I can see that it can help immersion to look the way you want to (my whole point here really) but isnt this method you have suggested a bit immersion breaking? After all, I just picked up gothic armour and turned it into Italian armour.

Quote:Original post by JasRonq
So I'm looking for ideas as to how we can stop forcing a player to choose between his characters aesthetics and equipment quality. (NOTE: the MMO solution of allowing the player to change the equipments looks is a misplaced mechanic in most other RPGs, especially action-RPGs and roguelikes)

Why not force them to choose? Hell, encourage such situations. The first time I played through Mass Effect, I wore the prissy pink armor because it provided good protection. The second time through I made different armor decisions, and looked and felt like more of a badass, even though (and possibly because) I was less protected. Understand that with modern games, players make their own goals. Don't try to avoid that. You'll only annoy them.

Perhaps this is the sort of situation where it's best to have specialized stats. The sort of thing where you simply can't master everything because it's either impossible or impractical, and you're rewarded for sticking to your guns and not trying to be a jack of all trades. In that case, it can be both a matter of form and function, where the smooth contours are simple a different style of fighting from the jagged spikes. The only problem is that balancing all the different classes to be equally adept or at least reasonably so can be a big pain and possibly not worth it.

Quote:Original post by Sneftel
Why not force them to choose?

This was my thought. Maybe one option would be to play up this badassness of being less protected. An act is more impressive if it's performed without a net (some people would even say that you haven't really done the trick unless you do it without a net) and people make this sort of choice all the time in real life. Not that I'm into putting realism before fun, but I think it's an interesting choice, and therefore fun.

Remember Oregon Trail? All the game gave you for choosing the harder game was a higher score and bragging rights. The bragging rights are why most people did it.

Quote:Original post by sunandshadow

Quote:Original post by Sneftel
Why not force them to choose?

Because of course we want the players to be irritated no matter what choice they make, who cares whether they're dissatisfied with their character no matter what they wear? *eyeroll*

In Fallout II, if I took small arms sometimes I'd be hurting for ammo, if I took unarmed/melee sometimes i'd be hurting for range, if I took big guns sometimes I'd have bigger ammo problems and have to worry about not hitting my friends, if I took speech sometimes I wouldn't be able to talk my way out. No matter what I did, I was never completely satisfied with my character. Then again, Fallout II is still one of my favorite games.

you miss the point entirely. Those are all gameplay challenges. obstacles. things intended to make the game fun because if it handed you the perfect gun and infinite ammo and a huge shield of unkillability then you would have fun for about ten minutes and then get bored. On the other hand, there is no valid reason for not letting a player look as cool as he wants to because you linked those gameplay challenges to his looks. you can provide those same gameplay challenges and provide the same fun and gameplay and also let the player look how he wants. you just have to separate them.

Quote:I can see that it can help immersion to look the way you want to (my whole point here really) but isnt this method you have suggested a bit immersion breaking? After all, I just picked up gothic armour and turned it into Italian armour.

Not really, not if you understood my post.

I made mention that it would take some effort to make the changes. In MMOs I stated that it could be used a money sink (therefore to change the appearence you would need to go somewhere and spend money on doing so). I only said that in a Single player game you don't need to make it a Money Sink. SO the player would have to go and do something to allow them to change the appeaance. this might be traveling to an Artisan that will change the appearence for them, or the player having enough ranks in a skill to make the changes themseves.

Either way it is an active choice by the player, that is they have to go out of their way to make the change. This implies effort on the part of the player.

It is the effort expended that is important. By having the player expend effort, it keeps the imersion because it woult take effort in real life to change something's appearence (althoguh much more than what the player has to do in the game of course).

Quote:Then don't. Don't let the functionality of the gear come from the gear itself, but from what you add to it. Basically let the player keep the weapon and armour he started the game with, but be able to swap charms and enchanting runes out on it. Loot based games (like Diablo) become a hunt for the proper charms, and mixing and matching to find what works best. Require that swapping things out takes time/money/effort of some kind, so you can't do it in the middle of a battle.

This si the opposite technique, but it gives the saemeffect. Here you are starting with the appearence of an item and then letting the players craft the function of it. Where as I was saying to start with the function and let the players craft the appearence of the item.

In fact you could use the exact same method to achieve my concept. If you start with an item that has a preset effects and a simple appearance and then let the player add visual changes to it (spikes, glowing parts, etc), you can then let the player craft the appearence of the item and keep the effects the same.

It is just that with preset effects on an item (my idea), then as the designer you have more control over the game balance.

But you could combine both systems. You could have a a series of Base Items that have no effects and only a simple appearence. Then yuo ahve two types of "Slots", one that lets the player add effects to the item (frst damage, fire damage, better chance of criticals, etc) and the other type alows them to change it's appearence (curved blade, fancy bloom effects, changed colour, etc).

If adding effects like this dosen't break imersion, then why would using the same system to chage the appearence break the imersion?

mostly because I can think of more rational analogies for the function adding than the appearance adding. Carrying charms, or socketing in magic gems for instance can add function. adding visuals is a more complex issue to tackle, not impossible, but harder.