and large bemoans homogenization, it is surprisingly that there is so little complaint about the situation where everyone is hitting 100+ stats in the high end with limited to irrelevant variation."

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Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall rank!

Paladins: https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Paladin_new_player_guide

Armor and shields: https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Armor_and_shield_player_guide

I'm not sure what problem is trying to be solved here but if it is the proliferation of TDP turned into stats then why not address the problem instead of the symptom.
Read: Stat value/cost

0-10 / 1x(stat value) + (modifier)*((stat value)/2)

11-20 / 2x(stat value) + (modifier)*((stat value)/2)

21-30 / 3x(stat value) + (modifier)*((stat value)/2)

31-40 / 4x(stat value) + (modifier)*((stat value)/2)

41-50 / 5x(stat value) + (modifier)*((stat value)/2)

51-60 / 6x(stat value) + (modifier)*((stat value)/2)

61-70 / 7x(stat value) + (modifier)*((stat value)/2)

71-80 / 8x(stat value) + (modifier)*((stat value)/2)

81-90 / 9x(stat value) + (modifier)*((stat value)/2)

91-100 / 10x(stat value) + (modifier)*((stat value)/2)

100-110 / 11x(stat value) + (modifier)*((stat value)/2)

etc.

You could then just wipe all stats and force a game wide re-allocation.

Now if the proliferation of TDPs isn't the problem then please enlighten me.
Rhadyn da Dwarb - Blood for fire!

>>I'm not sure what problem is trying to be solved here but if it is the proliferation of TDP turned into stats then why not address the problem instead of the symptom.

IMO, the issue is the disincentive to push stats past X until all stats are past Y and the fact that TDPs gain via skills, as they are right now, encourages everyone to train everything for the sake of getting maximum TDPs.

>>I would like to point out that this is due to the fact that not 19 years ago, but rather about 3ish years ago stat caps were expanded

Ehhh... if it wasn't for the cap expanding you would have just had everyone hit 99 in every stat. The expansion was an attempt to try and address the writing on the wall.

I'd personally enjoy a stat model where points were much lower, it was a ton harder to train up a stat, but each of those points mattered more. I like the idea of not being able to max out everything and having to make actual choices (similar to the spell slot/feat model that was just highlighted).

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Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.