" Every time John uses his sword, he gets a little better at his sword skill he also gets a little stronger and maybe a little more agile"

This is an idea which at first seems to make a lot of sense. However it just isnt possible to do this for all stats and skills. For example, how do you rate when someone''s intelligence, personality or luck has been used and therefore improves? [all stats in necrotech]

In addition, some activities in RPGs take place throughout the game, whereas some are rarer. If you have the climbing skill, using your system, it would be tough luck that there arent that many walls to climb compared to people to fight. Penalising non-combat skills? I think so.

In short, a great idea, but weighted for hack and slash gameplay in my view, which is something Im trying to get away from.

Ive implemented the random stat increase into the engine and heres my view of it in practise... Its actually quite fun leveling up and seeing what goes up, kind of like unwrapping a christmas present to see what you get

Spectre Software - RPGs, strategy, puzzle games, programming

Well intelligence can go up when you use magic or maybe do some research, your personality could go up when you successfully get some information by talking to someone or maybe working well with the rest of your party. Luck would be a hard one to increase maybe it could depend on how many critical hits you get or how many critical failures the enemy gets.

The climbing skill hmmm.... maybe you could have it where problems have more than one solution e.g. the player has to get to the top of a tower, he could just charge in through the front door or if he has a slight climbing skill he could climb up the ivy creepers to the first or second floors and then fight the rest of the way or if the character has a great climbing skill he could climb all the way to the top. This would be a good way to reward characters to think about other alternatives to the old hack and slash.

Or you could go the Fallout1/2 route and have magazines, manuals and people willing to teach just lying about.

In the end it doesn''t matter as you''ve already chosen your method.

- DarkIce

kingy: I can''t really see personality as a statistic you increase.

I don''t think you can really measure personality as a statistic. Unless you mean CHarisma or the ability to persuade and barter with people.

kingy: You can''t rate luck.

Luck isn''t something you can improve it''s something you have and therefore you rule it out as a statistic. Luck is just a random number that is influenced by certain actions or even items or spells.

A good way to increase intelligence would be reading books and such. And sucessfully applying this knowledge to the rest of the game could increase Wisdom.

Climbing would probably be a subskill based upon a trait such as Dexterity or Strength.

A statistical increasement method where stats go up dependent upon their use is starting to get quite popular and frankly unoriginal.

DarkIce: Rewarding someone for doing a certain action over a more obvious actions sounds like someone is basing their ideas of AD&D rules/Baldur''s Gate.

I think the way Baldur''s Gate handles rewarding people for not taking the easy way out of a situation is a good way to create an RPG. I''m not saying that AD&D rules are the best or anything but simply recognizing the intelligence behind that decision.

Being rewarded for doing special things encourages special actions. At the end the player will usually feel more accomplished than if he never thought anything through and stormed through the game.

Oh and DarkIce: Having the player increase statistic from use is direct stat control.

Bleu Shift - www.bleushift.tk

"kingy: I can''t really see personality as a statistic you increase.

I don''t think you can really measure personality as a statistic. Unless you mean CHarisma or the ability to persuade and barter with people."

Thats exactly what it is. It affects prices in shops, and how effective you are at lying to other people.

"kingy: You can''t rate luck."

Of course you can. Some people are "born lucky". A friend of mine consistantly has the worse luck ever, if something will go wrong, it will for him, lol

In my game, luck affects the frequency of random encounters, your starting money, your characters ability to hit others, and whether or not attempts at fleeing random encounters are successful.

Spectre Software - RPGs, strategy, puzzle games, programming

I think the "elder scrolls" (Arena, Daggerfall and Morrowind) system is one of the best existing systems for a role playing game.

You have STATS: "Strength, Intelligence, Dexterity, Speed, ..."
and 3 levels of SKILLS: Major, Medium and minor skills. (Like climbing, archery, swords, casting, jumping, running, swimming, bargaining,...)

If you often use your major skills you will go up a level more quickly.
At each level, you get some points to distribute to your stats.
I think it's a very good way to do.

Be careful : You'd better not confuse stats and skills here:

Your skills (= what you are good at / concrete) are influenced by your stats (= what/how you are / abstracts).


[edited by - Cahaan on July 19, 2002 11:48:19 PM]

I was just gonna say the same thing about Elder Scrolls. It is an amazingly good system. Skills go up slowly as you use them but traits(like strength,dexterity,etc) which modify your skills go up when you level up. You get several points each time you level up to give to the traits you want. I think its a really great system.

Thanks for the ideas, there have been some really great ones and some really good points.

Im still toying with whether or not I should have skill "levels". At the moment, I dont, you either have a skill or you dont, which is a simpler system, but doesnt provide as much scope for flexibility. So my verdict is still open on this one. See Im not sure what benefit Climbing 3 would actually give you in my game, because there arent that many things you can climb - because what there is, is very useful and there for a reason (such as to shortcut hard sections on levels, or lead to secrets).

Spectre Software - RPGs, strategy, puzzle games, programming

If you don''t want/need a climbing skill, then you could just have your system check against your dexterity and strength, in fact you could probably do away with most skills in this manner by just having the system use your stats instead.

If you still want to have skills, you should check out Fallout1/2 for some good examples of skills and how their starting values are worked out from your stats.

quote: Original post by PSWind

Rewarding someone for doing a certain action over a more obvious actions sounds like someone is basing their ideas of AD&D rules/Baldur''s Gate.

I''m not familiar with the AD&D rules and I haven''t really played Baldur''s Gate. It was based on the idea of using what your character is good at to solve problems, a fighter might have a higher chance of success fighting up from the first floor than trying to climb to the top on ivy creepers whereas a cat burgler would/might have a better chance climbing up the side of the tower. I got this idea from the Fallout series where a character with a high charisma and intelligence could kill the last boss by talking to him.(If you can''t tell I really like the fallout series.)

quote:

Oh and DarkIce: Having the player increase statistic from use is direct stat control.

When I said direct I was refering to the player manually adding points to stats/skills himself after a level-up.

- DarkIce

Heres an idea. When you get a level up, you get a bunch of Bonus Points, and you get to spend them on what stats you want increased. Characters that are supposed to be naturally stronger, will require less BP than others to get a stat increased.

Or, the FFX way of going at it, which, you could actually try with out seeming like a total blatant ripoff, is having a level up tree (make it look like a tree graphically, maybe with some hexagonal grid stuff) and while traversing the tree (i.e. gain a level), you automatically move to the next node and get the bonuses it carries, and then when you come to a branch, you have to pick one of the directions it branches, and then you''re trapped on that path. Through, this idea is only for the more experimental rpgs, and requires immense effort to avoid copyright infringement.

-> Will Bubel
-> Machine wash cold, tumble dry.

quote: Original post by Inmate2993
Heres an idea. When you get a level up, you get a bunch of Bonus Points, and you get to spend them on what stats you want increased. Characters that are supposed to be naturally stronger, will require less BP than others to get a stat increased.

Or, the FFX way of going at it, which, you could actually try with out seeming like a total blatant ripoff, is having a level up tree (make it look like a tree graphically, maybe with some hexagonal grid stuff) and while traversing the tree (i.e. gain a level), you automatically move to the next node and get the bonuses it carries, and then when you come to a branch, you have to pick one of the directions it branches, and then you''re trapped on that path. Through, this idea is only for the more experimental rpgs, and requires immense effort to avoid copyright infringement.

-> Will Bubel
-> Machine wash cold, tumble dry.

Too bad you''re never first under the sun I''ve already seen that kind of system a couple of times (the name of the games are lost to me now). Most games do it the other way around, though. Instead of having different costs they give you different amounts of attribute points depending on the attribute. For example, you might get 5 points to spend on your attributes, but if you are a warrior each point is worth 3 strength points, but only 1 intelligence point (and the other way around for wizards).

Btw, I don''t think SquareSoft can copyright an advancement system, that would be really strange.



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