attributes, skills & level up

The tale of the siblings Althea and Shea https://www.winterwolves.com/seasonsofthewolf.htm
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Elmsdor
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Re: attributes, skills & level up

Post by Elmsdor »

Depending on the attributes, I don't mind what they are on a girl, but for RPG's, that's another matter :mrgreen:

Let's discuss about Classes and their stat relations.

We can all agree that that with every class, there will be redundant stats such as Str to Magical Users, and Int is to Phyiscal Classes. This characteristic has been such a case forever, ever since back the days of D&D. The obvious silver lining or blessing is that, it allows those classes to ignore a stat in favor of further enhancing their primaries. The irony here is that, the hybrid classes which can use all stats, suffer immensely due to being all rounder in stats as opposed to specialist.

IE . Eleanor/Saren, I would give them + 1 + 1 + 1 to all stats upon each level, and Loren would gain either +3 str, or +2 str, + 1 skill. Sure, Eleanor/Saren would have a good baseline in all stats, but would only end up doing like 30 dmg, while Loren would be smashing everyone for 100+, due to her specialized strength.

I don't particularly feel like having a stat underutilized is a bad thing, it allows specialization to take place and itemization to be far easier. I do appreciate the difficulty in making content that would challenge, or be easy enough for the players though.

IF you want players or characters, to choose stats that are anathema to their class, such as Int/Arcane for Physical, and Strength for Magical Users, you must give them an extra attribute that will make it extremely desirable to dip in.

Let's use what you posted on your blog. What I bolded could be an attractive attribute for an 'opposing' class, or even applies to 'opposing' only.

Constitution – increases character’s durability in battles. Each point spent in this attribute will increase the HP amount by 10. Each point also increases regeneration by 1

Will – increases character’s ability to use special attacks or spells in battle. Each points spent in this attribute will increase the SP amount by 10. Increases resistance to all elements by 2%.

Strength – increases character’s physical damage in battle. Each point spent in this attribute will increase the Attack value. Each point also drastically increases critical chance and reduces damage received by 1.

Skill – increases character’s ability to avoid or block physical attacks in battle. Each point spent in this attribute will increase the Defense value. Reduces the cost of MP/SP by 1 point.

Agility – increases character’s Speed value. Fast characters will move sooner and perform the same actions quicker than slower ones. Reduces RANGED damage received by 2 points.

Arcane – increases character’s Magical ability. A high value helps caster to cast more powerful spells, and also grants protection to magic attacks. Each point also increases the amount of healing from others received.

So adding a secondary incentive, or double traiting each stat is a possiblity.


Another way to make ALL stats desirable, is to globalise them under a bigger umbrella. Instead of stats such as Str/Int, AGI/SKL, etc. Reclassify them as something else. This system was used in a few mmos such as Champions Online and WoW, as well as others.

Constitution – increases character’s durability in battles. Each point spent in this attribute will increase the HP amount by 10.
Will – increases character’s ability to use special attacks or spells in battle. Each points spent in this attribute will increase the SP amount by 10.
Offense – increases character’s overall damage in battle. Each point spent in this attribute will increase the Attack value.
Conservation – increases character’s ability to avoid or block physical attacks in battle. Each point spent in this attribute will increase the Defense value and reduces spell cost.
Agility – increases character’s Speed value. Fast characters will move sooner and perform the same actions quicker than slower ones. Also, increases critical hit chance.
Arcane – increases character’s regeneration. A high value helps caster to cast more spells more often, and also grants protection to magic attacks.

Food for thought.

In relation to elemental resistance, you could always use a figure instead of a flat connotation such as resist/immune. So something like 50%-100% fire resist, etc. A general RPG fact is, if you stack a resist hard enough (and mess up your itemization) and bring a resist to 200%, you start absorbing it. So someone with 200% fire is going to love hugging dragons.

I hope Nightmare is hard enough. Else I will kick that kitten. And the little dog too.

Cheers
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jack1974
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Re: attributes, skills & level up

Post by jack1974 »

Thanks some interesting points, I like in particular your second solution. I don't want to have HP regeneration too high by default since I think could mess up the battles, but SP yes is fine of course.
Using a percentage based resistance, it will be MUCH HARDER to reach 200%, than it was in Loren. I can have more control over it. I can have only a FEW unique item have more than 1 resistance, but all the others (still rare but not unique) could give +4/5% max each. Considering you can wear maximum 8-9 pieces of armor like in Loren, but let's say 10, the results are clear: 5% x 10 = maximum 50% base protection from ONE element with the items.
Compare that with Loren where with Ramas Willpower + a few items you could have a dwarf almost immune to all damage...!! :lol:
So as you can see, it will be much easier for me to balance, and will avoid some situations that were present in Loren because I used that resistance system with just 5 levels (a bad idea in hindsight).
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Elmsdor
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Re: attributes, skills & level up

Post by Elmsdor »

Aussie humor must have failed me :mrgreen:

Feel free to enjoy any and thanks for listening/reading :) I aim to be a hardcore fighter and tester, kek.

I honestly wouldn't worry about HP Regeneration too much but it depends on how lethal you want combat to be. Eleanor in my run through was rocking 11HP/7SP regeneration but damage was coming in at 80. HP Regen serves to ease opportunity costs involving SP and potions.

If you approve of % based resist, go for it. Again, itemization is key and I would still ask for a higher end resist, such as 75% or even 100% for some niche encounters. Of course, Status Effects works perfectly fine with a variable of nothing to immune, to a chance of working ;) Rare items with multiple resists or even higher stats would be jawesome. A Fire orb with +25% fire / - 25% ice resist? Hmmm.

Nothing is ever bad in hindsight, we learn from it. But yes, I stacked the frak out of my teams for encounters :mrgreen:

Off note, skills. Is it possible to have 15 skills instead of 3 levels of 5 skills? Or is it too insane. I will comment on the variable parameters once I see it later. In Loren, some level 3 skills weren't even worth touching :cry:

Similar note, Hybrid Classes have ALWAYS suffered from stat defiency, due to their high demand. But they make up for it with Skills.

Cheers

P.S Does Hero Class show up for the Mains? :o
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jack1974
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Re: attributes, skills & level up

Post by jack1974 »

Well is a bit early to talk about, but in this game I plan to do things differently:
- less HP each "unit"
- less base damage done, so criticals will have more impact
- more value to the items, in Loren was mostly about the character skills, here the weapons should have more influence on the damage done
- skills: I am trying to make them bigger and have more requirements to force players to pick a branch. In Loren you could learn all, here I want to make it impossible to learn all, but have a choice (will be easier to explain once I try to redesign the skilltrees)

in summary doing my best as always but I'm totally swamped by work, and also idiot bureaucracy and other stupid italian laws are slowing me down considerably as well. I think I need to move elsewhere to be able to work in peace :lol:
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jack1974
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Re: attributes, skills & level up

Post by jack1974 »

Did this today:
Image
the in-game character screen, attributes submenu. I'm trying a different visual approach, but of course everything is still work-in-progress :)
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Lonestar51
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Re: attributes, skills & level up

Post by Lonestar51 »

You might want to refine the upper row of portraits a little bit, to make sure the head size is more equal than shown. When I looked at it, something did not feel right, and I needed a bit to see what it was.

Otherwise ... I must state you make the waiting for release very hard. :mrgreen:
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jack1974
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Re: attributes, skills & level up

Post by jack1974 »

What do you mean, of the upper portraits maybe there's only Vaelis and Chalassa that have "bigger heads"... or maybe I should just enlarge Rowinda one?
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Lonestar51
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Re: attributes, skills & level up

Post by Lonestar51 »

Vaelis does stand out as "too big", and Rowinda is too small. Chalassa ... a bit too big, but her portrait would not stand out so much. Very likely none of the sizes would matter when playing the game, but in a screenshot they do. (When playing I would have other matters in mind ;-) )
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jack1974
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Re: attributes, skills & level up

Post by jack1974 »

Image
The heads sizes are fixed now :wink:
Also I finally settled with a secondary impact for each attribute (except Constitution and Will since I think the HP/SP impact is very powerful, but worse case I can add HP/SP regen as secondary effect), following Elmsdor's suggestion. I think I'm done with this, maybe just some minor tweaks for the values amount, but that's it.
In practice now works like this:
"Constitution":"Constitution increases character's durability in battles. Each point spent in this attribute will increase the HP amount by 10.",
"Will":"Will increases character's ability to use special attacks or spells in battle. Each points spent in this attribute will increase the SP amount by 10.",
"Strength":"Strength increases character's physical damage in battle. Each point spent in this attribute will increase the Attack value. Every 2 points increases Threshold value by 1% up to a maximum of 50%.",
"Skill":"Skill increases character's ability to perform advanced techniques in battle. Each point spent in this attribute will increase the Defense value. Every 2 points increases all Physical Resistances by 1% up to a maximum of 50%.",
"Agility":"Agility increases character's Speed value. Fast characters will move sooner and perform the same actions quicker than slower ones. Every 5 points spent in this attribute will increase the Critical Hit chance by 1% up to a maximum of 20%.",
"Arcane":"Arcane increases character's Magic ability. A high value helps caster to cast more powerful spells, and also grants protection to magic attacks. Every 2 points increases all Elemental Resistances by 1% up to a maximum of 50%.",

Physical resistances = "Paralyzed","Weakened","Scared","Slowed","Confused"
Elemental resistances = "Burning","Frozen","Tired","Shattered","Poisoned"
Threshold = how easy the character becomes staggered
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Lonestar51
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Re: attributes, skills & level up

Post by Lonestar51 »

Yes, the row of char-pictures looks much better now.

And the attributes look interesting and promising. Let's see if it survives playtesting ;-)
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