Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Why Learn-By-Use skill systems are Nonsensical and Dumb

Telengard

Arcane
Joined
Nov 27, 2011
Messages
1,621
Location
The end of every place
To begin with, it helps to understand what are the main things people like about Learn-By-Use skill systems. Why they like that swimming across the lake for a set period of time increases the character's Swimming skill.

1) Learn-by-use takes the basic rpg premise of the rat pressing the little lever and sometimes getting a treat that is the rpg level-up system, and turns it into to a much more visceral and constant pleasure. With learn-by-use, the player can hammer on the little lever of a single skill and get little treats of skill increases on a regular basis, instead of having to wait for those mass treats from a level increase. Hammer, hammer = +1 treat. Hammer, hammer, hammer = +1 treat. Etc.

2) Learn-by-use "makes sense". That statement essentially being a hugely common quote from proponents.

But why does learn-by-use "make sense"? To take but one example of the skill Construction - why does running around hammering nails into random boards constantly increase the character's Construction skill. And why can the player use this fact to run around hammering nails into every board in the game until suddenly they can craft an aircraft carrier? What do board nailing and aircraft carrier constuction have to do with each other?

Nothing, of course. Which throws out the whole "makes sense" premise. How does it make sense that performing a specific, isolated, simple task raises a general skill instead of raising the skill of that specific task? Why doesn't the character's skill of Hammering-nails-into-boards increase instead? That is, after all, the only skill you're actually "using".

Of course, that's absurd. The skillset of an rpg has to be abstracted down to a level that is manageable by the player. There can't be a billion different specific skills and the game still function. Yet, the very fact that the rpg skills are thusly always abstracted breaks the very notion that the character is learning by use. Instead, the character is learning a skill by performing a semi-related minigame defined by an isolated, singular task - like hammering nails into boards. That little minigame of finding boards and clicking nails into them becomes the means of raising the Construction skill.

So, how does that "make sense"?

Well, it makes sense to the literalist, autistic mind. When they perform this specific minigame task, it causes this specific skill to get a +1 treat. All of the skills thus become neatly placed in their own cubbyhole, isolated from one another. Increasing skills loses any connection to reality, even in an abstract form, and becomes instead a methodology of neatly separated and easily understandable tasks. It thus reduces the complexities of interaction with the world into tightly constructed, numerical-based minigames with no relation to one another or to real life. Or in other words, something perfectly sensible for the autist who doesn't relate to real life to begin with.

Completely divorced from reality for everyone else, though, and thus entirely unintuitive.

The Fundamental Premise of Learn-By-Use Is Wrong: The nonsensical nature of learn-by-use doesn't stop with its minigames, though. Because learn-by-use is not at all how people actually learn. To take an example that I have used here before, since many of you can, I'm sure, relate - computers. How often have you helped someone learn to email or to make a post on Facebook? Quite often? Well then, you already know how things really work in the field, rather than in the theory on the paper.

You teach someone how to Facebook post, and they learn that one task, and then they immediately stop learning. They will thereafter happily Facebook post away, and just as happily refuse to learn anything else about computers, or even anything else about Facebook, for that matter. Then, if they ever want to utilize one of the other features of Facebook, Facebook games for instance, do they spontaneously learn this new task themselves through their previously regular use of Facebook? No, they come back to you and ask you to help them learn how to access the games.

And that is because people do not learn by use. They learn by the trifecta of Expert, Practice, Fieldwork. In the case of Facebook, you are the expert. You teach them the new skill of Facebook posting. Then you observe them for a bit while they practice under your supervision. And finally you set them free to perfect their new skill in the field on their own. So, they do technically learn by practice and repetition, but only to the threshold to which you have taught them.

Learn-by-use thus denies reality itself by cutting out you, the expert. Instead, learn-by-use allows characters to increase skills simply through practice and field work.

Spontaneous Learning: A rare few people do learn things on their own - lets call them inventors. Inventors create whole new things out of thin air. Essentially, they do increase their skill by use. They create something new, and then they perfect that new thing themselves, and thus increase their skill. And then they become an Expert in that new thing, and teach that new thing to others. The fact that inventors are quite rare, though, means that this sort of spontaneous self-improvement is too rare to even be usefully incorporated into an abstract skill system.

Experts: We all actually know that experts are involved in learning, since experts are so much a part of our lives. As toddlers, it is our parents who teach us. Then a bit later, it is our parents and our teachers at school. And a bit later after that, it is our friends and our teachers. And when we enter the work world, it is a system of mentors and guides. Or if you're a nerd, you might replace book learning for any one of these individuals. But that's not really different, as the book has been written by an expert. Thus, you're still learning from an expert, just without that bothersome social contact.

And a number of rpgs, including D&D, have at times attempted to incorporate this fact of human nature into their design. However, despite it being how people really learn, the extra time and trouble of consulting an expert during a game is regularly viewed as a burden. Players want to hammer that lever and get their treat NOW! Not delayed while they go off and find an expert to train them, or wait for a full level gain. That's the whole point of learn-by-use, really, people get their treats now. Any delay in treat giving thus defeats the core purpose.

The Fundaments of Boredom: Yet, it's not just the task of finding experts that regular people find boring - most find the minigames of learn-by-use to be boring in and of themselves. For instance, say you want to swim down to the underwater city and fight the kraken. Under level-based rules, you assign some leveling points to swimming and some to underwater fighting, and away you go. Under learn-by-use, though, you have the minigame grind. This is different to the common thread of rpg leveling grind in order to gain xp leveling points - which are acquired by repeating the core gameplay. Learn-by-use treats each skill individually, and thus increases them separately via an isolated minigame. So, first you need to go grind the Swimming minigame. Then you need to go grind the Underwater Fighting minigame. And only then can you can go down and fight the kraken. Thus, first thing you do in order to achieve your goal is stop playing the game and swim around aimlessly until your Swimming skill gets high enough to dive effectively. For those whom the treats aren't both the end goal and the journey, this is boredom incarnate.

Kludges: Of course, proponents of learn-by-use do try to answer these issues with disparate kludges. For instance, allowing the learn-by-use of hammering nails into boards to only raise the Construction skill so far. So, after rank 20 I have to go build wall frames instance, for instance. But now you're just adding additional odd hoops in my quest to build an aircraft carrier. Plus you're adding an inordinate amount of complexity to an already complex and oddly abstract skills system - a system that is already divorced from reality and common sense. To add complexity to an unintuitiveness system is to then just make a big, jumbled mess.

Which leaves you with Skyrim. The Skyrim learn-by-use system works by essentially not working. You don't need to increase your character's skills to play the game. You can already succeed at any skills level. Increasing your skills just unlocks additional power-ups at certain high thresholds. So, you get the +1 treats, the treats have little numerical bearing on your character's current power level, and occasionally you get dropped an unneeded power perk treat to show you how special you are for having repeatedly hammered that little lever enough times.

Enjoy!
 

ThoseDeafMutes

Learned
Joined
Jul 11, 2016
Messages
239
When people say it makes sense, they're usually comparing it to conventional levelling systems. You picked 30 locks, got enough XP from that and then dumped those points into like magic or stabbing people or something. There's no particular connection between experience points and most of what you do when you level up in RPG systems. In Vampire, why would I become better at seduction because I killed some rats? They exist for game balance purposes and are highly abstract. Learn-by-use essentially segments experience points into categories, and then grants XP for performing the action rather than other arbitrary points (e.g. quest completion, on monster death etc). You used Destruction Magic a lot, so you got better at Destruction Magic. I consider learn-by-use to be pretty horrible for gameplay and balance, but it is true that it's less abstract and "less unrealistic" than conventional leveling. It's far more realistic (still not realistic in a meaningful sense, I'm not disagreeing there) for you to learn how to program by using facebook a lot than it is for you to learn how to make swords by punching rats.

You suggest that compromise systems are automatically bad, but I'm not sure I agree there. It's not hard to envision one where you would learn novel skills by seeking out tutors and teachers in the gameworld and spending time with them, and then you are capable of practicing those skills to refine them through use in the game system. It's "extra hoops", but not without reason.

P.S. Skyrim is shit.
 

Ellef

Deplorable
Joined
Dec 29, 2014
Messages
3,506
Location
Shitposter's Island
PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015
Why on earth did they remove the TL;DR button from GRPGD? Learn by doing system always sucks. It removes build decision making and replaces it with joyless repetition.
 

Felix

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2009
Messages
3,356
Why on earth did they remove the TL;DR button from GRPGD? Learn by doing system always sucks. It removes build decision making and replaces it with joyless repetition.
Just like real life! but the thing is there is a sense of tranquility in repetition in real life, in game, not so much so fuck 'em.
 
Joined
Jan 7, 2012
Messages
14,153
I agree with this in principle, but there's a very simple fix (and I'd be interested to hear if there is any game that implements it): Have normal levels with x amount of skill points per level, and have the skill points or some subportion thereof distributed based on tracked skill usage.

Therefore, when you level up after spending 90% of your time whacking things with a sharp stick and 10% of your time fondling your balls, you'll get +9 to your whacking skill and +1 to your ball fondling skill.

Wiz 6 and onward have the closest I can think of, where classes have to dump skill points into certain skills if they are below a certain amount. But it keeps the direct level-by-use crap rather than simply factoring in the usage into the level-ups.
 

nikolokolus

Arcane
Joined
May 8, 2013
Messages
4,090
Improvement by doing works just fine in level-less, skill-based PnP games like call of Cthulhu, RuneQuest, and the like. The key to making a good skill-based RPG is to not half-ass it, by tacking on leveling schemes, or failing to make mastery increasingly difficult.

Maybe some day we'll see a system implemented in CRPGs that gets it right, but knowing how much people love level-based RPGs, I'm not going to hold my breath.
 

Sigourn

uooh afficionado
Joined
Feb 6, 2016
Messages
5,625
I agree with the Average Manatee. A game should keep track on how much did you use your different skills, and based on that "use" you will be able to assign your skill points accordingly.
 

Whiny-Butthurt-Liberal

Guest
Learn-by-use "makes sense"
Plebeian nongument for mouthbreathers and autists. Nobody cares what "makes sense". We don't have comprehensive modeling of skill acquisition and maintenance in video games, any existing system is by necessity an oversimplified token, representing the player's (not the protagonist's) potential to unlock new ways to interact with the game.

The only thing that matters is what makes sense for the player. Whether or not it's realistic is completely irrelevant.
 

laclongquan

Arcane
Joined
Jan 10, 2007
Messages
1,870,144
Location
Searching for my kidnapped sister
Learn by Use rewards players immediately and permanently for their action: the resulting products can be solved and lost, but the skill rewards are forever.

It strike deep into player's psyche, so dont expect it will lose utility. you can demand for better LbU systems, but asking dev not to use it is foolish.

Also Jagged Alliance 2.

And never expect devs to confess to the above reason. Exploit gamer's psyche is beneath their fist or so they think, so they will NEVER admit doing it. Which is why THEIR stated reason to use LbU is always trite and foolish to us. because those reasons are false in the first place.
 

Alkarl

Learned
Joined
Oct 9, 2016
Messages
472
Good troll bro!

I like how you spend that entire article bashing Skyrim's learn by use system and then at the bottom pull out a troll! Very clever! Or maybe you are retarded. Hm.

2 things: Jagged Alliance 2 and Darklands.


it can be done right but it won't

Yeah, pretty much this.
 

Monkeyfinger

Cipher
Joined
Aug 5, 2004
Messages
778
tl;dr
worked fine in JA2 and people seem to call that an RPG here

Power growth in JA2 is primarily driven by money, which gives you access to better mercs, better gear and a bigger roster.

It has a learn by use system that barely influences anything and is more like a feature list padder that says "see we have leveling up like a proper RPG."
 

Keldryn

Arcane
Joined
Feb 25, 2005
Messages
1,053
Location
Vancouver, Canada
I remember the first time I saw it was in UO. Lots of people standing around town squares, tapping on posts.

And then there was the time when a few of us discovered that we could stand in the safe zone around a moongate while one person cast damaging spells at us from outside that safe zone. Because moongates were treated like towns, we didn't take any damage, yet our Resist Magic skill kept increasing as if we were taking damage.

I think I raised mine up to 91 or 93 (around there) before I got bored out of my mind and left.
 

laclongquan

Arcane
Joined
Jan 10, 2007
Messages
1,870,144
Location
Searching for my kidnapped sister
tl;dr
worked fine in JA2 and people seem to call that an RPG here

Power growth in JA2 is primarily driven by money, which gives you access to better mercs, better gear and a bigger roster.

It has a learn by use system that barely influences anything and is more like a feature list padder that says "see we have leveling up like a proper RPG."

One thing of note is that once we got enough money to hire longterm expensive mercs we dont need to raise cheap but intelligent mercs as much. The most-trained mercs I got count on one hand.

Which is to say JA2 got LbU system done right. You can abuse it but to a point, after that why bother?
 
Unwanted

Charles Eli Cheese

Neckbeard Shitlord
Edgy Shitposter
Joined
Dec 31, 2016
Messages
1,864,979
Location
Jewed by inanatron the crybaby faggot
What a long dumb post. Learn by doing is exploitable sure. So is everything. I fucking hate people who worry about shit like this, most people just play normally and a learn by doing system works out well. If they spend all day thinking about how to get another level game will be shit for them no matter what the system.
 

Volourn

Pretty Princess
Pretty Princess Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Mar 10, 2003
Messages
24,924
'Learn by use' is retartet. The 'level up' system is flawed but hella better than 'learn by use'.
 

Whalenought_Joe

Whalenought Studios
Developer
Joined
Apr 11, 2014
Messages
215
Location
Nosgoth
Burning Wheel uses learn-by-use well, though a DM needs to be pretty cognizant that only what players have access to is what they can advance in. A combat filled dungeon only advances combat related skills, where a city gets social and whatever. So the immediate adventure really dictates how players advance, which has mixed results, but is good simulation. Mouseguard has a pass/fail system where you need to both fail skill uses and succeed in them to progress, which is designed to encourage a player to go outside their comfort zone and try something dangerous to progress.

These would be cool in a crpg except skill-use like this isn't a thoughtful decision with consequence like a p&p game, it's trivialized because players can save/load for whatever outcome they want. Without randomization or organic adventuring like in p&p players will also instinctively know where and when they can spam as they need for what they need to advance. Heavy narratives in crpgs requiring saving to progress are the ones to blame for steamrolling actual RPG mechanics like this.
 

Beastro

Arcane
Joined
May 11, 2015
Messages
7,952
If a system doesn't make sense toss it

All forms of fiction revolve around enough sense making to allow ones sense of disbelief to have structure.

I'd rather say what you said more as "If a system doesn't have verisimilitude toss it".

When one goes down the path of making things too gamey that sense of accuracy evaporates your suspension of disbelief and leaves you annoyed that all you can see are the bare mechanics of the game with nothing to hide it behind, like an animatronic beast with its skin removed.

Spontaneous Learning: A rare few people do learn things on their own - lets call them inventors. Inventors create whole new things out of thin air. Essentially, they do increase their skill by use. They create something new, and then they perfect that new thing themselves, and thus increase their skill. And then they become an Expert in that new thing, and teach that new thing to others. The fact that inventors are quite rare, though, means that this sort of spontaneous self-improvement is too rare to even be usefully incorporated into an abstract skill system.

A better term would be Experimenters, and I disagree that they are rare, if that were the case then most bugs would go unfixed in games because beta testers and players would never find them and most are found very, very quickly.

I can't speak for all gamers, but the majority I know, ones that aren't your typical console player casual stereotype begin experimenting with games from the get go and they find most of the enjoyment in finding ways of breaking them. I'd say a great deal of these kinds of people constitute this forums average population, because RPGs typically reward experimentation and game breaking more than most games do.

When it comes to being an Experimenter it all begins with willingness to do things differently simply to see what doing them differently would do and wading into unknown territory once you get a good base idea of the fundamental mechanics. A simple case using social media is one teenagers quickly do, that is to see what words are censored on social media or in games and finding the ones that aren't to use them to maximum humorous effect.

In the case of learn through use, all of this could be explained through abstraction and the assumption that as you're making an item 100 times you're not doing to the same way each time and trying different things that fail badly or produce better results.
 
Last edited:

Maggot

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 31, 2016
Messages
1,243
Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire
tl;dr
worked fine in JA2 and people seem to call that an RPG here

Power growth in JA2 is primarily driven by money, which gives you access to better mercs, better gear and a bigger roster.

It has a learn by use system that barely influences anything and is more like a feature list padder that says "see we have leveling up like a proper RPG."
If you didn't take the high WIS mercs and turn them into gods you're probably a faget.
 

J1M

Arcane
Joined
May 14, 2008
Messages
14,616
OP is right, of course.

Always impressed when the same people who can't make peace with XP as an abstract system seem to have no complaints about mana points.
 

Severian Silk

Guest
tl;dr
worked fine in JA2 and people seem to call that an RPG here

Power growth in JA2 is primarily driven by money, which gives you access to better mercs, better gear and a bigger roster.

It has a learn by use system that barely influences anything and is more like a feature list padder that says "see we have leveling up like a proper RPG."
If you didn't take the high WIS mercs and turn them into gods you're probably a faget.
I often pick Danny or Dr. Q. Picking Thor Kaufman is cheating.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom