Rewards are used to motivate players to accomplish (specific) goals .....

then this not be a "goals & rewards" type thing, this would be modeling how the player character accomplishing something that's important to them should improve their mood.

example:

right now i'm play testing a single high level character, started from scratch. she's a crafting/archer/tank build. flint arrows are her weapon of preference. when she starts running low on arrows, this creates a "goal" of "get more arrows". when she crafts an arrow, she gets a mood boost from the satisfaction of making something. but no mood boost because she now has more arrows - which would be of personal importance to the role playing character (shana - queen of the jungle) - as well as the human player, IE me. she has more arrows, so she has a better chance to survive encounters, so that's less i have to wait around while she heals, and less times i have to reload when she dies.

if she get arrows by trading for them or taking them off dead cavemen, she gets no mood boost, even though she's gotten more arrows, which is important to her.

so there's an automatic mood boost for crafting an item, or successfully gathering resources, but not for simply acquiring stuff by trade, scavenging from dead cavemen, or raiding storage pits you discover - which the other means of getting craft-able items other than by crafting.

and it seems to me that getting a mood boost for getting arrows (for example) should be modeled somehow. or killing a cave lion, or whatever the player deems important (within reason).

so i guess this really isn't about player quests and goals and rewards per se, its more about adding a new feature to the mood modeling used by the simulation. and the first stab at how to model and implement that just happens to be "user defined goals". "mood boosts" expanded to "rewards in general", as i was wondering if there were any things other than mood that "user goals" should affect, that's not already modeled somehow. but so far i haven't come up with anything other than mood boost, so it looks like accomplishing a user goal should give a mood boost, but nothing else extra. so it seems to boil down to user defined goals, and mood boosts for achieving them. a "user defined goal" wizard seems to be the way to go.

so what might the general goal types be?

you already get a mood boost from crafting, gathering, learning skills, weapons training, every time you hit in combat, and every time you kill in combat.

so acquiring items is not covered, and exploration is not covered.

band members and NPCs have "interests". interests are used in conversations and modeling relations between cavemen (both PCs and NPCs). band members (PCs) get an extra mood boost whenever they do any action related to their interest. so band members with the hunting interest get an extra mood boost from animal kills, and so on. "travel" is one of the interests. so PCs into travel do get a mood boost for traveling cross country, which is related to exploration. you get to choose your interests when you create your cave person, so in that respect, the human player can design a character who indirectly gets mood boosts for exploring via traveling cross-country. but there's no mood boost for exploring and discovering new lands, if that's what you're into.

sunandshadow has a recurring theme of a game that somehow knows what you like to do and rewards you for doing that. one way would be rewards for absolutely everything. so no matter what the player chooses to do, they get rewarded. and make them (the rewards) all automatic, like the mood boosts in Caveman. but in a game where you can do a lot of stuff, that might be a bit of work to make sure every possible action in the game has some reward. Caveman does this in a lot of places, but not absolutely every possible thing you can do in the game has an effect on mood (or anything else). actually, i think you get a mood boost from a successful trade with friendly cavemen or bands, but not from trade with traders. and that's a boost for sealing a deal, not for goods acquired. sealing a deal also improves relations (another action "reward type" besides mood boost). but quests and rewards is a misnomer. its actually actions and effects. so "trade with caveman" and "trade with band" actions have an effect on relations and mood. and the effect can be positive or negative depending on how the trading goes. this is above and beyond any actual goods exchanged.

so what kinds of things do folks like to do in games that don't get rewarded?

acquiring items and exploration aren't covered yet in Caveman.

what other things do folks like to do?

then this not be a "goals & rewards" type thing, this would be modeling how the player character accomplishing something that's important to them should improve their mood.

The character shouldn't get an auto-mood-boost whenever the player behind it does something for his own mood.(doing anything he enjoys besides the set path of the game)

acquiring items and exploration aren't covered yet in Caveman.

Acquiring food/tools/weapons isn't covered in Caveman ? o.O

exploration isn't covered in Caveman ? :o

A usual (onofficial)reward for exploration is getting your map filled up.

For item-acquiring, if the item itself isn't enough reward and you're going to add extra effects/rewards,

well, i think that is a path away from realism that you don't want in your game.

sunandshadow has a recurring theme of a game that somehow knows what you like to do and rewards you for doing that. one way would be rewards for absolutely everything. so no matter what the player chooses to do, they get rewarded. and make them (the rewards) all automatic, like the mood boosts in Caveman. but in a game where you can do a lot of stuff, that might be a bit of work to make sure every possible action in the game has some reward.

I do think this is the best approach for a sandbox game. I don't really think that there needs to be a reward for obtaining items in general because you got the item, that IS a reward. You could give verbal rewards and warnings like: "Congratulations, you got your first arrow!" "Good work, your arrow level is now: well stocked!" and "Be warned, your arrow level is now: low!" if you want to meter item possession in general. You could allow the player to turn verbal messaging on or off for different items. But item or stat rewards should be for actions taken, i.e. the work of gathering, rather than items obtained. Looting items from a body would let itself to something like a plunder meter, but if it doesn't actually take any work then it shouldn't be rewarded with items. At most it might improve an examine or observe skill if you have such a thing. But killing the person before looting them, that's a significant action that should be rewarded, as is successfully negotiating a trade. And rather than being rewarded for every instance, the reward should be for groups or sets of actions taken to accomplish a larger-scale goal. This should reflect chunking, a fundamental aspect of how humans attach meaning to the world, so it can help players feel that your world attaches meaning to their actions.

Forgive me if the following has been mentioned before--I think that I've skimmed some of the posts in this thread, I'll confess! ^^;

That said, what about having the game adjust its rewards in response to the player's actions--specifically, rewarding players the more they do something, and rewarding players for performing actions that synergise with their build?

For rewarding players the more they do something, you've indicated that you want to reward players for doing things that they enjoy doing, or that are important to them. My thinking, then, is that players are likely to naturally spend more time on such things, and that thus one measure of which activities they value might be the amount of time spend on those activities. Of course, that alone might incur a risk of players grinding all activities in order to maximise their mood-boosts. To deal with this, the boosts might scale with the difference between the time spent on the current activity and the average time spent over all activities, or something similar.

(Since you've indicated that players will control multiple characters, I would imagine that these values would be recorded for each character individually.)

For rewarding players for performing actions that synergise with their builds, what I have in mind is simply this: For each build, there are presumably certain things that are of particular benefit. Archers benefit from gaining arrows and shooting, tanks benefit from armour or from body-building (I imagine), and so on. Thus, whenever a character experiences something relevant to their build--whenever an archer gains an arrow, makes an arrow, or fires an arrow, for example--they experience a mood-boost. Note that I've indicated separate mood-boosts for making and gaining arrows: this is intended to model the idea that an archer likes having arrows, but gains particular satisfaction from making them.

The character shouldn't get an auto-mood-boost whenever the player behind it does something for his own mood.(doing anything he enjoys besides the set path of the game)

i'm thinking strictly in terms of players who are role playing, so in that sense, the human player, and the band members they control are one and the same person. the human player wants whats best for their in-game personas - their band members.

there is no set path in the game, truly open world sandbox. so whatever path the player chooses is the "set path" that should be rewarded appropriately.

Acquiring food/tools/weapons isn't covered in Caveman ? o.O
exploration isn't covered in Caveman ?

BG - mood boosts for those things are not part of the game as of yet.

For item-acquiring, if the item itself isn't enough reward and you're going to add extra effects/rewards,
well, i think that is a path away from realism that you don't want in your game.

the extra mood boost would reflect the special importance of the item to the player. i may search a dead caveman, and get a stone knife and two flint arrows. while both have an intrinsic trade value of one trinket, i already have a whole storage pit full of stone knives, but keep using up arrows chasing off predators. so the arrows are "cool!" while the stone knife is "so what?". it could be weeks before i meet a trader and can exchange the knife for two flint arrows. so the arrows are of greater value due to the role i'm playing in the game. IE an archer build. but the game has no way to recognize this or react to it, unless the user tells the game "this is important to me" by setting a user goal or by some other means.

I don't really think that there needs to be a reward for obtaining items in general because you got the item, that IS a reward.

quite true. but if you think about it, in real life, one usually gets a mood boost from obtaining a coveted item, as well as the inherit benefits that possession of said item bestows. it might be a new game, a new electronic device, a new car, a new house/pad/crib, a new job, a new piece of gear or wardrobe, a new kind of pet - whatever.

seems it would make sense to at least assign automatic mood boosts to obtaining extremely high value items. in the sims they have a "new stuff" moodlet: +X mood for Y hours.

And rather than being rewarded for every instance, the reward should be for groups or sets of actions taken to accomplish a larger-scale goal.

a larger scale goal would imply one of the various quest types in the game. those are about the only larger scale goals in the game so far. these "user goals" currently under discussion might be a second form, if they make the final cut.

This should reflect chunking, a fundamental aspect of how humans attach meaning to the world, so it can help players feel that your world attaches meaning to their actions.

the quest do this, as all quests do.

combat and trade increase skills with each incident, but the bonuses only accrue at exponential exp levels. so in that respect the skill payoff for those actions is "chunked", but i don't think that's quite what you're talking about. you mean more like quests where you do a bunch of stuff and get the payoff at the end - right?

That said, what about having the game adjust its rewards in response to the player's actions--specifically, rewarding players the more they do something, and rewarding players for performing actions that synergise with their build?

"rewarding players the more they do something..."

you mean an increasing reward for doing the same action over and over? right now rewards are the same whether you do something for the 1st time or the 15 thousand'th time.

"rewarding players for performing actions that synergise with their build..."

that might be a bit tricky, as core stats and interests selected at character creation, combined with skills learned is about all there is to define a "build" in caveman. there are no "classes" per se - like in Traveller - just skills.

for example, my archer is maxed on INT, DEX, and HEALTH, with all the rest going to SPEED, and minimum values for STR and CHARISMA. so she's tops at learning skills and crafting and missile weapons, and has twice the hit points of a low HEALTH character - IE she's a tank when it comes to staying power. she's a little slower than average in the chase, has no people skills, can't carry much, and gets almost no strength bonus to damage done. next time i'd probably go with a bit less INT, DEX, and HEALTH, and a bit more SPEED and STR. her interests are combat, crafting, and nature. so she gets extra mood boosts from hits, kills, making things, and being outdoors. While she uses a bow, atlatl and spear are her two major combat skills, as she's trained extensively in both, but never in bow. looking at her inventory, half the time she's at a "camp" sandboxing and carrying just a stone knife on a regular basis. when out and about she has bow, spear, and knife - and almost never enough arrows! <g>.

so looking at her stats and such you might say, well a high DEX indicates a good archer type, so they should get more for archer stuff. but just by having a good DEX, they will hit and kill with missiles more often, and therefore get the rewards one automatically gets from hits and kills in combat more often as well. so by using her DEX and a bow, vs her STR and a spear, she ought to hit and kill more often, and have her mood, weapons exp, and stuff gained from butchering or sacrificing a carcass go up faster. so the rewards are greater and/or accrue more swiftly by using the strengths of her "build".

interests are chosen with a mind towards what the character will be doing. for an archer build, combat, making arrows, and being outdoors were things she'd be doing a lot. so when she crafts, fights, or is outdoors, she gets extra mood boosts. as a result, she's pretty well adjusted, and it takes a few days out in the rain/heat/cold with high damage and high encumbrance to nuke her mood. so once again, by doing things related to your interests (IE role playing in character with your build) you get extra rewards you wouldn't otherwise.

as for inventory - that's not so straight forward. best weapon carried might be an indicator of "build type", but only as far as combat goes. and they may be like "Shana - Queen of the Jungle" and leave their primary weapon nearby on the ground a lot while they do other things. her strength is so low that once she dons her best armor and weapons, she's almost maxed out on encumbrance. encumbrance effect on movement rate combined with her somewhat slower than average core SPEED stat results in a true "tank" - slow moving, lots of armor, lots of hit points, and a really killer missile weapon. but the speed is so slow that she doesn't use any armor at all, just boots to increase movement rate slightly over being barefoot. tools and parts carried may be an indirect indicator of activities. but such info could be more easily obtained by simply tracking actions taken by the player. so i'm not sure how much inventory would help in defining a "build type".

and the existing game mechanics for stats, skills, and interests already provide for faster progress when playing to your "build". so perhaps that aspect is already adequately covered in the game.

For rewarding players the more they do something, you've indicated that you want to reward players for doing things that they enjoy doing, or that are important to them.

correct - or at least it makes sense that it ought to be modeled, given the capabilities of the simulation/game engine (IE it models mood and such).

My thinking, then, is that players are likely to naturally spend more time on such things, and that thus one measure of which activities they value might be the amount of time spend on those activities.

or simply a count of how many times they do an action, as opposed to total time spent on a given action. same basic difference.

Of course, that alone might incur a risk of players grinding all activities in order to maximise their mood-boosts.

mood caps at +100. play actions (daydreaming, song, music, dance, etc) dialogs (talk, joke, tell story, etc), and art actions (paint, sculpt, etc) tend to be much more efficient ways to raise you mood than any other action such as tool crafting, skill learning, hunting/fishing/combat, cooking, eating a good meal, getting a good night's rest, etc. - depending on your interests. so daydreaming in their lean-to on a rainy day would be about the only thing they'd grind - just like we do in real life - well, we have the "watch TV" action, which is usually worth more mood points than daydreaming... <g>.

(Since you've indicated that players will control multiple characters, I would imagine that these values would be recorded for each character individually.)

correct - your band members are analogous to your household of SIMs in The SIMs. each is a fully realized RPG player character with full stats, skills, inventory, relations, etc. just like the sims, you control one at a time, and AI controls the rest. the TAB key lets you toggle to the next alive band member and control them. the "N" key toggles to the "next idle" band member (one not doing an action) - a handy way to keep them all busy all the time.

tanks benefit from armour or from body-building (I imagine),

i don't model body building and other self-improvement methods - yet. the idea of doing such just occurred to me the other day. its still such a fresh concept i haven't really given it much thought as to how it would work - basically you'd do some action that would increase your STR or whatever. its so new an idea it hasn't even gotten on the todo list yet as a possible new feature to consider. or it may have, i've been doing nothing but testing for the last week or so and have a 4 page hand written list of stuff to fix and new features for the todo list. so i may have jotted down the idea there.

you know - i don't think there are any armor related skills in the game. there may not even be a block skill. and yesterday i though of a new combat mechanic that's missing: the ability to roll/dodge/duck/dive. i'm thinking something like middle mouse button + WASD to execute a dodge maneuver. i'm not sure armor skills would be a good fit. the armor available at that tech level wasn't really sophisticated enough to require skills the way more effective use of plate mail might.

Thus, whenever a character experiences something relevant to their build--whenever an archer gains an arrow, makes an arrow, or fires an arrow, for example--they experience a mood-boost.

ok, making arrows is in there. firing isn't - only when they hit - missing is no fun! <g>.

getting a kill from a hit is even better - that's in there too.

Note that I've indicated separate mood-boosts for making and gaining arrows: this is intended to model the idea that an archer likes having arrows, but gains particular satisfaction from making them.

and this is what the game has yet to model. you get a mood boost from crafting an arrow, just as you do for successfully crafting anything. but the fact that its an arrow and you're an archer build is not tracked/modeled. the reasoning for separate boosts for making and getting arrows might be a bit backwards. anyone likes to succeed at making an arrow, but archer types get a special kick out of having more arrows. but the need for separate boosts, i tend to agree with. its the mood boost for acquiring something which is important to your PC that is missing.

perhaps its the idea of letting the user define "whats important" that doesn't sit well with some folks? would it be better if the game simply had a pre-defined set of possible "user goals" to choose from? or take it to the next level, and automatically reward user type goals without the player ever having to define/activate them? sort of like achievements, which are built-in and always there, checking for completion until they get unlocked. the thing i don't like about that is that you know some user will want to do something not on the list. but maybe that's a non-issue - deal with it if it actually occurs. adding "custom goal" to the pre-defined goals menu wouldn't be too hard a change to implement.