So, Design forum threads pwn me in length, so I'll only make a few small comments.

Many things in life work through 'levels', too (I'll stick with the FPS examples for now, though). If you want to move from a cop with a pistol to a cop with a rifle, shotgun, or long rifle, you have to go through some sort of experience that increases your abilities to use the new weapon. You also get a different color of hat, incidentally (in the BP, anyhow). Your ability to shoot a certain weapon will determine, through certain rankings cutoffs, whether or not you receive a badge, medal, or continuance to a higher rank. Additionaly, at higher ranks, you are given more responsibility, but of a different sort. This can easily be interpreted to nearly any semi-realistic game. Even games like EvE have a fairly valid take on the system.

I do agree that the blatant 'now that you've slept after killing a few monsters, you've suddenly gained immense new powers' approach is a little dumb.

I rather like the direction Vopisk points to.

It seems difficult to incorporate the old style of MMORPGs (or just RPGs) into a non-leveling system. I think it's the direction that games are going (Oblivion, for example, spans the two styles a bit), but a lot of the classic feel will be lost. I'm perfectly fine with that, and I want my RPGs to allow me to both improve my avatar's underlying skills AND allow my own twitch abilities to play out.

My 2 cents, you can do away with numbers, in games you grow in power, power should be recognizble.

A good example is when I beat final fantasy tactic, the last boss had "???" for it's level and stats, but i knew i was far more power then her, because I totally pwned her ass. In in God of War at the end I knew i was way more powerful then I was in the begining because I was going through enemies like a hot knife through butter.

Numbers are useful, but power should be recognized. How thats done is up to the game design. I think an organic approach would work much better then a mechanicle one, like how in dragon warrior enemies would run from you if your level was high enough.

Also, ranks are genius, they add a title to you, as opposed to a level. Creative ranks are even better, kill enemies by impaling them, become "blank the tyrant" or something.

I'd like a system where a character's "experience" comes from actual in-game experiences with different elements. The "use a sword, learn swordsmanship" principle is a good one, but I'd like to see a little more to it, like "Fight a bear, learn about bears," and, "Feed a bear, learn about bears," and "Train a bear, learn about bears."

So if you're a skilled marksman and you grew up in a circus, training and combing the trick bears, you're sufficiently familiar with both a rifle and a bear to get some bonuses in a fight against a bear where you're armed witha rifle, but since you're not a warrior, you get a penalty for being in combat (simulating nerves or whatever).

On the other hand, and stone-cold champion of the gladiatorial arena would suffer no penalty, and might even get a bonus to his skills and attributes by being in a fight, but might not know thing one about bears, so he'd have to feel his way through the fight.

So who's better off in a fight against a bear? A trained warrior, or a bear expert who can shoot straight? There's no solid answer to that, and so there's no concept of one character being "Way more uber" than another.

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Original post by Vopisk Quote: Original post by Fournicolas Quote: Original post by TechnoGoth A lot depends on the type of game. The player generally has to progress to greater and greater challenges so you need some way for the character to continue to improve to face those challenges. There really isn't that much difference between gaining experince to gain levels and gaining gold to buy better equipment. If its a non liner game then abilities could be a good idea. What if it at the begining of the game the player could choose one of 50 abilites to give their character? The other 49 abilites are given to special npc in the game. As the player encounters and defeats these characters they gain one of the npcs abilites. Meanwhile the npcs are also encountering and fighting each other, until there are only two left the player and one other npc. What about parts? The player rides a mech or battles with a robot, and its stats are determined entirely by the parts the player can install it. A la mech warrior... but an rpg... OMG!! It's Megaman!! Really? My first thought was... Highlander the Game!

I freaking loved that series, despite its cheesiness. The movies (especially 2) were godawful, though.

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Original post by VopiskOn that note, the other implementation of "Leveless" systems that I've seen feature the White Wolf-style system of awarding characters experience points and allowing them to spend these in upgrading their character. However, I find flaws in these systems in that a player can gain experience by hacking through monsters with a battle axe and then use their experienced gain to increase their charisma statistic, this is completely unrealistic mapping of in-game actions to character advancement.

I completely agree with the unrealistic part. Sudden jumps in power in unrelated fields is utterly incoherent. Although, I have to ask about moving your character in a new direction. Let's say you're an ogre, and you're great at smashing, but you're not so good at thinking. However, you're a curious ogre, and you'd like to learn more about thinking or magic or whatever. How, then, do you learn about those things?

You certainly aren't going to start using magic on the mobs you are capable of smashing. You'd have to go back to the Cave of N00bs and slay rats with your pitiful magic skills. I think a better way would be a hybrid of the two systems. Take the "use sword, get better with sword" paradigm, but add hobbies.

For instance, take our ogre friend again. Let's say he declares his hobby to be "arcane magic". He's not very good at it, but he practices it in his spare time. You could say that every action could give 1/50th the amount of experience to your hobby. So, you swing a sword, block, make a sandwich, disarm a trap, and each of those would get exp. The ogre would also have gained 4/50ths of a point of exp in "arcane magic".

Otherwise, you'd need to have players sitting down and reading enthusiast magazines about "arcane magic" or whatever, and that doesn't sound very fun at all.

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Original post by templewulf Quote: Original post by VopiskOn that note, the other implementation of "Leveless" systems that I've seen feature the White Wolf-style system of awarding characters experience points and allowing them to spend these in upgrading their character. However, I find flaws in these systems in that a player can gain experience by hacking through monsters with a battle axe and then use their experienced gain to increase their charisma statistic, this is completely unrealistic mapping of in-game actions to character advancement. I completely agree with the unrealistic part. Sudden jumps in power in unrelated fields is utterly incoherent. Although, I have to ask about moving your character in a new direction. Let's say you're an ogre, and you're great at smashing, but you're not so good at thinking. However, you're a curious ogre, and you'd like to learn more about thinking or magic or whatever. How, then, do you learn about those things? You certainly aren't going to start using magic on the mobs you are capable of smashing. You'd have to go back to the Cave of N00bs and slay rats with your pitiful magic skills. I think a better way would be a hybrid of the two systems. Take the "use sword, get better with sword" paradigm, but add hobbies. For instance, take our ogre friend again. Let's say he declares his hobby to be "arcane magic". He's not very good at it, but he practices it in his spare time. You could say that every action could give 1/50th the amount of experience to your hobby. So, you swing a sword, block, make a sandwich, disarm a trap, and each of those would get exp. The ogre would also have gained 4/50ths of a point of exp in "arcane magic". Otherwise, you'd need to have players sitting down and reading enthusiast magazines about "arcane magic" or whatever, and that doesn't sound very fun at all.

Well, in the field of psuedo-RPG's that I've played, often these types of things, where a player wants to get into a new field without having experience enough to be able to raise their skills naturally (through practice), this is most often manifest by game designers with books/schools/etc... where a player studies the selected media(or attends the class as it were) and gains some small percentage in that particular skill. While this may be realistic, perhaps it takes time away from the playing of the game simply to gain a new spell you want, which is what we DON'T want to do.

I enjoy thoroughly your suggestion of a "Hobby", not only does this add an interesting layer of depth to the character themselves [i.e. the seasoned veteran who enjoys crafting toy dolls for his daughters in his off time], but allows players to work on various "alternate fields" that interest them without forcing them to sit out for X amount of time to gain their new skills.

I've been pondering on the idea of auto-skill advancement and the rates at which it occur recently. I like more and more the idea of decimal-point percision numbers when combined with skills, so that whenever one is practicing their skills, they may have (hypothetically) a 5% chance of gaining between .01 - 1.0 in the particular skill, perhaps learning more through use (a higher amount) when they are young and don't know much therefore giving them much to learn from their mistakes and learning slower or less as they advance since they are becoming closer and closer to being masters.

Also, I think that a character should be able to learn from their failures, so something along the lines of a .01 - .05 with a 1% chance per failure. This will help speed up the process of learning through use while not making it radically fast. On that note as well, the game Fallout restricted the amount of times you could perform certain skills in succession, which kept players from standing in one point and using their skills to gain experience and subsequently levels.

Anyway, kinda losing track so I'll end things here before I really confuse myself with the math,

Vopisk

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Original post by Iron Chef Carnage I'd like a system where a character's "experience" comes from actual in-game experiences with different elements. The "use a sword, learn swordsmanship" principle is a good one, but I'd like to see a little more to it, like "Fight a bear, learn about bears," and, "Feed a bear, learn about bears," and "Train a bear, learn about bears."

Then you can come back with a Bear guardian spirit! :D

Anyway, that idea would work pretty well with an emergent AI-based skill system. Otherwise you would have to program in all the different possible actions, which would not scale very well.

It doesn't seem like anyone saw my earlier post. Do you not have any comments on my idea about avatars with their own AI?

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Original post by D Shankar Well it's an interesting subject. In FPS games such as Battlefield 2, you advance in ranks such as corporal, lieutenant, general so on. It is similar to the generic "Level 1, Level 2" but more detailed. A military game simply must have some sort of rank system, and instead of having cheap Levels, Titles are actually awarded. Ranks define a person's skill (basically). Therefore, there must be some indicator of skill level. Classic games use "Level 1" dexterity (ex. Diablo). Modern RPG games use "Mage" "War Hero" what not. (I don't play World of Warcraft, but I believe they use some sort of system like that). Modern FPS games, as I mentioned, use ranks such as "Corporal" "Private" etc. There is always something like that. It's just they way its displayed that changes over time. It's been suggested in these forums to use "Tiers." It would be same as "Levels" or ranks, but just a different name thats displayed. Honestly, I think it would be better for a game to have upgrades as game time progresses. For example, in Battle 1, the player picks up a battle axe. In Battle 2, the player finds a cape. So on so forth; just like Diablo, except without the Level requirements. MMORPGs use this sometimes. New ideas? Quite difficult. How about... As a character is developed and gains experience, he is moved up the chain of command. A servant becomes a soldier, who becomes a warlord, who becomes a general so on. I'm currently developing a game that follows a similar strategy, but I'd rather not reveal too much ;).

The problem isn't in the labeling - it's the method by which the labeling is used.

E.g., in most games nowadays, your rank is your level, your power, etc. In reality, ranks are just numbers used to generalize the "abilities" that a person posseses. In videogames, they are used to determine the abilities someone posses and what they can have. Take Halo 2 as a counterexample - your multiplayer rank doesn't define your ability, it's a construct based on your performance. In RPG's, your level sometimes defines your abilities (Such as in WoW, where higher levels have a distinct, level based advantage in terms of spell resists and melee hit rates, to name a few), but I've yet to see an RPG where your level is "composted" based on your character's stats instead of a static, arbritrary value based on "gaining experience" or some other type of mechanism. In one case, level is arbritray and stats are based on it. In the other case, stats are accumulated and level is based on stats, for the purposes of concise information. The last case if by far more preferable. I also agree very much with Edtharan - instead of having the player simply become "more powerful" - have progress be based on customization. The counterpart to this is to involve skill in your games. Take Devil May Cry 3 - the player is thrown up against bosses that in most cases have large, and obvious advantages in size and power. However, the player still has to outwit them to beat them. Providing gameplay where more materially powerful players have distinct advantages but "weaker" players can take advantage of the depth of gameplay in order to win against the odds is the key to any innovative game involving character development. A bit of an adjunct to your discussion, but it's related nonetheless.

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Original post by axcho Quote: Original post by Iron Chef Carnage I'd like a system where a character's "experience" comes from actual in-game experiences with different elements. The "use a sword, learn swordsmanship" principle is a good one, but I'd like to see a little more to it, like "Fight a bear, learn about bears," and, "Feed a bear, learn about bears," and "Train a bear, learn about bears." Then you can come back with a Bear guardian spirit! :D Anyway, that idea would work pretty well with an emergent AI-based skill system. Otherwise you would have to program in all the different possible actions, which would not scale very well. It doesn't seem like anyone saw my earlier post. Do you not have any comments on my idea about avatars with their own AI?

Well, as part of some frequent forums discussions I take part in, regards to MUD development, there are usually at least several discussions about whether the games should be based more on player skill (twitching) versus character skill (game reflex).

Someone mentioned and I absolutely fell in love with the idea of having your character basically be played out by an evolving AI script. What this basically would do is put the player in the position of the character's mind, giving them the directives for what they should accomplish, but allowing the character, based upon their AI, to take the best course of action.

This seems to me, to be the true way to create an RPG. You do not play an RPG to prove that you can spam mouseclicks the fastest, this is twitch gameplay that depends on the player's skill. It would be nice to take that control away and let the player merely give orders to the game character who fulfilled them, but in order to make this style of gameplay fun in the slightest, the AI must be capable of advanced learning.

For example, my character may have absolutely no idea how to chop down a tree, so I would have to train him to equip an axe and then swing it at the tree in order to "chop down the tree". Likewise with swords, magic, or anything else, there is always a set of steps that must be taken.

Perhaps a system like this could best be described as "Determining character actions" as opposed to "Taking character actions".

Fallout I think is a nice example of "Determining Character Actions". You, as the player, determine what the character learns, what dialogue paths they follow, where they go, the things they pick up and the enemies they swing/shoot at. However, the mechanics of accomplishing these goals are left up to the computer. You don't have to worry about holding down the UP arrow until you come to stand next to the chest, you merely tell your character to walk there and open it, then once the chest is opened and you find out what's inside, you tell your character what to take and to then ignore the chest.

It's something worth thinking about, and I think the success of Fallout 1 & 2 can speak to the fact that this method of gameplay doesn't necessarily have to be boring.

My two cents, something to chew on,

Vopisk

I admit that it's tricky to find an entirely analogue solution to recording a character's skills but consider this possible solution.

Your character has many skills each with their own level of proficiency, every time one uses the skill it increases in proficiency slightly (there's a good argument for increasing it only when someone fails in using the skill, but that's different story).

Nothing revolutionary yet, but the plan is that your skills will only effect what you can do as a person, you need recognition for certain things like for example joining guilds, having access to spells and services.

Starting characters have little respect or privaleges, they have helped no one, achieved nothing and as far as anyone can tell are rubbish at what they do. A character can train their skills to god like levels, but without recognition, no one will waste their time or resources on them.

You gain recognition by finding a Trial Master who will throw you into a challenge, "Kill this Wolf" for example. If you pass then you gain a title ("Butcher" perhaps) and all the privaleges that come with it, this will be the equivalent of becoming a "Level 2 Fighter". You can accept any level trial from a Trial Master but of course you'll fail a test too hard for you.

So what does this mean?
A) Characters smoothly increase in proficiency when training, rather than leaping up a level every now and again.
B) If someone has a title then you know for a fact certain things they can do. e.g. A Butcher can kill a wolf singlehandedly
C) Everyone's character's train at the same rate, but better players can gain respect quicker as they can earn titles without depending on high-skills so much.
D-1) A total stranger in rags could be a world-class fighter, who just never bothered seeking recognition, or a bum who's done nothing but sit around.
D-2) A regal-looking hero type could be fairly new and inexperienced and played by a proficient player, or old and well trained.
E) No one will say "Gotta drop out of this group guys, to go lvl up in town" but rather "I'm getting pretty good at this, I'm going to try the three giants challenge".
F) Watching the Trial Master will be interesting, especially at high levels when someone goes for the title of "Dragonslayer".

I'll leave it up to you to decide which, if any of those are an improvement on what is already common.

I like this system.

Moreover, with a reputation based system, you can have different interactions with NPCs, depending on your race (if racism is included in the package), your gender (if sexism...), your wealth (if bootlicking is an option...), and of course, your reputation (if fear or awe are simulated...).

Such a system could REALLY simplify the insertion of RolePlaying in most games, since, in fact, your basic behaviour would have an effect over the reactions of NPCs... It would mean, of course, a lot more WRITING, because all the dialogues would have to be prescripted and written, but this doesn't come even close to the amount of work a performant behavior AI requires.

Something that would add to immersion, if the world is big, would be the LOCALISATION of reputation. Every fact would be known in a specified range, with a decreasing effect over the population (or not) depending on the distance from the origin of the reputation. This would mean that a wandering adventurer could kill a wolfpack in a city, and be known for it in a range of fifteen kilometers, plus possibly get some financial advantage for it in the following months, but someone slaying a dragon would be known throughout the world, and benefit from his reputation everywhere. The same applies with what I call the "social quests", like "find my son's lost dog" or "get me my medical herbs so I can cure my grandpa's shaky hands". It's the kind of reputation that goes on in a neighbourhood, maybe in some small villages, but would not get you anywhere in a big city, let alone across the country...