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Author Topic: Non-murderous combat XP in adv mode - barrack sparring.  (Read 1900 times)

Orange-of-Cthulhu

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Non-murderous combat XP in adv mode - barrack sparring.
« on: September 07, 2021, 12:02:39 pm »

I was thinking that when the Steam release comes out, a lot of people probably won't like the usual training method in adventure mode which looks like animal abuse. Like breaking the legs of a large animal and gouging it's eyes out and then striking it all day.

I think it's posssiblt it will put a lot of people off when like the big masses buys the game and it's not just the good old communty. And then they find out that to do well in adv mode, you need to find and some animal and break their legs and gouge their eyes out and then kick the shit out of it. Many people are really sensitive about stuff like that, and they might be fine with it being possible to do in the game, but not sure if they're fine with it being a thing you NEED to do in order to really play the game. So I'm thinking, it's something that could potentially hurt the sales.

I'm not a marketeer specialist, but I think "this game requires your char to torture animals" isn't really the best selling angle lol.

On further thought, the combat system being as it it, quite deadly, I think most tweaks of this won't work. (Like removing striking xp from striking an incapacitated foe with noe eyes and legs or a foe that is passed out).

Because combat is so deadly and it's so easy to get nerve damage, training your char will always about assaulting the least dangerous foe that gives you XP.

And because the world of DF is a simulation, it will always be pretty gruesome no matter which creatures you kill.

It's a really common stabple in fantasy games that you start by levelling uo your char by killing a horde of fodder enemies.

I don't think it works so well in DF, because  it kinds of breaks the spell plus (at least to me) enemies feel less like killable faceless NPCs because of the simulation.It makes your char seem evil. It's fine that you can play as evil is you like to, but I don't think it should be like that it's sort of impossible to play the game as a nice guy that doesn't murder defenseless animals/people because he wants to get better at killing stuff. It should be a choice if you want to slaughter random animals/people, not something you need to do.

I was thinking it would maybe be a good idea to just sidestep the need to kill stuff for the XP would be to add some places where you could train combats. Like Fortesses have barracks, you could add barracks to human and elven sites. Or there are axelord-NPCs that will train your axe skill. And then you just go there and click "train for [insert number] weeks" and boom, you get the experience. And then you spar like the dwarves in Fortress mode. It would also tie the modes together - like you can create a fort and make a barrack, and then go and train your adventurer in the barrack you made the same way the fortress mode dwarves train. Now it's like this really big difference where in fortress mode dwarves spar like normal people - and in adv mode, you're like an insane serial killer and animal abuser lol.

I mean. Imagine that if dwarves in fortress mode trained by strangling puppy dogs for a year.

You could always add whatever requirements to get to train to spice it up, like it costs money or you need to have a good standing with the civ or whatever. Or it can be limited what skills you can train in a barrack, so you have to look around for one to train whatever you want to train - maybe a barrack just has two weapons "on offer" so you need to find a barrack that does spears if you want that. It's maybe a good idea to make the training stuff more interesting than just click train > legendary in everything, but I think the main issue is to remove the need to kill random creatures.

So like it's the first period of the game and you travel to sites to find good barracks that'll take you, untill your ready and you're done with training and go on and kill beats. And instead of it starting with a period of senseless murder where you just assult whatever you come across that has the right size for a traning object, your char would more be part of the game world.
« Last Edit: September 07, 2021, 12:29:58 pm by Orange-of-Cthulhu »
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Mr Crabman

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Re: Non-murderous combat XP in adv mode - barrack sparring.
« Reply #1 on: September 07, 2021, 01:24:54 pm »

This makes a lot of sense, but I would say that the "band-aid tweaks" you mention like not getting much/any xp from attacking things that can't actually try and avoid you or fight back also make sense to add, because frankly that's no different from punching a training dummy in terms of "makes you better at striking".

Of course, ultimately an overhaul of the skill system in general would make sense eventually (but not as soon as the Steam release); it's bizarre that you can get squads of dwarves to legendary skill within a couple of years in fortress mode, and similar for other common skills; "legendary" is literally the stuff of legends, it should be rare to see in a fort or anywhere else!

Mobbstar

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Re: Non-murderous combat XP in adv mode - barrack sparring.
« Reply #2 on: September 07, 2021, 03:23:11 pm »

Sparring would be nice for flavour and storytelling.  Right now, we can put the animal abuse into Fort mode, but can't put the ethically sound practice into Adventurer mode.  That said...

I was thinking that when the Steam release comes out, a lot of people probably won't like the usual training method in adventure mode which looks like animal abuse. Like breaking the legs of a large animal and gouging it's eyes out and then striking it all day.

No need to wait for the premium release, I'll say it right now: WTF

Where did you get this horrific idea from?  If you want to grind for XP, simply sneak up on and grab (wrestle) a small animal.  The encounter will be elevated to "brawl" at worst, and training is just a matter of waiting at this point.  Either the animal tries to flee, training wrestling (and fighting!) rapidly, or the animal softly scratches at you, training armour and shield use.  Attributes get raised too.  It's still animal abuse, and it is still not fun, but at least it is not as needlessly brutal and effortous as described.

And it really is "needlessly" brutal.  For example, I've cleaned out a vault with a fresh Demigod adventurer before, on v0.47.05 even.  No skill grinding, no stealing from towns, only what the adventurer creation allowed for;  If that's not powerful enough, then I'm afraid maybe it's time to either "git gud" at combat, or to accept losing as a possible consequence of challenging greater forces as a lone peasant.

Orange-of-Cthulhu

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Re: Non-murderous combat XP in adv mode - barrack sparring.
« Reply #3 on: September 07, 2021, 05:06:00 pm »

No need to wait for the premium release, I'll say it right now: WTF

Where did you get this horrific idea from?  If you want to grind for XP, simply sneak up on and grab (wrestle) a small animal.  The encounter will be elevated to "brawl" at worst, and training is just a matter of waiting at this point.  Either the animal tries to flee, training wrestling (and fighting!) rapidly, or the animal softly scratches at you, training armour and shield use.  Attributes get raised too.  It's still animal abuse, and it is still not fun, but at least it is not as needlessly brutal and effortous as described.

I got it from googling how to train your adventurer - it's a standard method. All over the internet. On the DF wikipedia as well. https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Tutorial:Powerplay_Guide#Offensive_training

Wrestling a small animal gets you wrestling, fighting and defensive skills.

But you want to grind striking and maybe a weapon skill as well. How you do that is find a BIG animal, loke a camel, break it's legs, gouge eyes out and then set a macro to strike it somewhere where you can strike it all day.

When DF gets to Steam I think this will happen: Many of games requires you to have really high skills before you can do the really cool stuff. And skill grinding is just such a common concept that people go for it without thinking about not doing it. So loads of people, well when they buy the game and see "oh, it has skills that levels higher by xp", you just google right away how to get them way up high. High levels usually means more fun enemies and more cool stuff to do. And it will just be something people see really early - "blind a horse and strike it with your whip till it dies, then find another and repeat."

Like you said, yeah it's pretty horrific the striking-a-blinded-aninal-method. :) It's why I think it would be good to remove the incentive for it.

If DF becomes big on Steam, the community around the game will change overnight to be really different. I think it's tempting fate to have animal torture in the game as a common way to start adv mode. :)
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nik the dwarf

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Re: Non-murderous combat XP in adv mode - barrack sparring.
« Reply #4 on: September 08, 2021, 06:54:19 pm »

Or there are axelord-NPCs that will train your axe skill. And then you just go there and click "train for [insert number] weeks" and boom, you get the experience.
...snip...
I mean. Imagine that if dwarves in fortress mode trained by strangling puppy dogs for a year.
...snip...
 It's maybe a good idea to make the training stuff more interesting than just click train > legendary in everything, but I think the main issue is to remove the need to kill random creatures.

Newbie adventurer seeks the wise master of the hidden elven forest retreat. Adventurer persuades the master for his lessons. Cue the training montage! Carrying water buckets up the tree. Jumping from branch to branch. Humanely wrestling giant squirrels. All that.
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Mobbstar

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Re: Non-murderous combat XP in adv mode - barrack sparring.
« Reply #5 on: September 09, 2021, 07:14:40 am »

Newbie adventurer seeks the wise master of the hidden elven forest retreat. Adventurer persuades the master for his lessons. Cue the training montage! Carrying water buckets up the tree. Jumping from branch to branch. Humanely wrestling giant squirrels. All that.

A fairytale warrior princess, training kickboxing with the friendly local kangaroos.


(Just to clarify, I'm thankful Orange made this suggestion and hope it gets implemented sooner than later.)

Orange-of-Cthulhu

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Re: Non-murderous combat XP in adv mode - barrack sparring.
« Reply #6 on: September 09, 2021, 09:18:58 am »

Newbie adventurer seeks the wise master of the hidden elven forest retreat. Adventurer persuades the master for his lessons. Cue the training montage! Carrying water buckets up the tree. Jumping from branch to branch. Humanely wrestling giant squirrels. All that.

Yes and they have to refuse to train you several times before they accept. "I am ready to teach, but you are not ready to learn. Go away!"
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Starver

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Re: Non-murderous combat XP in adv mode - barrack sparring.
« Reply #7 on: September 09, 2021, 11:04:51 am »

...you may have to provide your own wax and pigments.
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DwarfStar

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Re: Non-murderous combat XP in adv mode - barrack sparring.
« Reply #8 on: September 09, 2021, 02:44:25 pm »

I think a good way to limit this feature is to strictly limit how high a level you can attain. Maybe each level of training should cost exponentially more, in time and money, so that you can’t really ever practicality train above level 6 or 7. That seems more realistic, since no one should be able to become legendary with a weapon having not used it in real combat. And it would allow you to become competent enough to practically start leveling up by getting into real combat with a chance of surviving.
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IndigoFenix

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Re: Non-murderous combat XP in adv mode - barrack sparring.
« Reply #9 on: September 10, 2021, 05:37:21 am »

Makes perfect sense - it's already in the game.  Sparring units use the same behavior as regular fighters, they just replace actual damaging strikes with "lightly touch".  Add an button in Adventure to toggle "sparring mode" where your attacks do no damage, and you're done.

I would also like to see the option of asking someone (party members or random soldiers) to spar with you.

adseaghtrnjty

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Re: Non-murderous combat XP in adv mode - barrack sparring.
« Reply #10 on: December 22, 2021, 11:43:12 pm »

I was thinking that when the Steam release comes out, a lot of people probably won't like the usual training method in adventure mode which looks like animal abuse. Like breaking the legs of a large animal and gouging it's eyes out and then striking it all day.

I've managed to train this without hurting animals. Find a wandering person, they'll be hostile, then absolutely destroy one part of their body repeatedly. I've gotten several skills to legendary this way. You can even run away, travel, find them again, and they'll be healed.

No need to wait for the premium release, I'll say it right now: WTF

Where did you get this horrific idea from?  If you want to grind for XP, simply sneak up on and grab (wrestle) a small animal.  The encounter will be elevated to "brawl" at worst, and training is just a matter of waiting at this point.  Either the animal tries to flee, training wrestling (and fighting!) rapidly, or the animal softly scratches at you, training armour and shield use.  Attributes get raised too.  It's still animal abuse, and it is still not fun, but at least it is not as needlessly brutal and effortous as described.

And it really is "needlessly" brutal.  For example, I've cleaned out a vault with a fresh Demigod adventurer before, on v0.47.05 even.  No skill grinding, no stealing from towns, only what the adventurer creation allowed for;  If that's not powerful enough, then I'm afraid maybe it's time to either "git gud" at combat, or to accept losing as a possible consequence of challenging greater forces as a lone peasant.

I have literally messed up my adventurers by trying to wrestle small animals, so I think animals "softly" scratching you is an overstatement. I've destroyed my arms and probably died before from scratches. It's much better to train on a horseshoe crab since they can't even attack you.
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