Remove skill customization at creation

[anhegofcherek]

A specific offshoot of #108 prompted by @prophnoran

Let's remove customisation?

• It's an easy footgun - the defaults aren't great, and it's easy for a new player to get wrong in a way that isn't easily fixed
• It's fiddly code-wise - I'm not convinced the code isn't somewhat buggy (e.g. I think if you add a skill then a group containing that skill, you get hit with points that you wouldn't if you'd just added the group)
• I don't believe it adds much value - I think variety of classes and eq and tactics is where we see differences - I think most people of class X tend to take a similar skillset - everyone takes transportation, every blaster takes draconians, everyone with warfare takes it, nobody cares about kick, etc.

I think just giving characters all skills available to their class would be good - with a flat, per-class, much more reasonable xp-per-level than if one actually added them all under the current system

Open questions / potential issues:

• The one common "choice" I see is weaponsmaster - it's available for most classes but with a high cost - and actually is an interesting tradeoff it might be sad to lose. But I think saying "warrior-likes get it, bsers don't because they probably wouldn't want it anyway, and probably priests don't either" wouldn't be so bad?
• You lose the ability to say "I'm getting a quick-to-level character by taking minimal skills" - but this could be mitigated by making the fixed XP/level suitably low
• You lose the potential option of saying "I'm going to do this all through aquest gain" - and maybe that's a route we could use instead? A flat base setup, and if you want interesting optional things, make them available through aq? But this would then potentially force some builds to go that way and I don't know if I like that
• It does remove a source of character variation - however minor

I think overall I see this as a net positive, especially for new players

I think I'd like to do some analysis first - see what skills people pick and don't, see what general TNL people have etc. - but I think that's mostly for reassurance - I'm fairly comfortable with the overall idea

@grekan I'm conscious you've explicitly requested not removing customisation in #108 so I'd very much like to hear from you first before actually proceeding - tell me more about where you're coming from please?

[anhegofcherek]

...and I already started this in #109 🤦

I'm closing #109 as superseded by this though

• I think this is a more detailed analysis
• I think this comes with a more concrete plan
• I think this better evaluates the impact - originally I said "I don't actually think this specific change would be especially easy to get right, or particularly worthwhile, so I'm unlikely to actually do it any time" but actually I think this could be fairly straightforward and valuable for new players

[grekan]

It's fiddly code-wise - I'm not convinced the code isn't somewhat buggy (e.g. I think if you add a skill then a group containing that skill, you get hit with points that you wouldn't if you'd just added the group)

I've always thought that to be true, and I thought I had proved it in a couple of instances in the past, but my memory does not serve me well and could not say what exactly has this issue.

I think just giving characters all skills available to their class would be good - with a flat, per-class, much more reasonable xp-per-level than if one actually added them all under the current system

I'm incapable of reading and missed this part of the plan. I like the idea, although ponder what might be lost. (I like kick!)

The one common "choice" I see is weaponsmaster - it's available for most classes but with a high cost - and actually is an interesting tradeoff it might be sad to lose. But I think saying "warrior-likes get it, bsers don't because they probably wouldn't want it anyway, and probably priests don't either" wouldn't be so bad?

If I recall correctly, weaponsmaster is hardly that on some classes. In my mind weaponsmaster should add all weapons abilities, but IIRC it infact does not do so on anything other than warrior/knight? I could be wrong, but pretty sure it sucks on some classes. Also maybe leave some room to add some things?

You lose the ability to say "I'm getting a quick-to-level character by taking minimal skills" - but this could be mitigated by making the fixed XP/level suitably low

Well that's part of the question overall isn't it. What is a reasonable TNL for all classes to have? OR will some classes have a bit more or less tnl on average? I do think 1k is very very low, but you pay for it with lack of common skills/spells. I always aimed for the 2.5-4k mark personally, all iterations of Grekan were sub 4k IIRC.

You lose the potential option of saying "I'm going to do this all through aquest gain" - and maybe that's a route we could use instead? A flat base setup, and if you want interesting optional things, make them available through aq? But this would then potentially force some builds to go that way and I don't know if I like that

I can see both sides to this. I do like the idea of doing aq gain... but then, if you left this implemented, why not revamp character creation in general? Implement your better class defaults, but leave some customization. Just make it so you cannot remove the base class. To me that would be the best of all worlds.

If you do leave some customization in, just make it very clear that customization is for advanced users, and that accessing them could negatively impact their overall game experience.

Mentioned in I think #108 and ooc was the levers I like pulling.

I like the idea that not all chars have the same TNL. I also like the different skills/combos than can come up. It can also give a challenge to older players to make a harder character. For instance, max out a ranger and try to get to 91 for instance (this is a torture sim game right?). Overall you are probably correct that impact overall to users would be minimal, but I always hate to see functionality be stripped away? Choice is everything.

However, anything that gives newbies a fighting chance of sticking around would be helpful, a pbase does that, but making things more helpful and intuitive all around also does that. I never understood why the newbie school revamp wasn't more...helpful overall?

Also, I'm unfortunately am not as active as I would like, and so can't really help those newbies either. There's also such a depth of explanation to some of these features and the mud in general, that streamlining one of the first steps (where no one can advise you) makes a lot of sense. Further to that, this is where #117 is perfect, as it removes the ability to err in a severe way.

Last, given my general inactivity overall, I greatly appreciate the request to comment! Thank you @anhegofcherek .

[prophnoran]

Hmm. I think that in this genre of game, figuring out a build is a common thing, and it would be cool if there were multiple viable builds per class.

But under the current system that's not super possible -- there won't be more than one viable build, because taking the union of skills between two viable builds always ends up with a new, better build that's not-worse and probably better.

The typical solution I think is to actually force a choice on the player (you can have this skill or that one but not both). In some sense choosing a class does this. But I think it'd be cool within a class as well. There would need to be a lot of balance work done (but -- that's not a deal breaker -- that kind of work is the work of making a game).

The simplest implementation of forcing a choice is to have a TNL cap. There are more sophisticated ways as well. And presumably we would have, for new players, recommended builds.

A lot of thinking would have to go in to (re-) designing things here, and we have to think hard about legacy characters too. But I think it's better than just throwing all skills at all players.

[prophnoran]

Let me also point out that removing customization and essentially giving everyone everything is kind of irreversible.

[anhegofcherek]

A lot of thinking would have to go in to (re-) designing things here, and we have to think hard about legacy characters too.

Agreed. I'm not really in a position to do that.

But I think it's better than just throwing all skills at all players.

Agreed

(Note: I suspect this is just abbreviation on your part, but to be explicit, I'm not proposing giving everyone all skills, I'm proposing giving everyone all skills that are currently available to their class)

Let me also point out that removing customization and essentially giving everyone everything is kind of irreversible.

I don't see how (with the proviso above)

People could already right now get everything, they'd just have a hefty TNL (8k to max a knight, 35k to max a sorc...) or spend a lot of time aqing

I can say "hey, you get it all, and your TNL is 5k", and it's exactly like it is right now but with less grind

I can undo that, and some people who created at the right time have a lower TNL, and that's great for them, and everyone else is back to how it was

Am I missing something?

[prophnoran]

If you go through and give every character every skill (available to that class) and then a fixed TNL, which is what I understand the proposal to be, then it seems to preclude you from ever implementing any other build system

[prophnoran]

(because you can't really take away skills, I think)

[anhegofcherek]

Sure, but they could already add those skills right now. All I'm really giving them is a low TNL. And once they hit 91 that TNL is irrelevant, and the only real impact along the way is "kill 1000 murgo males instead of 100" etc. - it's not like they end up imbalanced at 91

I appreciate there's a mild power balance implication because the TNL means you don't see many 91s with the full loadout right now...but it's not like it doesn't happen

[grekan]

I doubt those extra skills the current 91s are missing will make much of a strategic difference.

[anhegofcherek]

I'm writing some tooling to dump possibilities and actual distribution of what we have

This is proving useful for tidying up a lot of the infra here...!