Mob hunting was never integral to the overall game, but mobs would have to be killed for quests etc.

Quests are a very central and important part of my game. They will have a much higher reward than most other things of course. Basically from what you are saying, I should innovate in the design of quests?

That is very true and I will do my best to make battles and quests a fun part of the game.
But, I've noticed from rpg's (especially WoW) that there is only so many types of quests you can implement; fetch, collect, escort, kill (can't think of others).

My understanding of your session idea is shakey, but I disagree with it because it takes away the instant satisfaction that makes RPG's addictive. But I will look into implementing it, any idea is a good one! :P


Sort of changing the subject here, but how many stats do you think are necessary in a game.
Obviously the usuals like Stamina (health) and intellect (mana/magic) but what about Strength, agility, armor, spirit? Do you personally enjoy the large potentials for character development available with many stats, or find it overwhelming.

PS: Mod please tell me if i should start a new thread for that question.

As for stats I like both lol.

I really hate setting up my character attributes if there are more than a handful before I start playing, though in the end I like the diversity of many different attributes to make my character unique.

I would suggest starting off with your basic stats, strength, stamina, agility, intellect, wisdom. Then after whatever level you can increase the pools of where people can put a focus in. After level 10 they can also increase their armor, dodge, charisma. At level 20 they can add points to additional ones and so forth.

To be honest, I'm not going to be allowing them to choose attribute initially. Like in WoW, the class they choose changes the modifier value for each stat. What I meant was people being overwhelmed when a weapon adds + to spirit, and you have no clue what that is.

Do most players enjoy the fact that you have to make a wise trade-off?

Quote:Original post by S-Dawg
I disagree with it because it takes away the instant satisfaction that makes RPG's addictive.

*shrug* money works.

Think about it from this angle:
Why would some character run out into the yonder to adventure like this?
For an item that allows them to go do even more crazy adventures like this?
That seems awkward and endless.

Usually character's are after something, not just something endless.

The two common motives are pursuit and money.

If it's pursuit, then it would indicate that the quest is a way of getting to somewhere, or getting something that is needed (or needed to be at) to move forward on the larger ambition.

So, perhaps think of large meta-quests, and then break them down to smaller quests components.

Instead of rewarding with items and loot over and over for no merited reason, perhaps try making each sub-quest deliver information, items, or locations that are needed to get to the next sub-quest.

And why the big quest in the first place?
That depends on your game universe, but that could range from money, artifact items, land grants, etc...

I just watched 3:10 to Yuma the other day.
The main character's quest in that story was to deliver a prisoner.
His reward, should he finish, was money and land for his family.

Pretty simple, and it didn't keep him going awkwardly onward into more criminal delivery quests. (holding on stating his success or not as not to spoil it for anyone that hasn't seen it).

Obviously, as developers, we want player to keep playing and adventuring is what they, as players, did come to do.
This is a given, yes, but that doesn't mean that we need to think of the character's and the world as we think of our developers, servers, and players.

We can think of our player's character's as character's with their own motives.
We can ask, "why would they quest off into the wild so endlessly?" and try to come up with an answer that stands to reason for the world setting.

For instance, in Star Wars universes, the justification can be oppression related very easily.
In fact, war settings often offer the easiest excuses as to why endless questing is done.

Remove the war setting and you really need to come up with some explanation that makes sense for so many thousands of citizens of the world to be off adventuring.

Making that excuse will give you much more footing onto what your quests are for and what is achieved by doing; as related to your world's universe, not to players.
(we know what the quests are for, for players, and we know what is achieved mechanically by doing them; I am referring to character of the world and the player's character.)

I think you need to look at what role combat is going to have in your game. IF the game is going to be players beating up monsters for loot, then this is an important dramatic place in the game.

In this case, combat is what the player will see of your game.

Knowing this, what is it that you want players to think of when they think about your game. Do you want them to think that it is a strategic game or a more action/high adrenalin game?

Is your story one where fast paced action is important to the plot? Or is your story more slower and deliberate? Are the characters investigating or are they out for revenge?

If the characters in your story are investigating and thus having a slower paced, more methodical story, then having high adrenaline sections that take the focus away from this is probably not a good idea. But, if your characters are thirsting for vengeance due to some wrong, then a more action oriented gameplay is better as it fits the style of the story.

Have the style of the gameplay compliment the style of the story.

Quote:Original post by S-Dawg
Sort of changing the subject here, but how many stats do you think are necessary in a game.
Obviously the usuals like Stamina (health) and intellect (mana/magic) but what about Strength, agility, armor, spirit? Do you personally enjoy the large potentials for character development available with many stats, or find it overwhelming.

To each his own. Some people like roleplaying, some like min-maxing. Provide both. For example, you could have three basic stats: Body, Mind, Social. Each could have three substats, Body (Strength, Constitution, Dexterity), Mind (Intelligence, Wisdom, Knowledge), Social (Charisma, Empathy, Beauty). For those who'd just like to get over with stats, Body 10 means their char has 10 Strength, 10 Constitution and 10 Dexterity. For a min-maxer, 10 Body could mean his char has 15 Strength, 8 Constitution and 7 Dexterity. Make stats useful but optional.

Same with combat. If turn based is to tiresome for standard mobs, provide a way to click a button and generate an average result. Encountering 10 goblins will on average waste 10 mana and 10 hit points per char. If the player wants to do better than this, let him fight on the board.

Quote:Original post by nvoigt
For those who'd just like to get over with stats, Body 10 means their char has 10 Strength, 10 Constitution and 10 Dexterity. For a min-maxer, 10 Body could mean his char has 15 Strength, 8 Constitution and 7 Dexterity. Make stats useful but optional.

This is an interesting concept worth exploring.
Thanks for the new mental chew-toy.

Quote:Same with combat. If turn based is to tiresome for standard mobs, provide a way to click a button and generate an average result. Encountering 10 goblins will on average waste 10 mana and 10 hit points per char. If the player wants to do better than this, let him fight on the board.

I have to disagree with this one though.
Stat management is one thing, but express route for your game's combat is dangerous and tells the player that nothing really interesting happens during it anyway, so you don't really have to do it...we'll do it for you.

This tells the player that your game is crap and that you know it.

Even if they like having the combat-express option, they are devaluing the game.


That said, this is ONLY if you are not making a social spectrum to match the combat spectrum.
However, if you are, and the social spectrum is a series of careful considerations and options, as one has in count for combat, then I completely agree with the idea of an auto-combat button.

I also would suggest that if the last paragraph is true for your game, that you might think of including a auto-social button since your min-maxers may not want to play the social aspects of the game. Also, include a skip cut-scene option, even if it is the first time. And perhaps consider a skip level option for people that don't have time to play the whole thing...something that just highlights some average experiences of playing the level and shows them to the player while the next level loads. If you really want to kick it forward, I would suggest also allowing and option to watch a video-slide-show of an average experience of the game from any point at which a player is at just in case they get bored but still wonder what the rest of the game is like.




Of course, the last two paragraphs are sarcastic statements to help show what it seems like someone does when they "zip" up any part of their game.

Quote:Original post by MossStone
I've enjoyed all of the Total War games, and they have the feature that you're talking about.I know people that will walk everywhere in Oblivion even though there's a fast travel system. In Final Fantasy I usually enjoy fighting the random monsters because of the xp, but eventually I'll be in an area where the flee option becomes really useful. I believe Civilization also has options for the game to virtually play itself.

In each example above, the respective system has told you how they value each feature they allow express routes around, in respect to their other systems in the game, and their expectation of their target market audience they expect to play.

I stand by my statement on the ground of what I did say.
I don't really take interest in what successful games have done this; that doesn't change what I said about it at all.

There is also a large difference between retreat like FF has and skip combat like TW has, so I don't think that FF's retreat system is eligible for the conversation.

Further on than this, he isn't discussing a game like TW or RotTK (which are war-based super-Risk games more closely related to Civilization).

He is making a game that is more akin to Oblivion which, correct me if I am wrong here, doesn't allow you to fast forward combat interaction.

He is working on an RPG (it seems to be a CRPG and not an MMO).

Exactly how would you suggest that he should include this zip-combat feature into a game where most of the time spent it going to be combat (it's an RPG; combat will be about 80 to 90% of the game time in the typical RPG [MMO or not]).

That was the point for him that was being made.

So it's not a weak point as you think.
If you want combat zipped up in games that dominately spend time in combat...then you don't want to play games that are combat oriented.

CRPG's tend to be combat oriented...Oblivion is a great example.
They zipped up the part they knew was not worth containing for their target market audience; not combat.