Perhaps a variation could be doing away with levels and EXP. You improve by doing. Kind of like X-COM, you want strength, carry heavy stuff; you want to improve your aim, shoot a lot, and so on. With this system your stats are visible, but do not detract from the flavor of the game by imposing themselves so much. ie You notice improvements over time instead of level up jumps. Also this would keep improving statistics based on what you do, not: I killed 50 goblins and leveled up so now I can boost my repair skill.

I like the idea of doing away with HP though.

Perhaps a way to do away or diminish numerical stats would be a trait based system. If you are a doctor you can heal, soldier can use more complex weapons etc.



Jack

Edited by - JackNathan on January 16, 2001 2:42:12 PM

Well, yeah, in real life you don''t know that you have a strength of 12. But then again, what does 12 mean? Does it mean you can fling a buick 100 yards? Does it mean you have trouble climbing into bed? All you know is that you''re stronger than someone with strength 11, and weaker than someone with strength 13. Probably. Maybe vice-versa. It gives the player some scale to compare to. In real life, you may not have a number for it, but you can generally know if you''re stronger than some guy, or weaker, or about the same. You can know exactly if you arm-wrestle and compare bench-presses. Rather than having to incorporate all the zillions of little ways to compare strength, it''s much easier on the player to just be given a number.

On the other hand, hide the rule systems and formulas. Make every skill check involve an insanely arcane formula that incorporates as many factors as you can think of, and make it clear to the player that pure skill number is not the only thing to worry about, and then you get a more rich game. At least, so long as results match intuition. If the player thinks, ''I''ve chained up my opponent, drugged him into unconsciousness, drawn a bullseye on his chest, and have the barrel of my gun touching his forehead, so I''ll probably hit this time despite my skill of 3'', then the mechanics of the game should probably cause him to hit. On the other hand, things like ''wearing a yellow hat'' should not help lockpicking. Yes, these are both silly examples, but I''ve played more than one game where things that seem like they should matter, like weather or injuries for example, just don''t.

LOL Keith. I may not have maners, but i have a point, usually. As far as systems having to have numbers.. well.. there''s no currently known thing to get around it. Even a neural net wouldn''t work. A neural net would have to "think" about each situation. The simple process of thought on any one subject could last a lifetime. In humans, we have a concept known as time that restricts us. We all know we''re going to die. So we try not to ponder things too long, lest we die in the midst of pondering. A computer is not given life, thus it has no death. With no death, you can ponder any one thing for any ammount of time you deem nessicary. So asking it "would bob of strength 12, dexterity 15 and skill with bows of 20 ranks hit joe with dexterity 16 and evasion of 18 ranks?" The machine would ponder this, and most wisely reply "does joe have a shield?" The machine would also need to know every last detail to make a truely accurate answer. What is the mass of the arrow. How is the arrow weighted. What direction and with what force is the wind, currently. How fast is joe''s hand-eye coordination.. the list could go on ad infinitum.
I was reading an article about simulations. Sometime back in the 80''s, the govt of the US called forth some game programmers who''d made a popular tank battle game. They asked them "how do you make such a simulation and sell it for only 50 dollars?" to which the programmers wisely replied "well, we cut corners!" The govt then asked "so if you fire a tank shell at someone else, the probability to hit is done by a simple formula and not a true-physics one?" the programmers nodded to this, and the govt left.
The moral of the story is: If you want to make a decent game, you need not go to insane lengths.. unless you work for the govt

Of course, there''s a lot of things we''d all like to see implimented in games. My hand''s cut off, but i''m wielding a sword with my.. stub? I''ve been badly beating, i''m nearly to death, yet i can stand and fight with the best of them. I think this is why landfish has finally given up on reality and gone to consistency. If i can do this once, i can repeat it, else the game world is too random and unreal. However, how fun would a true to life simulation be? You fire an arrow through a console interface. You''re not drawing the bow. You have to remember it is role-playing in a sense for any game. You''re not that person. They have skills you might never posses. I can''t tell you how much shooters are annoying for the sheer lack of ability to aim well. In reality, if you walked near to a person and wanted to shoot them, you look and aim. But pretend you''re a game character controlled by a spastic person. You try to aim at people and start shooting wildly all over the place in an attempt to hit one person who''s standing still. I can tell you right now, that''s nothing like wielding a real gun. It really is point and click. That''s why most games have a poor implimentation of auto aim. "ok, i''m james bond, who, in the movies, has NEVER EVER missed the person he''s aimed for, even when doing a swan dive off some high place into a roll then doing a couple flips and finally landing. He shot 10 people on all sides of him while doing this.. yet.. in the game, i can''t hit one person standing still in front of me!!!

So.. now that that rant''s complete.. we''ll move on Stats are important in a game for a reason. The game world is false, the character is false. But if the character fits in the game world.. then the story can become real. And the point to the game should be the story if it has one. If it''s doom.. then story is secondary. But a real game needs a story. I find myself more and more cheating and cracking games to make the stupid battles easier and simply to get a chance to see the story. A 40-hour game isn''t so if you remove the 39 hours of battles

So.. you can make your routines more cryptic, so people have a hard time deciphering them. But this means people will merely try harder, confuse them more, and pass out more and more bad literature on how best to powermax in your game. Personally.. that''s not a solution. Making it impossible to powermax is I''ll save that for another time though.

J