Current Game Thoughts

[Estralis Seborian]

Indeed, there is no "resetting". I wonder what I can do to make the skill system clear to everyone... Simply forget all you think you know and play the game however you want. After the same time in the game, you always will have the same skill.

Calculating the time required is fairly easy. Iirc you need 1000 seconds for level 0-1 under constant player behaviour. For level 50-51 you need twice that time. For level 90-91 you need 10x that time. Rest is math.

[Kamilar]

Maybe "resetting" is not a good choice of words. Let's call it instead "re-establishing" or "refreshing" an ability to learn a skill. If your time to log in is limited and you spend that time playing with the skilling system, the MC becomes high pretty quickly essentially stunting your character's ability to learn and it doesn't lower unless you have hours and hours to spend in game. In the past, people with limited time would park at a spawn site and hop in for an hour here and there but that's not an option any more. For those players wanting to stay in touch with their characters, continue developing their skills in short bursts and maybe return when they have more time there is very little incentive to play here. That's the point I'm trying to make.

For me personally, I want to use the skilling system. That part of the game is fun for me. When my MC was 12 million I really didn't find the game to be much fun so I spent the time to lower the MC again and I'm trying to be careful not to land back in that situation and I'm keeping an open mind. From what I hear in game, a lot of players stay on top of their MC levels.

Yes, it should take time in game to learn a skill but not to the extent that the game becomes unwelcoming to casual gamers. I appreciate the work and thought that went into this system and it's good except for the casual gamer. The math is missing that factor. And referring to casual gamers as snivelers, whiners and moaners because they point out a flaw doesn't really improve the atmosphere, in my opinion.

[Alytys Lamar]

I am more and more puzzled here - and glad I do not really use the skill system .. or even think about. But now I am so confused I don't know what to think.
Can someone plz explain this in german ??? here is my english on the edge ...

I do not even get or know what MC is...

[Estralis Seborian]

Do not worry, as stated several times, those MC points don't matter. It is just a little trick that makes sure you learn at a decent speed without having to "powergame". Some still think they have to idle to bend the system, to no avail, though. I am running out of words to explain this...

Those who play this game most will learn most.I cannot imagine any other reasonable approach. If there is a concrete proposal, we can talk about it. But this requires understanding in the current system's math!

[Alytys Lamar]

Thanks Estralis I will just play on my free time and don't care

[Ufedhin]

{ Do not worry, as stated several times, those MC points don't matter. It is just a little trick that makes sure you learn at a decent speed without having to "powergame". Some still think they have to idle to bend the system, to no avail, though. I am running out of words to explain this... }


Give it up Estralis no matter how much you explain something some people cant switch the lights on,its very very very very clear to most of us" JUST PLAY THE GAME NOTHING ELSE MATTERS!"

[Hew Keenaxe]

I will mention one thing I have learned about the leveling system.

If I take a mid-level character that has been several hours IG without leveling and then has him get attacked by an archer, He will gain a level in armor by being hit just one or two times. He can then run away to safety. Level gained, no danger.
If I take the same character to the archer after several hours of leveling, his gain is very slow. Meaning he now needs to be hit many times to gain the same level. Except he cant survive such an encounter. So has to run, heal and return several times to receive the same gain.

This is why doing other things besides leveling, saving MC, is desired. Regardless if you say the math makes no difference. The difficulty becomes that as a mid-level character nearly everything he does adds to a level in something.

[Kamilar]

I don't think anyone is trying to "beat" the system. We're gamers and we're playing with it which, if I'm not mistaken, was the point in creating it in the first place. Like Hew said, for a low to mid level player every action results in MC gain and before you know it, the MC is way too high and there's no point in logging in unless you have hours to spend. This system is great for the hard core players and the players that don't care about the character's skills but really keeps away casual gamers.

The proposal was mentioned several pages back - to have the MC lower somewhat during offline times. There was additional discussion about ceilings or something that I didn't fully understand. I'm not suggesting the MC should fully evaporate like in the old system, nor am I requesting things be simply handed out without effort. What I'm saying is this new system entirely leaves out the casual gamer and that really deserves another look.

Frankly, with the proclaimed interest in increasing the player base it's a little surprising to see so much venom in this discussion. I'm wondering if we all have our eyes on the same goal. If the desire is to actually keep the casual gamers away in favor of some other goal that I'm unaware of, maybe that could be made clear and I'll let the matter drop.

[Estralis Seborian]

The MC stuff has two purposes:

-Decouple the skill gain from player behaviour
-Scale skill gain with time spent online

Reducing MC points during offline time would result in the following: Player A and B have identical characters. Player A plays one hour on monday and one on friday. Player B plays two hours on friday. Both spent two hours in the game, but because of the lower MC points for player B, he gets more skill in his two hours. Both purposes above would be rendered obsolete. If we go such a way, we could as well scrap the whole MC thing and replace it with something else. But I see no need for that.

[Necral]

One idea would be to make the MC lower quicker than it currently does. That way the casual and hardcore players are both happier? I'm just putting that out there, ultimately it's up to the devs what they choose to do. I kind of sympathise with both sides of the player base because I'm somewhere in between.

[Estralis Seborian]

One idea would be to make the MC lower quicker than it currently does.

*sighs*

It is NOT the old system. We just used the same variable but for a totally different purpose. We are using the MC variable to determine a factor that is proportional to your general level of activity. It does not make you learn slower (as in skill/time) but scales skill/action. If you do many actions, you learn less from an action. If you do few actions, you learn more from one action. But since you do less actions, you learn the same overall. Lowering the MC points in any way but being in the game simply destroys its very purpose. If you change the speed, the resulting proportional factor would simply be a different one, nothing changes in principle.

I am really willingly to discuss the deep core of the system with everyone, but please, take a look at the code, create a spreadsheet and calculate the things. I will gladly support you. We will add a explanation of the skill system to the FAQ, without using its parameters but its effect.

https://github.com/Illarion-eV/Illarion ... /learn.lua

[Uhuru]

The learn.lua is exceedingly confusing.

Why is this in place?
if math.random(0,99)<chanceForSkillGain then --Success?

It just doesn't make sense to me that success at learning something is randomized. Someone works hard to try and learn something and can fail based on a random draw.

The rest I don't understand. Action Points? How does one gain AP? It seems they are quite important.
user:increaseMinorSkill(skill,realIncrease); --minimum of 10 actions of 50AP for a swirlie at 5% activity

[Estralis Seborian]

Thanks for asking!

This random check is in place since 2001, so for 13 years or so. It has been the core and the shaper of our learning curve for all those years. The random element is not really necessary, we can also use a factor that depends on the current skill. The only issue there is that the minor skill points are not a float number but an integer. Hence, we do not have the resolution necessary for a 100% deterministic calculation. This can be changed, but the difference will not be noticed by anyone ever. To get a "swirly", you need 10000 minor skill points, by the way.

Action points (also called movepoints sometimes) are the very core of how time depending actions are organised in Illarion (since 2000 or so). One action point is regenerated for a player in 1/10 s. This equals server cycles. Thus, if an action takes 50 AP, it simply takes five seconds to complete.

If "the rest" that you do not understand covers the way how MC points are reduced: They are NOT reduced at a constant, absolute rate but at a relative rate. The more you have, the more get reduced over time. The less you have, the less get reduced. This little trick results in almost a balance between generated and reduced MC points if you do not change your behaviour drastically. An obvious alternative to this would be to count ALL actions and divide them by the total online time. This would have the "pro" of being a rather stable thing for old players, but for new players, we end up with a jerky behaviour of the control circuit. I evaluated both options and I somehow prefer our constant damping rate over a variable damping rate in the system; old and new players should be treated equally.

For those who are a little familiar with control theory: We use the remaining control deviation (offset) of a seriously undertuned P controller to determine a proportional factor that represents the general level of activity of a player to scale skillgain by each action. In first approximation (assuming linearisation), we reach a state that a player needs a constant time to reach a certain skill level. The real behaviour of the control circuit differs insignificantly (max. ~1% for reasonable playing profiles).

[Estralis Seborian]

During a recent staff chat, we came to the conclusion that the real issue is the unbalance between gathering time and crafting time. Players gather for an extended time and raise their gathering skill. When they finally craft, the MC points are high and they consume the gathered resources in short time. Hence, the desired crafting skill is not rising but the gather skill. We will work on that by increasing the crafting times and hence, the skillgain during crafting.

[Kamilar]

The MC stuff has two purposes:

-Decouple the skill gain from player behaviour
-Scale skill gain with time spent online

Reducing MC points during offline time would result in the following: Player A and B have identical characters. Player A plays one hour on monday and one on friday. Player B plays two hours on friday. Both spent two hours in the game, but because of the lower MC points for player B, he gets more skill in his two hours. Both purposes above would be rendered obsolete. If we go such a way, we could as well scrap the whole MC thing and replace it with something else. But I see no need for that.

I agree the system should be fair for all and you're right, this is a problem. I've been giving it some thought and I will apologize in advance for not understanding the math or the coding but I have an idea.

The offline MC lowering could be a combination of a percentage and a length of time. Both of those factors could be debated to decide which is the most fair, but for the sake of presenting the idea let's say that a character would lose 5% MC over 84 hours offline. This would solve the problem presented because now player A who logged on twice got a greater benefit than player B who only logged on once. Overall, this system would still encourage online time and benefit players who play more but would also give a little back to players that can't log in as frequently. Having a max on the reduction and a slow overall rate of reduction would hopefully prevent abuse.

[Teflon]

Okay, let me illustrate on the example of four players what we had in past, what we have now and what you suggest:

A: plays & klicks a lot
B: plays a lot but klicks only now and then
C: plays rarely but klicks a lot
D: play & klicks rarely


PAST:
In order to max the skills of a player, you had to repeat the same action 10,000x (just a number). In other words, you had to klick 10,000 times.

Since player A plays and klicks a lot, she did these 10,000 times in a short period. She, therefore, was able to max her char in one month. (10,000 klicks in 100h by 100h IG in one month -> skill maxed in one month)
Player B spends the same amount of time IG but since klicks only rarly, it took her one year to max her char. (800 klicks in 100h by 100h IG in one month -> skill maxed in one year)
Player C is the opposite. She spends only half of the time IG but klicks like no one else before. She has char therefore maxed after six months. (10,000 klicks in 100h by 50h IG in one month -> skill maxed in six months)
Player D, who is online like D and klicks like B needs two years to max her char. (800 klicks in 100h by 50h IG in one month -> skill maxed in two years)


NOW:
So, now we had a change in the system. It is not about klicking anymore but about online time. The setting requires 100 hours to be online (again just a number).

Player A still kicks the shit out of her mouse while player B still klicks only now and then. Player's A klicking behaviour leads to a high MC, while player B can maintain a low MC. However, since both spend 100 hours online in one month and 100 hours are required to max your char, Player A and player B have maxed their char in the same time regardless of the different MC.
Now player C and D. Player C still klicks like player A and has a smilar MC like player A but plays only rarly. Her playing time is about 100 hours in a year. She, therefore, needs one year to max her char. Similar player D. She also plays only 100 hours in a year, but klicks rarly and has thus a low MC. However, since she spent only 100 hours in one year, she also needs one year to max her char.

In numbers:
A: (10,000 klicks (high MC) in 100h by 100h IG in one month -> skill maxed in one month)
B: (1,000 klicks (low MC) in 100h by 100h IG in one month -> skill maxed in one month)
C: (10,000 klicks (high MC) in 100h by 8h IG in one month -> skill maxed in 12 months)
D: (1,000 klicks (low MC) in 100h by 8h IG in one month -> skill maxed in 12 months)


YOUR SUGGESTION: MC lowers during offline time.
Nothing would change for player A and B:
A: (10,000 klicks (high MC) in 100h by 100h IG in one month -> skill maxed in one month)
B: (1,000 klicks (low MC) in 100h by 100h IG in one month -> skill maxed in one month)

But there are changes for player C and D. Since MC lowers during offline time, they would not need 100 hours to be ingame but only 95h with 5%. They would almost save one month if they keep playing as they currently do.
C: (10,000 klicks (high MC) in 100h by 8h IG in one month and 5% save -> skill maxed in 11 months)
D: (1,000 klicks (low MC) in 100h by 8h IG in one month and 5% save -> skill maxed in 11 months)

I am not sure if I can agree with your argument for more fairness in your proposal. Some might even argue that those who play more and thus help Illarion stay alive should be more rewarded than those who play occasionally.
You could argue that the gap between those who play more often and those who play occasionally becomes bigger since skills depend on IG-time in the current system. In this case, you would ask for some kind of "social distribution" in order to reduce this gap or rather let it grow slower. That would also mean that skilling is the main target of the game. Just for your knowledge, one of the richest and most powerful chars has neither high fighting nor high crafting skills. So, it is not all about skills. However, the question is now if we want the gap low? Yes, we aim for casual players but the purpose of any game is that players play it.

[Kamilar]

I'm not trying to say that the game is all about skilling. Some of my characters have low to mid range skills and before the VBU one of them was a pure roleplay character. Skilling is a big piece of the game though and for some players that piece is bigger than it is for others. The gap between the pure RP players and the power gamers has been an issue as long as I've been playing with the rest of the players falling more or less in the middle. I also don't think the game is about being the most rich or the most powerful though - but that's me. That doesn't interest me personally, but some players might be excited to advance in those areas and the current system certainly isn't holding them back.

I agree that people who play more should be rewarded more. I think that the flaw in your analysis is that it assumes those casual players are logging in frequently which they might not be doing. They would still have to log in regularly to receive the benefit of the offline MC reduction. Likewise, the active players would receive some reduction as well, though admittedly not as much. You're right though, there should be a stronger link between actually playing and any offline benefit received.

Maybe there could be an online time requirement to earn the offline MC reduction. Again for the sake of presenting the idea, I'll use some numbers but I have no strong attachment to the values. Say for every 2 hours spent in game, there would be an offline MC reduction of 1% to a max of 5% over 84 hours offline. That way the people who play more, get more.

[Sir Gnar]

I so miss the last client.. I wish it could be brought back to life. Paperdolling was hardly worth what was lost... I don't understand where to go or what the hell people do here anymore...

I haven't logged in for quite awhile & when I do it reminds me why I don't.. Maybe I will find someone good IG to show me the ropes again..

Sorry to slam all the hard work you guys did, its just my current thought

Until next time...

[Estralis Seborian]

I so miss the last client.

Hello,
sorry to hear that! May I assume that you do not mean the client as the technical platform to display text, graphics, and sound but the game itself? Is it just that you do not meet other people or don't you know what you can do in the game?

Can you specify what features or aspects you do not like and what can be done to improve them? The more clear feedback we get, the more we can improve. As you pointed out, we invested a lot of work and continue to invest more work into Illarion to make it a better game. Will you help us in this venture?

Estralis

[CJK]

I so miss the last client.

sorry to hear that! May I assume that you do not mean the client as the technical platform to display text, graphics, and sound but the game itself?

I won't speak for Gnar, but I honestly miss the old client itself on a regular basis. Specifically, I miss (from scripts and the client both):

How the display of inventory and bag took up considerably less room, or at least so it seemed. It also felt like the depot and bags held much more.
Speaking of which, I miss the quantity of depots. Characters acquire a lot of junk and depots fill really fast. One per-town seems absurd.
I really liked the "follow" command.
I really liked the ability to examine other players.
I really liked the ability to set speech mode, it just made whispered conversations much easier.
I also liked whispers only reaching those within 2 tiles.
I really liked all of the right-click commands.
I kind of preferred the graphics, but I understand why people prefer the current ones.
I liked the in-game maps a lot more.
I find the current movement methods incredibly clunky and the auto-running when using the mouse is a bit immersion-breaking.
I liked the ability to add suffixes and prefixes to names.
Remember that feature that everybody thought was a bug that allowed auto-walk? I really liked that. It made it possible to walk thre far distances between towns without getting arthritis.
I miss the little displays that gave the in-game date, the server time, and that day-night cycle display to gauge the in-game time.
I actually really really miss everything about the old day-night schedule. I don't understand the current one at all.
I have very mixed feelings on the decision to have massive inflation post-VBU. The jury is still out on that one.
Languages. Oh my god I miss languages.

Magic. I know, you already explained why it had to be disabled, but it seems like something that should be a considerably higher priority than Mantis suggests.

And that's not to mention the many bugs we still have.

[Ufedhin]

Dont forget the weather and winter .....................

[S'rrt]

I'm sad now.

[Drathe]

Two sads

[Jupiter]

How the display of inventory and bag took up considerably less room, or at least so it seemed. It also felt like the depot and bags held much more.Speaking of which, I miss the quantity of depots. Characters acquire a lot of junk and depots fill really fast. One per-town seems absurd.

That seems to be a misperception. Bags and depots have 100 slots. They didn't have more preVBU. Actually, the whole handling of bags for storage purpose is no easier. You can e.g. put 100 bags in your chest. Then, you have 100*100 slots and you can name the bags to easily find your stuff That seems more than enough

I really liked the "follow" command.

What is that? I don't know what you mean.

I really liked the ability to examine other players.

That is planned to come back one day. A fancy lookat window and stuff.

I really liked the ability to set speech mode, it just made whispered conversations much easier.

Agree. I guess we will have that bck one day, too.

I also liked whispers only reaching those within 2 tiles.

Well, it never was two tiles but two steps. Since you can no also go diagonally, that leads to a somewhat longer range of whispering (has to do with calculation from the server side). Maybe we should limit whispering to 1 now.

I really liked all of the right-click commands.

So did I. I especially miss the "Use with" option; but it seems that this is not wanted anymore.

I liked the in-game maps a lot more.

Planned. Will come back one day.

I find the current movement methods incredibly clunky and the auto-running when using the mouse is a bit immersion-breaking.

Why?

I liked the ability to add suffixes and prefixes to names.

Well, you can still call yourself "xyz of something". But it is up to the other player if you names you in that manner or or not. If he ignore to adress you correctly, punsh him in the face! I think rp-wise it doesn't make much of a difference.

I actually really really miss everything about the old day-night schedule. I don't understand the current one at all.

There is a bug where it gets brighter than darker than brighter again. So, that is not really intended

Languages. Oh my god I miss languages.

So do I. But that is a server thing. !l still works, but everyone can understand every language.

Dont forget the weather and winter

Weather was deactiavted because the rain made people sick (literally). But nitram has some very nice plans for that.

[CJK]

I really liked the "follow" command.

What is that? I don't know what you mean.

You used to be able to right click on players and "follow" them. Pretty positive that was totally a thing.

[Estralis Seborian]

You used to be able to right click on players and "follow" them. Pretty positive that was totally a thing.

I am not aware that we ever had such a feature.

Thanks a lot for the points! This is really helpful. As Jupiter wrote, many things will come back one day, removing them was not directly intended but the price we had to pay for the new client. Keep in mind also the positive aspects of the new client, please. If you play Illarion in full HD resolution, listening to the awesome music, running around and clicking through nice menus, you know what I mean.

[rakust dorenstkzul]

I really liked the "follow" command.

What is that? I don't know what you mean.

You used to be able to right click on players and "follow" them. Pretty positive that was totally a thing.

Are you sure that wasn't Runescape?

Not being sarcastic or anything. Runescape is the only game i can recall having that feature.

[CJK]

You used to be able to right click on players and "follow" them. Pretty positive that was totally a thing.

Are you sure that wasn't Runescape?

Not being sarcastic or anything. Runescape is the only game i can recall having that feature.

That must be right. And now I am deeply embarrassed that it has been so long since I last actively played Illarion that I am honestly confusing the features of it with Runescape, which I last played probably 9 years ago.

I think my memory got confused because of the way ropes work(ed) with dragging somebody along.

[Kamilar]

We never had a follow feature but used ropes as a work around. We still do that.

I'm glad to read so many things on that list will be returning because I miss all those things too.

Additionally, I miss the possibility to personalize items that we had in the old client. Those made for a very cool 'lookat' for those characters with personalized items. It was also a money sink and a nice way to make a piece of the game belong only to you.

I also miss the mules. A lot.