Entertainer Archive

I've posted this idea in the ID and Core Systems boards. A suggestion from Atlantiss now makes the idea encompass musicians and dancers so I thought I'd post here to see what you guys think

With the recently released proposed changes to HAM (found in Blair’s post here )
Image Designers are going to lose the ability to do stat migrations (they are going to be completely removed) There are also changes to how HAM works. You will only be able to be incapacitated by your health reaching 0. Action and Mind will be used only to complete special actions.

The SWG handbook describes three HAM pools as follows:

Health: Represents your character’s physical health, including how much physical damage he or she can withstand (in some other games, the Health pool might be called your character’s “hit points”). Health can be deleted by many attacks, including a blaster bolt to the chest of being hit by a Tusken Raider’s gaffi stick.

Action: Your character’s physical energy. It dictates how often you can perform certain actions. Your action pool drains when you’re hit be specific attacks, like a successful Leg Shot. The pool also drains when you use some special combat moves or use the Burst Running Ability.

Mind: Your character’s mental strength, as well as a measure of his or her alertness and ability to complete technical tasks. Many special mores that require concentration (like Aiming) drain from your character’s Mind pool. Certain attacks, such as Head Shot, can also detract from your Mind pool.

I haven’t checked the in game descriptions for a while but I seem to remember them being pretty similar, just a bit more concise.

From these descriptions that Health could be considered physical condition, action a character’s energy level and mind a measure of a characters concentration. Your maximum level for HAM could be thought of as your strength, stamina and intelligence.

As we can see, with the proposed changes to the HAM system, the health, action and mind pools will all work how they are currently described.

We also know that all characters will start with a health pool of 1000 increasing to a maximum of 3000 as they gain combat skills.

My idea is that, as image designers have a personal trainer title, IDs could train a player to increase their physical strength to its maximum potential.

The time and experience a character has invested into their chosen combat profession(s) would be concentrated in training their technique in their chosen fighting style, not their physical strength. Obviously they would get stronger while doing this training like you do playing any sport but the biggest increase in their actual strength would be gained through some sort of intense training.

I propose that any character can raise their maximum health level from 1000 to 2000 by investing xp into combat skill boxes however; once this cap of 2000 has been reached a character can only increase his health past 2000, to the cap of 3000 by training with an ID.

The training would have to be some sort of dynamic skill. The outcome of training would not be directly based on a skillmod; it would be based on a player’s skill.

I envision the system being somewhat similar to the proposed changes to the smuggler slicing system. (Tiggs’ post can be found here )

Once training begins both the ID and the player being trained would have a window appear on their screen. The ID would have the option of what type of training they wish to get their client to complete during the session.

There could be:

•Sit-ups
•Press-ups
•Squat Thrusts
•Weights

Each type of training would have to be completed in a separate session and each would have a maximum health benefit of 250 meaning that all 4 types of exercise would have to be completed to reach the cap of 3000.

The client’s window would show an energy level and a motivation level and an event window the IDs window would show a progress level, would have command buttons and would also have an event window.

The progress would be the size of the (semi – I’ll come to this later) increase in the player’s health bar. This would increase during the session to a maximum of 250 however certain events would occur during this time which would require input from the ID. These events could be events such as “your client is struggling to lift the weight” and would be specific to the type of exercise.

When such an event occurs (it would show on both players’ windows) the ID must respond. They could order the client to do something, offer them some words of encouragement or one of another 2 options. (I can’t really think of what they could all be and all possible events but that’s not too important)

After taking action the client’s motivation levels and energy levels would change and the progress level could also change. Motivation and progress could change positively or negatively, energy level would only be able to change negatively.

The session would end when;

a)The clients energy level reaches 0
b)The clients motivation reaches 0
c)The clients progress reaches 250

The client’s energy level would decrease steadily over time and responses to events could increase or decrease the rate at which the client’s energy level decreases. Progress increase or decrease due to responses to events. Motivation would only change due to responses to events and could increase or decrease.

Your bonus to health could never be decreased by more than a quarter because of a training session. For example, if you start a training session in weights and already have a bonus of 180 to health from a previous session you wouldn’t be able to end the new sessions with a bonus lower than 135. As you get closer to a 250 bonus it would become harder and harder to gain an increase in progress.

This would ensure that training would be skill based and that a player with little skill could not just repeat the training to reach the maximum benefit.

Now, coming back to my comment about the increase being semi permanent. The increase in health would not be on any sort of timer, however, to ensure repeat custom and therefore the long term economic viability of this skill, a player would be able to lower their health bonus outside of a training session.

This debuff could be caused by two events

•Incapacitation
•Death

Incapacitation would give a decrease of the total health bonus by 40 and death by 100. The debuff would be distributed equally between all exercise types that the player has a bonus in and there would be negative bonuses. For example

Fred has invested enough skill points into combat skills to reach the 2000 health cap and has had some training with an ID he has bonuses of 100 in Sit-ups, 50 in Press-ups, 140 in Squat Thrusts and 60 in Weights.

This results in his total max health being 2350.

Fred gets incapacitated by a nuna of all animals and because of this he loses 10 in all of his training areas resulting in a new max health of 2310. His new health bonuses are:

•Sit-ups 90
•Press-ups 40
•Squat Thrusts 130
•Weights 60

Fred then dies twice in PvP combat. Because of this his new health bonuses from training would be:

•Sit-ups 40
•Press-ups -10
•Squat Thrusts 80
•Weights 10

The cap for negative bonuses would be 250 for each training type. This way you cannot have health lower than the 1000 base however repeated death and incapacitation would result in a loss of physical strength. When a player has a negative bonus it would be very easy to gain increases due to training to bring this value back to 0.

So what do you think guys? Post your comments and constructive criticism and I’ll adjust this post as it seems fit.

Just realised that I forgot to outline how the Skill mod asociated with this skill would affect it's outcome. It would simply make the negative effects of any action slightly smaller and the positive ones larger. It wouldn't be so significant that a lower level ID would be obsolete as far as this skill is concerned but it should make it easier for an MID to get to the max 250 bonus in one attempt.

And another thing, the reason I thought it would be good for the client to be able to see energy and motivation levels and not the ID is that it would make the skill more interactive and is well within the realms of logcal reasoning.

:Aditional Comments from others (expanded a little by myself.:

Atlantiss suggested that BF could affect the current bonus given by training. As your BF increases the percentage of your total bonus from training could decrease. Never to a negative value.

Xeranx Suggested that training by an ID should not be the only way to get to the 3000 cap but that it should be quicker to do so when trained by an ID. Continued combat training after reaching mastery in your chosen proffesion could slowly increase your bonus in the training areas. It would have to be slow enough not to nullify the loss of training due to incapacitation/death and as such negate repeat custom for IDs.

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Combat_Medic_to_be wrote:

I agree, it could well be more difficult to implement than it is really worth however if they could utilise the new slicing interface to some extent it might speed things up.

I'm quite suprised more people haven't responded, ah well

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Message Edited by LeBob on 04-01-2005 11:10 AM