Fruny, those are good ideas. I'm reminded (yet again) of Kengo. For those who haven't read my posts before, Kengo is a tournament fighter for the PS2 set in feudal Japan. You train and cultivate your character through various activities and challenges, learning moves from schools, stringing them into combos, and doing mini-games to "train" your base stats. It's awesome.

In that game, when you go up against an adversary, you can't see their numbers, but you quickly notice how fast they are, how hard they hid, how nimbly they move, or how quickly their ki bar fills up. It's not obvious from looking at them, but when you face off, you can usually learn a lot about them in the first few seconds.

My internal monologue for these fights is something like, "Holy smokes, this guy is fast! I've got to watch my distance. That thrust combo is brutal, but it's not too tough to sidestep. Well, he doesn't really hit too hard, so if I can pick my chances and make solid connections, my attack power should overwhelm him." This sort of learning experience in each fight is really immersive and interesting for me. Surely some similar experience can be produced with a good RPG.

I'd like to be able to tell something about them before we cross swords, though. Especially in PvP, it'll be a real pain to have to get your butt kicked six times before you remember that one guy.

Quote:Original post by Iron Chef Carnage
How could this "sizing up" be implemented in-game? Could you have a way to examine monsters/characters to get a "this guy looks like meat" or "I wouldn't want to get within axe-range of that orc" sort of evaluation? After all, all stat-comparison boils down to that age-old question: Who would win in a fight?

Should this be immediately available, like a colored halo around the other guy (hurts immersion), or maybe an animated response that your character performs automatically (hurts identity)? Maybe it should require a "size up" command (clumsy). Perhaps you could set your character's carriage and gait to convey your status (easily abused). It's a tough choice.

Not directly related, but reminded me of a comic strip dealing with the '_very_ visible power difference' subject...

http://thenoob.keenspace.com/d/20040611.html

:s

A good game is like a spreadsheet. [grin] With that being said, I'll try to give constructive ideas instead of just advocating the use of numbers.

Don't forget that the way you model your system doesn't have to be the same than the way you represent it. Numbers are easy to control and to build a robust system on. After the system works and is balanced, then think of a way to represent it in a more mundane way.

And even if you displayed skills as numbers don't need to be exact. You could add noise to the numbers before representing them, put them through all sort of nasty nonlinear functions (representing the character's belief and uncertainty on his skills) or whatever. If the character has the trait "overconfident" you could add a large random number to each of the stats at representation layer.

Using numbers might make the game look like a spreadsheet, but numbers are understandable and have fewer personal connotations that might make them seem inappropriate for certain situations. I mean, which is better to have, a phenomenal fighting skill or a flabbergasting one? Beats me. Especially when sometimes such systems that use words force the player to make a decision whether he is stupid or ugly. Personal connotations can make a good system look repulsive. Also, when I see numbers for stats, I instantly know what's going on. When I see words, I have to think "Ok, what does this mean? Does good fighting skill mean that I can kill orcs with one hit? Two hits? What?!" If you want to use words, then use more descriptive ones than just "good". E.g. Strength: You can kill an orc with one hit. The descriptive system is much like Inmate2993 suggested, but from a pragmatical perspective. Still it'd be too vague for instant recognation. With numbers you at least have an idea what 100 means when you're 20 and have seen 10, but you'll have no idea what "overwhelmingly flabbergasting" even if you knew what "dumbfoundinlgy awesome" or "incomprehensibly staggering" meant. Trying to estimate the skills the character has should be something the character does (i.e. this is the part when you add the random part to the number). Don't make the player do the work of the character.

You can't just e.g. represent strength by telling how much you can carry. Strength, as an game stat, is a much more abstract concept. It represents much more, as it affects your melee damage or what have you. Any stat is an abstraction. This isn't even really an argument for the sake of realism but rather for the basic philosophy that mixing different levels of abstraction is just not right. A perfect example of this is the misuse of hit points. It is a very abstract concept which originally did not measure "physical health" but rather "fighting capability". Then, when you start to add more mundane concepts around it, like fatigue (which in a way is already a part of the hit point concept), then you get ridiculous results and the players start asking why having 1 hit point allows you to fight perfectly.

Quote:Original post by Grim
With numbers you at least have an idea what 100 means when you're 20 and have seen 10, but you'll have no idea what "overwhelmingly flabbergasting" even if you knew what "dumbfoundinlgy awesome" or "incomprehensibly staggering" meant.

A good observation. I hated the system Heroes of Might & Magic used to estimate the size of enemy forces. You look at a little orc on the map and it says, "A Handful of Orcs", or "Lots of Orcs", or "A Pack of Orcs", or "Zounds... Orcs". I never figured it out, and so I'd spend a lot of time getting reamed by enemies thinking that "lots" was less than "a pack", or vice versa. Other times, I'd cower in terror before a group that I could have beaten easily, only to have an NPC hero come in, dispatch them handily, and then loot my territory. Infuriating.

If you're going to have a semantic description, make sure the hierarchy is available as a quick reference.

Many martial arts denote a rough skill level by the colour of a belt that they wear. You could have a similar system where you are rated as somewhere between white belt and black belt in swordsmanship or shieldwork or whatever.

Obviously, you would change this from belts to whatever makes more sense in your game fiction. The other thing I would recommend is that instead of having these go up automatically, you have to return to a city or the like to get appraised. For example, you go to the fighter's guild, do a little sparring with the weaponsmaster there, and he announces that you are now a "Silver Sash swordsman". Similarly the Mages' Tower decides to award your spellcaster the 5th Tome, as she has now progressed past the 4th.

Benefits:
- Descriptive terms help preserve the game fiction more than numeric ones do
- Relative terms allow direct comparisons and a sense of progress
- The assessment requirement creates an air of anticipation