22 KiB
[BST] How would you best abuse the statistics and experience system if you were a real life gamer?
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Author: u/None *
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/3nj4n1/bst_how_would_you_best_abuse_the_statistics_and/
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Score: 1
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Created: 2015-10-05T03:14:23
Post:
This is the 4th in my series of threads on how you could abuse real life gamer powers. You can find my previous threads here here and here. I'm interested in how these systems can potentially be abused partly because of curiosity and partly because I may write a rational The Gamer story in the future. Keep in mind that you can only abuse this system on its own.
The Rules:
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Killing any life form gives experience based on it's level which is an abstraction of it's strength. Killing anything beneath you will give less experience eventually resulting in zero experience gained. Killing things above your level will give scaling experience. You must kill the life form with no help to get full experience, you will lose percentage experience based on percentage of damage done (If someone deals half damage and you deal half damage you get half experience).
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Completing tasks will give experience, scaling similarly to killing life forms. The easy tasks will give less experience, harder ones will give more. Hardness or easiness is based on how much focus, effort and time a task takes. In general tasks will give much less experience compared to killing life forms.
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Upon reaching an experience threshold you will level up. Leveling up gives you 5 skill points you can spend in different areas to improve yourself. Leveling is easy in the beginning and becomes harder and harder.
An example scale: http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/runescape/images/3/3a/Scapegraphzoomed.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1024?cb=20110301005916
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You can spend your statistic points on different areas of growth, to start with you have the 6 basic skills (Strength, Vitality, Agility, Dexterity, Intellect, Wisdom).
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You can unlock different statistics by improving yourself in that area. The difference between a skill and a statistic is blurred but in general statistics are statistics are something that cannot be necessarily learned. Statistics are more of a generalization of your intrinsic abilities in a certain area. For example charisma can be a statistic but not speaking. Focus is not a statistic but you can argue willpower is, because it's a general intrinsic ability.
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Aside from leveling you can also increase your statistics by doing actions that are associated with a stat. (For instance lifting weights for strength and learning for wisdom). Training your statistics gets almost exponentially harder the higher level you become, eventually requiring years of dedicated training. Leveling up certain statistics also makes training harder, because of that it is advised you train your stats before using level up points.
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Statistics can be increased to superhuman levels and beyond. With enough statistics you can run faster than an Olympian, lift more than a world class lifter, be more charismatic than a politician or become smarter than Einstein etc.
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No one else can gain experience even if they kill things with you.
Comments:
u/spinagon [+6] (9 hours later)
Get a job at a slaughteryard, kill hundreds of big animals, free EXP EZPZ.
u/IllusoryIntelligence [+2] (11 hours later)
I was going to say, that seems like the fastest way to get started. If strength is the primary statistic in determining relative level then cows are going to be a valid XP source for at least a few levels.
u/Jiro_T [+3] (30 minutes later)
Do tumors or bacteria count as high level life forms? They're certainly capable of killing powerful humans. Otherwise, it's going to be hard to munchkin this since you don't get to kill much in real life. Even someone who legally kills like a soldier or executioner won't be killing enough people to actually help much, not to mention that killing people to gain power is a drastic enough step that doing it isn't really munchkining. Although it does raise the question of how many levels you can gain by killing rats or slimes before those stop giving you experience.
Does "intellect" refer to what one would normally consider intellect or is it like in games where it affects your ability to perform magic but doesn't change your ability to figure out problems?
Also, a lot of your ability to munchkin this depends on the details. How much can you increase your stat by training before training it any further causes a practical problem? How much experience can you gain by killing rats?
u/Empiricist_or_not [+3] Aspiring polite Hegemonizing swarm (an hour later)
This get's too dark too fast, also Adolf Hitler would have been well past Epic level when he gave up.
[Edit]I think I remember a comic where Nazi's we creating Norse god with a variation of this.
u/None [+2] (3 hours later)
Yes it does get dark pretty fast, what happens when you can't get experience from monsters anymore? Bad stuff in the hands of a sociopath. Eventually you could have some sort of god king that could live for hundreds of years because of vitality, and be so charismatic most people will believe whatever he says (within reason).
u/clawclawbite [+2] (2 days later)
Look for the David Brin short story Thor Meets Captain America.
u/Empiricist_or_not [+1] Aspiring polite Hegemonizing swarm (3 days later)
No this one was darker they were making Asier as composite souls from the blood sacrifice of Auswichitz.
u/None [+1] (34 minutes later)
This would be in the real world so no magic. It effects your ability to solve problems. Bacteria doesn't count, though I think killing things wouldn't be too hard. You could probably get to a pretty good level by killing animals in Africa. I don't have any clear numbers in my head but if I had to come up with a timeline I'd say you could train to the limits of human ability in under a year and after that it starts getting much harder.
u/elevul [+1] Cyoria Observer (a day later)
What about a butchery on an industrial scale?
u/eaglejarl [+8] (4 hours later)
First, don't spend your skill points; improve by grinding until you can't do that anymore. At STR 1, doing a few pushups will probably get you another point of STR, but at STR 99 you'll need to exercise for days to go up. Spending a skill point gets you the same bonus in each case, but it's more valuable when you're at a point that skill points are the only way to advance.
Whichever stat represents willpower (Wisdom?), grind that for a bit to start; you're going to be doing a lot of mind-shatteringly boring grinding, so best to be able to handle it.
If it's "any lifeform" that gives you ASAP, then start by getting a lot of earthworms. Cut them in half to double them, let them grow back, repeat. When you have enough, drop them in a meat grinder and turn the crank until you don't get anymore benefit from killing worms. If worms don't work, try the same experiment with rats -- catch a few wild ones, breed them like crazy until you have massive swarms, then dump halon gas into their enclosure to kill them all painlessly.
Find out the difference between Intelligence and Wisdom. If it's "Intelligence gives you options, Wisdom helps you choose the right one", great, but it's important to know. Focus your points into these two stats to start. Exact split should depend on what the stats mean in your system. Use the extra brainpower to figure out better ways to gain XP. You are your own recursively self-improving mind, so work that.
u/Sceptically [+7] (5 hours later)
Your earthworm plan reveals that you need to study more biology. Cutting them in half generally just gives you two halves of a dead or dying worm.
u/eaglejarl [+6] (18 hours later)
Hm, apparently I've been afflicted with knowing something wrong. Thanks for pointing it out.
u/Sceptically [+4] (22 hours later)
I'd say "grind your biology", but that could be taken the right way.
u/eaglejarl [+3] (23 hours later)
Given that my suggestion was about grinding up biological things, it's an amusing pun.
u/None [+3] (16 hours later)
Grinding strength seems like a good strategy. Just keep stacking bigger and bigger weights until the amount you can lift no longer gives an appreciable percentage towards a strength boost.
u/eaglejarl [+2] (18 hours later)
Yep. Presumably grinding strength burns up stamina and you eventually need to rest. Grind until you can't anymore, then switch to grinding INT until you recover -- maybe by doing math or reading schoolbooks. I don't know how you'd grind WIS though.
u/derefr [+3] (an hour later)
What counts as "equipment" (things you use, but still gain 100% of the experience) vs. third-party aid that reduces experience share? Can you reach max-level in an instant by setting off a nuclear bomb?
u/None [+3] (3 hours later)
If you hit a good target, yes you could hit max level (if there was one) by killing a couple million pretty easily. I'm not sure what you mean about equipment, if someone gave you a gun you don't lose experience because of that, they have to deal damage directly.
u/derefr [+5] (3 hours later)
What I mean is: a gun is the type of technology that exchanges "skill required to use" for "skill required to create." You can take that further and end up with a doomsday weapon designed by a scientist (i.e. a nuclear bomb) where you only have to push a button and it'll kill a bunch of things for you.
Or, one step further than that, you can create an AI that kills things for you, without pressing any buttons at all. A sentry gun, for example. (In D&D parlance, this would be a trap. I don't think trap-kills traditionally earn XP for their creators... but I'm pretty sure the hunting-and-trapping kind of traps executed by parties usually do. Confusing, that.)
Or you could, you know, just hire henchmen to guard an area and kill tresspassers, which is effectively the same as a sentry gun. Or is it?
You could take your sentry gun and stick it on some sort of drone, or maybe a very dumb animal. Who earns XP then? It's going off and satisfying your goals without you needing to give any commands, and yet there's theoretically no "agency" there to track an XP gain for.
At what point along that scale do you stop earning the XP? Does the XP get assigned where the moral responsibility does? Where the causal responsibility does? Who earns the XP in the Saw movies? In the Final Destination movies? Does a Roko's Basilisk paperclipper earn XP before it exists (in some sort of aphysical character sheet, presumably), whenever people acausally trade with it?
Edge cases like these are where all the exploits would lie, I would expect :)
u/None [+3] (5 hours later)
Grey area, which means exploits! If I had to give a hard rule I'd say paying people to kill for you does not work but killing with anything you own would work (sentry guns, drones etc) but another person piloting said drone will not work and you have to setup the sentry gun, trap etc yourself. Has to be owned and if it's operated has to be operated by you. Anything that layers deep like you giving an order to kill someone would not work.
u/derefr [+5] (13 hours later)
In D&D-derived games, paying people to kill for you doesn't earn XP because it avoids the purpose of the game, I suspect.
In wargaming, on the other hand, there's a certain point in every unit's rank progression when they become an officer—and thus, mostly act through others. But they continue gaining XP and levels from doing so! You'd expect a general to have more XP than a colonel, even if neither has fired a shot in the last 10 years, no? The general likely has more strategic experience, which helps him be more effective in moment-to-moment confrontations as well.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+1] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (5 hours later)
I'd say paying people to kill for you does not work
So no super-Hitler.
u/None [+2] (14 hours later)
So no super-Hitler.
No you could be super Hitler pretty easily. Round people up in concentration camps as normal and instead of having other people kill Jews you do it instead. You could go around the country on a Jew killing spree.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+1] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (14 hours later)
But Hitler didn't do that. Kind of a reference to this.
u/Iydak [+1] (2 days later)
killing with anything you own would work
So, slavery would work then?
u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+2] Roll the Dice on Fate (10 hours later)
Take a tour of duty as a Missile Drone Pilot. Your job is to push the button that fires rockets into pre-approved targets from behind the safety of a desk. Or just work at the abattoir. If possible one that deals with exotic meats (did you know you can order crocodile off the internet?)
Might I suggest scaling XP to the difficulty and risk required to do the thing? That way your MC will naturally be pulled towards greater and more ridiculous challenges (so long as she's not just manufacturing difficulty that is by doing the whole thing blindfolded).
u/drageuth2 [+3] (18 hours later)
Get some sort of auto-scroll program with an adjustable speed for reading text. Feed it the library of congress or some other suitably big and useful source of text.
Speed-reading should be an exercise for my int, memorization should be an exercise for my int/wis.
The more I practice speed reading, the more I get int. The more int I get, the faster my speed reading becomes. The more I try to memorize what I'm reading, the better I can retain it, and the more I train -those- stats as well.
Gradually, I increase the feed speed, faster, faster, repeating the text on a big wide loop to memorize it completely, the process feeding into itself, my stats steadily increasing, the exponential acceleration cancelling out the exponential costs.
Eventually I'll have to use my burgeoning int to make a monitor with a faster refresh rate... my mind will be far faster than even a high-end computer monitor. but by the time my brain's that fast, that sort of mechanical jiggery-pokery should be easy.
Fairly quickly, I will have memorized masses upon masses of scientific facts, skills, and other useful things, and will have incredibly high Int and possibly Wis. At level 1.
Now I have a knowledge base for figuring out suitable processes for all my other stats... maybe some sort of electromagnet adjustable weight training set? homemade combat robots to test my body? Who knows, I'll be much smarter by then, much more capable of optimizing.
Maybe I'll even figure out an even faster int-training scheme, and go yet farther again...
u/westward101 [+2] (a day later)
Agility and Dexterity are basic skills? Those are too similar, especially when you're missing Charisma. Also, Wisdom doesn't seem like something you can deliberately train by reading (compared to Intelligence). There's got to be some distinction between Wis and Int.
Step one would be to test the system. Do I know my own stats? If I kill something or accomplish some task, do I feel the tingle of XP gain? If I bench 200 then spend a skill point on Str, can I know bench 240? Does another point get me to 280? 288?
Then get your basic skills up (except strength) with training before embarking on your slaughterhouse career.
Completing tasks seems worthless to munchkin compared to killing things for experience. There's no scaling in tasks. The key to munchkining killing is to never increase your strength. Apparently, you gain experience based on the difference in strengths in things you kill. Humans don't need strength to kill. Stay weak and kill.
The abbatoir is a fine solution. Probably the best depending on the relative values of working at a fish factory or chicken house. For variety, you could also become a veterinarian at a "kill shelter" and put down a few pit bulls every day. Or get a specialty in large animal euthanasia. Work at a horsetrack or a travel to zoos and circuses.
Or become the new Dr. Kervorkian administering end of life drugs to other humans, preferably former powerlifters.
u/nicholaslaux [+2] (a day later)
First off, I'd address what the stats actually are. Among other things, I noticed a lack of CHA stat, the split of DEX into AGI/DEX, and the standard INT/WIS split, which as always is probably pretty poorly defined.
Unlike the others in this thread, my suggestion would be to grind AGI first and foremost, under the hopes/assumptions that it would allow you to complete other grinding tasks more quickly. This might need to be combined with INT grinding if that's needed to actually perceive your increased speed, but ideally you can munchkin some way to trigger your increased AGI to use for sped up thinking, and further training.
If necessary, depending on how quickly power levels can ramp up, you might need to dump some stats into CON/VIT to survive at high levels of speed, especially if you want to pull some Flicker-style near-C tricks.
As someone who views animal life as on a scale roughly comparable to human life (if generally less) I would likely have issues with several of the levelling schemes that others here have mentioned. My best bet would most likely be fighting with combat robots, preferably ones that I created. Depending on how XP distribution is calculated, it's possible that I could design something akin to a flamethrowing deathbot with a simple to exploit flaw to "defeat" several of them in quick succession while still leaving the underlying parts reusable so that I don't have to rebuild every time.
If "killing" something like a robot wars-style robot doesn't work, I'll try painting a smiley face on it, to see if there's some rudimentary pattern matching going on, and gradually build up from there.
u/MugaSofer [+2] (6 hours later)
OK, so animals give experience based on their strength - which is utterly irrelevant if I'm armed. (It's possible humans have levels based on their higher intelligence and skill, but those actually pose a threat to me, so they're probably out.) I'd need to experiment with the XP system a little first.
Google suggests the strongest animals in the world are the Blue Whale and elephants, which makes sense. Killing animals is ethically dubious, and it's just my luck that cetaceans and elephants are both quite smart. Alternative target would be factory farms (lower XP per animal, but higher population density, and it's less unethical) or, y'know, people.
Worse still, I need to kill them extremely rapidly, so I gain the benefits of experience before I level up too high. Also, by the time I'm superhuman enough to talk my way into nuclear codes or buy the stock market, I'll probably far outlevel even a Blue Whale, which is an unfortunate catch-22.
Still, the ability to gain superhuman INT, WIS, and eventually CHA is too valuable to pass up.
The greatest damage-to-effort ratio for an untrained civilian is probably explosives, the instructions for which are readily available online. Some kind of bombing campaign seems like the obvious choice. It's woefully inefficient, but I'm going to have to level up enough this way until I'm personally competent enough to make a lot of money very quickly. Then I can set up a mechanism for killing some huge number of animals at once.
After that, I'm done ... right?
Well, maybe. If I find that I'm still too close to a merely exceptional human, it'd probably be necessary to turn to mass murder. Nuking a city is the obvious route, although the sheer level of preparation involved is irritating.
Anyway, then I reorganize the government into a utopia or whatever, and settle down to a Solomon-like existence of scientific research wile acting as a consultant on the "hard" problems.
u/Manthyus [+1] (20 hours later)
As far as leveling via slaughter, you need to test the limits of the system's abstraction - do you have to kill it with your own hands? By some process you set in motion? By an agent of yours, be it an autonomous process, or a pet, or a human employee?
It seems fairly obvious that you would want to optimize a system for the highest level of abstraction possible. If that's killing it with your hands (or a knife - though how the universe distinguishes between a foot of thin steel and a meat grinder or guillotine lever has to be handwaved, unless you have a perverse and anal-retentive god), you want to work in a slaughterhouse (or breed whatever's fast and still counts - bacteria would be ideal, but OP said no). If you can abstract it far away, you want to be the owner of as many slaughterhouses and fish farms as possible.
With tasks, the same applies. It all depends on the definition of task, and your involvement with it. Can you write a script to accomplish thousands of tasks rapidly? Can you be the owner of something that accomplishes tasks? Is any action whatsoever a task (so you're a master-level walker and blindingly fast typist in a couple years)?
u/clawclawbite [+1] (2 days later)
Explore the limits of low XP for easy kills, and if the number is more like 1 than zero, get a job as a crop duster spraying pesticides and insecticides. This is the real moral quantity solution.
Also, look into what generates quests. Amazon Mechanical Turk may be a good source of microtasks. Your goal is XP/hour after all. See if you can impair yourself to increase rewards. Does tasks while also lifting weights help? If so, multi-task.