Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
New forum here!

Season V in Development on a new forum! Come visit and make an account!

Events ~|~ Buying/Selling ~|~ Mutation ~|~ Research

Special Action ~|~ Tournaments ~|~ Moulder Monthly

Welcome to Moulder Pitfighters, the text-based arena of death/roleplaying game set in a spin-off of the former Warhammer World!

Play as a Master Moulder on the Shattered Isle of Hell Pit, creating hideously mutated fighting beasts to pit against other players' creations... or to use to pursue your own nefarious ends.

Sign up today and join our community!

If you're already trapped on the Shattered Isle, please log in:

Username:   Password:
Comments & Suggestions
Topic Started: Wed 15 Feb 2012 00:45:52 (403 Views)
Dark Lord Nihilus
Member Avatar
Gremlin Supreme Overlord
[ *  *  * ]
For a bit now I've thought that MP is sorely needing a Comments & Suggestions thread for players to explain in a rational and levelheaded manner (if that's possible) changes, additions, etc that they think would be beneficial to MP.

So I'll start us off with a big one....research :P

1. Research

Quite frankly I think that research takes too long. I've read and understood the rationale presented which tends to run along the lines of: The duration it takes for a research to complete is reasonable from an IC perspective.

I think there are two root issues here. The first is that while it may be completely appropriate IC, in the real world this translates to it typically taking upwards of a month from the time a research order is submitted for it to be completed. More complex researches take longer. This slows down the progress of the game to a crawl. As research is the cornerstone of most other actions in MP this retards everything a player can do. Personally I've had several turns where I submit "filler" orders (random black market searches, random plant collecting special actions, etc) because I have nothing else to spend the APs on as my research is struggling to keep up. The pace of research is especially important in this season as there is less leniency in the starting capabilities/skills of each player character. Long gone are the days where you could craft robots after a single research. Now it takes multiple research actions, along many different fields, and they all take longer then they did in prior seasons.

I was an active packlord for a brief time when the concept of MP season 3 was in its infancy, so I fully understand (and had vouched) for the need to combat power creep and over-powered craziness in the game, but I do not think that this should be done at the expense of the game as a whole.

So my suggestion: Cut back across the board on the number of turns it takes to complete a research action.

Secondly, the way texts/books/tomes work is infuriating, really it is :P . If a player purchases a text, unless it is in some truly long lost language no one has ever heard of, the research should be completed immediately (i.e. submitted turn 20 and completed with the turn 20 update). I get it, texts are written in different languages, but the fact that they can be translated at all indicates that the Public Library has quite a repertoire of able-bodied translators (or translation keys :P ). The way it works currently makes buying books a complete waste of time and tokens (unless they are on those ridiculously rare subjects...which aren't the most common of research actions). In the same amount of time as a book based research will be completed, a "normal" research not using a source text will also be completed (~a month in RL) with the same quality of results.

So my suggestion: Reduce the research duration of text-based researches. Those that rely solely on the book (i.e. reading a book on Traps for example) should be completed immediately and should have a better outcome than a "normal" research would (continuing with the example, reading a book on traps might grant "knows a lot about traps" and few specific designs that can be implemented right away while just "normal" researching might just grant "knows a lot about traps").

It's really aggravating to read a book on traps, spend 3-4 turns on the research action only to have to spend another research action to formulate a trap design to THEN be able to craft a trap :P .

2. NPC

I know this profile must be the most fun and the most painful for the GMs...and personally I share the sentiment. Messages to NPC should have a set response deadline just like the other actions and not hang in a limbo state where you might get a response the same day or in two weeks :P . Whether it's "NPC will be dealt with all the other orders at turn update, i.e. once a week" or "NPC will be dealt with twice a week ~wednesaday/thursday and ~saturday/sunday". In either case I provides a definite day players can expect to receive replies by and thereby work the rest of their plans around.

So my suggestion: Set a max number of NPC pms any player can send in a given turn to cut down on volume (and to reduce spam/ridiculous/poorly thought out messages) and set an approximate day when NPC pms will be responded to.
Packlording NPC and plotting against Glod....shhhh don't tell him.
Fluffy
Lab
Offline
 
Silvermane
Ex-Packlord, Ex-Richest Rat S2, Indiana's father

I agree with Nihilus' points for research mostly, i would only change a couple of things for balancing and to fit in with the current game rules;

Researches do take too long, granted, the fact that you need "basic this, intermediate that and some form of knowledge in this and that too" all tend to make sense, so i have no quarrel with that, but the down time is pretty bad... i've taken to using up turns where i'm waiting for research to do beast training, but i only have so many beasts i can train and so many brain slots! :P

My solution would be;

As Nihilus voted, cut research times, even if it's only by 1 turn. Turning a 4 turn research to a 3, or a 3 to a 2 will speed the player's ability to get to where they want to be more quickly and each player will therefore become their own player and not just one of the fold. As packlords you have the discretion to restrict power to stop it spiralling out of control anyway, so speeding up research wont be an issue, also, if the Token costs are the same, people will still only have the same amount of dosh to spend anyway! So it's not like they'll do MORE research, just what they DO do is quicker.

Secondly, and this is specific to Research via tomes and books; I mostly agree with DLN, but with a slight variation, i think if you purchase a book and it comes to a cost of about 150T or 100T or whatever, it should only take the 1 research action to read it and understand the basics of that trade/profession and it should provide a list of basic items/components that can be built/created, however, i think it should follow the rules of the Research Book, whereby, the reason it only takes 1 turn to research it, is that a player's moulder can always read through the book AS he/she is working, and as such, isn't required to commit absolutely everything to memory. However, should the research text be stolen or destroyed, the player could still perform the actions, but perhaps at a slight penalty, as he no longer has any aids and did not commit every point to detail, which could lead to errors. Ofcourse, a player may spend an additional AP to throuroughly read the manual and gain it's full knowledge regardless as to whether the book is lost. You have to remember, if someone wrote a book called "Basics of Plant Growing for Noobs" it means it's going to be written in a simple layout that even the most stupid-rat could figure out in a month, especially if he has something to refer back to if he forgets a small peice of the knowledge :P

Another point that is slightly wierd and doesnt follow your IC Time Line rules, things as simple as digging a garden-bed seems to take muliple turns, ergo, multiple months, i can assure you that digging a garden bed does NOT take anywhere near 2 months to do, even if you DO have to look after a Laboratory's function in between :P I'd say it takes more like an hour, if that :P For example, if a player knows how to make a full set of armour or weapons which can be done in a turn, surely he can upturn some earth in a shorter period of time than it takes to do a full forging action of going and buying the required materials, smelting them down, hammering them into shape, heating, hammer, heating, hammering, heating, hammering, cooling etc :P The player could have dug 10 full gardens in that time! ^_^

And lastly, Contracts! We're running low on them :P I don't think anyone in their right mind will sell complete stealth technology/research for a few tokens to that mysterious stranger... The ogre and 3 MS contract has been completed and removed, the hell pit military one seems to be a constant contract, which is fine, and the other 2 are... well... i suppose do-able, but to outskirters? I assume the other pits have their own private contracts again, but the ones in the general market are the only one's outskirters have access to, and the completion chance of what is left is somewhat... minimal.

So my question: Can we haz more contractz pleaz? :D
Edited by Silvermane, Wed 15 Feb 2012 10:28:07.
Offline
 
Rusty Tincanne
Unequivocal Winner of MP.net Season 8

Silvermane
Wed 15 Feb 2012 09:06:59
And lastly, Contracts! We're running low on them :P I don't think anyone in their right mind will sell complete stealth technology/research for a few tokens to that mysterious stranger... The ogre and 3 MS contract has been completed and removed, the hell pit military one seems to be a constant contract, which is fine, and the other 2 are... well... i suppose do-able, but to outskirters? I assume the other pits have their own private contracts again, but the ones in the general market are the only one's outskirters have access to, and the completion chance of what is left is somewhat... minimal.
I was thinking that by not updating those, the Packlords were attempting to entice us to leave the Outskirts. :P
Something like that... Although they're not meant for Outskirters anyway.
Edited by NPC, Thu 16 Feb 2012 04:11:57.
Sikatriks' Lab
Offline
 
Chieftain Quickitt
Dis season rocks
Packlord
I have no problem at all with slightly long researches, it keeps it manageable for Sidorio. That and the Packlords have introduced multiple ways of speeding it up so far, you aren't supposed to research everything yourself! There's the artisans institute and of course you could man up and have a member of a group research a certain part, you know, like it's a group research. It will go faster and you'll get more knowledge. There are also the multiple scrolls abound with knowledge that you can receive through the NPc profile or get them on the Black Market/Library. I do have to say that researching a scroll makes no sense, you should be able to know the knowledge immediately or spend a normal AP that does not take a research slot on it and that will take 1/2 turns. That's my only point ^_^

That and I hate living quarters, but I suppose they're totally fair -_-
No one expects the Hell Pit Inquisition
Offline
 
Rusty Tincanne
Unequivocal Winner of MP.net Season 8

You have to study a scroll you own? I thought you just bought it and voila. Like it was a reference book you could go back to repeatedly. Am I wrong about that?

Regarding the Artisans Institute, Sidorio mentioned to me that, after taking a class (or two) on a subject, related subjects take less time and have an increased chance of success. (i.e. Character X took beginning and intermediate Basket Weaving. That character is now able to research "weaving a water-tight casket using willow roots" in 2/3 the time and it is likely to cost less than if he had not completed that class. So as Quickitt said, there is a way of making researches faster, but keep in mind that it took several turns to complete my classes, so the payoff will take a while. :P
Sikatriks' Lab
Offline
 
Dark Lord Nihilus
Member Avatar
Gremlin Supreme Overlord
[ *  *  * ]
1.1 Research - Trading Research
As a guilty party in the recent wave of research trading, and potentially the one who started the frenzied trading :P , I'm naturally disappointed that my research loophole is gone :( . That being said I do actually have some constructive criticism regarding research trading....

It does not make any sense whatsoever from an IC or OOC perspective to allow "knowledge" researches to be traded. By knowledge I mean any subject that entails the Knows about - Knows A Lot About gradient, i.e. everything under the knowledge tab in your character thread.. So if player A Knows a lot about Potions they should not be able to trade that with player B.

Why?

IC: Because the knowledge that player A possesses described simply as Knows a lot about Potions means a lot more than they simply have a bunch of scribbled notes on potion making. It indicates trial and error, practice, study and experience. It would be akin to a renowned chemist in RL handing over a notebook filled with chemistry notes to an artist and the artist magically acquiring all of the chemist's knowledge and expertise. It's absurd.

OOC: This completely defeats the functional purpose of the Institute of Artisans. In this season of MP you are fairly limited in your starting knowledge base, which constrains what you can achieve via research. You must first expand your knowledge base before you can delve into the really cool research arcs (potions, WMDs, robotics, magic, etc). Inherently this prevents the players, especially those with a season or two of experience under their belts, from reaching god-mode in a handful of turns. The second trading research that is knowledge comes into play god-mode is right back in our reach (much sooner than it would otherwise be :P ).

All of that being said, I don't see any reason why trading other types of research, as long as they are not contingent on a "knowledge" research, aren't allowed (or require screening). If you have two players who both have Knows A Lot About Potions then I would say they should be able to trade potion recipes without having to subsequently research those traded recipes. On the other hand if you have one player who Knows A Lot About Trap Making and another who has no knowledge of trap making, the former shouldn't be able to trade the latter their super-duper-death-ray trap research to the latter.

My suggestion - Just ban trading "knowledge" research and trading any other research in which the recipient does not possess the necessary "knowledge" to understand the research.

On another note entirely, though I haven't taken any of the courses myself, I hear that the Institute of Artisan's researches take about just as long as a normal research into the same "knowledge"/subject without going through the Institute. Since 3 turns seems to be about the norm for a "standard" research, I would suggest a base of 2 turns for an Institute research, tacking on an extra turn for each stacked course (i.e. Basic through Advanced Mutating would take 4 turns). Now, since I haven't actually taken a course myself, I'm only speculating/basing my above statement on what others have told me :P .
Edited by Dark Lord Nihilus, Tue 28 Feb 2012 21:40:26.
Packlording NPC and plotting against Glod....shhhh don't tell him.
Fluffy
Lab
Offline
 
Silvermane
Ex-Packlord, Ex-Richest Rat S2, Indiana's father

Yeah, it took 4 turns for basic engineering to come back for me, and i was told that was a turn overdue and was duely compensated (ty for meh tokenz :D ) but thats still 3 turns, which is about what it took other players to do without the institute early on in game.
Offline
 
Rusty Tincanne
Unequivocal Winner of MP.net Season 8

I am going to chime in on the reading books bit. It seems to me that any book should be able to be read in our free time and digested slowly. There are many other actions that take multiple turns (training, building things, digging holes, etc.), why would reading a book be much different? What I mean is, why should it take a research action?

A research makes sense for learning a new language, learning to read, digging up resources to learn about a subject from scratch. But if I have already purchased a book/scroll/whatever, I wouldn't need to research that.

In real life, I have had to research (i.e. go to a library or interview people via phone or in person) to write papers on difficult concepts or build volcanoes (grade school), but if the material was at my house already (i.e. a textbook or manual on installing and grouting a tile floor), it was not nearly as intensive. I read and took a few notes, but I would not call it research by any stretch of the imagination.

Thanks for your time. :)
Sikatriks' Lab
Offline
 
Deleted User
Deleted User

Quote:
 
Trading Research
For the first time this season the subject of trading research notes has started to become apparent. The Packlords have decided that traded research must still be read in the same manner as a book or other learning tool. In game terms this means that players will have to expend a Research Action in order to learn what is written in the notes. It is likely that some of these researches will be quicker than normal due to the nature of the notes, however the charatter still has to understand and learn what is written within them. Recipes and items that have an appropriate knowledge relating to will be dealt with on a case by case basis and should be queried with Laboratory, do not assume that you will automatically gain the knowledge.
On a similar vein, the Packlords are currently discussing the points brought up in the player feedback thread. We just thought you'd want to know that it isn't being ignored, just debated.


@DLN: You have good insight into the intention of the Research Trading rules. Most of what you've suggested is what was intended in the announcement.

The Packlords do not intend to stop you from trading your notes, everyone is free to do so on any subject, whether the receiving player has the ability to understand the notes is another matter. A research action must be performed purely because (IC) the charatter needs to learn the details, test the results and make sure they understand how to use their new "recipe" before they put it into action. This means that those with an appropriate knowledge are likely to complete it in a single turn, two if the recipe is overly complex/powerful/confusing.

In terms of players with similar or matching abilities trading knowledge of creating items, you're spot on. Trading the notes for a poison "recipe", for example, can be done easily between two players with knowledge of poison creation. However, it could also potentially be done between two players who do not have matching knowledge, it will just take a lot longer for the receiver to understand the notes (around the same amount of time as a normal research).

As to the trading of "knowledge" research, players are merely sending a copy of their notes once more. This means that knowledge can be gleaned from others notes in the same way that is can be from a book or general research itself. It is likely to take exactly the same amount of time as a normal research (taking into account any knowledge the player already has, etc.)


As to Institute researches, they effectively knock out the need for a player to think when they research a subject matter and as such cannot be failed due to silly methodologies. Some of the simpler researches take two turns, most take three. The real place where players are at an advantage is if they attempt to learn several things at once, as they are effectively able to do up to three researches with a single action, these "combination courses" also have a massively reduced total time in comparison to learning each part individually. (potentially four or five turns less)

 
Warlord Arskittar
Member Avatar


Is it possible to install a chat/shout box at the bottom of the forum? Or will that be to tricky/totally impossible?
''This is all your fault.''
- Mork (or possibly Gork) on MP Season IV

Total Fights:
Wins (1) Losses (0) Draw (0)

The Lab of the Boss
The Coppergrabb Chronicles

Services Provided: Contact me via PM for more information on how I can help you! Please use IC PMs!
Proper Good Business (Spying and General Thuggery) Kinda Good Stuff (Gambling Information and Odds) Dead Shifty Stuff (Bet Fixing Rings and Schemes)
Offline
 
Deleted User
Deleted User

difficult/impossible and, I dare say, completely pointless and annoying.
 
Warlord Arskittar
Member Avatar


Fair enough then :P
''This is all your fault.''
- Mork (or possibly Gork) on MP Season IV

Total Fights:
Wins (1) Losses (0) Draw (0)

The Lab of the Boss
The Coppergrabb Chronicles

Services Provided: Contact me via PM for more information on how I can help you! Please use IC PMs!
Proper Good Business (Spying and General Thuggery) Kinda Good Stuff (Gambling Information and Odds) Dead Shifty Stuff (Bet Fixing Rings and Schemes)
Offline
 
« Previous Topic · General Discussion · Next Topic »

Packlords: Glod-Unbaraki, Morkskittar, Chieftain Quickitt
Theme created by tiptopolive. Find more great themes and skins at the ZB Theme Zone.