How tool slots should work if we want them to be intuitive

tocal · 2020-05-21 19:27:15

Tool slots should work like training does in roguelikes. If I'm shooting the arrow for the first time, I have a high chance of missing my target. If I shoot enough times, eventually I'll it my target, and I'll 'learn' that skill a bit. The next time I shoot an arrow I have a higher chance of hitting the target. Eventually, I have a very high chance of hitting my target, but never 100%.

We could create a new item, bullseye, made of hay, paper, and dye. This would help train your bow skills.

We could create a new item, sparring dummy, which could be used to train warsword and knife.

This would force griefers to play the game before they could kill anyone

Every tool should work this way.
for each tool:
1. use * chance to succeed
2a. failure state:
2b. success state:
3b. chance to succeed * 1.4 (always get 40% better every time you succeed... ratio can be tweaked as needed for different tools)

In roguelikes, you can also cross-train skills that are related. If I cook with an oven a lot, that should cross train with hot coals. Thus, if I successfully cook without burning the food, then I increase cooking chance to succeed * 1.4, but maybe hot coals chance * 1.1. Something positive, but less.

Mallet, Adze, Bowsaw crosstrain,
Newcomen tech crosstrains,
bow drill, fire bow drill, and bow and arrow cross train, etc.

DestinyCall · 2020-05-21 19:48:36

I would be very surprised if OHOL's engine could support that kind of a skill system.

But I like it. :-)

It reminds me of some of the alternative ideas that were proposed around the time we got tool slots. My preference was for professional titles that denoted skill level. Unskilled people had a low success rate, novice workers had a moderate success rate, and senior workers had a high success. If you needed someone to make a new shovel, you could seek out a senior smith to do the job for you.

Alas ... instead we got derp slots and royal titles.

Last edited by DestinyCall (2020-05-21 20:27:16)

fug · 2020-05-21 20:11:27

Been talked about before having a skill system and it's not really in the cards. Regrinding skills every life in my opinion would get real old real fast.

Too much effort for little reward on Jason's end.

DestinyCall · 2020-05-21 20:36:05

It also creates a novel way to grief a village, by repeatedly hopping between jobs so you waste a bunch resources "learning" how to bake a pie or harvest a crop or whatever.

It would be hard to prevent, because everyone would need to be wasteful to learn, unless there was a better way to practice your job skills without breaking tools or costing water. People have also proposed learning by watching other, learning by reading books, and learning by "going to school" when you are a child.

Each system has pros and cons. Most require extensive coding work, so they will only get done if Jason has a fever dream at 4am and becomes inspired, like with the language update.

tocal · 2020-05-21 20:47:28

I'm a software engineer by trade. I feel like this stuff wouldn't be that difficult to implement. Unfortunately, I specialize in java, not cpp, which is the language ohol is written in. Otherwise I'd probably just fork the source and implement it myself. I've browsed the code and I think it wouldn't be that hard to mess around in there if I knew the language better.

To implement this, we'd have to change the data model that represents the player character. I know this is possible because tool slots as they're implemented now already represent a change of the character data model. I know that probabilistic outcomes for actions is already possible because drilling for oil, 'using' for tools and water from ponds are all probabilistic in nature. We'd just have to use success ratios for probabilistic tool usage instead of integers for black/white tool usage. It's definitely possible, just a little bit more complex then the current tool slot system.

Implementing cross training would be a bit more difficult though. We'd have to have a different config file to store the different cross-training scenarios and check that before updating the learned skill ratios.

~

As for having to learn new skills from each new life... it all depends on how it's implemented. Specifically, the initial success rate multiplier, what the failure scenario is, and what the 'learned skill' increase of success rate multiplier is.

Some failure scenarios are easy, like shooting an arrow. If you fail, you miss and the arrow goes on the ground. For smithing, maybe instead of getting the item you want, it resets back to hot steel ingot. You'd have to hit the ingot a lot more times to get what you want, thus using the tool up some more, but from a time standpoint it would only increase the effort to the player by a couple of seconds. Shooting arrows at targets would be a fun way of gambling against other players of different skill sets. Like, each time you hit the target, it tells you how many points you scored (10 for bullseye or something), more skilled shooters having a greater chance of getting bullseyes.

What I'm saying is that having to learn new skills each new life isn't necessarily a time sink, boring, or grinding. Depending on how it's implemented, it can be fun. It could enhance the game be increasing realism, providing mini-games, and being more intuitive.

tocal · 2020-05-21 20:53:01

DestinyCall wrote:

It also creates a novel way to grief a village, by repeatedly hopping between jobs so you waste a bunch resources "learning" how to bake a pie or harvest a crop or whatever.
It would be hard to prevent, because everyone would need to be wasteful to learn, unless there was a better way to practice your job skills without breaking tools or costing water.

It all depends on what the failure state is for failing to learn a tool, the learning improvement ratio, and what success rate you start at. These could be adjusted to prevent griefing. Some tools could be considered so easy that they don't require learning, like shovel. The failure scenarios could be more extreme for tools where the the griefing risk is lower. For baking, maybe it ruins the pie, but doesn't require more resources to fix. Maybe fixing it just requires using a sharp stone on the pie to fix the crust? We just need to lay out the best way of implementing to make it make sense and not be easily griefable.

DestinyCall · 2020-05-21 20:54:46

Yes, it should be possible.

Spoonwood · 2020-05-21 20:56:48

Tool slots are useless at this point in time. If players want such, and they didn't exist, then players could self-impose such limitations. If players with knowledge of tool slots wouldn't restrict themselves to a certain number of tool uses in a life, then there's an indication that they haven't enjoyed them.

Spoonwood · 2020-05-21 21:04:52

tocal wrote:

I know that probabilistic outcomes for actions is already possible because drilling for oil ...

I've seen people like fug and pein say that they don't like oil, because it's an rng grind.

Personally speaking oil becomes more and more annoying to me gradually as I have to use more and more pipes. 2 pipes, alright. Doing oil was fun! 5 pipes, I'm on the fence. 8 pipes? Fuck oil, it's annoying.

Such a probablisitic system may also screw over someone due to no fault of their own.

tocal · 2020-05-21 21:06:13

Spoonwood wrote:

Tool slots are useless at this point in time. If players want such, and they didn't exist, then players could self-impose such limitations. If players with knowledge of tool slots wouldn't restrict themselves to a certain number of tool uses in a life, then there's an indication that they haven't enjoyed them.

Tool slots do serve a purpose... they make it impossible for one veteran to tech up a town in one lifetime by themselves. I've tried to completely tech up a town in one life... If it weren't for tool slots, you could go from pickaxe to loom in one life given someone already found the raw materials. Basically, they slow down the technological advance of towns. They prevent veterans from having an even more outsized effect on a town's success than they already do. They're like effort taxes. Do they help players? eh. Do they increase the health of the game? I would argue abstractly yes, but I don't think anybody's happy about how they actually do it.

Spoonwood · 2020-05-21 21:24:20

tocal wrote:

Tool slots do serve a purpose... they make it impossible for one veteran to tech up a town in one lifetime by themselves.

Such impossibilities don't enhance gameplay. They limit what players can do individually and also collectively, making less achievement possible. Were it the case that one playing doing such were a problem, that player would get killed or at least cursed for teching up a town. I don't think that killing or cursing of such a player for teching up a town was a thing before tool slots. So, I don't know of any evidence that such was ever a problem.

tocal wrote:

I've tried to completely tech up a town in one life... If it weren't for tool slots, you could go from pickaxe to loom in one life given someone already found the raw materials. Basically, they slow down the technological advance of towns.

Slow advancement of towns is a problem, since it leads to them ending up as having fewer resources and more vulnerable to destructive players. Slow advancement also means that the players are less creative and can't create also much. It also means constrained possibilities for communicating, and constrained possibilities for larger projects. It also doesn't give any players a feeling of empowerment. It also doesn't give them a feeling of accomplishment, as they don't do as much as they could. No griefing was ever known to have resulted from players not having tool slots.

Also, without tool slots, players still COULD self-impose such restrictions if they choose to do so.

Thus, the possibilities which go with tool slots are contained in a system without tool slots.

tocal wrote:

Do they increase the health of the game? I would argue abstractly yes, but I don't think anybody's happy about how they actually do it.

Some people stopped playing because of tool slots. They don't help the health of the game, because they arbitrarily inhibit players when players could choose to limit their own selves if they wanted to do so.

tocal · 2020-05-21 21:34:10

Spoonwood wrote:

tocal wrote:
I know that probabilistic outcomes for actions is already possible because drilling for oil ...
I've seen people like fug and pein say that they don't like oil, because it's an rng grind.
Personally speaking oil becomes more and more annoying to me gradually as I have to use more and more pipes. 2 pipes, alright. Doing oil was fun! 5 pipes, I'm on the fence. 8 pipes? Fuck oil, it's annoying.
Such a probablisitic system may also screw over someone due to no fault of their own.

For oil, the failure case is very harsh. You lose 1 bucket of water, one charcoal, one pipe. Also, the success case doesn't make you better at oil exploration. It is just the end of the road... now you have oil until you don't. The devil's in the details. Not all RNG is bad. How RNG is incorporated into the game can be bad, but RNG itself is not inherently good or bad.

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2020-05-21 19:27:15

How tool slots should work if we want them to be intuitive

#2 2020-05-21 19:48:36

Re: How tool slots should work if we want them to be intuitive

#3 2020-05-21 20:11:27

Re: How tool slots should work if we want them to be intuitive

#4 2020-05-21 20:36:05

Re: How tool slots should work if we want them to be intuitive

#5 2020-05-21 20:47:28

Re: How tool slots should work if we want them to be intuitive

#6 2020-05-21 20:53:01

Re: How tool slots should work if we want them to be intuitive

#7 2020-05-21 20:54:46

Re: How tool slots should work if we want them to be intuitive

#8 2020-05-21 20:56:48

Re: How tool slots should work if we want them to be intuitive

#9 2020-05-21 21:04:52

Re: How tool slots should work if we want them to be intuitive

#10 2020-05-21 21:06:13

Re: How tool slots should work if we want them to be intuitive

#11 2020-05-21 21:24:20

Re: How tool slots should work if we want them to be intuitive

#12 2020-05-21 21:34:10

Re: How tool slots should work if we want them to be intuitive

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