Dungeon Master had the best magic system I’ve ever had the pleasure of playing. All the spells had to be learnt from scrolls or by just experimenting with combinations of the different symbols. Also even when you found a spell you would not yet have the experience to cast it, it had to be practiced, then over time you got better at casting it. You also got more Mana to cast bigger spells as you advanced. Each symbol had a mana cost and spell element meaning. So you could think about what made up a spell and learn to cast another variations of the spell. (i.e. you could figure out a fireball, then replace the fire symbol with the ice symbol to create an ice blast). But I would also have liked a symbol to set the power of the spell cast, based on a percentage of total mana available. So the more mana you had the more you could invest in a spell type, but each spell would have its on max damage based on a mana power multiplier. This way as the play gets more mana (i.e. more control over magic) they can channel it better into all their spells, and not just have to learn new spells all the time.

I think the best games are when the users learn how to interact with the world, and not the player’s character. So the first time you play the game you learn how to use the world. Then the next time you play you already know how to do the things, so it’s a matter of user skill, not character. Like with a bow-n-arrow you learn based on the bow’s and your character’s strength how to aim the bow up in the air to hit the target in the distance. That way when you get a better bows you’ll have learn how to use them, the same with other weapons.

I also like the gesture input system, it allows the user the ability to learn based on real world movement. This way combo’s to pull of weapon moves need to be learnt and based on how much they practice in the real world. It also means the user has to learn the timing of a weapon. Then depending on the level of the weapon more hidden moves are available which the user has to figure out, or learn from trainers. But each weapon has it’s base set of moves, so sword will always have a base set of attacks and defences but the more advance weapons add to the range of moves available to the player. You can also have specialised weapons, weapons of speed, or dexterity, making these moves easier in the way of gesturing, so a quick more sloppy gesture will work when it would normally fail.

The monsters in the game would have different combat AI based on there type and combat experience. So an normal Ogre would fight a set way, but a more combat experienced Ogre will have new moves to fight against because of experience and weapon. This way the user needs to learn new tactics based on the monster, the monsters combat level, and the monster’s weapon. So the reason why more advance monster will beat you is because your weapon will just be to slow and easily blocked or you wont have the moves needed to count their advanced attacks. This way like in real life, it’s the quality of your weapon that decides the out come of the fight.

The combat system would also work differently based on whether your fight with a single-handed weapon, dual wielding weapons, or weapon / shield. The entry combat system would change, so the user would need to learn what works best for their style of fighting and the characters physical make up. It also means when you bet the game you know it way because you’re a bad ass with a sword and not your character.

quote:Original post by DuranStrife
1) Power Curve
Here''s an alternate means of having a sharp power curve, but eliminating super-heroes from the field: make magical items potentially much MUCH stronger. Thus, a 20th level character is now still 20x as powerful as a 1st level character, but strip away all of his incredible items and he''s only about twice as powerful.

I''d have a problem believing that the items held all the power... personally I prefer games where the abilities come from the character, but many others won''t mind I suppose. It''s also essential that there is indeed a significant chance of losing those items to someone else, otherwise you''ve not achieved anything.

quote:
3) Learning and Advancing
Actually, realistic skill levels can be pretty far apart. I study martial arts, yet there are undoubtedly martial artists in the world who could take on seven or eight mes.

Hmm, I dunno. I think it was Bruce Lee who once said that he''d never want to take on 3 or more adversaries in a proper fight. And I clearly remember several white-belts beating the European Karate champion back when I did such things.

It''s hard to measure relative ability. Put a weak guy against a tough guy, and the weak guy may lose 99 of the 100 bouts. But you probably only need 10 such weak guys to guarantee beating the tough guy if it''s simultaneous. My system goes a little way towards addressing this by splitting your defence score evenly among all your adversaries. If you''re good enough, you can probably handle 2 or 3 opponents before you''re gonna get hit every time.

quote:I''d say that the most powerful/skilled human being (in nearly any area) is at least 100X as powerful/skilled as the least powerful/skilled person in that area.

Maybe, but I''d also argue that it only takes a tiny amount of training to get into the top 10% and to close most of that gap. Personally I think the curve is more of a logarithmic one than the exponential one that most games use. The downside of a logarithmic curve is that it can make the players feel like they''re not achieving much, later in the game.

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Referring to the topic... All RPG''s don''t have the same levelling system.

Faze, I think your ideas are plain unoriginal and not very well thought out. Go way and plan your idea out, then come back with something that did not just come off the top of your head.

Suggesting to eliminate the system for the typical RPG battling system, that has been proved to work well for all these years without any solid details, specification or documents isn’t such a good idea.

SpittingTrashcan, I know perfectly well that the FF games are terrible violators as far as reality is concerned. I only wanted to note that some FF games (FF4, 5, 6, 9, and 10), in ADDITION to the linear progression of weapons, have massive amounts of non-linear weapon differentiation. FF4 had two-handed swords that caused the user to go berserk, a sword that gave the user an amount of HP equal to the amount of damage it did, a sword that did 4x the damage against magic users, a whip that did something like 20x the damage against dragons only, a staff that allow its possessor to raise the dead at will, arrows that prevent targets struck from casting magical spells, weapons that do elemental damage, etc., etc., etc.

The game I''m currently working on has no linear weapon progression (at least not to the extent that FF has!) and allows for custom magic item creation/augmentation using a LONG list of abilities, which should make for a SLIGHT reduction in leveling ad absurdum as the only means of gaining power.

Oh yes, and I have a system that allows characters to either power up existing abilities or learn entirely new ones upon leveling. I''m hoping that it alleviates the boredom that one-or-the-other systems tend to produce.

quote:Original post by SpittingTrashcan
If you need to be gaining levels to feel like you''re accomplishing something in the game, it''s a bad game.

Why? Entire sports are based around just increasing your score or decreasing your time, so why should a similar design make a game bad? Assuming you meant "it''s a bad RPG game", then I would probably say that character advancement is one of the more interesting tools to help/hinder plot advancement. In Doom, you had red, yellow, and blue keys to limit your progress. In adventure games, you usually have to find some object and work out where to use it. And in RPGs, as well as both of the above approaches, a similar effect can be achieved by creating a combat encounter of a certain difficulty and requiring you to be tough enough to survive it. Is that so bad? It sounds a lot more exciting, interesting, and involved than a traditional key-lock situation, but achieves the same goal. Is it really padding game hours into the game, or is it providing a different type of puzzle?

Personally I think the difference is qualitative: if you feel like you''re spending too much time having to level up, then it''s padding. On the other hand, if it just means that, on occasion, you need to go back to town and get some more training before facing an opponent, then it''s a useful game element. The key is to balance it just right. Ideally there are enough sub-plots that you can accumulate levels/skill/exp/whatever when performing those, that you are never too far ''off the pace'' when it comes back to the main plot.

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