A couple of years ago, there was a cluster of threads on ways of "levelling up" in cRPGs - since some recent threads have been touchingon similar issues, I thought I'd summarise what I can remember of the suggestions: 1) The default generic XP model - doing anything gets you experience. Whenever your total experience passes a threshhold, your character improves in some arbitrary fashion - either by automatically improving, or by leting the player choose freely what to improve. 2) Learning through skill use - every N times you use a skill, it improves (and related skills may improve slightly). This can be further refined by only learning from successes or only from failures, and would usually include some sort of limiting effect whereby your rate of improvement decays as your skill improves - either by reducing the amount of improvement, increasing the usage requirement for gain, or having a chance of failing to improve linked to your current skill. 3) A system I came up with, whereby you improve skills by use, with a chance of failing to improve each time you advance, and once you fail to advance three times in a row, that skill becomes "blocked" and can no longer improve. If enough skills in a given skill group are blocked, the entire group is considered blocked (and so on up the skill tree). So, for example, a character that specialises heavily in longsword will eventually become blocked, and unable o improve his longsword skill any further. If he then switches to bastard sword, two-handed sword, scimitar, rapier, or whatever, he will be able to improve his skill in whichever he chooses for a while until it eventually becomes blocked too. Once his third type of sword becomes blocked, he's no longer able to gain skill with any specific sword, although he'll probably have a pretty good generic sword skill from the three types he studied before blocking. So our dedicated warrior switches to another type of weapon to focus on, and eventually blocks out on that too. Sooner or later, he's blocked in enough classes of weapon that he just plain can't learn anything new about dealing damage to people. To unblock, you need to improve an unrelated skill - every time you improve a skill, you have a chance to unblock each other skill - the less closely related, and the more chance of improving, the new skill, the more chance of unblocking the old. So our heavily blocked warrior starts studying poetry. After improving a few times, he returns to the longsword, and finds that the aesthetic sense he's developed in studying poetry grants him new insight into the use of a sword - by applying the new principles, he can advance his skill to yet higher levels. And, by unblocking longsword, he's also indirectly unblocked swords in general (which in turn unblocks the higher categories), though may well still be blocked on bastard sword (he's unable to get out of the bad habits he'd studied himself into and apply his new insight)

1: A decent system, but one thing that hurts it is: If I get 10 strength points upon level-up, why couldn't I get 1 strength point 1/10th of the way in and advance like that?

2: I never liked these systems. In order to improve my dodging, I had to... well dodge. That means I'm not attacking, or at one point I'm not attacking. Systems like these unconsciously reward people who favor things like strength, and other power/attack related categories. There's also a point at which I am not in control of what I learn, and if you cap how much can be learned, it becomes frustrating.

3: At first it seems interesting, however there is too large of a chance that players will get vastly different chances to increase things. However unlikely, it might turn out that I get my longsword skill blocked when I'm down at level 10, when pretty much nobody gets it blocked until they are upwards of level 60. The suggestion you put forth is that people are essentially getting a case of writer's block, but for something like swordplay. Then you go on to suggest that instead of keeping at it, they learn something else until they happen to unblock it. You mention nothing of what happens if someone blocks everything, is he just screwed?

Quote:Original post by Anonymous Poster
3: At first it seems interesting, however there is too large of a chance that players will get vastly different chances to increase things. However unlikely, it might turn out that I get my longsword skill blocked when I'm down at level 10, when pretty much nobody gets it blocked until they are upwards of level 60. The suggestion you put forth is that people are essentially getting a case of writer's block, but for something like swordplay. Then you go on to suggest that instead of keeping at it, they learn something else until they happen to unblock it. You mention nothing of what happens if someone blocks everything, is he just screwed?

Well, at first glance, it doesn't seem possible to have everything blocked. As long as you skill up in an unrelated category, you'll unblock blocked skills in other categories. At least that's what it seems. What you might get is sort of like a cyclic behavior where people choose 2 unrelated skill sets and use one to unblock the other and so forth. However, I have to say that it is a very interesting system, which if done correctly has the potential of creating a very customized system. It may also force your character to develop in a more balanced way.

Everything is based upon chance though. When you raise a skill you have a CHANCE to unblock something, but you also have a chance to have it blocked. To make a quick example, if there were swords, maces, and axes I could train swords until blocked, then switch to maces. Maces can increase without unblocking something. So if maces get blocked, I'm left with axes. If axes gets blocked, ???

Anyhow, I don't mind a system that would force me to learn so much before I could learn more in a certain area, but that amount should be set. I don't want to spend half my career practicing pick-pocket, trying to unblock swords, when I just want to work on swords.

Quote:Original post by Anonymous Poster
Everything is based upon chance though. When you raise a skill you have a CHANCE to unblock something, but you also have a chance to have it blocked. To make a quick example, if there were swords, maces, and axes I could train swords until blocked, then switch to maces. Maces can increase without unblocking something. So if maces get blocked, I'm left with axes. If axes gets blocked, ???

Anyhow, I don't mind a system that would force me to learn so much before I could learn more in a certain area, but that amount should be set. I don't want to spend half my career practicing pick-pocket, trying to unblock swords, when I just want to work on swords.

Yeah, the chance of blocking everything (or having a stubborn early block in a useful skill) is a potential issue. On the other hand, a sensible implementation will include some way of avoiding total block (or be designed in such a way that it's not a serious impediment when it does, inevitably, happen).

The point of having the random element rather than pre-set prerequisites is to discourage munchkinism and give players a genuine choice rather than "to improve your longsword as quickly as possible, gain 30 levels of longsword, then 15 levels of flute, then 25 levels of longsword, then 12 levels of pottery, then another 35 levels of longsword..."

A necessary corollary of the system is having a broad range of skills and ways of using them in interesting gameplay rather than being able/required to spend 50 hours hacking at trees/committing goblin genocide and then have absolute mastery of your chosen weapon.

If the game is well designed for the system, it should be possible for a character that's become blocked in longsword at a reasonable level to still play out the game using his longsword as a competent warrior.

There are a couple of tweaks that could get around the problems of premature blocking and total blocking - have a reasonable minimum level of proficiency below which there's no chance of blocking (possibly tied to relevant attribute scores) or allow blocked skills to still advance, but at a reduced rate - say 1% of the unblocked rate.

There is a fairly widespread idea historically that the ultimate warrior (the paragon of Knighthood, or the ideal Samurai) is not only supremely skilled with the sword, but also has at least a passing acquaintance with many other skills, and is master of at least a few skills which are useless in combat. In current RPGs (and other video games), the ideal warrior is recognised solely by his ability to slay his enemies in the shortest possible time. Rather than being accounted superior, the player who has invested points in etiquette or dance or astronomy is regarded as inferior to the musclehead whose only virtue is the ability to kill more Orcs per hour.

Quote:Original post by rmsgrey
Rather than being accounted superior, the player who has invested points in etiquette or dance or astronomy is regarded as inferior to the musclehead whose only virtue is the ability to kill more Orcs per hour.

Easy way round this, structure the fantasy game around a court setting, where you need to interact with courtiers - dance with Princesses etc in order to get your "mission briefings". No meatheads allowed!

In fact it would be the same as an army "rank" system. Ie. In order to become an Officer you need to be smart and able to think strategically / be able to lead. Whereas, the less intelligent ones take the orders >;).

I can see a game where you would be promoted in rank not based on the enemies you've killed but on your diplomacy, strategic and intellectual abilities.

Actually, as I understand it, blocked skills can be used all the time, just you won't improve with them if they are blocked. If you are looking to avoid munchkinism, the route to take is to have multiple top paths. Instead of realizing, in the design phase, that mages will be horribly overpowering at the end of the level cap and trying to make a system that would make it highly difficult for them to progress perfectly, you should balance the classes AND balance several skills for the classes. I've seen too many games with tons of options, but only 1 top-end option. Armored-core is a great game, but there are few high-end weapons that are worth-while. The only reason to take a lower weapon is if you cannot sustain the weight, because as we all know... the stronger the weapon, the more it must weigh (when weight is a factor).

Like I said before, I wouldn't mind a blocking system if I had more control over it. Letting me choose what gets unblocked next, even if I can't pick the same thing within the last 3 picks.

I've been making this argument on the paper-n-pencil design boards, but it seems to apply here as well. How about NO built in advancement scheme? The whole level climbing paradigm that is at the heart of most RPG's has completely turned me off of them. For my money, it's just lazy design. If the only play value for a game is to satisfy adolescent power fantasies, maybe it's time to rethink the design.

I know it's not easy, but real play value could exist without the carrot of perpetual powerups. The original pnp RPG "Traveller" had no experience ladder and it was a great game. Granted, the level climbing stuff does introduce an addictive element for a certain type of player, but it leaves the rest of us cold. Especially when, in the case of many CRPG's, all the good stuff is withheld from the player until they've proven their willingness to go through hours and hours of 'leveling up'.

[Edited by - sergeant_x on June 26, 2005 12:29:06 PM]