To jump off from the now closed thread, it feels like the main issue with TDPs is that there's no reason not to be well rounded because it's not like TDPs ever stop flowing.

Sure, you can be a super strong character, but eventually the cost to get those strength/stamina ranks means you might as well go invest in mentals or being agile or whatever.

Sure, you can be a really smart Mage, but there is no reason not to also focus on physical stats. Same for a really nimble thief. Etc.

It would be interesting if DR didn't require you needing to be so well rounded in order to function well. For example, my ~125 necro has 40 strength and everything else in 60-80 (maybe I have something in the 90s?), because I figured it would be fun to make a Gnome work like a Gnome (her stamina is high due to necro-ness, in my mind). But I also realize I am shooting myself in the foot for ignoring strength. In time, putting TDPs into another 10 points of strength is going to be a lot more viable than 10 ranks into anything else, and it's a weird debate to have with yourself.

On the other hand, a D&D like model wouldn't help with diversity, because you'd have most people just investing in stats that generally matter more to their guild.

So I figure the issue is less TDPs/TDP gain and more stat applications and the requirement/assumption that players really should be well rounded to function well.

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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.

What I am curious about is how well-rounded (statwise) every single character really is. I know not all of mine are...

"Brace yourselves, Squanto is going to bleh blah fart fart bleh.." -the player of the character formerly known as Pureblade

Someone made a voluntary database of character tpds, stats, and circle awhile back. I can't remember any of the details, though.

It was mostly a bunch of self-selected forum-goers who contributed, so objectively it's terrible data, but it was really interesting to look at (and see some anecdata of how badly Barbarians really were losing out without the magic skillset).

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Your search-fu is pig dung!

I think the issue is how some stats are, simply put, more valuable than others. Charisma is only useful really for guilds that make use of Charm contests, whereas Discipline is useful to literally every guild, in multiple ways. My Barb needs to train Str/Agl to increase the amount of damage he outputs, but he also needs to train discipline and mentals for various other things. Compared to my MUs, or especially my Necromancer, who can basically ignore Str/Agl after a pretty reasonable point, and just focus on mentals.

I'm not sure how to solve that.

>>You do realize you just described guild diversification, right?

IMO, it's more SvS diversification than guild diversification.

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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.

>You do realize you just described guild diversification, right?

I did not - I actually described a flaw (as I see it) in the primary difference between magic leaning guilds vs the 'magic' terts (Barbs, Rangers, Thieves, Paladins), namely, the double dipping of mentals for a few things (including XP!).

Out of curiosity - for the characters you have that PvP, how do you allocate your stats?

>>Someone made a voluntary database of character tpds, stats, and circle awhile back. I can't remember any of the details, though.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1M2HgGp7-2BImWNWKo8quLnb9djk2ER89mIn7z1INPzQ/edit?hl=en#gid=0

Looks like it was done in 2010 so that's another factor to consider.


- Navesi

>All my guys' stats are laid out differently.

That's not really answering my question. I'm specifically wondering if you train, say, your NMUs to have lots of mentals for PvP purposes.

>What percentage of your time in game is actually PvP? Do you build your stats based solely upon that?

Not super frequently, maybe one scuffle a week or so, and truthfully, not with people that really have it out for me, which is how I like it. I join in various PvP events as often as I can with a bunch of my characters. I build all of my characters around the presumption that someone may jump them, picking abilities and allocating stats in preparation for that. Though, as previously discussed, 'ability selection' isn't really a thing for many guilds past a certain point, since you'll have all the abilities. But my Cleric definitely has HoT, and my Barb has Slash the Shadows.

>I love that it takes long to accomplish things, because it keeps me interested in continuing to play this game.

I think you're making an argument for long term goals, sure, and I think one way to make long term goals more tangible is to have them be something other than 'reach this large number'. I find my characters most fun when they're gunning to unlock an ability, like, say, when my Paladin pushed for TR, or my barbarian was pushing to be able to whirlwind with various weapons, or my Empath was going for HoH or my Moonie for the 100th circle quest, etc, etc, etc. Obviously those goals are rank associated, but I find that pushing for, say, 700 TM is a lot less exciting than pushing to 'Completing the FoU quest'. To that end, if the games design is principally going to be 'get to high circle, then push for really really high numbers', I think we'll keep having these issues every couple of years when someone brings up this topic.

>All my guys' stats are laid out differently.

Not Squanto, but I'll answer.

On my Paladin I gunned Wisdom very early to pad my Spirit vs contests, solely for pvp. Made for good times during my vs Arkarm days.

My Necro is VERY reflex/intel heavy for similar reasons, I debil while my pets attack, and use stealth/reflex to escape/run away. Melee being for chumps.

My thief, who doesn't pvp, is Disc heavy for khri, and only raises physicals in favor of mentals when needed for hunting grounds.

>What percentage of your time in game is actually PvP? Do you build your stats based solely upon that?

Paladin - 10%, used to be higher but endgame pvp is basicly fighting the same 4 people, and we all know the score.
Necro - 30-50% of my time is PVP, spikes higher if I'm drinking
All other alts - less then 2%. They're all pvp open, and I'll duke it out as needed but they're mostly loners.

>I love that it takes long to accomplish things, because it keeps me interested in continuing to play this game.

This one's a mixed bag for me. The most fun I've had pvp wise is the 50-100 bracket. I made a combat viable Empath to the 80s range in ~3 months. If all you do is stare at the super high end and turn green doing so, you will N E V E R be happy. My biggest regret is taking my most active alts to the 100+ range, as I find it so much less interesting. Enjoy the game, racing for Endgame in a game with no Endgame is..silly at best.

Samsaren

The core of the debate is the question of whether it's a good thing to have people obsess over training as many skills as practically possible strictly because it gives them extra stat points, or if it would be more desirable to move to a system which does less to incentivize spending time on skills you don't actually care about and aren't likely to really use beyond training them for TDPs.

Personally, I feel that a system in which you are objectively worse off in combat because you didn't add a banjo-and-grass-braiding section to your script is not ideal. Put another way, if we use Paladins as an example, they achieve light armor hindrance in the heaviest plate, and can boost the protectiveness of that armor to nigh-invulnerability... yet if we see one hunting in just plate, we think 'wow, poor sap has no idea how to hunt right'.

You aren't making a well-rounded character by slapping cloth armor on your paladin or training slings on... basically anyone. You're taking advantage of the realities of the TDP system, in which you can gain advantages in things you actually care about by putting time into things you don't. Which is fine, that's normal human behavior, but it's hardly an argument in favor of the current system.

If people have issues with TDPs being linked to skills, why not just get rid of that mechanic altogether. Just award 100 TDPs a week or something. I mean, what is a TDP anyway. Some metric of the spare time you have available to spend on getting smarter or stronger? Or does it reflect the notion that spending your time, say, weaving baskets may have an impact on you outside of simply learning that skill. All those giant stacks of reeds are heavy and you naturally would get stronger hauling it around while learning to weave baskets.

Doesn't really matter. TDPs are for character progression. Gutting an entire system because you're upset that a magic user gets to "double dip" and learn skills maybe 5% faster than you is silly. And then this complaint about being at a disadvantage in PvP? All the MUs are terts in one or more defenses. That 5% bump in mentals isn't going to make up for that. Plus, this is a game that has had as one of it's design philosophies to not balance around GvG/PvP. Do you think a 5% learning difference is going to do anything about the tremendous gap in abilities/skill set placement between guilds?

This is a big sand box. You can train as many skills as you want. There are advantages and disadvantages to training many skills versus just the essentials. The more work you put in, the more you get out. On top of that, all stats are important for each guild in some capacity and people can choose which facets of the game they enjoy and train stats accordingly. I don't see any problem with what we have.

Maybe the GMs could instantiate some type of status where you don't learn anything at all while training. Perhaps it could be based on the amount of overflow of skills into a type of pool. Let's call it "mind state" and the more you do a single skill the more your mind gets, I don't know, murky? Then at some point you just stop learning thus stopping the TDP gains from learning a skill. Yeah, that's the ticket. Maybe I'll patent the idea.

Haven't we been down these roads before? If you don't like training a skill then don't. You'll still get to 100 in all stats at some point then you won't have to worry about the next door neighbors having a boat while you just own a kayak.

So, what again is the problem? Get down to brass tacks and just spit it out because what I'm reading seems more like people want everyone to get a participation trophy.

Rhadyn da Dwarb - Blood for fire!

<<that's not good for the long term health of the game.

This is the funniest statement I have seen in this thread so far.

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>>Rchight: So, what again is the problem?

"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." --DR-Armifer (12/15/2015)

"The goal here is to provide support for a wider variety of training styles. Right now, training 5 skills is strictly worse than training 30 skills (so long as you can keep them all above 1/34), because those other 25 skills give you TDPs if nothing else. These drain modifications make it so that sometimes, training 5 skills IS better, because you're trying to circle or reach a milestone or backtrain a weapon. It emulates the simulation aspect of cramming a small set of subjects vs learning everything at once, and it also provides support for more styles of play." --DR-Socharis (10/02/2012)

"This change, fundamentally, gives people more options. You can train a few skills, you can train a medium number of skills, and you can train a lot of skills - Each decision has its own benefits and drawbacks. As the system exists now, there is no tradeoff between the two play styles - It is always better to train more skills. This mode of play only benefits people that have a ton of time to play (given that it takes a bit to warm up a rotation that keeps all N skills draining). What that means is, the people that are already getting ahead are getting a leg up from the system as it stands now. The new system withdraws that benefit - They already HAVE a huge benefit of being able to play and get active draining for hours on end, and they don't need even more help. Instead, now, the people with a crapton of time to play DR with can choose which mode of optimization they want to take part in. If you want to train a bunch of skills for TDPs, you'll want to keep a bunch of skills hot for a while. If your concern is keeping up with the Joneses, you'll still be ahead of him if you train a bunch of skills all day while Mr Jones only plays for a couple hours. The time you spend will still give you a massive edge on people without the same amount of time, you just don't get additional help from the way the system is tuned." --DR-Socharis (10/02/2012)


>>Rchight: Maybe the GMs could instantiate some type of status where you don't learn anything at all while training. Perhaps it could be based on the amount of overflow of skills into a type of pool. Let's call it "mind state" and the more you do a single skill the more your mind gets, I don't know, murky? Then at some point you just stop learning thus stopping the TDP gains from learning a skill. Yeah, that's the ticket. Maybe I'll patent the idea.

Mind murk did not work, and I haven't seen anyone arguing for its return. However, there are other ways to change incentives or at least provide support for more styles of play by making it so that training 5 skills at once is not always strictly worse than training 20 skills at once. One method that was proposed (see above) was providing an experience bonus to players who were doing more focused training of fewer than X skills at a time.


>>Teveshszat: The issue isn't training too many skills, or getting too many TDPs, but the fact that DR's stat model essentially requires players to be incredibly well rounded.

TDP generation remains an integral part of the issue, because as you noted, "there's no reason not to be well rounded because it's not like TDPs ever stop flowing."

Combining (1) effectively unlimited TDP generation from ranks with (2) skyrocketing costs/diminishing returns for training stats past 100 eventually results in "the situation where everyone is hitting 100+ stats in the high end with limited to irrelevant variation." (This problem is exacerbated by the current experience model, which does not adjust for the number of skills being trained simultaneously or for the length of time spent training.)

This would be an issue even if you eliminated the need "to be so well rounded in order to function well," because eventually, you will have nothing to do with your TDPs but raise all of your stats to 100.

It may be that it's too late in DR's life to overhaul experience or stat growth, but in theory, there are ways to improve game balance and diversity if that is a design priority.

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Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall rank!

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>But seriously all I'm reading is still 'but if we change this model I'll lose fights.' Shrug emoji.

Funny how perspective works. All I'm reading is 'I didn't put as much time/effort into training my character as other players but now I want to be on an equal playing field.'

Smells like participation trophy fever in here to me.

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>befriend clear all
You are now friendless.

<<Gutting an entire system because you're upset that a magic user gets to "double dip" and learn skills maybe 5% faster than you is silly. >>

That is not the sole or even primary reason why the system seems less than ideal.

<<The more work you put in, the more you get out.>>

That is only correct inasmuch as the current system is set up to heavily incentivize keeping as many skills going as possible, no matter what the skill is, with priority generally assigned to whatever is easiest to keeping moving alongside other skills. This is why you see an inordinate number of people with healthy ranks in Brigandine armor and absolutely no intention of actually using the armor type, or people telling young MUs that they are gimping themselves by not training sorcery for IC reasons.

It has helped to create an entire meta that runs completely counter to the R of RPG. That in itself is fairly undesirable, alongside the other downsides to the system as it stands.

<<If people have issues with TDPs being linked to skills, why not just get rid of that mechanic altogether.>>

Probably not out of the question, but then that completely eliminates the point you brought up about the desirable 'more work = more reward' aspect. There's nothing wrong with getting rewarded for training, the problem lies in there being no reasonable cap, which results in players doing what players do. I wouldn't consider this a gamebreaking mechanic, but that hardly makes it ideal.

<<Haven't we been down these roads before? If you don't like training a skill then don't. You'll still get to 100 in all stats at some point then you won't have to worry about the next door neighbors having a boat while you just own a kayak.>>

You know, you're right, greave swapping, goofy multi-armor setups, sorcery-for-TDPs, and two-thirds of Elanthia wearing zills... these are all important parts of DR that benefit the game as a whole.

<<What exactly are you not functioning well in under the current design that hampers your daily gaming experience? >>

Zills hamper my daily gaming experience. ZILLS. I'm only mostly kidding about that; yes, in the broad sense my daily gaming experience is negatively impacted by the fact that we are all encouraged to take actions that are unrelated to our RP, guild, or desire to use skills in order to be at 'maximum effectiveness'. It's a subtle thing, sure, but denying that it exists seems a little foolish. DR allows for extensive interaction between characters so some concern for 'other peoples' business' is natural and arguably necessary. The same 'well it doesn't affect you' argument can just as easily be said to apply to cheating; giving myself god mode or a million plats doesn't change anything for you, after all! An extreme example, but I think it illustrates the flaw with that argument well enough.

<<Smells like participation trophy fever in here to me.>>

There is nothing inherently wrong with the idea that we should all accept a flawed system because it's been in place for a very long time and provides direct rewards for people who are able to 'put more in to get more out', that's true. I look forward to the continuation of this trend with Simucoin items that allow those who have an abundance of money rather than time to directly buy TDPs, too.

And if you can't afford it, well, here's your participation trophy.

So squelch them. Remove zills and people just move onto the next most convenient thing to do. Remove that and it's the third most convenient. This thread is more pointless than zills.

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<<So squelch them. Remove zills and people just move onto the next most convenient thing to do. Remove that and it's the third most convenient. This thread is more pointless than zills.>>

Yes, that is correct, squelching or otherwise removing zills in isolation does not do anything to substantially address the underlying problem of a system that heavily encourages obsessive training of skills you don't care about strictly because doing so provides a direct and tangible benefit to completely unrelated skills that you do care about, which in turn gives people who already have the advantages of more time to play and more efficient scripts an additional advantage of higher raw stats on top of their higher ranks in meaningful skills, and adds nothing of substance to the gaming experience beyond a different way to watch numbers go up while you're watching other numbers go up.

As for the thread being pointless, I suppose it is if you've missed the point entirely.

>As for the thread being pointless, I suppose it is if you've missed the point entirely.

>Staff has seen/heard what they need to, so it's all moot unless/until they decide to do something about it.

Exactly.

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