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Author Topic: Adventure mode: Jobs for training.  (Read 909 times)

Orange-of-Cthulhu

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Adventure mode: Jobs for training.
« on: March 08, 2021, 10:45:33 am »

IMO a big structural problem in adventure mode is that the only way to get your skills to the level you need to access content like kill big monsters etc is a) a boring repetitive grind b) involves murdering large amounts of innocent beings.

The grind is fun for a while, but it gets old to have to abuse animals on each new adventurer. And it to me is bad for roleplay - I feel more like I am playing "Animal abuser manager" than an adventure game. :)

This incidentally is a problem is many RPG games has - it stems fom the old D & D concept of getting xp every time you killed a monster. In games it easily becomes boring grind and senseless killing in order to get the XP to unlock mid and end game thing - but I know a concept from a game that fixes this.

EXCURSE;
It's an ancient Japanese game called "Princess Maker" from like 1999. I highly recommend the devs to try it out, as it has a really cool character building system. The game IS building a character - you control a girl from like 15 year olds to 20, your choices affect what the ends up as being at 20. I never managed to become a princess, but I remember stuff like dragon slayer, housewife, diplomat, gogo dancer, assassin.

XP there is gotten by jobs - all job gives you xp in some skill, removes xp in other skills and pays you money. So like lumberjack, you get xp for strenght and endurane, loose from intelligence and reading.

And this makes it hard to balance your path so your character doesn't become like a hulk like super strong moron or a frail scholal, but you end up with a character that is both strong and bookish.

BACK TO DF:
In DF Adv mode this could be implemented by adding that the character could take jobs from NPC. Like you talk to the local hunter and asks him to work for him, he says ok, you hit ok, then you get the "time passes screen" you have when you sleep or wait, and when it's done you have some archery and ambusher xp, the same xp dwarves get from the jobs in Fort Mode plus some money. 10 clicks or so and you're legendary and you've been a hunter for a good while.

Jobs you should also have some downsides. Like a hunter job removes xp from other skills. If you only get positives it also becomes a grind. It could be that jobs lower other attributes. So say fish cleaner increases     Agility, Endurance, Kinesthetic Sense BUT it decreases empathy, intuition and language or whatever. That way, you'd have to carefullty choose a path to get to where you want to, and not be like a strong brute or a very agile disease prone weakling.

Eventually all the labors from fortress mode should be available. So you could get a job as animal caretaker, and it would train the attributes    Agility   Analytical Ability   Memory  Empathy. (The wiki says it trains those attributes.) People would more be interested in job that trained combat skills like hunter, guard and such. And strength and endurance, like woodcutter.

It would make developing your character much more fun and roleplayish. Instead of walking around and breaking the legs of impalas and beating them into a pulp, you'd be looking for job positions in the various sites. Along the way you'd develop organic relationships with NPCs, like the old elven hunter you worked for for your throwing/archer.

Combat skills
Should be trainable as working as a guard in sites OR by paying for classes to a martial arts teacher, and those should be hermits living on top of mountains or something like this. And they should refuse to train you a lot of times before they accept you.

I find it very non RP that you learn combat skills by assault and murder, behaving like a serial killer - it's better the way they learn in fortress mode, by training and sparring. If you wanted to do martial arts IRL, you would not go out and assault wildlife :) They also didn't in the middle ages, they trained in a gym.
« Last Edit: March 08, 2021, 08:28:14 pm by Orange-of-Cthulhu »
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NW_Kohaku

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Re: Adventure mode: Jobs for training.
« Reply #1 on: March 08, 2021, 09:15:02 pm »

You already have train-through-use in Adventurer Mode just the same as Fortress Mode, and you train stats related to a skill if you use that skill.  (If you give yourself some basic swimming skill at character creation, and train it up to competent levels, you can set a macro to just swim back and forth in a river repeatedly to strength-train, for example.)  Making Fortress Mode jobs like fish cleaner into Adventure Mode jobs you can actually practice as a job is planned to be added Soon(TM).

The only real reason you'd need to go out and fight random monsters for EXP is because you need to find something you can fight with that doesn't cause you to become a civilization's enemy.  Sparring is perfectly reasonable, and I presume it might be on the list somewhere, although I don't recall it being on a list anywhere in my memories (although I'm sure someone might come along and link it).
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Azerty

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Re: Adventure mode: Jobs for training.
« Reply #2 on: March 09, 2021, 08:11:08 pm »

Sound good, especially when a real economy will be introduced and the adventurer will receive wages for his work.

And some shills might be taught in school too, and it might be more effective but paying, which would nicely balance the thing.
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nik the dwarf

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Re: Adventure mode: Jobs for training.
« Reply #3 on: March 10, 2021, 02:34:25 am »

This idea reminds me of a more ancient game: Darklands. In that RPG, you can have your party lodge in an inn, and seek local employment for a few weeks. The jobs available to your characters depend on their skills. Your party passes a few weeks of time, gains skill, gains money, and gets older. It’s one way of grinding skill and money, but character aging also decreases some attributes. It works for that game, and maybe some version could work in DF adventure mode.
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Nordlicht

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Re: Adventure mode: Jobs for training.
« Reply #4 on: March 10, 2021, 04:13:37 pm »

The magic candle had this too. You could let your jeweler work at a store, your mage would learn new spells at the inn and the rest of the party was still be able to go on adventure.
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Azerty

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Re: Adventure mode: Jobs for training.
« Reply #5 on: March 10, 2021, 05:10:43 pm »

This idea reminds me of a more ancient game: Darklands. In that RPG, you can have your party lodge in an inn, and seek local employment for a few weeks. The jobs available to your characters depend on their skills. Your party passes a few weeks of time, gains skill, gains money, and gets older. It’s one way of grinding skill and money, but character aging also decreases some attributes. It works for that game, and maybe some version could work in DF adventure mode.

From what I could gather about, it look like an impressive video game.
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"Just tell me about the bits with the forest-defending part, the sociopath part is pretty normal dwarf behavior."