Illarion.org

I do not understand why powergaming should even be an issue.

If someone wanted to really get good at something shouldn't they perform the task over and over and over until they get good at it?

To use an example, It would be safe to say that Michael Jordan is the best basketball player of all time. When he was in high school he was actually kicked off of the basketball team because the coach said he was no good.
He decided then and there he was going to be the best. He would shoot baskets in his backyard over and over and over for hours at a time and eventually he became the best.

In the rpg shouldn't characters perform a task repeatedly in order to become the best at it?

I know that people cannot go on forever like this so maybe we should implement a weariness factor. After repeating a task for a certain length of time the character would have to stop and rest for awhile before continuing.

Just a thought.

Powergaming isn´t possible in the reality, which you means is training. And that is permitted also in Illarion. Powergaming not, because it is material not possible that a person makes the same over several hours, summarized each training which in the reality isn´t possible can be call Powergaming. If you want to train, of course then it is permitted.

Problem Illarion have nothing to prevent powergaming, the ideas to "stamina" would help here, but they dont exist yet.
So can only a rule ( the powergaming rule ) decide what is training and what powergaming.

If you want to become in somewhat better then train, dont powergame!
Understand?

By the way: Constantly recurring discussions around powergaming nerves.

No fatigue! no fatigue! Do you know what happened in runescape??!

And also, as powergaming is mostly used to raise the 'agressive skills' which will lead into icreasing PKing. Ever heard that Michael Jordan killed anyone with his basketball-skills?

I guess I'm a little confused. Someone please explain to me the difference between training and powergaming.

Hey, Paul, what happened in Runescape? I've never been there.

There is no hard line between training and powergaming. Per definition, powergaming is training beyond the point which a person could stand in real life. This means seriously hurting yourself on purpose, just to heal yourself and hurt you again. Throwing fireballs into a friends face is another thing. Nobody would do something like this.
If you train that hard that you are no longer able to roleplay properly it is also called powergaming.

Whats the problem with powergaming?

Some people have the desire to be "the best", or at least better than others. Some dont want to be dependent on others. Some people want to have power to rule others. Some want to be admired.

Many of those think they can satisfy their desires by powergaming. But:

- powergaming is hella boring
- powergaming usually leads to macro using
- powergaming is the small brother of bug abusing
- powergamers kill others because its economically efficient

This leads to a deadly sprial. If you watch MUDs like Runescape, UO, Tibia ... they have NOTHING to do with a ROLEPLAYING game. Players are just fighting for survival because the challenge for skills, level and equipment kills you every day. There are some guilds that mostly behave like rivalizing gangs. People dont come to partys or other happenings because they could lose valueable powergaming time, or even get ambushed. The constant Fear of getting attacked keeps you from playing these games relaxedly.

A solution?
Making powergaming senseless?
Modeling different skill training models?

The currently common skill advance systems might be a problem itsself. And if you keep a close look they are usually not very realistic. While training muscles can be achieved by simple repeating, other skills wont advance. A wizard wont become wise if he does not collect many different ideas while wandering the realms of his world. At school you dont repeat the same things all the time, you learn new things evey lesson (only if you have a good teacher ;) ). This would support some price point system... for every different experience you make you gain some points, this would keep powergamers from boringly hacking wood but instead getting to know the whole gameworld. It might also be possible to set some skill maximums. There is a point of training when you cant achieve more muscle mass than by doping (rl cheating ...). And without constant training you will lose muscle mass. However you dont forget your sword fighting technique. The limiting of a characters lifetime seems to be a nice idea since the character itself is shown his limitations, which gives him a more human aspect, however elves should get much older still. And at last it surely is a task for the game developers, gameplay does not have to support powergaming. The most efficient possibility to prevent powergaming is to give every monster a unique identity. Monster spawn places are the death of roleplaying. Calculateable Monsters are simply cannon fodder.

well.. my 2 Cents, use em or dont ;)

Geoff

I throw fireballs into my friends face just for fun is that powergaming? Also, isn't there a famous soccer player who was practicing with his brother and when he kicked the ball to him, he kill his brother? And also, Don't forget about Jason Williams. He plays basketball and kills people

Obviously it is not roleplay to throw fireballs at your friend's face, so the remaining explanation is that you're doing something non-roleplay for the sake of gaining skills.

Well, It can be roleplay, but I think that I wouldn't want to be friend of fellow who throws fireballs at me.
No-one would I think.

I think training has become obsolite, you NEED to powergame to get anywhere, It all kind of feels like runescape now, and that isnt a good thing. Runescape standards are needed to get anywhere. Try starting a new character and trying to get him to make arrows, very useful for roleplaying an archer, it takes absolutely ages, I havnt got there yet.

As I say it all feels very runescapish now.

The "action" is roleplay, but the reason isn't. "Throwing fireballs intio a friend's face just for fun" has no real roleplay value behind its intentions. Almost everything you could come up with as an explanation to do something so incredibly stupid would obviously be just a bad excuse to do stupid things.

Geez! It was just a joke! Man! You guys get up in arms about everything!

Just answering your question. You won't need to worry as long as you don't do those kinds of stupid things........