Ideas to make learn-by-use more interesting

[rusty_shackleford]

In Ultima 8 you could just attack invulnerable NPCs and get increases in your strength attribute. A couple decades later in Skyrim, you can just spam the same spell over and over to raise the relevant skill.


Has any game actually tried to make learn-by-use more interesting somehow?

[wndrbr]

Starfield sort-of did that by tying perks to specific challenges. Of course, Starfield sucks, and all of those challenges were just boring busywork like "run 10 000 meters to increase stamina" or "kill 100 enemies with headshots to unlock the next level in marksmanship". But the idea was sound.

[Norfleet]

In Ultima 8 you could just attack invulnerable NPCs and get increases in your strength attribute. A couple decades later in Skyrim, you can just spam the same spell over and over to raise the relevant skill.

That's not even new to Ultima. I was doing that to grind skills all the back in the MUD days.

Has any game actually tried to make learn-by-use more interesting somehow?

The only way it becomes interesting is when it's a dual-path system, and the EXPECTED path is that you expend "practice points" to raise your skills to the expected level of usability, but instead, you can grind your skills from 0 to 100 via shenanigans and save all your practice points to convert to boosting your stats instead, thus having stats vastly superior to your opponents (meaning: THE OTHER PLAYERS), so that you can KILL THEM ALL.

[wndrbr]

You can probably split the 100 levels of skill mastery into tiers (0-24 newbie, 25-49 apprentice, 50-74 adept, 75-99 expert, 100 master), and then change the requirements for levelling depending on player's current tier.

I.e. a newbie can raise his archery by just practicing with a wooden target, apprentice can raise it by hunting game, increasing archery as an adept would require engaging in an actual combat, and expert would need to score headshots.

[Cipher]

I think the spirit of the idea is correct, but it requires more checks and balances in the execution, which I am not sure how hard it would be to implement.

For example, I think hitting training dummies to raise your weapon skill or Strength is valid as that's used in real life. But, I believe it should have a hard cap. For example, you can only go from Sword skill 1 to 3 out of 10 ranks with the training dummies, and the XP it gives to raise that skill gets exponentially lower as you advance.

That way, you can use those training tools for beginner level stuff but higher tiers require live situations. For example, perhaps the Strength gains are inversely proportional to the "Endurance" stat of the enemy you are striking, so it incentivizes seeking stronger enemies to keep progressing. The system would work the same as with the training dummy, let us say that your Sword skill can only raise as higher as the enemy's "Dodge" or "Endurance" skill, depending on which defensive trait/skill/attribute resists or interacts with your weapon skill/strength.

That also avoids the problem of farming wolves to get to max stats. Sure, fighting wolves and goblins would be the next step after the first few ranks with training dummies but at some point the progress stalls. Its not just the diminishing returns, it is capped. You can't raise it anymore unless you seek a greater challenge. That way you keep the player hungry for more while not falling into the pitfall of "scaling levels". That wyvern is always going to be a high threat enemy, it just depends on your skill and how much you have trained your stats to meet that challenge. And also how powerful your gear is.

This system would require that the game world is decisively not leveled. The Player is free to explore and may even overcome a challenge greater than his stats would suggest, making the gains even higher than it would be otherwise, to reward his bravery but, areas would be more or less curated for different levels of progression so a Player can always leave an area too difficult for his prowess at a given time and seek out a place with a challenge appropriate to his skills, gear and stats.

[Norfleet]

You can probably split the 100 levels of skill mastery into tiers (0-24 newbie, 25-49 apprentice, 50-74 adept, 75-99 expert, 100 master), and then change the requirements for levelling depending on player's current tier.

You're missing the important thing. What makes a thing interesting is not just HOW you do, but WHY you do it. Changing the thing I have to grind doesn't make grinding more interesting on its own. Admittedly, the optimization puzzle of figuring out what you have to do to grind optimally it is slightly interesting, but that's a one-and-done deal after which it reduces back to a grind. The REASON for doing it that way must exist.

We choose to grind to the Moon, not because it is easy, but because **** you, that's why.

The only time you're actually enjoying the process of grinding skills is when you're doing it to get something over someone, whether it's the other players, the devs, or preferrably, both.

[Stack of Turtles]

You can probably split the 100 levels of skill mastery into tiers (0-24 newbie, 25-49 apprentice, 50-74 adept, 75-99 expert, 100 master), and then change the requirements for levelling depending on player's current tier.

You're missing the important thing. What makes a thing interesting is not just HOW you do, but WHY you do it. Changing the thing I have to grind doesn't make grinding more interesting on its own. Admittedly, the optimization puzzle of figuring out what you have to do to grind optimally it is slightly interesting, but that's a one-and-done deal after which it reduces back to a grind. The REASON for doing it that way must exist.

We choose to grind to the Moon, not because it is easy, but because **** you, that's why.

The only time you're actually enjoying the process of grinding skills is when you're doing it to get something over someone, whether it's the other players, the devs, or preferrably, both.

This is why I promote games including completely random mechanics so that you keep having to do the optimization puzzle over and over again whenever the thing you have to grind changes.

[Norfleet]

This is why I promote games including completely random mechanics so that you keep having to do the optimization puzzle over and over again whenever the thing you have to grind changes.

That sounds an awful lot like "no solution", so there's no point in doing anything at all, since nothing works. But how would you apply that here?

[Stack of Turtles]

This is why I promote games including completely random mechanics so that you keep having to do the optimization puzzle over and over again whenever the thing you have to grind changes.

That sounds an awful lot like "no solution", so there's no point in doing anything at all, since nothing works. But how would you apply that here?

randomly change what you get skill xp for every so often so you can't skip leg day

[TKVNC]

Warband is quite nice, the more damage you deal, or the more difficult the attack, the more skill you get. It is possible to brute force your skills beyond your Weapon Master limit by actual use.

Kenshi too, the higher the risk, the higher the reward. You get little skill from starving bandits, but a lot more from samurai.

In this sense, Morrowind is very weak, sheer quantity, not quality controls XP gains. Levelling your combat, for example, is best done with a weak weapon that you spam; a stronger weapon actually slows you XP gains.

[Lich]

Labor is necessary for the feeling of achievement. Learn by use should be grindy and boring by design.

[N7Kopper]

I find it funny that people are still getting these systems wrong, when Quest for Glory basically pioneered the idea of "learn by doing" (sure, Final Fantasy II came first, but you could only gain stats in combat and it therefore was just experience with extra steps) in RPGs. It also had the catch that a stat of 0 would simply never improve, letting you build your Devon the way you like - to an extent of course, it's still a class-based series. The key thing that QfG did was that it made your stats level exponentially faster the lower they were relative to the current game's cap, as well as boosting your caps by 100 for each game in the quintilogy. What started out as the maximum became the minimum by the end.

It also made the punishment for being an OP Paladin Red Mage the fact that you start out as a scrawny wuss who can't even beat up a goblin and who knows no spells.

[Norfleet]

It also made the punishment for being an OP Paladin Red Mage the fact that you start out as a scrawny wuss who can't even beat up a goblin and who knows no spells.

I call skill issue, since I beat up goblins just fine with my wizard paladin with thief skills in the original.

[Vaako]

The only way it becomes interesting is when it's a dual-path system, and the EXPECTED path is that you expend "practice points" to raise your skills to the expected level of usability, but instead, you can grind your skills from 0 to 100 via shenanigans and save all your practice points to convert to boosting your stats instead, thus having stats vastly superior to your opponents (meaning: THE OTHER PLAYERS), so that you can KILL THEM ALL.

Kinda remembers me at an old dark age of camelot mechanic, where you got like a few extra skill points every few lvls only on certain classes and skills if you dont use them while leveling up. And that made leveling a paladin or minstrel a pain in the *** and thats why it got changed later and you got the points for free... not that the few points extra were building defining. But autists gonna autist and they will get those few extra points.

But generally I dont even know many games which have this skills get better with training, except TES and Mount and Blade.

[J1M]

One skill point per boss. Awarded to the skill used for the killing blow.

[rusty_shackleford]

One skill point per boss. Awarded to the skill used for the killing blow.

Think that defeats the purpose which is supposed to be immershun
unless it was done like e.g., the boss gives you special plot thing that makes you good

[J1M]

One skill point per boss. Awarded to the skill used for the killing blow.

Think that defeats the purpose which is supposed to be immershun
unless it was done like e.g., the boss gives you special plot thing that makes you good

I'm immersed by a good challenge and a good puzzle. No amount of bad game design choices is going to make me forget that I'm using a keyboard and playing a game.

[rusty_shackleford]

One skill point per boss. Awarded to the skill used for the killing blow.

Think that defeats the purpose which is supposed to be immershun
unless it was done like e.g., the boss gives you special plot thing that makes you good

I'm immersed by a good challenge and a good puzzle. No amount of bad game design choices is going to make me forget that I'm using a keyboard and playing a game.

what about VR hand controllers tho

[Norfleet]

One skill point per boss. Awarded to the skill used for the killing blow.

That means you're now counting out exact hitpoints to make sure you kill the boss with the right skill.

[rusty_shackleford]

not really related to the topic at hand but I like 'thematic' XP such as oddities in underrail. It's little more than just handing out XP points for various tasks directly(contrast e.g., Pillars of Eternity limiting the max XP you can get from a creature type), but immershun is always welcome

[J1M]

Think that defeats the purpose which is supposed to be immershun
unless it was done like e.g., the boss gives you special plot thing that makes you good

I'm immersed by a good challenge and a good puzzle. No amount of bad game design choices is going to make me forget that I'm using a keyboard and playing a game.

what about VR hand controllers tho

Have you played VR titles? They generally rely on you teleporting instead of walking. There's nothing remotely immersive about them because those involved are unwilling to give up the idea of playing them standing up. If it was just a television-alternative with a new controller maybe that would be fun.

[Stack of Turtles]

One skill point per boss. Awarded to the skill used for the killing blow.

That means you're now counting out exact hitpoints to make sure you kill the boss with the right skill.

Why's that a problem? Count whatever you want.

[rusty_shackleford]

I'm immersed by a good challenge and a good puzzle. No amount of bad game design choices is going to make me forget that I'm using a keyboard and playing a game.

what about VR hand controllers tho

Have you played VR titles? They generally rely on you teleporting instead of walking. There's nothing remotely immersive about them because those involved are unwilling to give up the idea of playing them standing up. If it was just a television-alternative with a new controller maybe that would be fun.

No, I don't own a VR headset. But I'm aware of Skyrim VR and such

[J1M]

One skill point per boss. Awarded to the skill used for the killing blow.

That means you're now counting out exact hitpoints to make sure you kill the boss with the right skill.

Or you could just use that skill to kill them with instead of adding extra steps. Or the designer could give you a killing blow like in Mortal Kombat.

The things people call impossible design hurdles aren't even speed bumps. Imagine if someone competent was paid for a week to work on anything like this that you consider a problem.

[J1M]

what about VR hand controllers tho

Have you played VR titles? They generally rely on you teleporting instead of walking. There's nothing remotely immersive about them because those involved are unwilling to give up the idea of playing them standing up. If it was just a television-alternative with a new controller maybe that would be fun.

No, I don't own a VR headset. But I'm aware of Skyrim VR and such

Consider visiting a VR cafe. Will eliminate any curiosity you have for about 5 years.

[Norfleet]

Why's that a problem? Count whatever you want.

Well, it's a problem insofar as it's deeply artificial that you have to do this to make sure you actually improve the right skills. I'm not sure that constitutes "interesting".

Or you could just use that skill to kill them with instead of adding extra steps.

But unless you've been keeping track of their hitpoint progress vs. your damage, given skill used, there'd be no way to control which skill administers the killing blow and therefore which one will be levelled up.

Or the designer could give you a killing blow like in Mortal Kombat.

So you'd choose which skill you level up based on your choice of how you FINISH HIM?

[J1M]

Why's that a problem? Count whatever you want.

Well, it's a problem insofar as it's deeply artificial that you have to do this to make sure you actually improve the right skills. I'm not sure that constitutes "interesting".

Or you could just use that skill to kill them with instead of adding extra steps.

But unless you've been keeping track of their hitpoint progress vs. your damage, given skill used, there'd be no way to control which skill administers the killing blow and therefore which one will be levelled up.

Or the designer could give you a killing blow like in Mortal Kombat.

So you'd choose which skill you level up based on your choice of how you FINISH HIM?

Yes, and we'll even pay an AI to make a unique animation for each skill at 3 tiers of proficiency. The lockpicking finishing move is quite gross.

[rusty_shackleford]

Consider visiting a VR cafe. Will eliminate any curiosity you have for about 5 years.

Don't think you were referring to this but it looks neat https://sandboxvr.com/

[Norfleet]

Yes, and we'll even pay an AI to make a unique animation for each skill at 3 tiers of proficiency. The lockpicking finishing move is quite gross.

Forget the lockpicking finishing move, I want to know what the Speech or Healing finishing moves are.

[Stack of Turtles]

Why's that a problem? Count whatever you want.

Well, it's a problem insofar as it's deeply artificial that you have to do this to make sure you actually improve the right skills. I'm not sure that constitutes "interesting".

I'm not interested in making the game interesting to people who play badly on purpose!