Please don't make character effectiveness overlu gear dependent

[Katrar]

Meaning: I'd rather my character actually be a strong warrior (or whatever) and not have all his/her power come from having awesome gear. A good example of what I don't want is something like skyrim where without magic weapons and armour made from super-materials your supposedly great warrior character is actually a worse fighter than the average city-guard if they have the same stuff.

 

The old IE games did this pretty well and I hope it is something that doesn't change.

 

Edit: No way to edit topic (for spelling, obviously)?

 

...

 

ie games did a good job?

 

take a halfling with all stats being 8. in bg2, give him red dragon armour,helm of constitution, hammer o' t-bolts... whatever else. see, by mid levels, starting stats in ad&d and d&d becomes almost negligible... character actual abilities not matter. is all 'bout gear. so, while we agree with initial premise that the clothes should not make the man, the ie games were hardly the example we would be wanting to use.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

So your counter example is a character with uniform stats of 8, with one that managed to get every best piece of gear in the game? And by the way, that equipment's true functionality is heavily affected by character specific stats like THAC0, # of attacks, hp's, saving throws, etc that are heavily character derived.

Edited October 23, 2012 by Katrar

[jivex5k]

I think a game that got it right...before it all changed was Ultima Online.

During the golden era (T2A) most weapons you found were worse than player crafted weapons. (As long as his smithing skill was suffcient)

The strong weapons were very hard to come by as well.

Most of the time everyone just ran around with grandmaster crafted weapons and gear. It made the environment pretty balanced and more focused on your player skill AND character skill than l337 l3wt

[Gromnir]

ie games did a good job?

 

take a halfling with all stats being 8. in bg2, give him red dragon armour,helm of constitution, hammer o' t-bolts... whatever else. see, by mid levels, starting stats in ad&d and d&d becomes almost negligible... character actual abilities not matter. is all 'bout gear. so, while we agree with initial premise that the clothes should not make the man, the ie games were hardly the example we would be wanting to use.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

A 1st level character with all that gear will still get his ass kicked by a higher level character without that kind of gear, though.

 

 

 

an eventuality that would be unlikely to occur organically in any ie game, so is hardly worthy of notice. the thing is, your relative efficacy in the ie games had far more to do with gear than abilities. once 3.0 were released, things changed for d&d games... a bit. character builds actually became meaningful with the release of 3.0 version of d&d, but gear were still having overwhelming impact.

 

regardless, ie games is Not what we is wanting to use as some kinda developer goal for gear impact.

 

"So your counter example is a character with uniform stats of 8, with one that managed to get every best piece of gear in the game? And by the way, that equipment's true functionality is heavily affected by character specific stats like THAC0, # of attacks, hp's, saving throws, etc that are heavily character derived."

 

*chuckle*

 

not need the best loot in game... which, btw, virtual everybody ended up with anyway. point is that the lowly halfling with craptacular stats is gonna be pretty much as effective as the heroic builds... 'cause in the ie games, your base stats didn't really matter. it were gear that mattered.

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited October 23, 2012 by Gromnir

[Rufusstan]

I have to agree with the OP here.

 

The trick as usual is to get the balance right. Like a few people have already said, new shinies are fun so you want your gear to matter, but it shouldn't be all-important.

 

If you take the inspiration from the old-school PnP RPGs, all pitch the importance of gear differently, but all come within a band that I'd be happy with. Providing you avoid the MMO trap of dear dependency it should work out ok

[kirottu]

I think half and half would be good balance.

[Gromnir]

btw, you can try this for fun if you is ridiculous bored. takes a 3rd level bg1 fighter with all 8 stats and put him in all best gear and give best items. now create an 8th level bg1 fighter (max level with totsc installed) with statistically standard rolls and all mundane gear. unless you is purposefully trying to get the level 3 fighter killed, he will win every single time in a mano y mano battle.

 

'course, these kinda things not happen in ie games, which is why creating such scenarios is pointless. that being said, gear is overwhelmingly determinate in the ie games. do not use ie games as a goal.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Pshaw]

Well I think in a game like this you have 2 choices. Either it's gear or levels that drive the power of your characters. Yes a balance between the 2 is always best but really it's going to come down to those things. Personally I like gear to weighted a bit more heavily than levels.

 

Now I say this because of 1 main reason - exploration. If you're hunting for gear than you're going in every house, exploring every random cave, clicking every chest and every rock trying to find that good gear. I'm a completionist so I'd probably do this anyway but it's also disheartening when I'm doing it just for the sake of doing everything knowing I probably won't be rewarded for the effort. As a quick example DA:O without any DLC had some pretty nice pieces of gear but not a ton. To that end the majority of the locked chests in the games contained junk. My first play through it drove me crazy when I couldn't open a chest so I'd always try and remember where they were so I could go back for them later. Then I'd go back later to get vendor trash. Needless to say on future play throughs I sometimes didn't even bring a thief as I found 2 warriors and 2 mages to be far more effective. I wasn't motivated enough to bring a thief in my party to unlock chests because they were mostly worthless. I don't want a game where I don't check monsters for loot because it's all junk or skip chests for the same reason. I want that feeling where if I see a random cave I want to go in there and kill everything and pick the place clean because there is a chance for better loot.

 

I personally think the hunt for better gear is the best and least obtrusive way to make exploring the world thoroughly worthwhile. Leveling works as well but it's a steady goal. I only get really excited for my next level as I'm getting close to achieving it. Finally there is a 3rd method that can apply to this which is skill. However I don't think this will apply well to a 3rd person isometric game that's real time with pause. Skill can work in darksouls as it's an RPG in an action game package. It can even work with turn based strategy games where you can plan things out meticulously. However I think in a game like this making things too skill dependent would lead to tons and tons of sloppy deaths for your party and feel like it was out of your control. Which would then lead to tons and tons of reloading and break the flow of gameplay. So I don't think the skill method can apply to a game like this.

[Hassat Hunter]

I agree with Gromnir that equipment was far more important than your build in the IE-games (excluding end of BG2 mages). Which wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Heck, the most of you apparently didn't even realise it, that good it worked!

 

I do agree that build should not be completely dwarved by equipment like Action RPG's tend to do.

Personally I would see;

 

* Character levels being big boosts of power. However they are rare and far apart.

* Gear is the between-level progression method, which increases with less power, but however is far more frequent. And as above poster stated, make exploring a worthwhile effort. Which is definitely better than "grind for level" as power-increasement. As many still claim should somehow be done... :/

[Tamerlane]

I definitely fall on the "character build should be more important than gear" side of thangs. I mean, I love finding a good shield or ring or whatever the ****. Magic gear is Cool. But the point in Baldur's Gate where I turned my paladin's 8 dex into an 18 by slapping on some bracers? That was pretty lame, man.

[Adhin]

That was actually my biggest disappointment with the dragon age series as far as mechanics go. They took a very mildly Diablo-esk approach to the 'base' items in DAO, and went balls out for DA2 with insane base item progression to the point items 2-3 lvls 'lower' then your lvl where crap. That's just bad, bad design if you ask me. I mean they where talking about learning stuff from all there time with DnD and they kinda failed to notice long swords always do 1-8 dmg? I mean Long sword +5 gets you an extra 5 but that's magic... that's not the base items, that's like the best you get.

 

Character progression should mean more then the items, and if you have to go at it with a base item for whatever reason it should be viable. Yeah +5 or there analog to that 'should' be better then a +3 or a base item but it should still be viable to just pick up whatever and go at it. Considering there focus on IE games I have faith they'll take that bit to heart but with how cRPG's have been going that aren't DnD based... im still a little scared it'll get over looked for 'numbers lol'. Dunno what it is about it being on a computer but it tends to tard up the base items for no apparent reason with developers.

[Radwulf]

I prefer a focus on character and player skills over items. Furthermore I prefer low magic worlds. Rather than lots of magic items there should be gradations of build quality and materials for most gear. Magic items themselves should be quite rare and be distinctive with preferably their own unique back-stories. I would also prefer it if there were no gear which was massively better than everything else so that you were constantly funnelled to a very similar setup for an optimised character. All characters should be similarly item dependent as well. One of the advantages of being a mage in D&D is that you don't need equipment as much as fighters to be powerful but at the cost of a limited number of spells. If you remove that limitation you should also remove their equipment advantage.

[rjshae]

Character development is all well and good, but half the fun of a D&D-style game is the cool magic items. I don't particularly want to make it to the end of the game fighting with a broom handle. I can, and have, played low magic games already. There's nothing special about that approach. Personally, I signed on for a Baldur's Gate experience; not a medieval western. The standard D&D item progression works fine for me. It doesn't overwhelm the player's own attributes, but it does allow you to take on tougher and more interesting opponents.

 

My 2cp worth.

Edited October 26, 2012 by rjshae

[Durinax]

I liked Arcanums system, the only drawback being that fighting (melee and ranged) was just hold down the button and swing until one or the other dies (or outfatigues)

 

but you could equip any gear at any level, with no huge + (main stat), with few exceptions. Making your character build more important because it gave different bonuses to certain stats and detracted from others.

[Grand_Commander13]

I really dislike systems where a character somehow be separated from his equipment and forced to make do with standard-issue gear will find himself feeling amazingly weak.

 

I like games like the Fallouts for this. Lose your gauss rifle and power armor and get handed an assault rifle and combat armor? Sure, the Enclave might be trouble thanks to their heavy armor, but you're still shooting everyone else in the eye. My New Vegas character is pretty much running around with NCR standard-issue (though picked up a slightly nicer gun with higher damage per shot for dealing with armor) and doing just fine.

 

What do we do in a system with magic? Well for one we don't necessarily need to enchant everything. Even if our gear is all enchanted (as opposed to just the rings and the odd cloak) you can make it give you extra options in combat (like a new spell or attack). Flat numerical bonuses can be kept small if they're rare; if everything gives a flat bonus to something then you have to inflate them to make the later ones worthwhile.

[Radwulf]

@rjshae

I think that you may have misunderstood my focus. I'm not opposing item progression per se, just the fact that better items have to be magical. The reason I support the low magic approach is that using magic on items BG trilogy style both stretches credibility and is frankly in many cases completely token. How many items are there that are just generic item +n? More powerful items just keep inflating the number so that despite legendary items being +3 you can soon be crafting +6 items (in say NWN2). If you want to maintain the item progression there is no need for this token system when you can more credibly use a system built around build quality and materials that performs exactly the same function. Leave magic for rarer items that are distinctive and add special and perhaps unique tactical options to your character.

 

Powerful characters should still be powerful with fairly mundane gear though.

[J.E. Sawyer]

In AD&D (and especially 3E and 4E D&D), there's more to characters than their ability scores (e.g. character and class level and their derived benefits), but gear still does comprise a large element of characters' efficacy. I think this is especially true when the number of inputs to any given statistic is only limited by the number of slots from which you can draw stacking bonuses. In a campaign from about 10 years ago, I made a gimmick antagonist NPC who was a 16th level (combined) Cleric/Blackguard/Divine Disciple of Bane. It was pretty easy to equip him with gear that shot his Charisma to 30. Combined with his class abilities, it meant he could make almost any save against the party on a roll of 2 or higher.

 

I think gear should feel meaningful, but I'd like to avoid the D&D-style ultra-stacking that comes from drawing bonuses from a bunch of different slots.

[Tamerlane]

That's about all I can ask.

 

Cool thangs, Ropey.

[HansKrSG]

So what would you guys like to see as a percentage of total effectiveness be derived from gear vs abilities? In my head I'm thinking about 1:4 or 1:5 as a decent ratio.

 

Hmm, that completely depends on the level of the character compared to the power of the items I would say. The proper gear at low levels could make your character twice or even thrice as effective, while at max (or high) levels, the gear should probably at most make the character 50% more effective (or so).

 

Another way of tackling this, to make it not so dependent on this, would be to make magical items more effective when your soul gets more powerul (if it can get more powerful, I don't know), or something like that.

Edited October 26, 2012 by HansKrSG

[morrow1nd]

Gear shouldnt have great effect on your character.

 

I would like to see a maximum of %30 effectinevess should come from gear. And no stacking, which generally breaks games in many ways (: ...

Edited October 27, 2012 by morrow1nd

[kabaliero]

yeah

like, whenever the game takes your equipment from u for a while (jail\capture)

u can't stop thinkin'

"wheres my stuff

wheres my stuff

wheres my stuff"

unlike, 4 example, in Witcher1\2

[sfam]

I prefer a focus on character and player skills over items. Furthermore I prefer low magic worlds. Rather than lots of magic items there should be gradations of build quality and materials for most gear. Magic items themselves should be quite rare and be distinctive with preferably their own unique back-stories. I would also prefer it if there were no gear which was massively better than everything else so that you were constantly funnelled to a very similar setup for an optimised character. All characters should be similarly item dependent as well. One of the advantages of being a mage in D&D is that you don't need equipment as much as fighters to be powerful but at the cost of a limited number of spells. If you remove that limitation you should also remove their equipment advantage.

 

I generally agree with this post. I far prefer having a special set of armor or sword or whatever that I end up kkeeping for a big chunk of the game. If I'm aways switching my gear every couple of levels it really takes away from my connection to the characters.

 

That said, I do take issue with some of the posts that games like Skyrim are totally gear dependent. There's nothing that says you need to take the crazy crafting route to develop dragon armor and the rest. Roleplaying is the duty of the player, not the game. If you think your half-orc brute should be collecting daisies and plants of all kinds to crush them into ingredients to make top level potions to improve his crafting capabilities, you have given up any sense of role playing. My fighter character (half orc) got to orc armor and weapons, and stayed with a massive hammer and orc armor for the rest of the game and did just fine. I played oblivion as a Paladin, only using paladin type spells, never sneakng, etc. Just because the game gives you the option of creating an OP monstrosity in now way says you are required to play like that.

[Hassat Hunter]

I don't agree arbitary "capping" like Sawyer should be in.

Most obvious example of this is KOTOR2, where I sometimes make sabers and wonder where my stat bonusses went to. Answer; They don't stack. So I have to use entirely different upgrades to make sure I don't use 2 of the same kind. However, no restrictions on just adding it on the second saber, and well, you still have your bonus.

 

That should be avoided wherever possible. Items should stack. However they shouldn't individually become so powerful it becomes ridicilous in their combined power. If you have a 8-25 range, allowing 2 +1 rings shouldn't be too easy. Just adding +6 to your rings is stupid. "solving" using 2 giving the insane +12 by allowing non-stack is just adding a patch catch the blood instead of mending the bleeding in the first place...

[Osvir]

yeah

like, whenever the game takes your equipment from u for a while (jail\capture)

u can't stop thinkin'

"wheres my stuff

wheres my stuff

wheres my stuff"

unlike, 4 example, in Witcher1\2

 

I just recently finished Baldur's Gate (Trilogy Mod and loads more) and started off in Irenicus dungeon without anything. Imoen says "They probably sold all of our best stuff" and I was like "Awh no..?". I could still manage with the poor equipment that I found in the northwestern room from the starting point. Also found some of my old gear in various parts of the dungeon.

 

"Where's my stuff" wasn't necessary because the explanation from Imoen. More like "Awh no " and "Whatever I'm roleplaying".

 

EDIT: Effectiveness of your character should not be gear dependent, effectiveness of gear should, however, be dependent on quality of gear.

Edited November 3, 2012 by Osvir