Top Mud Sites Forum - View Single Post

Valg · 05-31-2005, 01:12 PM

True. Given enough customization, a player could make counterproductive decisions.

That opens the question of how much safeguarding you want to do there. For example, if you play a giant on Carrion Fields and choose to specialize around daggers, you're going to run into the problem that dagger skills tend to be finesse-oriented, and giants don't have a lot of that. I don't think a primarily-dagger-wielding giant is unplayable, and it's going to be more of a challenge, but we won't forbid a player from making that choice.

We've taken the approach that:

1) To some extent, you need to allow players to do weird things, because otherwise you potentially obstruct some very clever things. Maybe there's a great niche you haven't thought of.

2) You need to keep players reasonably informed that certain options work well or poorly with certain other options. Using your example, the player should know (from helpfiles, IC sources like books or guildmasters, etc.) that light weapons like tiger claws don't perform while you are wearing heavy armor. If he ignores that available information, the onus is on him if the final product doesn't kick as much ass as he imagined.

3) Your underlying code can make contradictory decisions suboptimal, but not so much that it's unplayable. This is especially true for a PK system with required roleplay like ours- someone may choose an unusual character type to fit a role they wish to play, and you don't want that person to delete in frustration because their player skill can't overcome the character-caused handicap. We also include obscure perks for odd choices- using my example, maybe there's a enchanted dagger somewhere in the world that is too heavy/bulky for a human to grip (at least not like a dagger), but dagger-wielding giant would snap that right up.

4) If it's an important, permanent type of choice, try to allow them to postpone making it where possible, rather than forcing it on character generation. This way people can get a feel for the character and some general game experience before committing. Good systems will also allow a character to overcome poor initial choices with later ones.

05-31-2005, 01:12 PM	#11
Valg Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Home MUD: Carrion Fields Posts: 643	True. Given enough customization, a player could make counterproductive decisions. That opens the question of how much safeguarding you want to do there. For example, if you play a giant on Carrion Fields and choose to specialize around daggers, you're going to run into the problem that dagger skills tend to be finesse-oriented, and giants don't have a lot of that. I don't think a primarily-dagger-wielding giant is unplayable, and it's going to be more of a challenge, but we won't forbid a player from making that choice. We've taken the approach that: 1) To some extent, you need to allow players to do weird things, because otherwise you potentially obstruct some very clever things. Maybe there's a great niche you haven't thought of. 2) You need to keep players reasonably informed that certain options work well or poorly with certain other options. Using your example, the player should know (from helpfiles, IC sources like books or guildmasters, etc.) that light weapons like tiger claws don't perform while you are wearing heavy armor. If he ignores that available information, the onus is on him if the final product doesn't kick as much ass as he imagined. 3) Your underlying code can make contradictory decisions suboptimal, but not so much that it's unplayable. This is especially true for a PK system with required roleplay like ours- someone may choose an unusual character type to fit a role they wish to play, and you don't want that person to delete in frustration because their player skill can't overcome the character-caused handicap. We also include obscure perks for odd choices- using my example, maybe there's a enchanted dagger somewhere in the world that is too heavy/bulky for a human to grip (at least not like a dagger), but dagger-wielding giant would snap that right up. 4) If it's an important, permanent type of choice, try to allow them to postpone making it where possible, rather than forcing it on character generation. This way people can get a feel for the character and some general game experience before committing. Good systems will also allow a character to overcome poor initial choices with later ones.