Charles_Mattias_Wolf

you would initially assume that roles are more limited then classes, but when Classes were intially designed, they had to be set to niche limits for the pen and paper experience to work the way it did. I am working toward a system of exploring and options, giving players the nudge to explore and make a name for themselves, yes I was working on a multiplayer / MMO system, as i enjoy the concepts of players working together to attain a goal they would not be able to attain on their own. a good narritave based game ends, a good open world game can last for a long time. especially in the presence of other players. this is wholely a great point. traditional RPGs are about narritave, and in the singlular-player based system (by that I mean how the player in many games is given special accomidation and feeling just for being the player, usually being a chosen one pushed into a quest of epic preportions, and while this is by no means a bad system, it has a tenancy to lose that feeling of specialness if you introduce a multiplayer system of any sort, but it is still often the case with games that support multiplayer) can turn on rails - and thus even minimal linear pushes through the story, or you happen to always be there at the right time for the big battle as if it was waiting for you, no matter how much dilly dallying around you did before hand. so instead I am opting to return to a journal system, where the player can be read back or read back themselves the idea of how their characters journey has come about. Giving the player a sense of control to their characters life, it is much more true to 'their' journey. this does not mean I will not build narratives that the players will be sent on, but I can contain and spread them out and make them feel more unique by making the player join in as they see fit. Oblivion did basically that and people hated it :-P Seriously tho, it's not a concept that would be unknown in games. The original Metroid already had expansive levels with very little stat growth, but with a lot more complexities unlocked along the way. The original System Shock worked like that too, actually. But yes, I don't think it'd fly in more traditional RPG games. like Hynkel said in his last post, Oblivion was one of the first to attempt mob scaling to level, which is the wrong way to think about my system, I was more building it to a concept of small stat growth that makes your selection of options more important then how high your level is. if your fighting creatures that constantly shoot electrical shocks, your not going to have a good time in metal, but you might be better off in ceramics. for example. Ultimately by attempting to give all the players 'more options' then they could account for, in weapon types, in damage types, in armor types, in ability types, have them evolve, slowly from experiencing other abilities.

I have noticed many games have attempted to build "open world" concepts, only to fail due to the limitations set upon them by the "box" of RPGs. we have not truly changed the underlaying systems of an RPG since DnD was invented, pick a class, level it, use the abilities specifically created for it, go from zone to zone designed for each specific range of levels (1-10, 10-20, etc) or make the levels truly useless by scaling all enemies to match (when you are level 10, so are the enemy mobs), the player is often also made out to be some super hero of their own story, a chosen one, as it were, even when they attempt to go wholely dark. in addition, most times armors and other equipments are built more as "stat sticks" to increase ones Strength, Endurance, Intelligence, etc. This System, while it has many advantages, it also has many flaws, the biggest would be that it ultimately always ends up being a linear story following a tower scheme, going from leveling zone to leveling zone to end game zone to leveling zone to end game zone, etc. depending on expansions. In a wider view of other genere's of gaming, shooters, racers, the new MOBA systems, outside of competition, what keeps people returning to these games, you do not, on a general basis, level up, or see new maps, or even really aquire new abilities, you are more often on the same maps, repeating the same actions. is it truly just the competitve system they bring that keeps those parts fun? or do we as humans actually have a desire to return to places we have explored before? we can see in games that have made a more open world system (skyrim) that people do enjoy going back to old places revisiting areas they would have, otherwise long since "outleveled" so how do we go about creating the solution to these issues while keeping the core of an RPG alive, to give players the ability, and control they desire over their characters, while being able to give them a story to enjoy, a world to explore. it is not as difficult as you would think. the biggest issue with this system is actually a developers point of view as it can hinder the value of what expansions would be, this can be offset with other current age systems, like an in game store for additional content patches. so how would one create a system that could do all this and still keep people entertained for years? to simplify the answer I came up with, without going into heavy detail to protect my creation until its ready to be released: - remove general level, replace it with individual skills gaining level upon 'use' player made abilities with simplified system variation to create balance. this also can extend the longevity of zones as people will not feel the absolute requirement to 'move on' to the new zones due to outleveling them. - remove classes, replace with role systems. I have brought it down to 2 / 5 roles to truly optimize the system: Tank, Healer, Support, Scout, Assault. this gives players a sense of uniqueness (a tank/healer would play differently to a tank/support or a tank/scout) while shifting the systems to allow for more "normalization" as such focusing on any given role would not create an imbalanced system (like in PoE, how some classes can be very weak compared to others, purely because of how they were created, like monk and ranger) There are other aspects to the system I am not solid on yet, but I wish to get feedback from communities on their thoughts upon these ideals. (or potentially spark interest from obisidian in the system, as I would happily work with them to make it into a reality faster then I am currently, as it is effectively just me working on it currently)