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[Urist McRas]

(Sorry for my english, feel free to correct me.)

There are skills that can be trained very fast via exploits. E.g. one can order lots of jobs and remove them once they validated. Or use danger rooms to train military skills.

Those skills, obviously, were not intended to be trainable that fast. Surely, it's possible to close all the exploits, but it will reqire a lot of various patches here and there. And those !!scientists!! will keep discovering new exploits.

Here's a way to greatly reduce effectiveness of using the exploits for rapid training. It shall have almost no effect on gameplay or FPS. And it looks like it's easy to program.

There shall be limit to the rate of gaining experience. For example, no dwarf shall gain more then 1000 xp per month. The limit shall be just above the rate of normal xp gaining.

I think, it should be made like that: at 1st of every month game sets variable "dwarf.xpLimit" to 1000 (each dwarf has his own variable). Every time dwarf gains experience, number of xp gained is reduced from "dwarf.xpLimit". If "dwarf.xpLimit" is less than zero, dwarf gains no xp until 1st of the next month.

This rule does not apply to mood-related experience, of course.

There are many other ways to use the idea, but I don't have any reasons to pick one. Examples: limit xp gain for different duration (a season or a day); limit xp gain for every skill separately; dwarfs do gain xp after reaching the limit, but way slower.

I have quite reasonable explanation for the rule. In real life it's impossible to learn things faster than certain speed. For example you are learning a foreign language. It's quite easy to remember 3 new words a day. Not so easy to remember 10, and almost impossible to remember 100. Whatever you do, they just don't fit into your head. The same with any other skill. (Maybe we should make up some dwarven explanation. Something with !!kittens!!)

Criticism is welcome as long as it supports my point

[GreatWyrmGold]

I suppose limiting skill gain to X per month could work. Maybe also reduce XP from being hit with traps?

[bluefox]

I think you're right about the limit a person can learn in a day. But that should depend on the body attributes (strength, intelligence, etc) and the soul attributes (willpower, intuition, etc). For instance, someone who has great endurance and kinesthetic sense might be able to learn more per day during a sparring session than his fellow squadmate with average attributes.

To determine what the limit of experience per day should be, that depends on how long it should reasonably take to reach Legendary. Personally, I think that should be a lifetime achievement - someone who has dedicated a sizeable portion of their lives (at least a couple decades) can be deemed as a legend. Looking over the experience table, a dwarf hits Legendary+5 at 30,000 XP. A dwarven month is 28 days, there are twelve months in the dwarven calendar, two decades minimum, that's 6720 days to become a legend, or 4 XP per day.

Choosing the right dwarf with appropriate attributes would then add a multiplier of, say, 1.5 or even 2, making for a max of 8 XP per day, or 224 XP per month.

I note that this would be a *drastic* change over current skill gains, as most jobs give +30 XP per use (though I don't think it's known how much gain sparring gives, though it's obviously less than actual combat). Rust rates would also have to be adjusted, as a mere 4 XP per day is not currently enough to gain any progress.

Edit: maths is hard.

[pisskop]

What if you could gain the current amount of experience/use up until a ceiling is reached?  Then the XP rates drop dramatically.  This could apply per month/year/always or apply to specific tasks.  This way there is no 'cap' on experience, but since rates decline there is no excessive gain over any one period of time.

Specific tasks would require new variables to be kept, but it may as well be put out there.

Edit:  Also, intelligence modifiers sound good.

[Damiac]

But.... why? If someone wants to use an obvious exploit to train their dwarves extra fast, that's their call.  It's a single player game, who cares if people want to cheat?
If you use legitimate training methods, the experience gain is quite slow.  It's not as if you can accidentally exploit the system as it is now, you really have to go out of your way.

That said, your suggestion doesn't seem entirely unreasonable, it just seems like it wouldn't impact people playing the game normally.  I don't see the point of making a change just to stop training exploits.

[XXSockXX]

That said, your suggestion doesn't seem entirely unreasonable, it just seems like it wouldn't impact people playing the game normally.  I don't see the point of making a change just to stop training exploits.

I agree, many players consider danger rooms cheating anyway, but there would be new exploits/cheats and these are not entirely bad as they can help new players to get used to the game.

[Urist McRas]

I think you're right about the limit a person can learn in a day. But that should depend on the body attributes (strength, intelligence, etc) and the soul attributes (willpower, intuition, etc). For instance, someone who has great endurance and kinesthetic sense might be able to learn more per day during a sparring session than his fellow squadmate with average attributes.

Of course, it should be based on attributes, that occured to me too. Looks like, the attributes were introduced for something like that in the first place. Didn't write about it because it would take much more time for Toady to think out and add so complicated system.

That said, your suggestion doesn't seem entirely unreasonable, it just seems like it wouldn't impact people playing the game normally.  I don't see the point of making a change just to stop training exploits.

I agree, many players consider danger rooms cheating anyway, but there would be new exploits/cheats and these are not entirely bad as they can help new players to get used to the game.

Well, yes. Personally, I use them. But I think, they should be fixed.

[dwarf_sadist]

Simply limiting what a dwarf may do in his waking hours might be effective as well. You could make it so fatigue is gained from every action, no matter how small. Harder or more stressful actions will result in more fatigue gained per action.

During combat, the dwarf will be:
stressed, +fatigue
hungry, +fatigue
thirsty, +fatigue
!!alert!!, ++fatigue
dodging, +++fatigue per dodge attempt
parrying, +++fatigue per parry attempt
blocking, ++fatigue per blocking attempt
surrounded, ++fatigue per square (all six sides)
bored, +fatigue

As fatigue is piled up, the dwarf starts to lose focus and concentration on all targets becomes harder, the fighting ability of the dwarf decreases; first against targets behind the dwarf, then targets to the sides and then finally all targets. Then Urist passes out.

Making it so that learning in the library also requires fatigue to be used(or gained?) will limit the amount of actions a dwarf may make per day. Thus, should the dwarf learn to read, or should Urist make clay pots. Making sex require energy could also be used to reduce the number of children, without resorting to...

PS: The dwarfs should later be able to delegate their own time, without the player having to micromanage them. I hate forgetting about my dwarf in the training room...

[Damiac]

That makes a lot of sense.  I'd say have them just go to bed, rather than passing out, but that would make being idle a lot less wasteful.  I tend to work my dwarves pretty hard.

[dwarf_sadist]

That makes a lot of sense.  I'd say have them just go to bed, rather than passing out, but that would make being idle a lot less wasteful.  I tend to work my dwarves pretty hard.

Of course everyone is different. Some dwarves get long holidays to study. Others get grinded in the ground through hard working foreman. Others simply stand idle near the well and talk about plump helmets while their overseers tries to figure out how to work burrows.

[Volour]

In response to dwarf_sadist

Only a thought here but sleeping tends to take awhile. So if your trying to run your fortress full tilt I could imagine that fatigue would take a toll on the production etc of the fortress.

Training the military would be that much harder if they tend to fatigue easily.

Different work means different fatigue. Detailing a chair into stone would be some tedious work. Anything crafting or hauling stone etc, would be heavy on fatigue.


 A great idea, I love the idea of fatigue, just it could be the downfall when half the population is sleeping and the other half slaving over their work, and that one idler you need to press a lever to halt santa goblin.

[10ebbor10]

While the idea makes sense, I don't entirely approve. There were other ideas in the forum (especially the bitmaps skills) that make much more sense to me, as well as being more fun. So rather than putting a limit, it divides the skill in lot's of partially overlapping subskills. This means that repititive actions, where the dwarf does the same thing over and over again, are much less efficient, especially after the first month. It also means that a dwarf which is good in woodcarving makes a decent carpeter and stuff.

[dwarf_sadist]

In response to dwarf_sadist

Only a thought here but sleeping tends to take awhile. So if your trying to run your fortress full tilt I could imagine that fatigue would take a toll on the production etc of the fortress.

Training the military would be that much harder if they tend to fatigue easily.

Different work means different fatigue. Detailing a chair into stone would be some tedious work. Anything crafting or hauling stone etc, would be heavy on fatigue.


 A great idea, I love the idea of fatigue, just it could be the downfall when half the population is sleeping and the other half slaving over their work, and that one idler you need to press a lever to halt santa goblin.

If you are working your dwarfs to the point that they pass out, I would suggest taking a course in management. A fatigued worker can still do things, but cannot do exhausting actions, such as actual combat. Training your soldiers would be the equivalent of lifting a wheelbarrow. ACTUAL COMBAT would be the only point where your workers would have a chance to pass out.

[Silverionmox]

Before nerfing xp gain from wacky setups it would be good to un-nerf xp gain from training. Organizing it is a pain and vulnerable to ai failure.

[Damiac]

No kidding.  Training needs to work better, and less people would be encouraged to exploit.

I just let my dwarves train in groups of 2, but that's still not very good, nor is it at all consistant.