Vopisk, that is pretty much exactly what I was thinking of. I'm curious to know who thought of that idea before. Is there an earlier topic about it that you could point me to?

Well on leveling and ranks I have a few idea.

on ranks:
A rank would basically be how you advance through a social structure like a business. Which for the most part depends on what you do. In FF8 there was the SeeD rank system which determined how much money you made (as opposed to the normal system of killing things and looting their freshly-slain corpses).

So a 'rank' system could determine several things:
1. How much money you get, what intervals you get paid, and what you get paid to do.
2. Licenses to own, buy, or equip certain items or equipment. Pehaps only elite-guards can legally buy or use the elite-guard spears or something.
3. What skills you have access to. Such as, if you are a freshman at the Wizard school they only teach you the basic spells. As you take tests to show your improved skills they let you see more powerful spell (note: you can probably cheat this by searching for spells outside the school, but this might be frowned upon by the teachers and they penalize you for it.)
4. Areas you can access, etc.

Basically, 'ranks' determine how other characters react to you.

How ranks are determined:
You could have 'promotion points' which are just like XP except they advance your career. Sort of like the Seed system in FF8 or how they advance in The Sims.

1. Fighting enemies. If you are a guard set to protect a town from monsters, you might get 'promotion points' by slaying certain monster. However, if you are a ranger or zookeeper you might lose points by killing monsters. You might lose points in general if you kill frendly creatures like somebodys pet dog or a horse.
2. Completing related sidequests.
3. How you relate to your superiors.
4. Other stuff. like how much money you bring in if working at a shop, or how many quality items you can craft if working in a factory.

===============

Actually building up your skills however is something different. And you can go pretty much any way with it. One idea:

Have the world full of different types of mana. (Fire, health, time, earth, etc..) and each of these are used to boost certain stats.
fire mana boosts strength
heath mana boosts HP
time mana boosts speed
earth mana boosts defence

You gain different types of mana by eating certain foods or absorbing them through some sort of magic draining thing.
bread = 3 health mana + 2 earth mana
milk = 1 fire mana + 4 earth mana
steak = 3 fire mana + 5 earth mana + 4 health mana

Bathing in the cave of time = 24 time mana

then, you stockpile them kind of like as an inventory. Then when you perform an action like swing your sword, you excercise strenght and then one earth mana gets spend to increase your strength score.

If you use magic, you can also spend mana from your inventory to cast spells.
Fireball = 10 fire mana + 3 earth mana
Minor Cure = 5 health mana

You could also have 'energy mana' to use which is kind of the cost for performing actions. Energy mana could be found in all food so your character has to eat in order to function. (kind of like in Nethack where you need to eat of you starve and start fainting.) Could also be a good excuse for players to enter the bar and drink Beer to get all the fire mana they need.

Basically, have it so the players need to collect different types of things or points in order to level up the stats they want. Not sure if there should be a penalty on characters that eat too much of one thing... Also, magic users would have a choice on wether they want to use their mana to cast spells or level up their strength.

Health mana could be used as a health reserve, so when they get injured, their body gradually uses up health mana to restore it. Special potions or band-aids might help increase the speed of recovery. Not sure how one would level up their Max HP though.

Anyway, if someone is inspired a but by this then by all means let me know how it can be improved.

Quote:

Original post by axcho Vopisk, that is pretty much exactly what I was thinking of. I'm curious to know who thought of that idea before. Is there an earlier topic about it that you could point me to?

http://www.mudconnect.com/discuss/discuss.cgi?mode=MSG&area=adv_code&message=13511

Scroll through all my garbage and look at the post originating from a user named Astiral.

I think the original thread you're pointing to, Vopisk, is only semi-related, as it deals with MUD combat, and not really with levels and ranks.

The idea is interesting, though, and could be applied to some roleplaying experience, if you trained your pet-character to react when in combat, but also in, well, social interaction situations. It would mean less personal interaction, but on the whole, more attachment to the character. A choice has to be made.

As to the levels and ranks relating to the accessible abilities, and to some social content, I still think it could be made fairly easily, with triggers and counters.

Let's say the title ranks trigger some prescripted reactions among NPCs, like quests initiated, quests accessibility terminated, or social behaviour modified.

Let's say you DO get your specific skill XP per skill use FAILURE, as you learn a new way NOT to fail using your skill, any skill, including fighting skills, or bartering, sawing or sewing.

Now, let's say each line of dialogue you choose, or action you take raises or lowers one of the counters, and that those counters are named goodrepute, badfame, awe, and sympathy. The NPCs will react to your counters by providing different lines of dialogue, like, if you have a badfame counter higher than setvalue, the sellers will say "I don't want to be seen selling anything to someone like you", or if your goodrepute counter is higher than setvalue, the sellers will say "Having you around is beneficial for my shop. I'll let you have a 15% rebate on everything you buy here."

Maybe being known as a Butcher (meaning you have already killed more than setvalue of animal mobs) could cut you off good lines of dialogue from female or kids NPCs, if they disregard cruelty to animals. Or maybe get you some additional quest from guards or tanners... Whatever.

There's a good reason why it's 'always' levels:

Because that's what we all understand. Level 5 > level 3. KISS, baby. The easier you make a system to learn initially, the better the chance that the players will give your more than a 10 minute evaluation.

Other systems? There are plenty of them out there. Personally I like a skill based system with training options/requirements for advancement. The Dread Pirate Roberts (Wesley) didn't get to become a great swordsman by just fighting or just training, he did both with everyone he could. Neither did Inigo.

You can only go so far with the basics. After that, you have to tap into the knowledge and experience of others. Then you can adapt your styles to include theirs and become much better. So you learn the basics (go bash critter on head), then after you've done that for a while, you want to find out how to kill the critter without ruining the pelt with 500 wounds. So you go learn better how to kill them. Then someone hires you to go hunt down some bandits, so you run out and kill them, but get beat up pretty bad in the process. You learned from your mistakes, but you don't want to get beat up like that again, so you go and train some more, how to fight defensively and wait for the opening to appear. Now you're getting pretty good at swordsplay, so you can fight pretty well... you go out and pull a couple of escort jobs with merchants and have some good fights, but your opponents are no slouches either, so you now go out and learn some new styles of fighting which helps you do better from horseback. Now you're one mean mofo. So now you go out and get yourself a job as a guard for an ambassador. You do a couple of duels along the way for honor or just practice, but you find that the styles that you've learned aren't very good against the weapon that the enemy uses or the styles that they're using, so you hunt down some more masters who can teach you how to defeat those styles. You started out as a punk who was lucky to kill a boar and now you take down those boars weekly as something to do for recreation. You're on your way to becoming one of the best swordsmen around and you did it by using what you learned and learning more when you needed to.

The same can be said for a magician, rogue-type or any other adventuring class of individual, or even merchants, miners, blacksmiths, jewelers, spy, ambassador, etc... Some people are content to gain a certain level of achievement and go on with their lives, but when playing an RPG, you want to be the exceptional one. So you're going to train up whenever you can and learn when to use what skills you've learned.

Some things to remember too. Everything isn't just one skill, it's several. When you're out there swinging your cutlass using the 'dance with the waves' style, you're using an offensive skill with a cutlass, using the 'dance with the waves' style. So you will be developing your offensive skill, your piercing and slashing skill (Cutlass is both) your piercing swords skill, your cutlass specialty and your 'dance with the waves' style with the cutlass. Your base skills may not go up at a very high rate, compared to the style (which you're not as familiar with), but they are all related and should be considered when using a skill.

[Edited by - solinear on July 9, 2006 3:39:31 PM]

In real life, there are no levels, and you don't give way your free trial after fifteen minutes. Give the players enough incentive to keep playing, and the levels won't matter at all. Or any other way to measure your OWN progression, instead of to compare your own progression against that of other players...

Apologies in advance: I have only skimmed through most of the posts thus far due to their length, and many of my ideas may already have been put forward. I hope to go back to read all of the replies in full as soon as possible. Anyway, let us begin...

Why have levels?

Levels are the standard and most widely recognised element of the RPG style of game. In a non-RPG they are often included to add in "RPG elements". The reason for the initial introduction of the level system (a long long time ago) was obvious: it is the simplest method of making your character "better" as he progresses through the game; have one single stat that increases uniformly and detirmine all other stats from this. The advantages and limitations of the level system are both in its simplicity. While it is easy to understand it makes character progression quite linear, often in a game where linearity is precisely what you are trying to avoid.

What's wrong with levels?

Since most gamers these days are experienced in simple game mechanics (especially those who play RPGs) one might feel the simplicity of the level system is somewhat redundant. Even other systems based on levels (such as "class" systems and "job" systems) that try to iron out the linearity of levels, tend to be pretty linear in themselves. Class systems carry an additional problem: without doubt it will be asked by the player "which is the best class?". At this point the system has failed as most players would then pick the "best" class from the beginning and play through in a most linear fasion. Since battle engines are a sequence of mathematical probabilities it is almost impossible to create a class system where one class does not have a statistical advantage over another. Other similar systems involve a players choice of abilities to improve upon gaining a level. Such systems are rarely thought out properly, and allow mistakes by a player to create (by accident) what turns out to be a worthless character. For instance, most games have a division between might and magic. Usually a player specializing in one or the other has a very large advantage over one who aims to do both. An unknowing player may try to create such a character, then 20 hours into the game realises his mistakes and is forced to start again (be honest here - hands up if you've done it - *raises hand*). At such a point, this system too has failed.

What can be done?

The principle problem is to get rid of the linear nature. In a perfect game (I'm talking mainly multiplayer here) every character you come accross would be completely different; you'd be able to design your character to be how you want, and invent your own ways to progress through the game. To create such a system (in a fair way that does not punish players that use it "incorrectly"), the level system must surely be abandoned in favor of a "one stat for each action" system. If you use a sword lots, you get better at using a sword, and so on. Though this has many advantages over the traditional level system, it produces many problems of its own. For instance (as has already been mentioned by somebody) if a player wants to change his style of play mid-way through the game, how can he when his seldom used abilities are so weak? Such problems CAN be solved, though it would require a very well thought out system. Lets take the example of the fighter who wants to learn magic: since his spells are so weak, he has little hope of honing them to be of any use. He would not want to use, say a fireball, against a foe when his sword is doing more damage. However, if he has a buffer type spell (such as one that enhances his weapon temporarily) he would not be at any disadvantage using it while fighting away, so he could practice his magic while going about his usual regime. So essentially all that needs to be done is to make every skill "useful" even when they've never been used.

Now comes an additional problem: we do not want the player to be "punished" for changing his mind midway through the game. In other words, if a player decides halfway through that he wants to be a spellcaster, he should not be prohibited from becoming as powerful a spellcaster as one who started the game that way. As such there cannot be a limit on how many different skills a player can practice to perfection. As such, we are back to square one: since every character can become "perfect" at everything, at the end of the game we find that everybody is essentially playing as the same character.

My suggestion for the skill-system is that the skills should not only go up, but go down. Skills and abilities that are used often will become better while those that become out of practice start to deteriorate. For example, a player starts out playing as a fighter, so his weapon abilities increase while his magic skills stay low. Mid-way through he changes his mind, throws his sword away, and adopts a life of magic use. Through practice his magic skills increase while his ability with a sword drops through lack of use. Though you might say the player has wasted much time in getting to this point, he has not been punished for his decision - he does not have to start the game again to alter his character, and neither would this make him any more powerful. The real problem this system brings up is the inherent "waste of time" attributed to practicing a skill. Instead we could have that each skill has two stats - a current skill level and a master skill level, where the master skill is defined to be simply the highest level you have attained in that skill. Now when you a practicing a skill, if the mastered level is higher than the current level (so that you have practiced up to a point previously, then left it redundant for a while so it has diminished), the skill levels up quicker than usual. In other words it is easier to "relearn" an ability than to learn it in the first place. Secondly the actual stat used by the game engine would be an average of the current and master stats, so that even if you haven't used an ability in a long time, it would still be more powerful than if you have never used it at all. This way, perfectionists (like myself) would have reason at the end of the game to level each stat up to maximum - the current levels could never all be perfect at once, but it gets your master skill up.

Of course, the real problem in throwing away the traditional level stat is in balancing. If you want to spawn enemies that are appropriately powerful to your characters power, how do you determine this without a single fundamental stat governing your characters progression? An unbalanced game is not a pretty sight at all.

PS: Vopisk, I'm currently working on a similar AI based system. It uses a simple turn based battle system with a twist: at the start of a turn, you give your character simple commands for that turn, then you get 10 seconds of real time action where the AI makes all the decisions for you by interpreting these commands. The fundamental concept is a personality system - you start the game by giving your character certain traits (is he logical or intuitive? Stubborn or open minded? Progressive or orthodox? etc.), which govern his actions based on your commands. The personality system is incomplete at present, but when finished could possibly apply to many different games types - infact any where an AI character must choose between a large number of options.

My two cents' worth:

Levelling -whether through levelling an "overall" level or through levelling individual stats and skills- is fairly necessary, if only because it's difficult to envision an non-number-based system that would be readily comprehensible to players.

And let's face it: RPGs are all about brains, not reflexes. Thus, an RPG that isn't comprehensible by its players is poorly designed, by definition. In order to allow a player to strategize, you have to make all the options available to that player very apparent, and display them as prominently as possible.

I am in favor of systems that give you skill points as you progress through the game, and let you spend those points on a variety of skills in any way you wish. To increase choice (and therefore maximize fun-value) as the game runs on, the rate at which skill points are gained (not necessarily per combat; I'm talking purely in points gained per hour of gameplay) should increase as the game goes on.

Titles, however, could only add fun to the game, if those titles have a number to go with them. I remember that when you achieved the maximum numeric level in the healing skill in Deus Ex, there was a description that went with it saying something along the lines of "you can perform heart-bypass surgery with common household materials." Now THAT'S badass! Whereas "Medicine: Lvl 5" really isn't...

So yes to levels (of some sort), yes to titles.

Quote:

Original post by DuranStrife Levelling -[...]- is fairly necessary, if only because it's difficult to envision an non-number-based system that would be readily comprehensible to players.

Uh...

In fact, a non-number based system is called Role-Playing. It's what most PnP players do, when they are playing, for instance, Ambre, the Role-Playing Game, which doesn't have numbers.

Anything else is number crunching.

If you have to define a progression for your characters, it's because your system is entirely based on progression. If you can roleplay without ever revolving to a single number, like playing it out by pretending, and faking most of the time, if you can talk your way out of trouble and resolve all the problems this way, then you can roleplay. If all you want to do is be able to "smash puny elves", then go back to Diablo and the likes.

Roleplaying isn't so much about levels as it is about pretending. If you can pretend something is about to happen, or actually happens with enough conviction, then numbers don't matter that much. If you have to resolve to numbers, it's because you need a measure of relative characteristics more accurate than "he's probably slightly stronger, but the other one is way faster than him...", which means that you're putting too much emphasis on number-crunching, instead of creating player-driven action.

Such a player-driven action system cannot be made actually in computer games, because computers cannot fake dialogues and be convicing enough. Nor can they adapt to unexpected actions on the part of the player. That is why most RPGs only give limited freedom of action, or limited range of action or mobility.

If you want to remove levels entirely, then create adventures which do not require levels at all, and concentrate on dialogues and players reactions to NPCs actions. Create mysteries, and such.

Or make your usual fantasy adventures be solvable through negociation, coercion, threats or begging, instead of only solvable through fighting and/or use of random skills always falling under the "fighting" range...

@Fournicolas:

You're preaching to the choir. :)

I've run 8-hour marathon D&D sessions with no combat (funny, since D&D is designed around combat, primarily), in which 90% of the character interaction was between characters in the party. Is my dream to be able to bring this sort of true roleplaying to the PC someday, instead of emulating, as always, the dungeonhacking aspect.

I gave the experience points for accomplishing character goals and resolving psychological issues, which helped drive that playing style, and made for a much more interesting game than a dominantly stat-based game would have been.

Trust me, I know what you're saying, but those points are terribly helpful for gameplay purposes. You can't just plop the character in there and say "you can do anything if you figure out how to." In terms of traditionally reckoned game genres, that would be an Adventure game, not an RPG.

However, I like the definition that RPG = roleplaying much better. It only makes sense. That stated, I'd like to see a computer RPG revolving purely around interaction someday. Though computers have a long way to go before they can act as well as humans.

EDIT: You'll probably be appalled to know that in the RPG I'm working on, characters have a range of social skills that they can put points into, and which are unattached to their combat class. Instead, their skillsets are somewhat molded by their having a social class as well, which determines whether they spend SP more efficiently on lying, cajoling, inspiring, etc.

But since you don't seem to like numbers, you'd probably not like that.