Okay, this post is game theory, so I suppose it fits into this forum section.

This brief spurt of random thought was set off by zaril’s Trimods thingie, in case you were wondering. But, anyway...

In a classical RPG, you gain levels and make your numbers go up. It often amazes me how much importance a player or programmer (like myself) can put in making his numbers get bigger, not to mention how entertaining I sometimes find it to watch my strength go +1, +1, +1. But I’m wondering if there is’t a better way of doing things. My narrow-minded game designs are getting claustrophobic :P .

I mean, when you gain a level, most games provide you a new foe to balance out your advantages. So, all the numbers get bigger, but they don’t represent any real change to the gameplay. Sure, you do 15000 damage to the Lord Grand Death Dragon of Air, but it has 16 million HP, so it kinda squishes the joy of the whole idea. no matter how you do levelling up, whether arithmaticly (like D&D) or geometrically or whatever, it’s the same because you have to ballance it all out in the game to keep your numbers from being to high for the monsters to provide a challenge or vice versa.

So, I’m trying to come up with different ways to do these kinds of things. Where the cleverness of the player should give him an advantage not enjoyed by the lesser mases of level treadmillers :D or something else to break free of the evil numerical overlords. There have been a lot of battle systems out there, and some of them have been downright creative and enjoyable. Most (especially of mine), however, have been ripoffs of Final Fantasy’s 4-choice target-the-monster watch-the-numbers-bounce system.

What do you think? Has anybody used a really blockbuster battle system or character management system in a game before? Any ideas on it?

so does anyone get what I’m trying to say, or should I just lay off the 20 gallons of caffeinated beverages I just finished chugging?

I agree that the # itself doesnt matter - in the end the game must be balanced no matter what. But what's always bothered me about the ff style of battle is the lack of control the player has.

A good alternative advancement system is the one from system shock (while the game might be confused by a fps it is at it's core an rpg) in it you gather (nanites i think :)) and you spend these on either attribute upgrades or skill advancement. This obviously makes for a much more replayable game and characters that really reflect the players style of play.

awsome. (better thought out than my post :D ) I look forward to reading your article!

While your ideas filter slowly through my neurons, I like your statement about how levels can be used for different things, I suppose it's a viable way to keep the player from going into the last dungeon at level 5 or something :D.

And it's deffinitely true that story can makeup for gameplay. And visuals, but not to as much of an extent.

I'll keep reading these posts and hopefully they'll all eventually get through my skull :).

Lol thats not a bad idea :)

even better it should be multiplayer and youre coding as the game is being played --- that would be so strange but very cool imho

Dear god, if you want a complex system, check out Anarchy Online. If you make your char on RK2 (rimor) I can help you out. ;)

As to the original postulation... As you level your hp and damage may increase, but so are the monsters...

In Anarchy that's certainly the case, in fact, the monsters hp and damage increase faster than yours does. But thats because its team oriented.

The primary interesting thing that happens in AO as you gain levels is you get more and more skill points. You can't super massively min/max because there's a maximum of 3*, 4*, or 5* (depending on the skill and your profession) points per level increase in a skill even though you may have enough skill points to raise several skills, you can't just put them all into one skill and have like 50 Computer Literacy and 1 of everything else at level 3.

So what happens as you level up, because theres far more skills then you could ever max in AO, is that as you level, you may not be that much more powerful, but your ability to customize your character increases dramatically.

So... yeah. The trick is, even though the monsters are levelling with you, there has to be some other benefit to levelling other than playing catch up.

Additionally, with the amount of various stat-buffing items, twinking on high level equipment at low levels is a good way to waste a whole lot of time. The problem with AO is that it becomes so complex that you pretty much literally have to be an engineer.

Has anyone played Shadow Hearts Covenant? That is a PRIME example of a neat new battle system that gives advantages to players who are smart WITHOUT crippling the game for players who are... less enterprising. The core of the battle system is the cliche turn based monster smacker, but envisioned in a fresh new way.

Quote:Originally posted by Blues Zodiakos

Has anyone played Shadow Hearts Covenant? That is a PRIME example of a neat new battle system that gives advantages to players who are smart WITHOUT crippling the game for players who are... less enterprising. The core of the battle system is the cliche turn based monster smacker, but envisioned in a fresh new way.Check his flowerpot. Check his flowerpot for GAY PORN. We desperately need those new dresses.

Quote:Originally posted by Toen

Quote:Originally posted by Blues Zodiakos

Has anyone played Shadow Hearts Covenant? That is a PRIME example of a neat new battle system that gives advantages to players who are smart WITHOUT crippling the game for players who are... less enterprising. The core of the battle system is the cliche turn based monster smacker, but envisioned in a fresh new way.Check his flowerpot. Check his flowerpot for GAY PORN. We desperately need those new dresses.

no, mom, we're not. ... Yes, mom, I know you worry about that.

I guess there is no straight 'improvement' of a system in a game. Everybody will like something different, and even the mechanics that we hate and loath must have a fan out there somewhere. So, you can't please everybody. Or anybody but yourself, really :P

and there are times where I've just wanted to play a game without having to learn a new system of doing things. Tradition can be pleasant. All depends on the player, I guess.

I've been pondering on what style of battle to use in the Shadowrun game that I'm working on. I'm concidering a hybrid between tactical and shooter, I guess the description would be 'twitch game with a pause button'? When your character succedes in noticing a threat, the game pauses, allowing you to plan out a turns' movement and actions, but you have to aim and shoot with the mouse while the action is happening.

Example: You move your character into a seemingly abandoned warehouse. After a moments, he realizes that there is a gun barrel sticking out of the crates near the far door. The game pauses and alerts the player to the threat, and askes for turn actions. You could choose to do a full round or half round action, and the actions include move, dodge, shoot, and take cover. Let's say you pick 'half round move, half round attack'. You plot where your character is moving to, push the unpause button and take potshots at the bad guy with your mouse while your character is running for cover.

Whatcha think?

Well, I don't think it's entirely possible (not especially effectively, anyway) to get away from numbers altogether... but a lot of recent RPGs I've played have had some rather unique battle systems that do some rather creative things WITH the numbers.

Most notably, the brand new (in the U.S.) PS2 RPG 'Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne', the Japanese version of which I spent over 100 hours on. The battle system is turn-based, and basically rewards you with extra turns if you can exploit an enemy's weak point or sneak in a critical hit... but penalizes you by removing some or all of your turns for the round if you happen to hit an enemy's strong point, or miss. In addition, it has the rather nerve-racking element of giving each character an 8-spell limit... and if you learn a 9th, you have to choose one spell to discard, permanently. And I do mean PERMANENTLY. And even MORE nerve-racking are when party members appear to be 'changing' after levelling up. You're basically told, 'A change appears to be occurring in this character's body. Will you let it happen?' If you say yes, one of that character's spells or skills may 'evolve' into something better... or change into something better... or change/devolve into something MUCH, MUCH WORSE. And there's really no indication whatsoever or which skill, nor of what kind of change. Answering yes is a total gamble...

Now THAT'S good gameplay!!

Then there's the Japan-only game 'Zwei!!', which is an old-school dungeon-crawler. It breaks virtually no new ground, but is immensely fun, due in no small part to its rather unique experience system. Killing enemies doesn't give you experience... instead, when you kill enemies, they drop food. And food items, in addition to healing you, give you experience. This alone presents a slight dilemma, as you're going to want to conserve the more heavy-healing foods for big fights, but doing so means you won't get a single point of that experience until then... but it gets better! If you manage to collect 10 of the same kind of food, you can exchange them in town for 1 of a MUCH, MUCH BETTER kind of food, which usually gives you 2-3x as much experience as all 10 of the original food items combined... and in some of the later cases, often as much as 10x the experience! So the game becomes just as much about scrimping and saving your experience, and waiting until you absolutely, positively NEED it... it gives you the choice of WHEN to get experience, and rewards you for waiting. It's pretty nifty. (:

Other examples that come to mind are Namco's lesser-known RPGs 'Seven: The Cavalry of Molmorth' and 'Venus & Braves'. These games feature the most minimalistic version of strategy battles you'll ever find. You do absolutely NOTHING in battle except watch as you and your enemies fight one another. The only real choice you have is, once per round, you can choose whether or not to bump everyone up one row, sending the people who are currently in front all the way into the back row. The people in the front attack, the people in the middle flank the people in the front, and the people in the back heal themselves. So the battles become just as much about strategic pre-battle placement of your characters as they do anything else. It sounds boring, but it actually makes for some interesting strategy, and presents a very unique way of thinking.

And let's not forget the first two Ys games, which were action RPGs that DIDN'T EVEN USE *BUTTONS* for combat. Combat consisted of charging head-first into enemies. If you hit them head-on, you'd take damage, but if you were slightly misaligned with them, you'd DEAL damage. Simple, and kind of ridiculous, but the fact of the matter is, it resulted in battles that DIDN'T REQUIRE YOU TO STOP MOVING. At all. For even a moment. In fact, they encouraged that you CONTINUE moving! And the idea of an action RPG in which there is never any reason to stop moving is really kind of cool. (:

BTW, hi everyone! (: Figured I'd pop my head in, and drift into a hell of a tangent. (:

-Tom