Influencing/Non-mass-murdery ways to level up

Shinonome

This thread is a product of a discussion in the Discord today. It came to my knowledge that my 'home' game, Lusternia, is unique among IRE muds in that it has 'Influencing', a nonviolent interaction with mobs. And unique to almost all MMOs--most that experiment with stuff like this tend to cripple the exp output/rewards--it is very competitive with simply mass murdering everything to get to max level... (At max level it does fall behind because no crits = slower exp rate).

My question, then... Will Starmourn have anything like this? Or would the devs consider a system like this?

A little more background just in case anyone is curious:

Influencing uses a vital called 'Ego', which acts as a health pool for influence battles. Reaching 0 means you lose exp equivalent to dying. Bringing the target mob to 0 means you win, and they cannot be influenced again on an equivalent time to the respawn timer. There are several types of influence battles that have different effects. Charity, a popular one, makes the mob give you gold (and quest items if relevant). You can also 'Empower' them to increase the mobs level, 'Weaken' to reduce it, 'Seduce' which is mostly there for questing but can make NPCs attack your personal enemies on sight, and influence with 'Paranoia' to stop all quest interaction until reset.

Then there are some special types of influence battles, such as negotiating amnesty from NPCs you might have killed before...

There is also a pvp aspect to this called debating, which involves choosing a method of 'attack', and a 'mindset' that you think will be resistant to the enemy's attack. There's more to it but I'm mostly interested in seeing the pve side. Starmourn wouldn't need to copy exactly... maybe even something like running trade routes, if exp-lurcrative enough, could be OK... but a competitive alternative to farming mobs on the journey to max level would be welcome...

bairloch

Having only ever played Lusternia among the IRE games, I just assumed they all had someting akin to Influencing. Yes, we need this, please!

Bandus

This certainly sounds interesting to me. I am eager to hear if there is a similar system in Starmourn. 

I do wonder though, the debating side of it, how does that differ from a martial battle? It just sounds like you're using different skills and attacking a different "health" pool, right? Not that is necessarily a bad thing, just curious in a bit more detail about how the mechanics work.

bairloch

You're right, it's semantics, but both are alive at the end, so... we all hug?

Sanae

Bandus said:

This certainly sounds interesting to me. I am eager to hear if there is a similar system in Starmourn. 

I do wonder though, the debating side of it, how does that differ from a martial battle? It just sounds like you're using different skills and attacking a different "health" pool, right? Not that is necessarily a bad thing, just curious in a bit more detail about how the mechanics work.

This mainly is used during 'peaced' or no pk allowed conflict events were you also have to use the abilities on npc's. So if some debates you and you drop to 0, you are not able to influence npc's or participate in the event in that matter for a short cooldown.

Shinonome

Bandus said:

This certainly sounds interesting to me. I am eager to hear if there is a similar system in Starmourn. 

I do wonder though, the debating side of it, how does that differ from a martial battle? It just sounds like you're using different skills and attacking a different "health" pool, right? Not that is necessarily a bad thing, just curious in a bit more detail about how the mechanics work.

Aside from what Sanae said, there are also sometimes debate contests. You can debate people without making the Avenger angry (Lusternia's PVP moderation system -- kill a person more than once in protected areas in a given timeframe, and they can call the avenger on you). And RP/politics/social-wise, it's just more acceptable than doing the stabby shooty thing...

And it can be a distraction/extra sip pressure when you/your friends are doing the stabby shooty thing.

But in the end, you're right, it's just a different attack system on a different kind of health pool. There's other things (namely dramatics/performances) to add complexity to it...

Hailfire

The avenger mechanic sounds like a decent system to avoid people trolling your characters. As for a debate mechanic, finally a mud that actually makes use of a Charisma stat in a meaningful manner! Perhaps not this one, but we'll see. In any case, I like the sound of it.

Bandus

I appreciate the info. It definitely sounds like an interesting mechanic.

Sagex

It would be good to see a influence system back, it was nice to see those who didn't have time to grind or became major credit buyers to level up and even make some money to buy things

Baedundariel

Dynamic gameplay like the OP is suggesting would be a massive bloon to the game, allowing to alleviate some of the grind pressure and widen the leveling path.  Love this idea.  

Oogah_Chakha

MKO had fishing and a similar thing to influencing, where you'd preach to NPCs to convert them to your divine. Fishing gave XP for every fish captured and a bigger chunk when you ranked up your fishing, as well as credits at certain ranks.

It would be nice to see something similar here in Starmourn, like instead of fishing maybe we have resource hunters, who gather resources from asteroids, comets and other celestial objects. The act of harvesting could give experience while the materials could be sold to other players or city-based NPCs at depots with fixed prices controlled by the Finance minister of that city.

Fairmia10

The best way, is wisdom
Basically if characters read and learn enough in a certain skill, they will be able to teach Adventures or NPCs this way, they would gain levels threw wisdom and wits
Cause simply fighting would just be regular
I also believe that drinking wine or doing things your race prefers will cause your wisdom to gain a little faster

Tecton

While we'll have some non-bloodthirsty ways of gaining xp, we won't have a completely pacifist means of advancement at the same rate as bashing/hunting (at least at launch), I'm afraid.

Shinonome

Well, at least there's something. Thanks for replying.

Scathain

MKO had preaching, fishing, exploring and most importantly, archaeology as ways of getting xp. There would be these caches of scrolls scattered around the world that would provide pretty good xp (a controversially high amount, as it often outpaced bashing, particularly at low levels), which worked great for my characters and formed the basis for some of my later roleplay (when I roleplayed finding a cache of ancient scrolls in language I could not understand, those were what I was referring to, and would only roleplay that after actually finding such a cache in the location specified. My character of course created a spell to quickly copy such scrolls, to circumvent the problem of them crumbling to dust so quickly). These caches would be uncovered by appraising a location, with various locations having various probabilities of having one, and them resetting every so often.  Back before the exloration xp was modified to only work for manual exploration, I used to get the first 15 or so levels on my new alts through exploration. Overall, MKO blew away even Lusternia in ease of non-combat leveling, at least for casual levelers like me, and I particularly loved the cache system (leveling in Lusternia was just painful for me, combat or non-combat. I don't think I ever managed to get a character to level 20 there).

Kabaal

Lithmeria had proselytizing where you'd go preach to a mob and try to convert it to your religion. How well you solved the puzzle (moving around a grid of 4 colors to eliminate them without leaving yourself with nowhere to go) determined whether it'd follow yours or the others, with some variability since it tracked over time to a degree. Most PvE activities of any sort came with exp bonuses. I was pushing for a 'social' xp before I stopped playing where you'd get exp on 30m ticks for says and emotes near people with increased exp for more people around and more interactions with unique characters per time period.

TextWench

I am always in favor of more diversity in exp grinding. Bashing is almost never an enjoyable activity for me, but exploring, solving puzzles, debating, INTERESTING quests that don't rely on the 'guess the verb' game? Yes, please. 

I am also a fan of the mechanical rewards Lusty used to have for content creation in the form of library submissions and performances that used player feedback to determine the worth of a thing. 

Not everyone is going to love all of those things, and that's cool. Bashing shouldn't be seen as the primary/only real method of getting where you are going, imo. MUDs are definitely improved by having variety in your leveling game. 

tark

I imagine hacking is likely to grant XP. Not that I'm an expert on the subject, but it'd make sense.

Sagex

hacking would be a good way to get exp without fighting.

bairloch

I'd love an "information broker" type of "trade" skill based around hacking. Kind of like what Neo was up to at the beginning of the Matrix, but less... cinematic.

firedwarfs

Oogah_Chakha said:

MKO had fishing and a similar thing to influencing, where you'd preach to NPCs to convert them to your divine. Fishing gave XP for every fish captured and a bigger chunk when you ranked up your fishing, as well as credits at certain ranks.

It would be nice to see something similar here in Starmourn, like instead of fishing maybe we have resource hunters, who gather resources from asteroids, comets and other celestial objects. The act of harvesting could give experience while the materials could be sold to other players or city-based NPCs at depots with fixed prices controlled by the Finance minister of that city.

This made me think of Chribba from Eve Online. There are definitely going to be people who like mining things and crafting and selling more than fighting. 

Retherian

bairloch said:

I'd love an "information broker" type of "trade" skill based around hacking. Kind of like what Neo was up to at the beginning of the Matrix, but less... cinematic.

Aw come on now...follow the white rabbit 

TNA

bairloch said:

I'd love an "information broker" type of "trade" skill based around hacking. Kind of like what Neo was up to at the beginning of the Matrix, but less... cinematic.

Ah the old what was Neo selling debate...

http://www.scifiscripts.com/scripts/matrix_96_draft.txt

If you actually read the scripts he was supposed to be selling his hacking services to get rid of parking tickets, things change in production though.

Sairys

Awakened Worlds (based on Shadowrun) actually has a system like that which is pretty neat. 

You break into nodes, defeat any countermeasures (ICE), and start downloading whatever you can get your hands on (which in turn can bring in more ICE).
Once you're logged out you can track down people to sell it to. But, from memory, the data is less valuable as time goes on and if you, or others, have been selling data from the same node recently. (So publicly accessible nodes can be pretty low value)

We could do better though, maybe have some way to get access to meaningful data/tech that you could sell to an org?

TNA

@Sairys Never played awakened worlds, but have played like every shadowrun thing ever. You can even hire me via the angel network in shadowrun dragonfall and Hong Kong (kickstarter, ftw.)

What you describe is like a  watered down version of standard shadowrun hacking, complete with the sell data tables. Something like this to unload your hack would be neat and keep hacking player bank accounts out of the equation.

Sairys

TNA said:

@Sairys Never played awakened worlds, but have played like every shadowrun thing ever. You can even hire me via the angel network in shadowrun dragonfall and Hong Kong (kickstarter, ftw.)

What you describe is like a  watered down version of standard shadowrun hacking, complete with the sell data tables. Something like this to unload your hack would be neat and keep hacking player bank accounts out of the equation.

Sounds right, they try to replicate as much as they can in a mud.

But yeah, I imagine that rather than just having people you can sell data to, maybe it's also a resource that you can use to unlock stuff on an individual and organisational level.

And maybe you can sell that data to players or orgs so they can get those benefits?

Satomi

Shadowrun is my favorite thing ever. Ever. -EVER-

Sairys

Sadly I've only had the opportunity to play the pen and paper version one time. (I played a technomancer with a moderate MMO addiction, his greatest dream was to become a wizard and he did... on the internet)

bairloch

Sairys said:

Awakened Worlds (based on Shadowrun) actually has a system like that which is pretty neat. 

You break into nodes, defeat any countermeasures (ICE), and start downloading whatever you can get your hands on (which in turn can bring in more ICE).
Once you're logged out you can track down people to sell it to. But, from memory, the data is less valuable as time goes on and if you, or others, have been selling data from the same node recently. (So publicly accessible nodes can be pretty low value)

We could do better though, maybe have some way to get access to meaningful data/tech that you could sell to an org?

I'd love me some Shadowrun mixed into this game. Any devs listening?

TNA

Sairys said:

And maybe you can sell that data to players or orgs so they can get those benefits?

Good idea. Could also be used for item creation research, as has been referenced in the economy stuff.

ETA - should try shadowrun returns, dragonfall and Hong Kong. All on steam, Google play etc.

Kabaal

Aside from ship and infantry combat and their related missions, these are the things I expect:

'Discoverables' - Easter eggs that reward creds/exp/lore, located off the beaten path. More valuable the more obscure and guarded they are.

Cargo hauling missions (including player contracts)

Exploration missions - Go to area, scan around, find derelicts or anomalies that you have to hack/other 'PvE' skill like a data analysis minigame or something? Same mechanical slot as Archaeology from EVE, so getting the most out of exploring would require a 'PvE' build of spacefaring/hacking/research/salvaging modules, and probably fast engines if you want to get away from mean things.

Trade missions - Get the goods to the person, whether you make, buy, or steal them.

Diplomacy missions - Influencing. I'd be happy just showing up and picking 2-3 responses in a convo with skills and faction rep influencing the end number.