levelling up

[hungry]

well i guess there's zero chance of getting any change to the levelling system at this stage. but even so, i must speak my mind..

 

you see id like to see choice and randomness in a levelling system. this way characters can be somewhat unique and also of your making.. the problem with randomness in levelling is that people will just reload, so the randomness should be generated at each new game start - ie all future values determined from a random seed.

 

various systems ive seen are the heroes3 & heroes4 one where you have 2 or 3 semi-random skills to choose from each level but the one i prefer is in a board game i played called bloodbowl where you have a list of skills to choose from and you roll a dice to decide what you get. if you roll doubles you can pick from any skill there is and if you roll really high you get a stat increase.

 

what id like similar to this is you have a random set of skills/stat increases etc to choose from but the more powerful options have less chance of coming up. that way it seems special when you level up and manage to get a powerful skill/stat whatever. i reckon this system would be awesome...

 

i guess people who like to plan out their characters levelling from the very beginning would hate this but it just means you have to plan on the fly based with what options you get.

[ShinIchiro]

D20.

[Archmonarch]

Frankly, I liked the system KOTOR had.

[hungry]

D20 D-shtwenty. slip it in while lucasarts aren't watching.

[hungry]

Frankly, I liked the system KOTOR had.

frankly i thought kotors system was extraordinarily mediocre. no randomness.

[Iolo]

I doubt this will change.

[hungry]

I doubt this will change.

so do i as i said. but just the same IF it can this is the system i would want..

[Jast]

I don't like randomness. I want COMPLETE control over what skills and abilities my character has like in Kotor I.

[John Morgan]

D20.

I was going to post the *exact* same thing!

[Darque]

Random bad :ph34r:

[Gorth]

Random bad :ph34r:

Only sometimes...

[Archmonarch]

No, the majority of the time, if not all.

[ShinIchiro]

Frankly, I liked the system KOTOR had.

frankly i thought kotors system was extraordinarily mediocre. no randomness.

Its an RPG. The most randomness you're going to get are your rolls. Unless you want to do the pnp system where you roll for your health... That health roll thing would be pointless. Everyone just saves and quickloads until they have straight 9s or 10s.

[Paladin]

various systems ive seen are the heroes3 & heroes4 one where you have 2 or 3 semi-random skills to choose from each level but the one i prefer is in a board game i played called bloodbowl where you have a list of skills to choose from and you roll a dice to decide what you get. if you roll doubles you can pick from any skill there is and if you roll really high you get a stat increase.

The random skill selection in Heroes of Might & Magic III was very annoying.

[ShinIchiro]

Randomness in Character progression is not good. In fact, with this system randomness is awful. Where could it be implemented well? Not stats as that leads to the insanely overpowered side of the force. Not in health as that leads to either cheap quickloaders or insanely disgrunteled people and really hard enemies (because you have 1/10th the health if you're really unlucky). Not in skills because..well...that'd be so bad... not in feats because that gives me nightmares thinking about it.

[hungry]

Frankly, I liked the system KOTOR had.

frankly i thought kotors system was extraordinarily mediocre. no randomness.

Its an RPG. The most randomness you're going to get are your rolls. Unless you want to do the pnp system where you roll for your health... That health roll thing would be pointless. Everyone just saves and quickloads until they have straight 9s or 10s.

that's why i said the randomness should be determined at the start of each new game so that if you want to 'reload' you have to completely start over.

 

i don't see why skills couldn't be random also - just because that's the way it's been in the past doesn't mean it has to or should stay that way. you could still have a fairly sizable list of skills/stats to choose from - which could be somehow related to what lvl you are perhaps.

 

perhaps there's a stipulation that if you're already concentrating on a skill set there's more likelihood of it coming up again, if you're a certain character class there's more likelihood of certain skills coming up etc.. - this is something like what they did in the heroes game only you'd obviously need a larger set of skills to choose from.

 

i think it adds a bit of excitement in lvling up, it makes your characters more unique, it adds some replayability and you can still have significant control over your character's progression (depending on how large you make the set of skills to choose from each lvl and the random weights you use to select skills).

[hungry]

Randomness in Character progression is not good. In fact, with this system randomness is awful. Where could it be implemented well? Not stats as that leads to the insanely overpowered side of the force. Not in health as that leads to either cheap quickloaders or insanely disgrunteled people and really hard enemies (because you have 1/10th the health if you're really unlucky). Not in skills because..well...that'd be so bad... not in feats because that gives me nightmares thinking about it.

health i wouldn't bother with randomness because as you say it makes it hard to balance the enemies. besides which i somehow never saw the point of random health.

 

stat increases i don't think would lead to 'insanely overpowered' characters as you can make the likelihood of stat increases occurring in a lvl up as rare as needed so as to provide some balance.

 

skills & feats i discussed above - ie you introduce a lvl of randomness that is appropriate to still provide the player with acceptable amount of control over the progression of your character.

[Archmonarch]

As far as I see, hungry, youre not going to win any converts.

[hungry]

As far as I see, hungry, youre not going to win any converts.

you never know. im sure there's someone out there who sees the inherent wisdom in my phantasmagorical idea.

 

games like civ3 have randomness on creation of a new game - it provides huge replayability - no reason why an rpg couldn't also have this marvellous feature.

[ShinIchiro]

Randomness in Character progression is not good.  In fact, with this system randomness is awful.  Where could it be implemented well?  Not stats as that leads to the insanely overpowered side of the force.  Not in health as that leads to either cheap quickloaders or insanely disgrunteled people and really hard enemies (because you have 1/10th the health if you're really unlucky).  Not in skills because..well...that'd be so bad...  not in feats because that gives me nightmares thinking about it.

health i wouldn't bother with randomness because as you say it makes it hard to balance the enemies. besides which i somehow never saw the point of random health.

 

stat increases i don't think would lead to 'insanely overpowered' characters as you can make the likelihood of stat increases occurring in a lvl up as rare as needed so as to provide some balance.

 

skills & feats i discussed above - ie you introduce a lvl of randomness that is appropriate to still provide the player with acceptable amount of control over the progression of your character.

This is a D20 game. The d20 system works. Stat increases are already rare. Also, you seem to have forgotten about the quick load.

 

Furthermore in D20, character planning is essential and doable. Its one reason many people like it. Besides, how would you roleplay if so much were random. And also, RANDOM FEATS? NEVER! I'm trying really hard not to let my irrational and indescribily strong desire to flame take over. I think that idea just wouldn't work well at all.

 

You got to remember who plays these games. D20 and SW fans. I'd say D20 fans are the majority (though many are also SW fans). To put it from a marketing standpoing, you can't risk pissing off the majority of your customers.

[Darque]

Random bad  :ph34r:

Only sometimes...

Nope

[ShinIchiro]

Well, if you consider 99.99% of the time in Character creation... Random is essential in play though. But I think we're talking about Character creation and development.

[Jast]

"I want the heal force power!" *Presses X* "WHAT?! STUN DROID?!"

 

Or, "I want master flurry!" *Presses X* "What the?! Blaster weapons?!"

 

Or, "I want one more presuade point," *Presses X* "Demolitions?! NOOOOOOOO!"

 

Or, "I want one more dexterity point." *Presses X* "Wisdom?! Noooo!"

 

See what I mean?

 

Randomness is not good, give me my old Kotor system.

 

EDIT: Leveling up in Kotor seemed fun to me, having to choose the right force powers, feats etc. You had to think,(at least I did.) One wrong choice could mess up your whole plan. No just picking anything forever, you had only 20 level ups, meaning 20 chances(not even that much if I remember. For certain levels you couldn't pick any feats or foce powers, I think. What can I say, I don't remember a whole bunch even though I'm playing right now. ) It will not be fun if I'm trying to build a certain type of character and I can't even get the abilities I want because some dice roll said so. No way.

[ShinIchiro]

What are the advantages of random leveling? The only reason I can think is you're forced to try new things (mixed) and variety.

[nik_bg]

There are many areas in the game where randomness is good, but not in leveling. The choise of attribs, feats, skills and powers is quite enough and complex, we don't need randomness here.

 

Nik.