quote:
Original post by Kylotan I can''t say I agree... making a system balanced is hard enough, but making it have enough depth so that you''d keep learning more and more over many weeks (or even months, years) is a very tall order.
So essentially, I agree with you in theory, but I think there would need to be a lot more thought given to implementation. As you can''t just throw away one aspect of player retention (statistical advancement) unless you have the replacement (varied and potentially emergent tactical gameplay) ready.
It''d be hard to have a skill-based RPG that rivals the masterability of common FPS''s. I''m sure we''ve all played an FPS (I was into Quake 2 for awhile) and thought we were the $h!t just to have the floor mopped with our @$$ at some point by a player that LIVES in the FPS environment. I see what you are saying though. Perhaps is the game made the player watch energy levels (exhaustion), pain tolerance (hurting the knuckles in a punch), perhaps the player would enjoy the strategy of combat. On the other hand, maybe not. I find the idea intriguing, nonetheless. =)
- Jay
"Strictly speaking, there is no need to teach the student, because the student himself is Buddha, even though he may not be aware of it." - Shunryu Suzuki
I happen to agree with Kylotan. Most of the people who play RPGs want to think and they want to see progress in their *character*. That is how they guage their progress, not through the player ability.
I would hate the system that Bandecko is proposing, no matter how much he thinks that it is ''better''. All of the flaws that he pointed out in DAoC have nothing to do with player skill vs. character skill though, they have to do with design flaws. Every skill is poorly thought out and the spells are all just repeats of the same spells over and over. That''s why I didn''t like the game, in EQ my enchanter didn''t get some types of spells for 5, 10, 20 or even 40 levels, in DAoC my enchanter got all of his spells pretty much in the first 10 levels and just got duplicates of those spells as he gained more levels.
Yes, 5 low level warriors should have a chance against a single mid level warrior, but only because there are 5 against one. If that mid level warrior fights those 5 low level warriors one at a time, he will walk all over every single one of them, even with no break in between.
As for his statements that a person with more experience can''t take gunshot wounds, yes they can. Most battlefield deaths are due to shock, not actual blood loss or fatal wounds. More experienced warriors will be able to take the bullet and realize that if he doesn''t lose his cool he will probably live, if he loses it, then he''s dead meat. This is why you can hear stories of CMH winners who take 5 bullets, save 8 platoon members and kill 30 enemies, because they are more experienced and *can* take a bullet. Sure, you take a bullet to the heart or brain and you''re toast no matter what, but the more experienced warriors know how to better avoid those bullets. That entire "if a bullet''s got your name on it" stuff is crap, if you don''t stick your head up in heavy fire, you''re probably not going to get hit in the head, are you? That experienced warrior is going to keep his cool and not stick his head up. That''s how he got experienced, he didn''t die and he watched to see what killed other people, so it wouldn''t kill him.
I wouldn''t mind seeing a chance for a ''progressive critical'', where a chance hit can kill a highly experienced warrior, but you''re not going to get lucky often enough for it to matter in the long run. You''ll die 200 times against that experienced warrior before you can get in that lucky shot against him.
Yes, player skill is a part of it all. But player skill can''t make your level 10 warrior take out a level 20 warrior and it really shouldn''t. It''s part of the disconnect between character and player. Your character isn''t your player, his survival should not be so dependent upon player ability that he dies against an inferior opponent. He *is* a highly experienced warrior who can avoid those bullets, has the presence of mind to jump back at the last second to keep that dragon claw from piercing his chest, he knows hot to tilt his head so that the axe glances off his helm instead of chopping through it and killing him outright.
This is the value of experience that players can''t possibly learn because we *don''t* (and shouldn''t have to) spend 8 hours a day fighting and practicing to fight. We spend 8 hours a day programming, delivering mail, answering phones, manufacturing cars and managing our employees. Make a game where you have to build a car and I''ll bet that those guys in the factories are going to win.
As usual, my post has gone on longer than I expected.
quote:
Original post by Kylotan Assuming you didn''t mind that you''d alienate traditional RPG players who like the characters to "fight for themselves", so to speak, you''d still have to have some sort of slowly progressive element. Otherwise, what have you got to keep people coming back? It would be hard to design a system that is complex enough that few can master it,and if people master it, they will probably tire of it.
Two points:
#1: People keep coming back to fighting games, FPS, etc that have no progressive element. The skill is what keeps people coming back. Improving, seeking new challenges, etc.
#2: What is this "traditional RPG" genre you keep mentioning? I''ve played plenty of Final Fantasy, Bard''s Tale, Wizardry, Ultima, Gold Box games, etc, and none of those are "stand there and watch as you character swings away." Other than MMORPG''s and the BioWare games, neither of which can be called traditional, what games and players are you referring to? Combat in the Gold Box games and the Ultima''s was decidedly tactical. It appears to me that the whole "player doesn''t do anything" paradigm is new, not traditional at all.
quote:
People keep coming back to fighting games, FPS, etc that have no progressive element
Has nothing to do with the players that he''s talking about. The vast majority of RPG players (all of them that I know actually) find FPS games to be a complete waste of time. I, nor any RPG gamers that I know "keep coming back to fighting games" because that''s not what we like, we play RPGs.
quote:
I''ve played plenty of Final Fantasy, Bard''s Tale, Wizardry, Ultima, Gold Box games, etc, and none of those are "stand there and watch as you character swings away." Other than MMORPG''s and the BioWare games, neither of which can be called traditional, what games and players are you referring to? Combat in the Gold Box games and the Ultima''s was decidedly tactical. It appears to me that the whole "player doesn''t do anything" paradigm is new, not traditional at all.
I think that in comparison to the FPS games, an RPG is a whole world of difference. With a few notable exceptions, you largely do a lot less in an RPG than you do in an FPS. Does it mean you do nothing? No. The only MMORPG that I know of that you really do ''nothing'' in most of the time is EQ and even in that game you have to do something. Still, is it anywhere near the "you have 2 tenths of a second to target me and click me to death" that you see in an FPS? No.
How long do I have in most RPGs to decide what my characters will do? Generally all day and more if I so choose. What''s that? Walk away, go to the bathroom, make a sandwich, watch a TV show and then decide? You would''ve died 150 times in an FPS in that time, most RPGs would still be waiting for your decision. Targeting? Not in most RPGs.
I also don''t generally count console RPGs with CRPGs, they''re a completely different genre, appealing to a different audience most (75%) of the time. Most people I know who play Baldur''s Gate and the like would never consider playing FF1-X for more than 10 minutes. My wife bought me FF9 for the PS2 and I got so bored in the first hour that I put it down and never picked it back up. They just don''t appeal to me any more than FPS games do. What''s funny though, is that most people that I know who do play FPS games love the FF series.
There are certain games that appeal to FPS game players and others that appeal to RP gamers. They''re different and require different skills. RP skills are much more cerebral and the FPS games are much more physical. It''s all where you take your pleasure. I get more enjoyment out of outthinking a game, FPS gamers get more enjoyment from shouting "I 0\/\/n J00!!!1!11" and watching the pretty red bits fly around after they blast their opponent. I guess it''s a judgement call.
I don''t think that Kylotan was trying to say that in RPGs you do nothing though. What he is saying is that success or failure is not based upon how/when/where you click, it''s based upon your time investment and a situational selection. In FPS games it''s based upon how/when/where you click and/or dodge. There is a reason they have the nickname "click and twitch" games.
I enjoy games that let you explore but I don''t enjoy games that give you all day to decide. I''d rather be on my toes and immersed in battle. I believe this is why I''m not so interested in games these days. I''d like to go into a town, buy a gun, find another player among the population and assassinate them from the first-person perspective. So, I''m not quite RPG and not quite FPS. I just want to see something different.
Solinear, imagine that every game you play you feel as bored as you feel playing FF9. That''s what it''s like for me. I''ve played computer games for 23 years. Sitting around hacking at orcs has gone beyond the point of being bland. I need a rich environment and exciting gameplay. In my opinion (and not saying they actually are), both FPS''s and RPG''s are completely lame. Every once in a while a game comes along that keeps my attention for more than a day but they''re few and far between.
- Jay
"Strictly speaking, there is no need to teach the student, because the student himself is Buddha, even though he may not be aware of it." - Shunryu Suzuki
Stat(istic)s are REAL. John Doe can only bench press 100 lbs, while James Smith can press 300. John, however can run a mile in 5 minutes flat while it takes James 9.5 minutes. John can perform 50 multiplication problems in 4 minutes, whereas James has to have 8. John can make 5 friends in 5 minutes, but it takes James a year to get one (and keep them!) Heh. Etc., etc.
The problem as I see it is in relating those stats to the players in a way which is unobtrusive, and which doesn''t dominate character development. More on this later.
Two statistics which I believe have NO place in a CRPG in their current predominant manifestation is your ‘level’ and your ‘hit points’. While I understand it is convenient to have an abstract way of representing a character’s relative experience or power, it makes absolutely no sense to me to hinge a character’s development on the very same abstraction. In other words, if you want to figure out what level a character is, add up all of his abilities and divide by the number of abilities added. And yes, I am completely and wholeheartedly for a skill based system. One where skill increases with use, or practice, or study/training. Never by ‘leveling’. As an example, if one had a Melee Skill of 5, a Magic Skill of 3, and a Pick Lock Skill of 7, your ‘level’ would be (5+3+7)/3 = 15/3 = 5. I would still debate the issue of actually representing this where the character had direct access to it. Perhaps something along the lines of what several others have already mentioned in the way of some kind of character test would be palatable (i.e., going to the local fair, consulting the local seer, etc.)
The other stat, hit points, should be used more conservatively than the widespread [mis-]use we see in most RPGs. I don’t have a problem with depicting the amount of general shock/damage a player’s character can endure before passing unconscious or into death, but not putting a limit on this value is pretty much insane, IMHO. ICE’s Rolemaster P&P RPG system did it pretty good. They had racial maximums with a bonus derived from a character’s constitution (CO) stat. Humans for example with average CO could only have, at most, 120 hit points. Orcs for example, say 150. Generally the larger, tougher or more massive the creature, the more its hit points such that you’d have trolls maxed around 300-450, giants at 400-500, and large dragons at 600+. And that 150 maximum listed for humans would take a LONG time to get to, as each character would only start with 1/10 of their CO stat in a percentile system. Average starting characters would thusly begin with 5 hit points (i.e., average CO of 50 out of 100). Heh. This would be expandable by putting time into a Body Development skill, where each skill level results in an additional die roll being added to your total (and where the race determined the die type, with larger creatures getting bigger dice) up unto your racial maximum, after which no additional amount of development would improve your hit points whatsoever. I’m not writing to support that particular methodology as I’ve got my own ideas in that area, but as you can probably imagine starting characters are pretty fragile under this system. And plus it serves to keep things where inexperienced characters won’t last long against the more fantastical creatures such as dragons or veteran characters unless they team up. I mean, a party where the fighers have around 30-50 hits isn’t going to last long against a dragon (500-600 hits), unless there’s a large group of them. As an aside, this same system made extensive use of ‘critical hits’, where a 5 hit point unarmed peasant could conceivably kill a 120 hit point knight in full plate armed with a sword. Now we’re talking conceivably, as it would take something like that peasant making about three successive rolls of 96-100 on a percentile system (i.e., 5% x 5% x 5% = 1 in 8,000 chance). But it could be done. The same thing applied to a 120 hit point knight in full plate with a sword fighting a 600 hit point dragon. So you see some realism is preserved along with the fantasy.
As far as relating a character’s stats to the player, some solutions present themselves which are simple and would produce some desirable results in terms of gameplay. Take a character’s strength for example. Yes, we could categorize it such that for each 15 lbs you could bench press, you get one point of strength (e.g., John, above, would have a 7 strength while James would have a 20) and then display that number on the character’s profile. But wouldn’t it be far more interesting to have a range of graphical icons representing an increasing level of strength? Say a picture of an arm curled in the classic ‘look how strong I am’ position, with bicep/forearm size directly related in pixels to the hidden value of the strength stat. Other people would get this same icon displayed next to your portrait when they examined you. If desired, clothing could hide this icon.
Strength is possibly the only stat that readily lends itself to this kind of representation. Speed, Agility, Constitution, Intelligence, etc., are not easily or not at all graphically representable. So then, other stats would have to be estimated by experience. Direct your character to run, and see how fast he makes it to a destination and how long it takes before he begins to tire/slow down. Instruct your character to take the entrance exam at the local Magician’s Guild, and note the reaction of the Mage Testers to your score (e.g., ranging from, “Your score is dismal. Try the Fighter’s Guild down the road to your left,” through, “Your score looks promising. Return when you are more knowledgeable,” to, “Your score is excellent! Welcome to the brotherhood!”) Etc., etc.
So then we’ve got graphical representation of a character’s strength and abstract representation through game world mechanics of everything else. The focus then tends towards gameplay instead of maximizing your numbers. Granted, we would lose some number maximizers using this method but what would that leave us with? Role players, maybe? Wait, now there’s a thought: role players playing a RPG! Imagine that.
On to skills. As mentioned above, character skills would be advanced simply and solely through use, either direct or indirect (i.e., practice or study), with limits on the progression based on some kind of curve. Like, you’d gain more per unit time initially than after you’ve gained an appreciable amount of skill. This would help make it so a guy who spends a few weeks playing isn’t drastically less skillfull than someone who’s spent months. Also, if a skill isn’t used a negative modifier to that skill would begin to accumulate (although quite slowly). This modifier would be rapidly eliminated with continued use of the skill, acting only as a kind of ‘haze’ of forgetfulness the character would have to work through to return to his previous level of ability in that skill. I mean, if you’ve spent 4 weeks fighting, then spend 4 weeks mining and smelting and smithing, should you really expect to kick the same amount of arse now after not touching your weapon for an entire 4 weeks? No. But with maybe a week of refresher you’d be back to your normal level of whoop-arse.
I guess the mechanics I’m proposing wouldn’t be entirely applicable to the original poster’s player based skill combat system, but honestly I was really interested in his ideas (they being seemingly so close to my own) until I got to that part of his conceptualization. I don’t agree with making the combat results based on the player’s hand-eye coordination instead of his character’s in-game skills and stats. I do agree with allowing the player to engage in several different combat options other than Attack or Flee however. But it sort of sounded like he was trying for a First Person Role-Playing Shooter (FPRPS). Hey, could that be a new genre or something?
It was mentioned that in real life a person would have some idea of what level of every stat they were personally at (i.e., how strong, how quick, how smart, etc.) So let the player use actual numbers and points to customize his starting character. Allow them so many points to allocate among their various stats, with all of the stats starting at a base amount. Perhaps behind the scenes randomly construct a profile of that character’s potentials in each stat as well. That way, as in real life, a character would only be able to attain a set level of strength, intelligence, quickness, etc. I would personally base the potential on the starting levels, so you wouldn’t accidentally cap a character’s strength one point past what he started it at if that stat was one in which he dumped a large portion of his allowable points. Do the same thing with skills, allowing a number of points to be spent on starting skills.
With this method we begin play with a character we are rather intimately familiar with as far as our skills and stats are concerned. There are no classes to artificially limit our progression in certain areas, nor are there levels we must attain to advance generally in all of our abilities. We get better at what we like to do because we end up doing it more often. We advance those skills and related stats because those are the skills and stats that we use. If you go on an adventure and don’t kill any monsters, instead performing the function of scout, well then your weapons skill(s) will remain at whatever level they were before you left but your sneak and lockpick skills will have gone up, with consequent rises in agility and quickness. If all you did was whack beasties then all that has improved upon your return is your ability to whack, with consequent improvements in strength and agility. You get the idea.
Well that’s enough from me for now.
Care.
Florida, USA RTS Engine in Development http://www.knology.net/~heaven Jesus is LORD!
Well you missed or ignored basically every point I tried to make.
quote:
Original post by solinear
People keep coming back to fighting games, FPS, etc that have no progressive element
Has nothing to do with the players that he''s talking about. The vast majority of RPG players (all of them that I know actually) find FPS games to be a complete waste of time.
My point is that *skill* keeps people coming back. Frantic mouse-clicking is *A* skill but not the ONLY skill. Why are you people so myopic, that the second anyone suggests that some actual skill in a game would be nice you assume the skill is motor skill, even when I specifically said I *wasn''t* talking about motor skill?
Why do people come back to Chess? Where is the progression there? The reason people come back to Chess is in the end largely the same reason they come back to fighting games: skill and self-improvement.
Furthermore, who the hell cares what these RPG players like or don''t like? If their attitude is "stats must mean everything or I quit" they can go ahead and quit. Big deal, they don''t represent a huge market. If adding some element of skill drives them away but attracts many more new people that''s a gain. I could care less about lazy morons who want to play an interactive movie. If they are going to jump ship the second you ask them to excersize any skill of any kind so be it.
quote:
How long do I have in most RPGs to decide what my characters will do? Generally all day and more if I so choose. What''s that? Walk away, go to the bathroom, make a sandwich, watch a TV show and then decide? You would''ve died 150 times in an FPS in that time, most RPGs would still be waiting for your decision. Targeting? Not in most RPGs.
This is totally irrelevant to the conversation, unless you believe that the only thing that falls under "skill" in life is playing an FPS.
quote:
RP skills are much more cerebral and the FPS games are much more physical. It''s all where you take your pleasure.
Please. There is nothing cerebral about most RPGs these days, especially MMORPGs. What sort of thought is required? Know when to run and when to heal…that''s it. What differentiates a "smart" MMORPG player from a dumb one? Not much. Any idiot can engage in automatic combat. Unless you consider left-clicking once on a target to be "cerebral" I have real problems seeing where the thought is involved. Slow pace doesn''t indicate that something takes thought. It means you have *time* for thought, it doesn''t mean the game requires or rewards it.
quote:
I don''t think that Kylotan was trying to say that in RPGs you do nothing though. What he is saying is that success or failure is not based upon how/when/where you click, it''s based upon your time investment and a situational selection. In FPS games it''s based upon how/when/where you click and/or dodge. There is a reason they have the nickname "click and twitch" games.
No, why don''t we let him speak for himself and base our comments on what he wrote? I''ve made it perfectly clear that my "skills" were NOT twitch skills, that I was referring to decision-making skills, and he still bristled at the notion that an RPG should be anything but stat and level based.
Skill is not just FPS skill. Skill can be many things. But the typical MMORPG takes basically NO skill of ANY kind, and that is NOT what traditional RPGs are about. You use more skill in 10 minutes of a gold box game than 2 years at EQ. The fact is that in most of these games the only real skill is having free time.
quote:
Original post by solinear I happen to agree with Kylotan. Most of the people who play RPGs want to think and they want to see progress in their *character*. That is how they guage their progress, not through the player ability.
This is entirely circular logic. MMORPGs are based on character progression, so the people who play them are into character progression. But there may well be a huge crowd of people who are turned off by that. Those people could well be RPG players if some RPG would cater more to them.
RPGs have always been about character advancement to some extent, but in the typical MMORPG that is literally ALL they are about. No puzzles, no mysteries, no exploration, brain-dead combat - the only thing to do is bonk rats to gain your next level. So yeah, that tends to attract people who enjoy bonking rats...
quote:
This is the value of experience that players can''t possibly learn because we *don''t* (and shouldn''t have to) spend 8 hours a day fighting and practicing to fight.
Of course, the obvious rejoinder is that in MMORPGs you instead have to spend that time levelling. That is the complaint you are missing: to be "good" at a MMORPG you DO have to put in extraordinary amounts of time.
OH NO!!! Someone is trying to have an original thought! Quick, stamp them out! Stop the heretic!
It''s an idea. Don''t herniate your sphincter =)
Isn''t the point of this to bounce some ideas around and improve the original idea? Saying that the game idea should be an RPG just like every other RPG is off topic. The topic is about a game that isn''t like other RPG''s.
- Jay
"Strictly speaking, there is no need to teach the student, because the student himself is Buddha, even though he may not be aware of it." - Shunryu Suzuki
quote:
Original post by coderx75 Saying that the game idea should be an RPG just like every other RPG is off topic. The topic is about a game that isn''t like other RPG''s.
- Jay
Exactly. The argument that it will turn off the current breed of RPG players is irrelevant. It it turns off *everybody* yeah that is a problem.
