XP Pool Bar - It is here to stay (?)

~Supporting the Bar~
I'm now supporting the bar, yet I still believe that it needs to become optional at some point because of our ever increasing sets of skills. Any player can only have or support so many skills before loosing something from non-usage, thus at some point the bar becomes less useful and as an option, then can be optioned off the user screen.

~But I'm a Very Dull Knife Player @KuBaTRiZeS ~
I find it most enjoyable when I have the freedom to have a light game vs times when I want a more robust adventure. I see the lesser exp mobs as a relaxing way to spend a day at times, just as the life of a craftsman would be.
"A mule skinner's life is for skins" and the longer trail to skills of the highest quality is the essence of "experience". To have experience be a motivator to higher levels should as it is, be a faster trail to them, yet not an exclusive one.
Anything "exclusive" would seem to turn away dull players such as sometimes myself

Yet there's also many strategies within it as to how and when our skills are gained...
I'm currently using duo knives to see how far into our game those can go which means killing lots and lots of smaller critters

One addendum; Spawn rates of any particular small mob are dismal, which means that (as you implied @KuBaTRiZeS , does lead the player into not camping out any one mob), yet when many players do show up to the same spot, it does empty it in minutes... meaning that somehow we do need spawn rates to better reflect the number of players within an instance...

~Time Lord~

 

Dull @Time Lord using Dual Knives! Is Dual Time Lord using Dull knives the next step?

I think our lines of thinking in this subject runs paralell, but i'm trying a different approach, on i think is more appropiate looking at it from a gameplay or a realism point of view.

It's true that under the current system there are many strategies depending on our playstyle and build, but all the strategies are devised with the same focus; to maximize the experience gained over time considering skills and progression. Since current XP system only allows progression through monster killing, you end up finding a convenient zone for you and staying there. The zone a player may chose can be different, but the approach is still the same. And i honestly think that settling with this is to waste a great opportunity of doing things better. Gathering experience is a convenient approach in a level based system because it's used to "mark the required amount of experiences accumulated by the character before being considered stronger" But when you mix it up with an use based system it stops making such sense. To put it simple, I like the idea of accumulating a resource to be able to improve a lot because i think it's kind of organic, but i don't like the resource nor the way it's managed.

Here i leave you some personal observations about how we learn and improve, most of them failed to be accounted into the current system.

• As far as i know that humans don't learn and improve just by repeating the same action over and over again (macroing)... but facing the same "optimal" challenge over and over again... that's not how humans learn either, right? What actually motivates us to learn and improve is to have different and new experiences, to face a different challenge and notice that what we know until that moment is not working, and we need to adapt and overcome the difficulties thus learning something more. Learning is tied to discovery.
• Of course, there's no need to rely solely on new experiences to learn, because repeating old experiences may teach us something new. It will never be the same as the first time, but you can still notice a different pattern or a different element that hone your skill and improve further. As new experiences become old their potential for learning diminishes, but long repeated experiences always keep a certain amount of potential for learning from them.
• Another interesting point is what happens when you're used to practice a sport or visit a place, then stop doing it, and after some time you retake the activity? You start noticing things you didn't noticed when you did it on a regular basis; suddenly a new play sprouts in your mind, or a new beautiful sight captures your mind, things that you may not noticed if you kept performing that activity. Sometimes, forgetting is another chance for learning.
• When one progress beyond what the world can teach to him is when one is considered a master on a field. My favourite example for this is martial arts, and how the masters of them leaned in strict training through repetition, aiming for that perfection that can never be reached, but even so it's worth striving for. When one reaches the highest level of mastery in a field, they rely on heavy training through repetition to mantain and slightly improve their skills.

That's why i think that translating the situations our Avatar is in into Potential for Development fits best the use based system we have in place, and here's one of the possible ways of implementing it in game. Under this kind of progresssion system we could progress in a more organic, less grindy fashion. And no matter how dull the knife or the player, everything we do matters because we're not basing our Potential for Development in how high the enemy's stats were; instead we're accounting the amount of actions with a purpose our character is doing, and that approach gives more freedom. Not only whether you want to choose the difficulty of your adventure you want to have, but also how do you want to live it. The very definition of going where there is no path (or yellow-named monsters, for this purpose ).

I don't know if all this is possible at the point we are now, but i think it exploring this thoughts and trying to implement them in the use based system could greatly improve how we progress through the game. If it can't be done... well, there's always more episodes! What's important is that it has been written and shared, and that's the first step to make something true. What can i say, i'm a dreamer

 

~Inch By Inch, Step By Step and the Story of BART the Turtle~



~Player Resources~
General's Patton and Montgomery had these two things presented to them, yet both had differing views based on resources they had at their disposal. Gen. Patton had a greater amount of bodies to place to the front steaming in from the USA, while Gen. Montgomery had fewer Thus one had more ferocity within his tactics than the other. We as players also have our own supplies of usable energy through our natural real life dexterity within our fingers and even our mental faculties. Also we have a certain amount of tech equipment wars, macros, key sets yet excluding most bots where a certain key set is engaged through the more simple press of a single button. "Some of us have more or less of all of the above at our disposal".
Equal playing fields are never the answer for such things, yet practice and motive are. Currently we haven't any real Easter Egg economic motives that have enough allure to motivate many players to move into the extreme current limits of our game. I personally don't want to travel there just now, because this then limits deeper examination into all the bridges available and what they could afford us. It would be very difficult for the bulk of our incoming future players to best learn in easy fashion our game, because there are few players that have examined those early points of player evolution time and again themselves. I believe I now have deleted and reformed around 8 (maybe more) times within these last two releases to closely examine this early proses, yet I haven't still been able to begin each pathway in our skills. This is the biggest reason why the ~TL~ has been nearing the top of the number of critter killing list lately.

~The Nature of Compelling~
Two examples of opposing views of the compelling...
Gen. MacArthur described leadership as this; "Military leadership is art of influencing and directing men in such a way as to gain their willing obedience, confidence and respect in order to accomplish the mission."
Gen Eisenhower described leadership as this; "Leadership is the art of getting someone else to get something you want done, because they want to do it."
One of these is the forcing of the participant and the other is the self motivated.

I don't ever mind sharing what I've learned with others, because the ~TL~RP~ character in Ultima basically began as a serial kidnapper bringing players into our adventuring world. Thus I believe I owe it to our continuing SOTA to stay that original course before Hawkwind. Looking for the small and the odd, yet never at the front of anything, thus follows my motives...

~Time Lord's Basic Adventure Readiness Training~ (The B.A.R.T.)
The BART right now consists of core value easy to understand patterns of skill gain success based on development of the player to further engage the interface once they can't stand to wait any further. Much like a archer's bow, the further you hold back, the more quick the arrow once it leaves the bow. Some players will be overwhelmed by the interface, as it's not an Xbox or Nintendo. The BART is designed to have the player slowly get better acquainted with the interface, while still making their way forward in skill gains that will help excel them faster than others. The longer they can wait, or the longer they need to wait while sticking with the simple BART path instructions, the more this core training aides them in the future. Aide that I might add, will help the tech computer challenged player better compete within the more tech savvy or key board adept players. Those types of players that are challenged with our interface may or may not be able to be the "end all be all" Avatar on the battlefield, yet they will be skilled enough and ready enough to stand along side our greater combat players.

~Riding BART the Turtle~
"Playing any game is a whack a mole", yet all whack a moles are different. A new player can play our game by simply standing in front of monsters and animals and just allowing the character to whack those monsters with whatever weapon stick they have, which is the most basic and simple our game controls will ever be. If this path is taken, then a lock on other interface skills allows the player to rise in innate skills which will aide them in the future, once they begin to get use to, or have more understanding our card based interface. Our card based interface is the hallmark of our combat and therefore, by allowing such a training as the BART to continue to exist by current skill locking or maintaining, the player can feel more welcomed in. Our card based system had a rocky beginning when it came to player feedback, yet excelled in player satisfaction once the cards were better understood and interfaced with. The beginnings of understanding came with the ability to lock cards and then further try out the more advanced random card issue display.
In riding BART the Turtle, all skills but the innate become locked inside the shell of the players own limited faculties in dealing with the more complex game and thereby becoming reserved once the player slowly brings them out of the shell to try them. Yet all the while, those innate skills are rising much faster than they would if that same player had attempted using all the interface, successfully or with frustration in being forced to having to deal with all of them.

~Lock All Your Active Skills But the Innate and Follow Me~
These are simple to understand instructions which almost mimic the actions of our characters in UO, where when something comes close to you, our character would then begin whacking them when in combat mode. In our SOTA and by following the BART's easy to understand interface, then the top of that monster scale that can be defeated becomes the Patriarch Bear. It's very hard to do if you wish to take one just by whacking it without the use of any cards and this is the point where it's time to get off BART the Turtle and begin using the defensive cards, if the player hasn't already done so. Our defensive card usage is the leader to further using attack cards. While attempting to take this bear, the new player has learned much in the usage and getting use to using our cards... (fin) So ends the story of BART the Turtle... Unlock all your skills and happy adventuring to you Avatar!

Just like these I have said, our experience bar is just one motivator. Yet when a carrot instead of a restriction of skills is employed, the player at some point is further motivated to enter more deeply into our game. A player using what I have described as BART the Turtle (names are really not important but the simple proses is) would be killing massive amounts of smaller critters, yet once everything becomes unlocked outside that shell, Eisenhower's words then have out witted MacArthur's restrictive reasoning as the compelling motivator to continue further.

I hope that provides some insight into the small simple player and the power of the small to become much larger...
Just an opinion and other opinions well welcomed in good rhetoric...
BART the Turtle LoL *rolls his eyes*
~Time Lord~

*I moved this subtopic of training to another thread*
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...ta-basic-training-programs.49024/#post-540259

 

That was a very interesting reading, and indeed a great approach to initiate players into the complex system SotA uses. And even more now, since it seems "basic" combat is going to get more interesting! I'm wondering how much improvements/changes are we going to see in this next months...

Nonetheless, My comments about learning intended to be a justification of why i think current player progression (XP accumulation) is flawed from an use based system point of view, while proposing a better way to handle that. A way that are less grindy and increases the amount of freedom a player may enjoy while playing (basically making the players want to explore, fight, gather and questing because they're rewarded for doing all that, not just killing mobs, whatever the difficulty).

In short, in my posts above i'm talking about a different way of handling skill progression in game. How everyone should grow as a player is a different story, (The one about BART the turtle to be precise ) and on that one i agree; everybody should do that at its own pace and the game should facilitate the player steps while climbing the learning curve.