Winter Wolves - Planet Stronghold 2

Seloun Jan 20, 2013

Weapon skills felt more like a perk than actual skills. Since you can only use one weapon at a time, there's not a lot of benefit to spending points into multiple weapon trees, especially if you're part of a group. In principle you gain flexibility by being able to use different categories of weapons, but this is a pretty small benefit unless the weapon types are drastically different and you can't resolve it by replacing party members. The opportunity cost of learning a new weapon type tends to be too high (though this can be moderated with diminishing returns).

What might be better for the weapon skills category is more general skills that apply to whatever weapon, e.g. Accuracy, Armor Penetration, Burst Fire, Damage. Some skills are more likely to be useful for a certain category of weapons, but with variations within each weapon category the value of the skills become a lot less of a no-brainer (rapid fire sniper rifle), especially if there are diminishing returns.

The tree idea is interesting - it makes me think of how Heroes of Might and Magic did their skills (three options per level up) though it wasn't really exclusive so much as deciding the order you got stuff. Exclusive choices are a very cool idea (fundamentally games are about making decisions) but I'd imagine it'd be difficult to make the choices really interesting. One way to do that neatly is if each level had a theme, so you were choosing from an alternative way to do the same thing, instead of overspecializing (sort of like modern WoW talent trees). So on one level you might choose between Heavy Armor proficiency, an active Dodge skill, or a passive evasion bonus (self-defense grouping); another level maybe you pick between a new Aim attack that makes the target easier to hit, a psionic power that reduces target's evasion, or an active ability that provides the party an accuracy bonus (party accuracy grouping). Another level might have you choose a second weapon proficiency (beyond the one you have already; conveniently there are 4 groups)

Secondary skills also seem to suffer from the problem of specialization; why would you not specialize in just one secondary skill? And if there's no reason, why is it a skill system at all instead of just being a perk/trait?

jack1974 Jan 20, 2013

Weapon skills felt more like a perk than actual skills. Since you can only use one weapon at a time, there's not a lot of benefit to spending points into multiple weapon trees, especially if you're part of a group. In principle you gain flexibility by being able to use different categories of weapons, but this is a pretty small benefit unless the weapon types are drastically different and you can't resolve it by replacing party members. The opportunity cost of learning a new weapon type tends to be too high (though this can be moderated with diminishing returns).

What might be better for the weapon skills category is more general skills that apply to whatever weapon, e.g. Accuracy, Armor Penetration, Burst Fire, Damage. Some skills are more likely to be useful for a certain category of weapons, but with variations within each weapon category the value of the skills become a lot less of a no-brainer (rapid fire sniper rifle), especially if there are diminishing returns.

Yes that's what I'm trying to design right now. We agreed with Anima that the speed of actions will NOT be dependent on any skill, since it would lead to "cheats" or exploits like the speed skill cheat of Loren :mrgreen:

But the example you posted is a good idea, I am trying to come up with something like that.

The tree idea is interesting - it makes me think of how Heroes of Might and Magic did their skills (three options per level up) though it wasn't really exclusive so much as deciding the order you got stuff. Exclusive choices are a very cool idea (fundamentally games are about making decisions) but I'd imagine it'd be difficult to make the choices really interesting. One way to do that neatly is if each level had a theme, so you were choosing from an alternative way to do the same thing, instead of overspecializing (sort of like modern WoW talent trees). So on one level you might choose between Heavy Armor proficiency, an active Dodge skill, or a passive evasion bonus (self-defense grouping); another level maybe you pick between a new Aim attack that makes the target easier to hit, a psionic power that reduces target's evasion, or an active ability that provides the party an accuracy bonus (party accuracy grouping). Another level might have you choose a second weapon proficiency (beyond the one you have already; conveniently there are 4 groups)

Yes it would work like that, each choice would be mutually exclusive and give different bonuses. Anima made an example by email, speaking of a possible sniper choice upgrade "One that increases the damage, one that decreases execution time and one that gives a cover evasion bonus."

Secondary skills also seem to suffer from the problem of specialization; why would you not specialize in just one secondary skill? And if there's no reason, why is it a skill system at all instead of just being a perk/trait?

Well of course there's nothing bad in specializing in ONE secondary skill. You can't have all characters specialized in 2 or more secondary skills. That I think is normal. You might want to pick one and maximize his Medicine so can heal a big amount of HP using medikits. Another one maximize the Science to craft powerful items, and so on. In this case the strategy becomes who you pick to be a specialist of what. That is fine, I'm more concerned about the skills directly related to the combat, and that's why replacing the weapon-category skill with more generic skill that can apply to all weapon types is a good idea IMHO.

jack1974 Jan 20, 2013

What do you think about this:

http://i.imgur.com/htF0TDf.png" style="max-width:100%">

This way, there isn't a preferred skill but depends on player choices. You could have a sniper that specializes in Aimed shots and fires a single deadly shot, or another that specializes in Burst and can shoot twice but doing less damage each (and also has very low chances of scoring a critical hit). Of course then there should be balancing in the game for the various weapon types, but I think with the new skills there should be more choice.

Of course, like ALWAYS happens in RPGs, people trying and trying might come up with some really good skill distribution but trust me, "a perfectly balanced RPG ruleset" doesn't exist. It's just a myth, but nobody has ever seen one in the real life :lol:

I didn't show it to the coder yet so maybe he could tell me that some of those skills make no sense with the way the RPG system works, or is better to change them this way, and so on, so for now is just a sort of preview/idea

jack1974 Jan 20, 2013

Also thinking to replace Psionic with Willpower or something more generic, so maybe can have something that non-psionic class can use too. A bit like in Loren you have SP, which can stand for Spell Points and mages use it to cast spells but also Stamina Points and non-Mages use them to perform special moves. PP could stand for Psionic Points but also Power Points? :mrgreen:

Seloun Jan 20, 2013

Something to note is that the most recently described skill set doesn't seem to cover weapon accuracy (this isn't necessarily a bad thing; it just means accuracy would have to be balanced through gear or talents), so there's some design space there. I still think the skills feel a bit too narrow; bonus damage from elemental weapons still seems to create a dichotomy of elemental weapon user/non-elemental weapon user.

Agility: The value of going first in combat is very dependent on the amount of crowd control in the game and the average combat length. If combats tend to be 4 rounds, going first is a lot more valuable than if combats tend to be 40 rounds. The downside to tying going first to a stat like this is that the skill ends up being very binary; I'd either completely focus on it (for e.g. someone with a good CC) or just dump it (for your average damage dealer), though combats composed of a wide variety of enemies at once will reduce that effect.

Tactics: A flat bonus damage stat ends up being more interesting because it interacts with the multi-fire mechanic well. It benefits everyone, but it benefits burst fire mode more, and it benefits rapid firing weapons more too. But everyone still wants the stat regardless of what weapon they're using; they just value it differently (but not zero).

Burst and Aim are probably reasonable categories as long as everyone has access to them (how does it benefit psionicists?). I would probably make the bonus more dependent on what the attack mode is trying to do instead of just damage, though. This requires thinking about exactly when someone is supposed to be using Aim versus Burst fire.

- Are you supposed to use Aim on 'hard' (high armor) targets? On evasive targets?

- Burst fire manages aggro; should it also be a high damage option?

One possibility might be to have Burst, Aimed and Called shots (instead of Burst, Normal and Aimed):

- Burst acts like now, additional round, accuracy penalty, but also lowered damage per hit. Increases threat (should be fixed value to interact with Tactics and not a percentage). Used for aggro control and for soft targets.

- Aimed would be the most accurate attack, and generally the best choice for evasive targets with average armor. Reduces threat (also fixed).

- Called would increase enemy evasion by percentage, but would guarantee a crit on hit. Useful for high armor targets.

In that scheme you'd also have as skills something like:

Assault: Increases damage per shot (helps Burst/Multifire weapons the most); improves psionic damage/effect

Precision: Increases crit damage as a percentage (helps Called the most); improves psionic 'riders' (if there are any; sort of like the debuffs attached to spells in Loren)

Accuracy: Reduces evasion penalties from Called and increases accuracy in all cases (also affects psionics)

Tactics: Increased threat control (more from Burst, less from Aimed, affects psionics depending on the nature of the ability, e.g. protect might add threat to the target, healing might generate less threat - this should be a fixed value according to skill rather than a percent modifier)

Strength is a pretty good skill, though some of that depends on whether or not in-combat armor swapping is still going to be allowed (if so, it's a -very- good skill). Trading in combat should probably be impossible to make this meaningful. Alternatively, it could control the number of uses per combat for consumables (consumables should probably regenerate between combats, either every combat or during rest periods - this is a separate issue, but that allows you to balance combat around consumables; thematically the character has access to supplies and effectively unlimited amounts of consumables, he/she just can't bring the pharmacy in a pocket) to represent the character can bring more grenades/medkits/whatever.

Dexterity: DW bonus seems way too specific (what if I use two handed weapons?) Might also govern non-weapon item effectiveness in general.

Endurance: HP bonus is probably fine, if unexciting. Maybe have it also provide bonus against AE attacks so it's not just a tank specific stat (though in principle you get some of that just by having more health, it makes it more valuable than just the health to non-tanks)

Psionic: Psionic points, psionic regen, and maybe psionic power durations.

Non-combat skills could all influence a category of non-weapon items. Medkits, psy-regenerators, grenades, and probably some other general offensive item category for Charisma (maybe 'everything else'). The effect should probably be relatively small.

jack1974 Jan 20, 2013

Something to note is that the most recently described skill set doesn't seem to cover weapon accuracy (this isn't necessarily a bad thing; it just means accuracy would have to be balanced through gear or talents), so there's some design space there. I still think the skills feel a bit too narrow; bonus damage from elemental weapons still seems to create a dichotomy of elemental weapon user/non-elemental weapon user.

I need to ask the coder and do some more tests, but I think that including an accuracy skill would give too much advantage, same as an evasion skill (indeed for Agility I'm not sure if to give a bonus to evasion).

Agility: The value of going first in combat is very dependent on the amount of crowd control in the game and the average combat length. If combats tend to be 4 rounds, going first is a lot more valuable than if combats tend to be 40 rounds. The downside to tying going first to a stat like this is that the skill ends up being very binary; I'd either completely focus on it (for e.g. someone with a good CC) or just dump it (for your average damage dealer), though combats composed of a wide variety of enemies at once will reduce that effect.

I think has quite some weight still, even for long combat, for example if you can throw a grenade at first turn and hit two enemies, or use a psionic power to buff the party, and so on. It could really change a battle. Then of course depends on the power of each single item/psionic action available (like everything else). I wanted it to influence also evasion slightly so it could still be very useful in any case, but we have to do more tests (evasion seems to be the most important thing in early combat tests)

Tactics: A flat bonus damage stat ends up being more interesting because it interacts with the multi-fire mechanic well. It benefits everyone, but it benefits burst fire mode more, and it benefits rapid firing weapons more too. But everyone still wants the stat regardless of what weapon they're using; they just value it differently (but not zero).

Yes, true I might change this to a damage bonus than only elemental bonus.

Burst and Aim are probably reasonable categories as long as everyone has access to them (how does it benefit psionicists?). I would probably make the bonus more dependent on what the attack mode is trying to do instead of just damage, though. This requires thinking about exactly when someone is supposed to be using Aim versus Burst fire.

- Are you supposed to use Aim on 'hard' (high armor) targets? On evasive targets?

- Burst fire manages aggro; should it also be a high damage option?

One possibility might be to have Burst, Aimed and Called shots (instead of Burst, Normal and Aimed):

- Burst acts like now, additional round, accuracy penalty, but also lowered damage per hit. Increases threat (should be fixed value to interact with Tactics and not a percentage). Used for aggro control and for soft targets.

- Aimed would be the most accurate attack, and generally the best choice for evasive targets with average armor. Reduces threat (also fixed).

- Called would increase enemy evasion by percentage, but would guarantee a crit on hit. Useful for high armor targets.

In that scheme you'd also have as skills something like:

Assault: Increases damage per shot (helps Burst/Multifire weapons the most); improves psionic damage/effect

Precision: Increases crit damage as a percentage (helps Called the most); improves psionic 'riders' (if there are any; sort of like the debuffs attached to spells in Loren)

Accuracy: Reduces evasion penalties from Called and increases accuracy in all cases (also affects psionics)

Tactics: Increased threat control (more from Burst, less from Aimed, affects psionics depending on the nature of the ability, e.g. protect might add threat to the target, healing might generate less threat - this should be a fixed value according to skill rather than a percent modifier)

Hmm that is not a bad idea indeed. Since in this sequel we have movement order and different speed for each attack, should be possible to balance Called/Aimed shots also by adding more delay to them. I'll think about it but seems a good suggestion, thanks

Strength is a pretty good skill, though some of that depends on whether or not in-combat armor swapping is still going to be allowed (if so, it's a -very- good skill). Trading in combat should probably be impossible to make this meaningful. Alternatively, it could control the number of uses per combat for consumables (consumables should probably regenerate between combats, either every combat or during rest periods - this is a separate issue, but that allows you to balance combat around consumables; thematically the character has access to supplies and effectively unlimited amounts of consumables, he/she just can't bring the pharmacy in a pocket) to represent the character can bring more grenades/medkits/whatever.

Yes it would work exactly like that. We've been playing XCOM a lot

And the idea is that before each mission you outfit your character, and even if you have unlimited ammo/items in the barracks (maybe except for some very rare items), you can bring only a certain amount with you. Strength would change that amount, so a strong character could bring a bazooka and 6 missiles while a weaker one could barely bring a sniper rifle :lol:

Dexterity: DW bonus seems way too specific (what if I use two handed weapons?) Might also govern non-weapon item effectiveness in general.

Endurance: HP bonus is probably fine, if unexciting. Maybe have it also provide bonus against AE attacks so it's not just a tank specific stat (though in principle you get some of that just by having more health, it makes it more valuable than just the health to non-tanks)

Psionic: Psionic points, psionic regen, and maybe psionic power durations.

Yes need to find a better general use for Dexterity beside dual wield. If I go with your suggestion and replace the first 4 skills with Assault,Precision,Accuracy,Tactics, I could remove Agility and Dexterity would have those effect (better initiative and maybe a slight evasion bonus) which would make it very interesting. As for Endurance yeah it could also add some resistance to the hits beside giving more HPs.

Psionic I think regen rate should be already a good bonus (beside determining the total PP amount).

Non-combat skills could all influence a category of non-weapon items. Medkits, psy-regenerators, grenades, and probably some other general offensive item category for Charisma (maybe 'everything else'). The effect should probably be relatively small.

Not sure I understood what you exactly means with this? I think the last 4 non-combat skills are still useful in combat, since Medicine=amount of HP healed, Science = better crafting or get enemy info, Charisma could be used as party buffs with Rally/Taunt etc and Sabotage influence the effectiveness of grenades which would be one of the few Area Of Effect attack, maybe beside some Psionic abilities.

Pace675 Jan 20, 2013

I have been quite on this for awhile watching the debate from the shadows so to speak. But I think it might be time to throw in my 2 cents. You can use the tried and one of the proven methods used commonly in games. Like attribute points one level, and skill points for the following level. Also if you want to spice things up for later one (This is assuming that there will be a level cap) You toss in an advance ability tree for the levels for 20 and above. So that would net a player 30 ability points to spend on the tree. With the tree depending where you want to focus it would take 4 points per tier of the tree to unlock the next level, with the 30th point to unlock the last of the tree.

With using a tree method a player can fine tune their character and potential unlock new powers/abilities. By using this approach the player has alot of control how their character grows and evolves,

jack1974 Jan 20, 2013

I am already planning to do that indeed. On each level up you get 2 skill points, and every 3 levels you get a choice-tree (so not a skilltree like Loren). As for level cap will be level 30, so you have:

- 30 x 2 = 60 points to distribute to skills, and each skill will be 0 to 20 (but in some Classes I might put a lower level cap to balance the game maybe).

- 30 / 3 = 10 choices to make, divided into: 4 will be skills boost choice (pick one between Dexterity +3, Endurance +3, Charisma +3 and so on), 3 will be extra actions you can unlock (Suppression Fire, Smoke Grenade, etc depending on Class) and 3 will be unique perks for each character.

Everything is still WIP of course, since 3 x 3 would mean 9 unique perks each character, and considering there are 8... 8 x 9 = 72 unique perks is definitely too much, so will need to reduce that number :lol:

But anyway that's how it will work, need to fine tune the numbers but the system will be that one since I think is the best one for this game.

Seloun Jan 20, 2013

Non-combat skills could all influence a category of non-weapon items. Medkits, psy-regenerators, grenades, and probably some other general offensive item category for Charisma (maybe 'everything else'). The effect should probably be relatively small.

Not sure I understood what you exactly means with this? I think the last 4 non-combat skills are still useful in combat, since Medicine=amount of HP healed, Science = better crafting or get enemy info, Charisma could be used as party buffs with Rally/Taunt etc and Sabotage influence the effectiveness of grenades which would be one of the few Area Of Effect attack, maybe beside some Psionic abilities.

I was just making the association of possibly Medicine = better in combat medkits, Sabotage = better grenades (those are already planned, I believe) and adding Science = psy-restore items, which would sort of thematically suggest Charisma should also control a type of consumable.

WRT Initiative, I don't disagree that initiative can matter a lot even in long battles, but that generally requires debuffs (in particular CC) to be very powerful. Generally though you need either short battles (which is really short hand for combat where attacks tend to do large chunks of health in damage, even if the battles tend to actually be long due to e.g. strong healing) or strong debuffs (especially CC) for initiative to matter significantly (you are balancing essentially 1 extra turn against better performance in every turn). The more important issue though is that initiative would likely become one of those stats you always max or never put points into (the worst case is that you put in points but you end up going last anyway; if initiative values tend to increase as the game progresses, this can effectively mean a lot of sunk points for no return if you choose a bad rate to invest) since the effect is often so binary. For that reason I'd suggest making initiative be derived from the second category of stats, and in a blend (like (3*agi + 2*dex + str)/6 or something) to generate somewhat more organic initiative numbers, rather than making an entire skill control initiative.

In a Loren-style individual turn system, using delays to balance abilities is a good idea, though I think you'd want to watch that much more carefully than in Loren. Despite some of the comments I've read, I don't actually think the issue with Loren's turn system is because of the speed parameter; the problem is that the speed parameter was improved by a stat that controlled too many other stats and because rogue abilities generally became faster by improving them (Dora and Rei being the most egregious examples, e.g. Headshot and Volley). Rogues were really the main culprits as they scaled in both damage and attack rate from one stat and again both in damage and attack rate by improving their abilities (mage suffered from this double-dipping in a weaker way, with the damage from spells increasing and their endurance in combat increasing from one stat, though endurance quickly becomes a non-factor).

Also, I'm not sure if the speed to turn conversion in Loren was handled in a nice way; I was assuming that speed ~ number of actions (so 150 speed should result in 1.5x rounds as someone with 100 speed) but it either doesn't really work that way or enemy special ability delays are balanced poorly. The last issue with the speed system was due to stagger's effect on speed; going first often means you stagger your opponent, which means they suffer even more relative to your actions.

Another thing to consider for individual turns (though probably minor) is to decouple the debuff/buff turns from the one that cast it. One way you'd do this is to make virtual 'normal speed' objects (or just one turn object) and have it hold the reference to the buff or debuff rather than entity with the effect; this would get rid of the weirdness of strange timings and the added penalty/bonus of going slow/fast.

WRT evasion, I would have to imagine that you could always find a scaling for the evasion stat to make it not-broken if you define your scale first (the most natural way is simply to expand the size of your curve, i.e. throw 3D400 instead of 3D40 and scale the step function accordingly). It should really be a matter of defining what a 'high' evasion stat should look like versus a 'low' accuracy stat (as well as the reverse), and what the approximate result of that should be, and fitting the curve to match.

WRT dexterity, the reason I would suggest to tie it to item effectiveness is to complement it being tied to offhand wielding effectiveness (everyone would have two hand slots, which could be a weapon - probably even two-handed - and an item slot; this would be the 'typical' load out, while dual wielding would give up having the item ready). This way dexterity would control the 'same thing' for everyone regardless of dual wielding or not (otherwise the value of dexterity would probably end up being either too high for DWers or too low for non-DWers). Either that or it might help using the offhand in other ways (shield effectiveness? if there is such a thing; or reducing recoil from multishots from two-handed weapons); the point is to make the stat cover the same 'design area' for everyone so that it's can be balanced between class types. Note that even in those circumstances dexterity would likely be of greater benefit to DW than not. An extra attack is often equivalent of an extra turn or a significant part of that; unless items can provide equivalent strength, it would scale less well, and the items are probably of limited usage compared to DW. However, it would make the difference a lot more manageable to balance, and from a design allocation standpoint seems to make sense (dexterity controls how effective your secondary attack or action is).

WRT regen, one thing I noticed frequently in Planet Stronghold is that I would a) make my tank effectively invulnerable with protect (total armor = 1 less than maximum enemy attack range) and b) wait until everyone was topped off before killing the last enemy. I'd do this basically every single battle it was feasible to do (which was almost every battle after level 4 or so). Something similar was possible in Loren as well, though it was less ridiculous since you had less dynamic control over the damage you took. This makes me wonder if HP/PP regeneration is really a good design space (despite my comment about Psionics increasing PP regen above). One possible solution is to invert how it works to reducing PP costs; this has the downside (if it is a downside) of making it more valuable to people who use psionics more (I'd say it's a downside as it probably discourages mixed classes from using their limited psionic ability). Or maybe just remove non-item regen altogether (though you'd have to do that thoroughly if you were to do so) or tie it somehow to non-farmable activities (regen triggered on party kills, perhaps).

Also with respect to the mixed classes' psionic skills - they need to account for the opportunity cost of those classes using those abilities. One big issue I noticed in Planet Stronghold is that the mixed classes already have a disadvantage in using their sub-class psionic abilities to start with; as you put points into their combat skills, the opportunity cost grows more and more, and at a faster rate even if you skill the psionic abilities at the same rate as the combat skills (which puts you at further disadvantage whenever you're not using that power, which is pretty much all the time no matter what); this really ends up meaning that you level combat skills and never use your psiskills unless you're a psionic (or the corner case where you need 1 point of protect). Having the combat stats affect psionic powers equivalently does help alleviate this issue (and it's why I specifically noted how each one should impact psionic powers in some fashion), but the non-psionic classes will *still* have a greater opportunity cost since (presumably) they are going to do better attacking than a dedicated psionic. What all this means is that the psionic power provided to the mixed classes should be inherently _better_ than for the psionic class (not just equivalent, or weaker); the balance would be in the specific powers provided. One possibility is for the mixed class, their specialty power could act faster than for the dedicated psionic; this helps mitigate the opportunity cost issue. Having it be flat-out stronger is okay, too, though you have to be careful at that point not to make the dedicated psionic useless (fortunately this can usually be done by allocating the best of the skills as being purely for the dedicated psionic). As a mainstream example, this is similar to one of the design changes from Mass Effect 1 (which had basically the same problem) to Mass Effect 2 (which made the blend-class abilities more viable; though often by flat-out restricting some abilities to an individual class). Probably good choices are debuff/buffs (damage usually overlaps too much with the attack option) and the minor variants if there is one (e.g. guardians get a fast-cast, strong version of disrupt, everyone else get a regular cast, maybe weaker but more PP efficient one and psionicists also get an AE variant; scouts get a fast-cast strong protect, everyone else get a regular cast, maybe weaker but longer duration one and psionicists might also get a group variant).

Edit: Broken quote block

jack1974 Jan 21, 2013

I was just making the association of possibly Medicine = better in combat medkits, Sabotage = better grenades (those are already planned, I believe) and adding Science = psy-restore items, which would sort of thematically suggest Charisma should also control a type of consumable.

Ah I see now. Well I'll think about it but seems hard to find a consumable that can be associated with Charisma :lol:

For that reason I'd suggest making initiative be derived from the second category of stats, and in a blend (like (3*agi + 2*dex + str)/6 or something) to generate somewhat more organic initiative numbers, rather than making an entire skill control initiative.

Well but in this case there would be the risk that many characters are similar, while there should be some that move first. Well unless I put skill caps based on Classes, which is probably what I'll do anyway.

I've read what you wrote about the speed, but I leave such very technical considerations to the coder (since I really don't get it :mrgreen:

). I have a very empirical approach - I tweak the game and test it until I see that work, I am really bad at numbers :oops:

This way dexterity would control the 'same thing' for everyone regardless of dual wielding or not (otherwise the value of dexterity would probably end up being either too high for DWers or too low for non-DWers). Either that or it might help using the offhand in other ways (shield effectiveness? if there is such a thing; or reducing recoil from multishots from two-handed weapons); the point is to make the stat cover the same 'design area' for everyone so that it's can be balanced between class types. Note that even in those circumstances dexterity would likely be of greater benefit to DW than not.

I like the idea of influencing other things. There's no recoil for two handed weapons (we don't plan to make the engine go so much in detail) but could give an accuracy bonus in general for all weapons (small of course, but would still influence / be useful to all classes).

WRT regen, one thing I noticed frequently in Planet Stronghold is that I would a) make my tank effectively invulnerable with protect (total armor = 1 less than maximum enemy attack range) and b) wait until everyone was topped off before killing the last enemy. I'd do this basically every single battle it was feasible to do (which was almost every battle after level 4 or so). Something similar was possible in Loren as well, though it was less ridiculous since you had less dynamic control over the damage you took. This makes me wonder if HP/PP regeneration is really a good design space (despite my comment about Psionics increasing PP regen above).

Yes regen needs to be handled carefully. It mainly depends also on the scale I'll use. A regen of +1/turn is very different if you have 50 PP total or 150PP total

I think will remove it, and have special action as perks when you level up, since would make more sense doing it that way.

I agree on what you said about Psionics. I still want the Soldier class to have almost no use for Psionic (or very little) but the Guardian/Scout should follow what you said, otherwise people wouldn't never bother to put skill points in Psionic. Done that way, I don't think is needed that the PP is determined by a mix of skills. If the skills are 0 to 20, probably Soldier will have a skill cap on Psionic of 5 or so, while Guardian/Scout will have a skill cap of 10. Considering they start at 1, with 9 point out of 60 you could max the Psionic power of a Scout/Guardian so have still a lot of other skill point to assign to the other skills

A final note: I read everything you (and others) write and often there are great suggestions, though in the end I have to decide what to add and what not, depending also on how hard is to code/design/test and time constraints. Sort of disclaimer if you don't see that feature X that you suggested and I approved :wink:

Seloun Jan 21, 2013

I've read what you wrote about the speed, but I leave such very technical considerations to the coder (since I really don't get it ). I have a very empirical approach - I tweak the game and test it until I see that work, I am really bad at numbers

Empirical testing always trumps theory anyway; else we'd never have bugs...

This way dexterity would control the 'same thing' for everyone regardless of dual wielding or not (otherwise the value of dexterity would probably end up being either too high for DWers or too low for non-DWers). Either that or it might help using the offhand in other ways (shield effectiveness? if there is such a thing; or reducing recoil from multishots from two-handed weapons); the point is to make the stat cover the same 'design area' for everyone so that it's can be balanced between class types. Note that even in those circumstances dexterity would likely be of greater benefit to DW than not.

I like the idea of influencing other things. There's no recoil for two handed weapons (we don't plan to make the engine go so much in detail) but could give an accuracy bonus in general for all weapons (small of course, but would still influence / be useful to all classes).

The issue I see is that the value of dexterity for DWers is the base value of dexterity (e.g. accuracy in your example) plus the benefit for DWing, while for everyone else it's just the base value of dexterity. Assuming the benefit for DWing is large, this means the value of dexterity is going to be much, much more valuable to DWers unless the base value is also really, really high, which will make balancing it a pain. The key mechanic I'm suggesting here is to make DWing have some kind of opportunity cost which is itself dependent on dexterity. This makes it much easier to deal with scaling issues. My example was to deny DWers easy access to items and then make items improve with dexterity, but another good option would be that non-DWers get an accuracy/initiative bonus based on dexterity (DWers would get the offhanding bonus instead), or maybe DW also provides some other bonus to two-handed weapons, like a speed bonus (since two-handed weapon usage is implicitly an opportunity cost of DWing).

More generally this applies to any stat which is overwhelmingly useful for one class/build and much less useful for others. Psionics is another possible issue as Soldiers have no real incentive right now to raise it. One possible solution would be give soldiers (and only soldiers) a very strong resistance bonus (maybe a CC or debuff resist) based on Psionics. Thematically this could be because soldiers, being poor conduits for psi abilities, end up also being more closed to hostile psionic abilities.

A final note: I read everything you (and others) write and often there are great suggestions, though in the end I have to decide what to add and what not, depending also on how hard is to code/design/test and time constraints. Sort of disclaimer if you don't see that feature X that you suggested and I approved

I completely understand that something that sounds like a good idea often turns out to be not such a good idea, particularly when you start actually implementing and especially in complex, interacting systems. Often I throw out crazy ideas to see how they'll get shot down rather than to advance a specific agenda.

jack1974 Jan 21, 2013

Well dual wield will work only with smaller weapons. Even if I just thought about a perks called "Big Hands" that let's you dual wield with small machineguns rifles

I understand what you mean, not having a skill that can make a Class particularly powerful, however remember that I can also balance that with the items. If dual wield works only with pistols for example, they could do less damage in general than a single combat rifle or laser phasor or whatever 2 handed weapon I'll design. But yes having Dexterity influence other stuff beside DW is a good idea and I plan to follow it.

I completely understand that something that sounds like a good idea often turns out to be not such a good idea, particularly when you start actually implementing and especially in complex, interacting systems. Often I throw out crazy ideas to see how they'll get shot down rather than to advance a specific agenda.

Well, if ideas are as good as the one you posted so far, keep throwing them to me ! :lol:

Seloun Jan 21, 2013

Well dual wield will work only with smaller weapons. Even if I just thought about a perks called "Big Hands" that let's you dual wield with small machineguns rifles

I understand what you mean, not having a skill that can make a Class particularly powerful, however remember that I can also balance that with the items. If dual wield works only with pistols for example, they could do less damage in general than a single combat rifle or laser phasor or whatever 2 handed weapon I'll design. But yes having Dexterity influence other stuff beside DW is a good idea and I plan to follow it.

Well, again, the issue is that non-DWers would have, essentially, 5 different ways to improve their attack ability (the 4 combat skills plus the base advantage from dexterity) while DWers would have 6 (the same 5 different ways as non-DWers plus the added advantage for DWing provided by dexterity; essentially double-dipping from dexterity). You can always balance for a single point in the game regardless of this, but what this implies is that DWing scales faster than non-DWers; that in turn will usually mean the either DW is very weak early or is too powerful later. This is not necessarily a problem (you might actually want that to be how DW works) but it does change the difficulty curve of the game depending on player choices.

It's true you can use item scaling to provide another form of scaling which can compensate (if 2hd weapon damage scaled much better than pistol/one handed damage). The main issue with that approach is that it very tightly couples the 2hd/1hd item scaling by making all 1hd weapons scale as if they would be DW'd (this doesn't matter so much if you assume everyone is either 2hd or DW; it matters a lot if you expect there to be some benefit to 1hd non-DWers). If skills were balanced in their scaling without relying on item scaling, it decouples the design space (so instead of having to balance skill + weapon vs skill + weapon, you could balance skill vs skill and weapon vs weapon, greatly reducing the total number of combinations). Decoupling the design space between skills and items also makes things like the 'SMG DWing' talents much easier to balance, too, since you can balance SMGs without having to choose to balance as a DW or non-DW weapon.

Again, my suggestion is to have dexterity do something to improve something that DWers have to give up to DW (another way to accomplish this would be for 2hd users to get double the accuracy bonus from dexterity compared to DWers). Without that 'trade off' inherently within dexterity, it's going to be difficult to make dexterity not a no-brainer stat (either too good, too poor, or only good if DW and never good otherwise).

Basically the idea is that dexterity (like all other stats, ideally) should improve the same number of aspects of a character regardless of the character (the actual aspects can, and probably should, be different between character builds). Right now what it looks like is:

DW: Dexterity improves accuracy, DW effectiveness (2 different ways)

Non-DW: Dexterity improves accuracy (1 way)

So non-DW either needs something more or DW should lose something. 'Something more' can be more of the same (improves accuracy + improves accuracy (2hd)) or something unique (improves accuracy + improves initiative (2hd) or improves accuracy + improves shields (are there shields?) or improves accuracy + improves items assuming items aren't usable in DW). Fundamentally it can be really anything which helps non-DWers , though thematically it seems like the justification should be something your offhand helps with (psionic power ability when not DWing is mechanically viable if probably not thematically suitable). Making the secondary effect be related to your direct attack also decouples dexterity from everything but direct attack balancing, which again makes balancing easier (note improves item usage or shield usage or improved initiative does not follow this guideline; decoupling makes balance easier but it can also make the mechanic too straightforward).

Another way to look at it is that there's way to make DWing better, but there isn't a way to make 2hd better. You could e.g. have strength be the '2hd' stat (strength decreases delay on 2hd weapons or something) but then you run into the same issue as the weapon skills - no reason (or relatively little reason) to put points anywhere outside of your specialty. Again, the key observation is whether or not a stat controls a similar number of things between different builds/classes.

If a stat governs different number of things for one build versus another, it makes it hard to make that stat relevant for both builds. This is not necessarily a problem, it's just that it removes a choice from the user (instead of choosing a build, then choosing a stat, choosing a build is effectively choosing a stat). Also, more technically, while I refer to the 'number of things' as an intuitive quantitative measure, somethings do count for more than other things; this doesn't break the analysis, it's just that some items are effectively multiple things (e.g. doing damage + doing damage + doing damage + noncombat check).

Lastly I will mention that I focus on scaling and balance not because they are the most important things, but because they can be more easily quantified and measured. Having a breakable mechanical system is not necessarily a bad thing (trying to break game mechanics is often part of the fun); however the worst result is probably if choices turn out to not really be choices because one is just better than another.

Appendix: Things that might make a good secondary effects to dexterity for non-DW (alternatives, not altogether...)

- Accuracy with 2hd weapons (if non-2hd/DW is viable, requires some other compensation, e.g. this could become accuracy while non-DW instead of accuracy while 2hd)

- Speed with 2hd weapons (same as above)

- Evasion bonus when not DWing/nothing in offhand/using 2hd - note tanking stats can be a weak choice given the aggro mechanic since there's builds outside of DWer or tank

- Effectiveness with shield (if there are shields) - this choice requires some benefit for nonDW/nonShield however; see note about evasion

- Effectiveness with items (if DWing prevents item use) * note that this is still a weaker effect since the DWer could swap items into offhand presumably at the cost of some time, but it's still a bigger benefit to someone who doesn't have to swap

- Effectiveness with burst fire mode if not DWing (this and next are again somewhat weaker options since non-DW doesn't imply burst fire specialization)

- Effectiveness with aim fire mode if not DWing (as above; note though _together_ it works pretty well)

- Better crit damage while not DWing

- Psionic effectiveness/speed with free offhand (sort of a somatic components idea) - would require added benefit for 2hd or shield types, or would apply to 2hd as well (doesn't quite make as much sense there unless DWing takes more concentration or something, though even then it'd be unclear how _dexterity_ helps when both hands are full; maybe makes you really good at moving hand off weapon and back on?)

Initiative is probably bad since the player could keep a 2hd weapon to win initiative and then switch to DWing (exact benefit depends on how costly swaps are). If swaps are pretty expensive initiative might be viable. Damage effects feel thematically inappropriate but mechanically could probably be made to work.

jack1974 Jan 22, 2013

Yeah I've read all that you said, and makes sense - but if I understood correctly in your reasoning you focus only on damage/offensive. A simple way to balance "dual wielder", would be that characters that can increase Dexterity a lot would have other skill caps, for example endurance (so HP). This way, is true that DW could be big "damage dealers" but they could also have low HPs and/or unable to wear strong armors, and I think that already would balance that class a lot (it would become a sort of Wizard/Thief in the fantasy games).

Anyway this time Anima made a very cool thing, that is AI autobattles for testing. While is true that human AI should be better than computer AI so I'm sure there will still be some strategy/exploits that human players can discover, having a way to autoplay 1000 battles is really useful to judge if classes are balanced (by making different teams of different classes) and if level progression is too (having team of different levels to fight each other) and so on.

Once the basic system is done, before I start adding 1000 weapons (even if in general this game should have less items than Loren!) I plan to have an early alpha where people can test the battles (even autobattles) and share the results/send suggestions, since for sure 10+ people testing is better than just 1 (me).

Seloun Jan 22, 2013

Yeah I've read all that you said, and makes sense - but if I understood correctly in your reasoning you focus only on damage/offensive. A simple way to balance "dual wielder", would be that characters that can increase Dexterity a lot would have other skill caps, for example endurance (so HP). This way, is true that DW could be big "damage dealers" but they could also have low HPs and/or unable to wear strong armors, and I think that already would balance that class a lot (it would become a sort of Wizard/Thief in the fantasy games).

It's not really a matter of balancing between damage (item usage/shield/psionic bonus could be quite defensive or utility oriented) or between classes (I agree that you could still balance between classes even if dexterity had large differences in valuation between classes). What I would like to see avoided are stats which are A) required for some classes and useless for others (cross-class, one stat balance) or B) useless or required for every class (cross-stat, cross-class balance). Those situations effectively removes choice, which is why I would want to see them avoided. You can make dexterity vital for some classes and useless for others, but that effectively removes one set of choices in building the character.

My fundamental concern is that as it is now, dexterity feels like either a must-have stat for DWers (to the point you always prioritize) or it's a really weak stat for everyone else. Now, you can balance the side bonus of dexterity so that it's -not- must-have for DWers - but this will make it even weaker for everyone else. Or you can balance the side bonus so that it's not a weak stat for everyone else - but now it's even more vital for DWers.

My point is that it's extremely hard to balance dexterity bonuses in that situation against other stats and cross-class due to that linkage. This linkage is the fundamental problem I'm seeing with the design of dexterity as it is now (there is no 'design room' to increase/decrease the benefit of non-DW without also increasing/decreasing the benefit of DW). The easiest way to reduce that differential is to tone down DWing. However, simply reducing the effectiveness of DWing will start running into the design space of DW balance vs. 2hd weapon balance (*footnote1).

The other way to _relatively_ weaken DW is by making DW have some kind of cost (the effective benefit of DW is what you get versus what you give up). 'A cost' in this case can be something DWers don't get that other people do (costs and benefits always being relative; getting less is equivalent of losing more). What I'm suggesting is that you tie dexterity to something DWers get (DW bonus) and something that everyone except DWers get (this can be any of a number of bonuses as discussed before). The exact nature of the bonus isn't really important (as long as it's something useful, and it's exclusive with DW). The advantage of this extra design 'handle' is that you can balance the dexterity independently of whether or not someone is DWing (so you can get it arbitrarily close to equal as you want without affecting the value of DW).

Sorry if it seems like I'm beating a dead horse! I seem to be doing a poor job of explaining the issue I'm seeing. As I noted before though, this is something that occurs elsewhere besides dexterity, such as Psionics for Soldiers.

Basically, it would be good to avoid must-have/useless stats, even if the must-have/useless quality is class dependent. A requirement to avoid those conditions is that the value of each stat should be relatively close regardless of build or class. Obviously exactly identical is impossible (not to mention boring, since your choice is meaningless in that case too) but the ideal case is for each stat to be 'valuable but in different (realistic) circumstances' for every class; a real separate-but-equal situation.

*Footnote1: If DW gets weaker, you have to weaken 2hd to compensate to maintain interesting choice. Even if you do reduce the value of DWing, DW still gets better as the game goes on (since dexterity will go up) while relatively 2hd doesn't; so DWing is still strong late or very weak early (as noted before this is not necessarily a bad thing, and could be a legitimate design choice). You can *still* improve 2hd scaling through itemization, but now you have linked 2hd itemization scaling with skills - so when you consider things like SMG DWing, you have to make a decision if you want to balance SMGs as if they're DW or not (and the other way will suffer/be overpowered), not to mention that you have to do your item balancing at the same time with skill balancing (which is lot trickier than being able to balance each of those in relative vacuum).

Edit: Technically it's an overstatement to say that it's a requirement for stat values to be relatively close avoid having useless/must-have stats; in principle you can use scaling tricks or multi-stat interactions to accomplish that, but it's a whole lot trickier to design.

Anyway this time Anima made a very cool thing, that is AI autobattles for testing. While is true that human AI should be better than computer AI so I'm sure there will still be some strategy/exploits that human players can discover, having a way to autoplay 1000 battles is really useful to judge if classes are balanced (by making different teams of different classes) and if level progression is too (having team of different levels to fight each other) and so on.

Once the basic system is done, before I start adding 1000 weapons (even if in general this game should have less items than Loren!) I plan to have an early alpha where people can test the battles (even autobattles) and share the results/send suggestions, since for sure 10+ people testing is better than just 1 (me).

That's really quite useful. I'm not completely familiar with the RNG system available through Ren'py, but if it's possible, I would suggest recording/setting/displaying the random seed for each run (so you can reproduce it - especially valuable if you have external testers). Regardless, that's a very effective way to get some empirical data.

jack1974 Jan 23, 2013

No I understood what you mean:

Basically, it would be good to avoid must-have/useless stats, even if the must-have/useless quality is class dependent. A requirement to avoid those conditions is that the value of each stat should be relatively close regardless of build or class. Obviously exactly identical is impossible (not to mention boring, since your choice is meaningless in that case too) but the ideal case is for each stat to be 'valuable but in different (realistic) circumstances' for every class; a real separate-but-equal situation.

and indeed we'll try to make them all useful, at least in combat. If you see in the list, every single skill has an impact in the game combat, directly or indirectly.

Psionic for Soldiers might be solved by giving them a natural resistance to enemy psionic attacks. So they can't use psionic abilities but can resist. Or if we change the name of Psionic to Willpower, it could have a different use for Soldiers, like determine how they react to the battle situations, they are more brave and don't panic easily for example.

Dexterity will be useful for dual wield but as I said, the balancing needs to be done more on the items. Also, there's ammo in the game: so dual wield could give you a short damage boost but you might run out of special ammo quickly (the normal ammo will be unlimited, but special ammo will be limited quantities). So that's why I think that Dexterity is good as it is now (following your suggestion will give bonus also to non DWs) and the balancing needs to be done only at item level.

Also because there's DW, doesn't mean that players MUST have DW. It's only an option - is not like in some fantasy games where DW characters are good with two weapons and sucks with two handed weapons.

And finally, FOR SURE, there will be some better weapons/armor/etc that combined with the right skill will give out the perfect combo - that's what players like to find. If all characters could be built the same and have items more or less similar, you lose the "wow look what combo/build I have done!" effect that is a must for RPG players IMHO

Seloun Jan 23, 2013

and indeed we'll try to make them all useful, at least in combat. If you see in the list, every single skill has an impact in the game combat, directly or indirectly.

Well, a stat doesn't have to be involved in combat to be useful, though combat stats tend to be the easiest to measure and having all skills have some affect on combat is probably a good place to be. The real concern though is the comparison between stats (the point about stats being involved in combat is really just an extension of that: you can have a stat with no combat effect yet still be hugely important, e.g. a stat that lets you see more of the plot, but the general game convention is that stats mostly govern combat, so the intuition is that affecting combat makes a stat important).

Psionic for Soldiers might be solved by giving them a natural resistance to enemy psionic attacks. So they can't use psionic abilities but can resist. Or if we change the name of Psionic to Willpower, it could have a different use for Soldiers, like determine how they react to the battle situations, they are more brave and don't panic easily for example.

Both of those are pretty good ideas, though resistance to psionic attacks feel a bit too niche (this obvious depends on the enemy design and rest of the gameworld, though). Reduced time from CC effects (stuns or fear or similar) seems close to what's being described here, and might be a good effect.

Also because there's DW, doesn't mean that players MUST have DW. It's only an option - is not like in some fantasy games where DW characters are good with two weapons and sucks with two handed weapons.

Well, it's true that players don't have to DW, but if it's obviously better (key word being obviously) then it's almost like not having a choice. The difficulty I am imagining is that it is likely DW will either be too weak early or too strong late (which is what scaling problems generally result in) but I concede that there are many ways address the issue (though also some ways are easier than others).

And finally, FOR SURE, there will be some better weapons/armor/etc that combined with the right skill will give out the perfect combo - that's what players like to find. If all characters could be built the same and have items more or less similar, you lose the "wow look what combo/build I have done!" effect that is a must for RPG players IMHO

Absolutely. If every choice is the same, it's like not having a choice. So having differences is good. But at the same time hide and seek isn't fun if what you're seeking is right in the open. You want to have to do a little work to figure out what's better. Everything same is no better than things completely unbalanced (both cases it's like having no choices) but there are usually many more ways to make things unbalanced than to make things identical.

Anima_ Jan 24, 2013

Personally, I'd rather have more control over how my character levels up.

Can't speak for anyone else, but a lot of the time when I'm playing RPGs I'll learn something outside my character class just to keep things interesting and develop a bit of personality for the PC. So for this game I'd have a Soldier who picks up a bit of psionics, or a Scout who's also good at charming people. That makes things a little harder since I'm working against my class bonuses, but I think it's worth it to add some spontaneity to things.

If you can only raise three specific skills at one time, either you've got all three focused on your class (which sucks if you like to color outside the lines, like I do) or you have skills that don't quite fit the basic build (which makes it hard to make a character that's both effective and original).

It wouldn't be a bad idea to add the actions or equipment permits, change them every level and let you buy one instead of spending a point on attributes, but telling a player they can't buy the attribute they want doesn't seem to like a great addition in an RPG.

... Hopefully that's what you were asking about and I didn't understand the whole thing.

It's actually really helpful since it's a point of view I that a bit different from my own. In game design theory there are several system to classify something called core engagement. Or in plain the core appeal of a game. My approach while designing the rule set is based on Challenge. Different options are there to provide the player with different ways to solve a problem, in this case mostly a combat encounter. So it's pretty much a puzzle with several possible solutions, at least it should be. My main concerns are to balance the options and make sure that no strategy becomes dominant.

The appeal you are expressing is that of Expression itself. To satisfy this appeal it's important that choices exist to model the characters according to your imagination. Restrictions are an antithesis to this, which is hard to deny. But there is one aspect where a choice tree like I proposed actually shines pretty bright, reducing the opportunity cost for making mix-in choices. The idea would be to have levels in the tree that only have mix-in choices. So instead of having to decide between progressing in your class and mixing in a different class you would get only the choice what class to mix in. It would still be a limitation in what you can choose, but you wouldn't have to sacrifice anything for it. Therefore it wouldn't conflict with the Challenge oriented rule set.

There is another benefit as well regarding Expression. Discrete abilities are much easier to theme. Simply increasing a skill by a point is not terribly expressive after all, choosing something like a Daredevil choice from the tree says much more about the character. Even though the numeric benefit might be the same.

That's also one of the reasons why I would prefer if the skills like Charisma would be separate from the combat skills. Since they are much more about Expression instead of Challenge. So it would make sense if they wouldn't depend on the same resource. And just to be sure, it wouldn't be like only being given the choice between three class skills. Instead every choice would be a specific and (more or less) unique ability.

Foelhe Jan 24, 2013

Well, admittedly, the option to take a character in a slightly different direction without being penalized would be nice, and this would be one way to make that work.

:lol:

I wish I was better at figuring out game balance, so I could give you more solid concrit. For the most part all of this looks workable. I think I'm always gonna be the guy who wants as many options as humanly possible, so I dunno if I'll ever be totally happy with the tree idea. But, I could definitely live with this if that's what it came down to.

deathknight1728 Mar 01, 2013

Wow, that specialization chart looks to be very cool. One of the only things that I didnt like was that soldiers in PS 1 were heavily specialized in pistols. That was my character that I used. I hope that instead of energy weapons (I have no idea what difference is), a class other than psionics will get high specialization in pistols. It might make sense for scouts or soldiers like before.

Im liking how a lot of this is coming out. Will keep on reading through these threads all while I enjoy a beer

Doesnt get much better than that.

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