Idea: Cogg/Clok Skillgain hybridization

[Zeldryn]

Hai Gais!

So, purely hypothetical, slightly scatterbrained suggestion that was born from a few conversations I've had over the past year.

For the purposes of this discussion, I'm going to use combat as an example, because it most easily illustrates my point.

In Cogg, skillgain worked a little differently. You gained skill practice on completion of a kill, not upon individual hits. In essence, by making sure that skill didn't come to you until your target was dead, it insentivized *winning* engagements, and winning them as quickly as possible. It was realistic.

In clok, old and new, skill practice is distributed upon successful hits, not successful kills. This insentivizes the opposite in regard to combat. Prolonging engagements for as long as possible, trying not to kill things quickly, and gaining as much skill as possible from an individual engagement as opposed to many. This strikes me as both less realistic, and less satisfying a loop. It gives you less reason to want to use your special moves and abilities, and just swing randomly. It gives you less loot. It's less fun to do.

Hence my suggestion.

Tie skill gain back to COMPLETION of activities as opposed to individual steps of those activities, and offer bonus skill gain for quick and efficient completion of those activities.

What does this look like?

Using combat as an example-- instead of gaining small bits of skill every time you make a hit, instead-- the total skill gain you would have gained in total throughout that engagement is placed in the bucket, then distributed to you when the engagement is completed, either with a kill, or with a retreat from either side. This could be accomplished by tying the distribution of skill gain to the status of the character. When they're battling, the bucket fills. When the battle is completed and the character is no longer considered in active combat, the bucket empties.

Basically, you'd be gaining the same amount of skill. But all at once when it's all over, as opposed to in tiny bits as it all goes on.

To further insentivize quicker, more efficient kills, you could offer a multiplier of some sort per quick kill made that stacks up to a certain point-- or maybe just a flat skill gain number applied in addition to the practice you received during the engagement that helps even it out. Or maybe, using special ability moves like staggering blow, quick strike, mark, etc. also offer more skill than normal hits, to likewise prompt their use while grinding.

If this doesn't make sense, I'll try to explain it better. If you don't like it, say you don't like it, too. I just wanted to throw this idea out here while it was wandering around in my brain with all of these combat loot changes. I have no idea what this might look like in terms of crafting and other activities, aside from the fact that skill would be distributed in lump sums at the end completion of activities as opposed to in tiny little bumps along the way. But I think the tiny little bumps feel nice for crafting. Dunno.

Feedback! Offer feedback!

Thanks for reading, and keep up the great work!

[Rias]

I'd definitely like to update how combat gains work, yeah, because the meta of "use the weakest possible weapons/attacks and try to keep the target alive as long as possible" has always struck me as less than ideal. The initial stopgap idea that's been played with is to have it so you can only get so many strikes' worth of gains from a specific target. Bob hits an infested vagrant X number of times and he stops getting gains from hitting that infested vagrant. Again, this idea is just as a stopgap, a temporary treatment of the issue at hand.

Not that it's a reason to discard the concept entirely, but something to consider is weapons, attacks, or spells that don't do much damage. Whips, staffs, and brawling come to mind for weapons, and aeromancy and hydromancy for spells. In moving to basing things on defeats rather than strikes, is there a way to avoid these becoming a case of just having to deal with skilling up more slowly and with greater hassle/difficulty?

[Dorn]

I'd honestly like to see something like this, especially for Combat though I'm not sure it is necessary for Crafting.

As I mentioned in CHAT, I miss feeling like I need to go out there and actually engage with systems to try and accomplish something efficiently and cater to the strengths/abilities of my character. Cv2 has definitely taken steps to be better about it in comparison to Clok, but it still isn't satisfying.

[jerc]

I like the stopgap suggestion. I think it would be even better if it was done in a diminishing returns fashion to encourage quick kills rather than "sit on mob till you stop getting gains, then finish it." It would also make those infrequently-trained-in-realistic-combat but still-important skills easier to train, like defense, stealth, etc., easier to raise without resorting to going out just to train them.

[Ela]

I do like the proposed idea, and especially like the idea of special attacks awarding some sort of bonus to encourage their usage in an effort to try and end enemies as quickly as possible.

I don't have any ideas or solutions for the listed weapons and arcana types which might suffer from the new system.

The stopgap seems okay on the surface. I'm concerned that it'll create some sort of issue at low levels when you're not able to reliably and quickly finish off enemies. The low level experience is already tough to come in to as a new player. I'd want to see the balance of the stopgap based off of the amount of swings/hits an average new character has to make before they beat an enemy, otherwise they'll end up in a situation where they're fighting for no skill gains just to be able to get some riln if their enemy type drops it.

[Rias]

I think it would be even better if it was done in a diminishing returns fashion to encourage quick kills rather than "sit on mob till you stop getting gains, then finish it."

Agreed, good call.

It would also make those infrequently-trained-in-realistic-combat but still-important skills easier to train, like defense, stealth, etc., easier to raise without resorting to going out just to train them.

Can you expound on what you're thinking, here?

[Rias]

The stopgap seems okay on the surface. I'm concerned that it'll create some sort of issue at low levels when you're not able to reliably and quickly finish off enemies.

Would it help if lower-skill mobs were made squishier somehow? More of them might flee, too; remember that mobs fleeing (to despawn, not just to a different room) also counts as a "defeat" of that mob and generates loot/lockboxes just as if they were killed.

[Zeldryn]

The weapon types and skills that would suffer in terms of dealing damage were in part why I proposed the variable of skill distribution upon completion of an engagement. Not necessarily on a kill. A kill is the ideal solution, but sometimes, a person has to retreat, as well. Rather than tying the distribution of skill to the death of a creature, it could simply be tied to the engagement itself, and be distributed when the engagement ends, even if that engagement ends with player and creature walking away from each other. Though I can understand how this is a little finicky and not necessarily ideal as well

[jerc]

It would also make those infrequently-trained-in-realistic-combat but still-important skills easier to train, like defense, stealth, etc., easier to raise without resorting to going out just to train them.

Can you expound on what you're thinking, here?

Sure! Defense skills are a prime example. In most "real" combat, most people will be trying to avoid the need for defense skill use altogether. This happens through various means - disables, secondary defense abilities like blade catch, shadow familiars, etc. The end result is that over the course of combat, you'd end up only exercising your defense skills for maybe a third of the rounds. And of those applications of your defense skills, it's even further spread across dodge, block, and parry (which doesn't give practice at all).

If, instead of flat gains over the lifetime of the mob up to a certain limit, it was diminishing and started out much higher and tapered quicker, the skill gains could be front-loaded. This way, even though the instances of defense skill application may be fewer than someone who simply tanked every blow, you wouldn't have drastically reduced defense gains. It would still be somewhat reduced, but hopefully not to the point that you're better served changing the way you fight to allow the enemy to take more swings at you just to level defense.

Edit: also worth linking back to when I made a similar suggestion: https://clok.contrarium.net/bbs/viewtop ... 158#p41158

[Ninetales16]

I do like hte idea of having a boost in defense skills while training, yes. logically, I htink so, at least, everyone attempts to avoid as much damage as possible. I think it makes sense from a rp point, as well. who would wish to intentionally get hit to learn something? :D
I do not see how skills like stealth would be affected by this, however. I am curious to see what you, or if you have thought of something like this, as well.

[Ela]

The stopgap seems okay on the surface. I'm concerned that it'll create some sort of issue at low levels when you're not able to reliably and quickly finish off enemies.

Would it help if lower-skill mobs were made squishier somehow? More of them might flee, too; remember that mobs fleeing (to despawn, not just to a different room) also counts as a "defeat" of that mob and generates loot/lockboxes just as if they were killed.

I don't think I've seen a mob flee in CLOK 2.0, but my characters fight netherim and infested, neither of which give up the ghost easily. I think most players go to Tarueka or Ravenwood Trail if they're starting out.

I think making the mobs squishier might help with a lot more than just this issue, but you'd want to test it. What I mean is that with the change you made to loot to keep high level characters from farming low level things, we shouldn't have to worry about experienced players abusing the change on their high skill characters. It then might help alleviate some of the initial cost of adventuring new players/characters experience and help them get over that initial hurdle: lower health pools mean mobs die quicker, which means less damage taken, and riln can be used on equipment instead of healing/food, allowing them to establish themselves easier. The only bad that could possibly come from this change is the amount of work involved; you'd probably want to create a gentle curve through Tarueka or Ravenwood which allows characters to slowly transition into fighting mobs with "normal" amounts of health rather than having them face a frustrating wall at a certain point.

[jerc]

I do not see how skills like stealth would be affected by this, however. I am curious to see what you, or if you have thought of something like this, as well.

Same way really. If diminishing returns start high and then taper, you get the most reward with the initial ambush, but could then finish them in "normal" combat rather than feel like you have to focus on killing them stealthily by either retreating and re-stealthing or by sniping and aggressively re-hiding when detected. Of course, you could do so if you wanted, and you'd end up getting more stealth gains than the "one and done" character, but it wouldn't be such a drastic linearly-increasing difference.

[Dorn]

I will say, in regards to combat least, there are always the other options that have been floated around before.

Bonus skill based on damage caused, encouraging people to actually hurt mobs.
Bonus skill based on a kill/flee shot, encouraging people to actually defeat mobs.
Bonus skill across the board based on mob challenge (rating set by GMs based on attacks/abilities/etc)
Bonus skill based on attack, get more skill for blocking a two-handed greataxe vs a bite.

Throw in diminishing with a sampling of the above, AND actual worthwhile riln/drops on defeat, and it could be interesting.