Okay, how come RPGs always have an enormous array of gear for your guy, and that gear always has wildly different stats? Is it ALL enchanted? I tell you, it seems that there should be some difference, but it''s always so hierarchical. Besides that obvious silliness of a gold helmet that does anything other than compress your spine, I''m always a little disappointed when each town has successively better gear, such that it''s more like raising a level than getting new stuff. I''d rather see a system in which most gear is about the same. Different materials would result in strength orsomething, but having this helmet give a +4 and that helmet give a +44 seems a little broad. Are there any good systems out there? I like Vagrant Story''s, to an extent. There are a number of different metals (bronze, iron, etc.) of which gear can be made, an a silver sugarloaf helmet is about the same as a silver sallet. But that game makes it wierd by giving them stats regarding types of enemies. If you''ve defended yourself from beasts while wearing your iron hauberk, then that hauberk gets a +12 against beast attacks. Silly. So what''s a good system?

Jagged Alliance 2.
There is an option for simplicity: All pistols are simplified by ammo-type.
There is an option for gun-nuts: There are a handful of different names for the different pistol types, but they all essentially do the same thing.


On the theory itself, however:
Walk down to the local pawn-shop/gun-shop. Look around. There are a lot of different guns! If we are to assume that our art imitates life, then should we not imitate the massive number of options anybody wanting a simple handgun has?
The same goes for clothing. Do you wear whatever you find first simply because it''s roughly the same as all the others? No, we like to stylize ourselves and therefore need choices that are essentially cosmetic and moot.

If you want to get down to the issue of the "wildly different stats", I''m going to have to skew the metaphor a little bit, due to the lack of ''enchantment'' in this world.
Guns Analogy: Would you use a 22LR to hunt bear? Would you use a .50 to hunt gophers?...
Clothing: I don''t wear thick down coats in the summer. Nor do I dress like a poolboy for winter. ...
Summary: The numerical ''enchantment'' system in RPG gaming can almost be summed up as either a simple difference in usage(22LR/.50) or possibly even better as a difference in quality. Infogrames is an established publisher of solid games. Valusoft has yet to produce something worth the money. Why should we not establish that Infogrames is a +4 Game Producer and Valusoft is a +1.

If that makes any sense.

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I have to agree I find equipment to be a problem in many games. In 2 ways 1) you get so much of that it looses all meaning after all by the end of most rpgs. I'm still carrying the starting equipment as well as every other thing I ever picked up. There where even an instance or two in games where the item progression was competely liner. Town 1 sold damage 3 swords, town 2 sold damage 6 swords, town 3 sold damage 9 swords and so on.

Also the whole progression of supier items is rather annoying and unrealistic. How come when I visit the the capital of the most powerful nation in world at the begining of the game and shop at their stores. I get a sword that looks like a tooth pick compared to the one I buy from the small isolated farming village later in the game? Come on is that realistic? After all these are simple farmers where do they find the time and desire to forage an endless of supply of super swords???

There was one game that I can think of that was diffrent and that was star ocean 2. Basically the best equipment you could buy, in general came from the capital city of arms. However most villages has a few choice specialty items that where unavilable elsewhere.

it was a good system.

-----------------------------------------------------
Writer, Programer, Cook, I'm a Jack of all Trades
Current Design project
Chaos Factor Design Document



[edited by - technogoth on December 28, 2003 5:36:23 PM]

Maybe having better equipment in every town is not so bad, but instead of making them good enough to urge you to throw away your older equipment, let them be just a little better and also most of the times the equipment you get is equal in some way to the equipment you had before. For example:

You start with no equipment
In town 1 you find Hat (+1 defense, +0, magic defense, 0 weight)
In town 2 you find Wooden helmet (+2 defense, +0 magic defense, 0 weight)
In town 3 you find Iron helmet (+2 defense, +2 magic defense, 1 weight)
In town 4 you find Titanium helmet (+3 defense, +3 magic defense, 2 weight)
In town 5 you find Magic helmet (+0 defense, +3 magic defense, 1 weight)

Now helmets in town 2 and 3 are equal because they have a defense stat, a magic defense and also a weight stat (more weight equals less speed) so you have a way to counter the good things. How ever a character that doesn''t needs speed would rather have the Iron helmet, but one that can''t afford to lose speed because instead of enduring the attacks they dodge would like the Wooden helmet better. The titanium helmet is better for characters who need a balance between speed and defense. Magic helmet is okay with a mage since he should be the one fighting against magic, but since magic isn''t used that often(i mean like most rpgs do), even if he has 3 magic points in exchange of just 1 weight but he won''t use that advantage too much.

I think it''s okay to make the starting equipment worse than the later making the character unable to afford them at the beginning. Just to give them the starting feeling that they are getting better. But not during the entire game. Also a final all mighty equipment is nice to make them feel like they got as powerful as they could.

The ability of selling you old stuff at least doesn''t makes them completely useless, but if you could use you old equipment for something else(like mixing them together to make a new weapon with strange properties, not exactly stronger than the last one but with special properties for especial situations), or that the equipment you use is based on the situation you are facing and not making them better for all posibilities, that would make a balance.

And having a limit smaller than the usual in the number of equipment you can carry makes the player take some hard decisions about what to sell or drop, between two things that are still useful.

Different towns means different enviroments and they could sell equipment acording to their enviroment, and having you to face those same enviroments again.

In phantasy star online you just have one shop, that sells things acording to your level but, the melee weapons for example, need certain streght to use. Maybe making heavier weapons need more streght is a good way of making certain that the player won''t just get the best equipment there is.

I think one way to pull things into reality, is impliment the breaking of the weapons.. that way you can have weapon quality..

i mean.. a glass sword may be able to cut somebody just as good as a titanium sword.. but the titanium sword isn't going to break as easily..

if you can have the swords break, you can put the stress on weapon quality, instead of weapon enchantment level.

Of course this wouldn't be limited to weapons.. armour could break, (or wear out, losing protection points as it does). This would make you WANT to buy newer higher-quality armour.

[edited by - aegrimonia on December 28, 2003 12:00:02 AM]

I was going to reply to each and every one of you, but then I realized an old solution that doesn''t necessarily limit itself to Console RPGs(as most of you are discussing) or CRPGs.

There is an article floating around out there about taking magic systems, especially enchantments, realistically.
Assume and imagine for a moment that you are this Farmer Milosevic, out to slay goblins. You begin your adventure with a rusty old blade(numerically, this might be represented to being with as -1, but you DO NOT give this to the player). At some point, after killing the goblin chief Schlep, you discover a shiny blade locked away. It feels extraordinarily light(+1 Strength), and you find it seems to slice through the meat of the wild forest creatures especially well(+1 vs Natural Beasts). You don''t immediately take out your farmer''s notebook and say "I think this is a Mithril Sword of Animal Slaying!". You simply understand what it does best by usage.

Hide the statistics from players and let them explore for themselves. If they see a shiny fancy helmet in a shop that costs a lot, let them assume that it has wonderful effects(that the shopkeeper may or may not ''elaborate'' on).

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-ryan@lecherousjester.com

If you are going to hide the stats from the player (I like the idea btw), I wouldn’t hide it completely. Allow the player to examine the item, or hand it over to a specialist to examine. I.e. before examination a +1, +2 or +3 sword of orc slaying might be described to the player as a shiny sword, after being examined it could be described as a sword with a mild bonus against orcs.

The GURPS system has a decent armor system. Each piece of armor has two stats, passive defense and damage resistance. The passive defense is the chance that the blow will deflect off the armor without doing any damage. The damage resistance is the amount of damage the armor will absorb if it is hit. The change to actually hit someone with a iron helmet version someone with a titanium helmet is the same but the amount of damage that gets through will vary.

I don''t play many computer RPGs so just a few weeks ago I ran into my first "glass" weapon and about died laughing. The only time I have ever heard of a glass weapons was in a sires of books where the assons used glass knives, and that was for one use only since the glass blade broke off into pieces once it was in the victim.

The idea of hissing items stats could be a good one in fact I suggested something similar a few months ago in a threa on an in game legal system. However people where very insistent that merchants had to be upstanding honest citizens, and that if they gave all their money to the shady looking man in the alley for a glowing sword that he claimed could slay a dragon with a single stroke. It better well be able to, and just be a glowing piece of metal.

But I think the hard part about hidding stats comes down to how do you recognize what it does? Take the your example how does the player notice the +1 strength? or the +1 against animals? I hack at a few animals and I notice it does a little more damage that it does to say insects, but that could just mean that insects have more defense, or the blade could be weak against insects or it could be such a small diffrence that I don''t even notice.

Generly under most traditonal RPG combat systems it would be extremly difficult to recognize an Items effect.



-----------------------------------------------------
Writer, Programer, Cook, I''m a Jack of all Trades
Current Design project
Chaos Factor Design Document

In most games that I''ve played, there needs to be more "junk", or standard items, and far fewer magical items. In some games, every maggot-eating orc drops some sort of magic, items which in the "real" world would probably be confiscated by the orc king or his lackeys, rather than left in the possession of some lowly soldier or grunt. The ever-increasing progression of items for sale in linear patterns bothers me as well.

I personally prefer to dodge the whole stores issue by not even having stores, but this is not for everyone. In Golem, any human inclined to run a store has been exterminated already, and golems are not inclined to stand around all day waiting for customers. In the world of Golem, economics and commerce have not been established, the golems having only recently liberated themselves, and not having found the pace of their future existence. Only the most loyal servants of the butcherous One Golem have any sense of organization or progression whatsoever and theirs is a very militant, even communist, structure rather than a capitalist; the remainder of golems remain dissolute and lost, with no structure whatsoever. All equipping done by the player is done by pillaging one of the One Golem''s houses of scavenged and rationed loot, or by seeking out lost Talismans spoken of only in myth or story, or other such means. Powerful magic must be worked for, not just found lying around on some dungeon floor, and even the lesser items are found mostly behind lock and key.

To have every other item found be a Magical +4 Brass Knuckles of Stone Golem Shattering (not a real item), or to have such items purchasable in stores by any sum of money, degrades the "special" quality that magical items should have. Even if the Brass Knuckles cost 150000, it is conceivable that a golem could raise that amount of cash through routine, mundane tasks. The Knuckles lose some of their shine as mystical artifacts if they can be so easily purchased. However, if you have to brave the darkling-haunted halls of the Seventh Warren, and face the random magical explosions emanated by Marsten''s Pillar in order to obtain them, then they retain their intrinsic value as magical objects.

Another thing that bothers me is that in most games, said Brass Knuckles come with all sorts of bonuses, and no penalties to speak of. I prefer a magical system that includes tradeoffs, penalties, and sacrifices. Yeah, the Brass Knuckles are good against Stone Golems, but what happens if you run into one constructed of Flame, or Steel? How are these combinations handled? A Flame Golem, obviously, would likely have a detrimental effect on your Knuckles, while a golem fashioned of harder metal than brass would have little to fear from them at all.

As far as stat-hiding, I am generally in favor of it in a theoretical sense, but in reality I have always had a hard time pulling it off. As TechnoGoth said, if stats are hidden it can be difficult to recognize the subtler effects of an item. I think that the stats should not be hidden completely, but rather disguised in some clever fashion. Instead of presenting the player with a concrete number, instead give him subtle indicators (flaming aura, colors that fit some scheme, shapes, etc...) that indicate the stats of the object. Coming up with these visual indicators, of course, is a challenge in and of itself.

Just my ramblings.


Josh
vertexnormal AT linuxmail DOT org

Check out Golem: Lands of Shadow, an isometrically rendered hack-and-slash inspired equally by Nethack and Diablo.

I''ve expressed my distaste for stat hiding, and even offered that numerics can be replaced with general grades (FDCBA+S), in other threads so lemme offer something new here.

How about more specialized items and a less broad range of items. If you couple this with an in-combat reequip option, then rather then just equipping the +4 sword and forgetting about it, part of combat strategy is switching weapons to deal with the situations that arise.