I''m trying to create a RPG character system, where the player does not have the option to set any of those stats, nor modify then when gaining levels, because they won''t be gaining levels. This means that you may get the chance to determine part of your character''s history, and with that determining some of his stats. The increase in stats would come from using the statistic, for instance, for every minute you are fighting(hand-to-hand/melee), you use your strength, and are therefore increasing it(only a little bit), this would show progress in your character, without you gaining levels, it would therefore be more realistic. Also if you don''t use certain skills for a while, they would decrease. The player won''t be able to see his stats either, therefore increasing his immersion in the game environment, because he won''t be seeing numbers all the time. Of course some stats won''t increase because of use, for instance you won''t get more intelligent when you cast a spell, but your knowledge of spellcasting would increase slightly(ofcourse you can''t increase your intelligence(nor some other stats), maybe through surgery or something like that). You will also have some different kinds of reputations, your reputation for yourself("alignment"), reputation for the outside world, and reputation for the area you are currently in. Delphi is the best language around.

Was there a question or did you just want us to know all that? If you want my opinion LET THEM SEE THE STATS! Part of the... no 80% of the fun in roleplaying games is the satisfaction you get from watching your character grow stronger. Other than that you have a good idea, one that I also implemented into my own game!

~Vendayan

Ok, so I''m stupid, I forgot to ask you for your opinion, well I do now: I want your opinion on this.

Also, Vendayan, I thought of that, but you would have people just walking around killing everyone, or just training for a long while, just to increase their strength, which would mean that people would be entirely fixated on numbers, and that I don''t want. So, if you know something to avoid this, please tell me.

Delphi is the best language around.

yes! get rid of numbers!
if i want to play with numbers i''ll break out my
calculator
i think your idea is good.

-eldee
;another space monkey;
[ Forced Evolution Studios ]

The number one problem that you''ll encounter when you abolish visible numbers (they''re still there, only the player can''t see them) is:

how does a player get to know the strenghts and weaknesses of a character?

Sure, you can watch your character while he adventures across the world. You can quickly determine how fast he can run (establish a distance measurement, run from A to B, see how long it took, calculate running speed), how fast he can swim, how high he can climb, etc. But, how do you determine how good a character is with a sword. You could just give him a title (rookie, skilled, veteran, master, etc), but titles are basically numbers converted into letters. The player would have to see for himself that the character is accurate with the sword or not, if he''s capable to lift the sword high in the air or not, if he can make many different moves with the sword or not, if he can block good with a sword or not, and so forth.

You''d have to make sure that the player is able to actually see with his own eyes just how good or bad his character is at just about everything.

How about a relative ranking, rather than an absolute one? What I mean is this: you could have, say, a progress bar. This would not have numbers on it and would show your progress relative to something else (e.g. "you compare this well to the best fighter in the land"). This would have the benefit of letting you know how likely you were to get past a boss. The system could be tweaked so that, say, it compared you to the next ''big baddy'' that you were going to come across.

The difficulty here, of course, is coming up with a suitable comparison. You could either have an all-encompassing formula or you could have (probably at most) three or four progress bars (e.g. one for attack, one for defense and one for health).

There are other possibilities too: for multiplayer games you could give a list of how many people are better than you, but not say by how much. The downside for that is that some freak will probably play for weeks on end and you wouldn''t ever catch up to him.

Another possibility would be to change your image as you progress. Put simply, you look cooler and/or tougher as your stats increase. The downside with this is simply the amount of art required.

quote: Delphi is the best language around.

No numbers.

If you want to see how you have progressed in strength, you need to go down to local carnival and enter one of those strong man contests. Pit your muscles against the local strong man and get a "number" on how much weight you could lift.

As for dexterity, the local medicine man has a number of little reflex tests for you to see how you are doing.

but all those methods are tsill numbers in the end. whether reletive or absolute, they exist. things like a dexteiry test i am assuming would be something like, "click here to begin" and the actual test is automatic thus the playters own dexterity is not factered in (thus making the actually dexterity rating in the game a handicap).

now instead of the player bringing up the stats menu, they travel to the different "stats" shops and pay for the "tests" so they can see the numbers. even if they are reletive to a "boss".

i never had this complex of being affixated to stats. just use them to decide whether the equiment i am purchasing is going to be better then the previous equiment i was using. though i playd console rpgs, which are less point and click, and also less stat laden. story is more important then creating a virtual world for the player. by balancing the game you can easily ensure (well balancing is NOT easy) that stats are not the focus of the game. play some old school console rpgs (dragon warrior, final fantasy (4 and 6), secret of mana (more action oriented), crono trigger, etc. even trying games like soul reaver and legacy of kain would be a good idea (more pc like, but still no point and clik crap). i fail to see why a game like dugeon siege is so popular, or even considered decent. its point and click movement is terrible.

doing anything as you suggest (show strength increasing via the player model) will require lots of art creation and sophisticated cross blending of the "weak" and "strong" character models. this is being done in an unpcoming pc game (forget the name, done by the guy who did black and white). players will hate losing skills by not using them, unless its tweaked well. you could force even more stats focus because now the player will try to keep skills up instead of dealing with the actual adventure/story.

games are not meant to be realistic, they are meant to be fun. making a game more "realistic" better have a good reason for it. for instance, will there be ways to lift wieghts (rocks, etc) or create such devices to increase strength (again you would be making a more realistic envirmoent, but bringing the foucs back to stats). how about jogging to help increase running speed? no matter what you do, stats will be there and be percetible to the player. it depends on how much focus YOU place on them. dont try to design a system in which the story is so open ended that the player bores of it in favor of clicking their stats up. also dont have a system in which keeping their levels at a steady level requires constant battling/work. you just bring an increase on the focus of stats.

Not having stats is a great idea....


If you don''t want anyone other than ''hardcore'' RPers to play your game.

Put the numbers in and give an option to not show the numbers, maybe give an experience bonus for not showing the numbers, like 15 or 20%. If you don''t put a number in, someone will decrypt the file and hack a way to show the numbers in less than a week of when the game comes out. People want to see the numbers.

I''ll admit that I want to see the numbers. I want something to shoot for, I want to know that I''ve only got a little more to go until I get "UbAr move #78". Some guys don''t want to, but they''re really in the minority, the same people who play MUDs. Nothing against them, but they don''t care anymore about numbers usually than they care about killing stuff or even getting better. If you want the players to want to get better, let them see how good they *are*.

In FFVII I only paid attention to the health, magic, level and exp stats.. all the strength, dexterity I didn''t bother looking at most of the time.. it was only when I was comparing players and equipping new objects did I look at the more complicated values to see which way they were swinging.

quote:
but all those methods are tsill numbers in the end. whether reletive or absolute, they exist. things like a dexteiry test i am assuming would be something like, "click here to begin" and the actual test is automatic thus the playters own dexterity is not factered in (thus making the actually dexterity rating in the game a handicap).

Putting it bluntly.. an RPG is not an RPG in the gamers eyes unless it has stats and funky calculations. But on saying that bishop_pass''s idea of having various places where you could test out your skills would make it much more interesting, battle arenas, jousting, fencing competitions, etc, to find out the players stats, possibly presenting them by 3 judges sat at the corner of the arena with 1-5 rating cards or something