Reduce Number-crunching in Attribute Levelling

Thoughts on the further development of Haven & Hearth? Feel free to opine!

Re: Reduce Number-crunching in Attribute Levelling

Postby spectacle » Wed Sep 15, 2010 12:29 am

The fact that specialization comes at such a heavy cost encourages trade and community play, because it makes the specialized characters that do exist so valuable.
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Re: Reduce Number-crunching in Attribute Levelling

Postby Shask » Wed Sep 15, 2010 12:31 am

spectacle wrote:The fact that specialization comes at such a heavy cost encourages trade and community play, because it makes the specialized characters that do exist so valuable.


That's backwards logic. The FEP system discourages specialisation, this means characters tend to make more generalised, balance characters, meaning they need not rely on others, so villages and communtiy play is therefore discouraged.
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Re: Reduce Number-crunching in Attribute Levelling

Postby spectacle » Wed Sep 15, 2010 12:56 am

Shask wrote:
spectacle wrote:The fact that specialization comes at such a heavy cost encourages trade and community play, because it makes the specialized characters that do exist so valuable.


That's backwards logic. The FEP system discourages specialisation, this means characters tend to make more generalised, balance characters, meaning they need not rely on others, so villages and communtiy play is therefore discouraged.

Most characters are generalists, therefor the goods and services specialists can provide are in high demand, and the generalists cluster around the experts. The specialists in turn require the support of a community to take care of their general needs. Look at how the goon store recently had to close because they lost their crafter to understand the importance of specialists to trade.
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Re: Reduce Number-crunching in Attribute Levelling

Postby Shask » Wed Sep 15, 2010 1:25 am

spectacle wrote:
Shask wrote:
spectacle wrote:The fact that specialization comes at such a heavy cost encourages trade and community play, because it makes the specialized characters that do exist so valuable.


That's backwards logic. The FEP system discourages specialisation, this means characters tend to make more generalised, balance characters, meaning they need not rely on others, so villages and communtiy play is therefore discouraged.

Most characters are generalists, therefor the goods and services specialists can provide are in high demand, and the generalists cluster around the experts. The specialists in turn require the support of a community to take care of their general needs. Look at how the goon store recently had to close because they lost their crafter to understand the importance of specialists to trade.


Yes, most characters are generalists because specialising kills your character so much. See my previous extreme example of the 400 DEX guy who needs to get 400 FEP to raise his PER from 10 to 11.

At the moment people just make different characters for different tasks. I don't think that's right. You should be able to specialise your character but still have the option of playing normally. Right now if you specialise too much your character is gimped.

Edit: Like, I'm in a village right now. I would like to say: "right guys, I'll focus on sewing and DEX and I can be your specialist in that department." but I can't, because if I did that, my DEX would get absurdly high and it would gimp my character.
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Re: Reduce Number-crunching in Attribute Levelling

Postby Potjeh » Wed Sep 15, 2010 1:31 am

There's middle ground, you know. Most food is mixed FEPs, and in the long run the ratios of your stats will reflect the FEP ratios in the food you ate. I, for example, have never bothered raising dex to the level of my main stats, yet it's 154 atm since a lot of the food I eat has dex as secondary FEPs (chicken chorizo, piros, creamy cock etc). Hell, I even got 41 psy though I haven't eaten a single bulb in this world, I mostly got it while attempting to raise agi.

So no, it's not hard to specialize and still be able to do common tasks. It is hard to respecialize, though, and it should be else every character would be completely self-sufficient.
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Re: Reduce Number-crunching in Attribute Levelling

Postby Shask » Wed Sep 15, 2010 1:33 am

Potjeh wrote:There's middle ground, you know. Most food is mixed FEPs, and in the long run the ratios of your stats will reflect the FEP ratios in the food you ate. I, for example, have never bothered raising dex to the level of my main stats, yet it's 154 atm since a lot of the food I eat has dex as secondary FEPs (chicken chorizo, piros, creamy cock etc). Hell, I even got 41 psy though I haven't eaten a single bulb in this world, I mostly got it while attempting to raise agi.

So no, it's not hard to specialize and still be able to do common tasks. It is hard to respecialize, though, and it should be else every character would be completely self-sufficient.


But as you said, that's the middle ground, not true specialising. If I were to specialise in jewellery I'd eat peppered cavebulbs, end of story. Anything else would be inefficient as there's the chance the attribute gain might be in another stat, right?
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Re: Reduce Number-crunching in Attribute Levelling

Postby Potjeh » Wed Sep 15, 2010 1:38 am

Getting another stat isn't the end of the world. And you don't lose anything if you eat a bit of other food, there's no way you'll have too many bulbs to eat if you got a half-decent table (and if you do, just use No Pain No Gain on your pocket frog).

Plus, single food diet is horribly inefficient. You'd get more total psy if you mixed those bulbs with RoBs (both fish and dough).
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Re: Reduce Number-crunching in Attribute Levelling

Postby sabinati » Wed Sep 15, 2010 1:40 am

Shask wrote:
Yes, most characters are generalists because specialising kills your character so much. See my previous extreme example of the 400 DEX guy who needs to get 400 FEP to raise his PER from 10 to 11.

At the moment people just make different characters for different tasks. I don't think that's right. You should be able to specialise your character but still have the option of playing normally. Right now if you specialise too much your character is gimped.

Edit: Like, I'm in a village right now. I would like to say: "right guys, I'll focus on sewing and DEX and I can be your specialist in that department." but I can't, because if I did that, my DEX would get absurdly high and it would gimp my character.


first of all you won't need 400 dex, ever. second of all, make a capable character with 100-200 stats before you push anything to retard levels
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Re: Reduce Number-crunching in Attribute Levelling

Postby Shask » Wed Sep 15, 2010 1:54 am

Potjeh wrote:Plus, single food diet is horribly inefficient. You'd get more total psy if you mixed those bulbs with RoBs (both fish and dough).


Do you have the maths to back this up? What you're saying would only be true if the reduction in total FEP needed per level was greater than the chance of getting the other attribute. So if I ate another food for a 10% reduction in total FEP needed, but this gave me a 20% chance of getting another unwanted attribute, then in the long run it would have been better to have just stuck with the single food, so it may not be "horribly inefficient".
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Re: Reduce Number-crunching in Attribute Levelling

Postby Shask » Wed Sep 15, 2010 2:00 am

sabinati wrote:first of all you won't need 400 dex, ever. second of all, make a capable character with 100-200 stats before you push anything to retard levels


It was an example. And a character with those stats isn't a specialist..
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