Post:New TDP Method - 10/02/2012 - 14:56

Re: New TDP Method · on 10/02/2012 03:56 PM EDT	3329
So to recap, the method in Prime today gives you one TDP for every 200 ranks earned - If you rank from 199 to 200, you'd gain one TDP. The original proposed system for DR3 had it so that you'd gain one TDP for every 125 ranks earned for the top 3 skills in your primary skillset, top 3 skills in each secondary skillset, and top 3 tertiary skills altogether, and one TDP every 400 ranks of every other skill. The goal behind this proposed system was to allow people with less time to still gain TDPs at a reasonable rate, even if they couldn't train 20 skills at once. However, after a lot of thinking, I've come to the conclusion that this won't really make things better for the 'part timers', as it were. The full timers will simply adapt their training mechanisms to optimize TDP gain, and will still scream ahead (perhaps faster!) of anybody that can't dedicate the time or training to get all of the skills moving. Additionally, there were a lot of people that were getting REALLY hosed with this model - Codiax was losing over ten thousand TDPs, some people (especially mages) were gaining a whole ton of them. After grandfathering, the average increase in TDPs was 50%. So, I ran some models with new skills (including grandfathering) using the old "one TDP per 200 ranks" system, and it turned out that this punished people the least (on average), bonused people the least, and was by FAR the simplest to code. On average, people were gaining 1.5% TDPs, with an average of ~250. Some people are still gaining ridiculous numbers of TDPs, but it's far fewer, and the bell curve is very pleasing. So, what do we do about trying to make the game a little more balanced for people that don't have the time to train everything, all the time? This brings me to something I've been tossing around, which will help level the playing field and also solve some other problems we've had. Basically, I'm looking at giving bonus drain rate if you're draining a few skills, and slowing the drain rate if you're draining many skills. This basically emulates the notion of cramming a handful of important skills vs trying to learn a whole bunch of things at once. Discipline will probably alleviate this somewhat. Note that you won't be LOSING experience - It'll just take longer to absorb the experience you've earned in some cases.
This message was originally posted in Abilities, Skills and Magic \ The Experience System, by DR-SOCHARIS on the play.net forums.