Idea: RPG shift

[Doug]

Ok, I'd like to say straight away that the idea I'm putting forward here is one I read in PC Gamers 'devils advocate' piece a few months back. There, they wrote about the achievements Valve added to Team Fortress 2 and the unlockable weapons they unlock.

In this particular piece, he considered the idea of using Achievement like awards in RPG's in place of XP points.

For the few of you who won't know, eXPerience points are attributary points given in RPGs for completing quests, slaying monsters, and so forth. Every so many points, your character goes up a level and becomes stronger/faster/has more spells/etc.

The idea to replace that is quite simple: Use achievements to increase your power. For example, "Green Blood" could be "Slayed 100 Orks" with a bonus of "+10% damage to Orks". Or "Headbower" for "Killing a humanoid with 1 bow shot only" with "unlocks the headshot special move".

Ok, my examples aren't great, but I've only been working on them 5 minutes. The point being, achievements can encourage you to try a different playstyle in order to get them, and experimentation can liven up an RPG experience.

So, the aim of this thread is abit loose: either support or decline the idea, say why, etc, or offer up your own ideas on RPGs.

Personally, I think this sort of system could work, and the achievements in Mass Effect do have bonuses attached to them, so maybe the industry is thinking about it? It does make me think achievements would be a good idea and redirect the 'grind' of RPGs in a more interesting way that just 'Kill X worthogs for marginally better swords'.

 

[jh322]

Although it's good in theory, one thing niggles me a bit. If the bonuses are linked to the achievment received, then they might be a bit useless. The exp gained in RPGs is supposed to help you kill stuff you couldn't kill before. If you have to kill 100 of something before you get the bonus to help you kill it, then you didn't need the bonus.

If they were more general, though, like 100 kills at +/- 3 levels grants you the next level, then maybe they could work. Or maybe like...selling 100 swords gets you the title "sword merchant" and you get a discount on swords, and can sell them for more, enabling you to buy the armour that you didn't find much of. Something like that maybe.

Interesting idea. I'd like to see a game with something like that employed. Does anybody know of one? I'm a bit of an RPG whore and I haven't heard of one

 

[Doug]

True! But in a MMORPG, for example, it could be useful.

A better example would perhaps be 'Katana Master' or some such with a damage range improvement for using the Katana-type weapons X times.

Interesting idea. I'd like to see a game with something like that employed. Does anybody know of one? I'm a bit of an RPG whore and I haven't heard of one

The nearest one so far seems to be Mass Effect, but its far from a core mechanic, more of an add on for replays.

 

[Alex_P]

Later iterations of Guild Wars had titles [http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Title]. Some of them did stuff.

Of course, getting them was grindtasticly boring -- a lot worse than the actual main character-building process.

-- Alex

 

[Baby Tea]

I like the idea. I think it could nice to really break away from the RPG cliches!

The Mass Effect unlocks were great, but Doug is right, it was very far from 'core mechanic'.

I agree with jh322 that if the rewards are too closely tied in with the achievements then it might be a moot point. The 'Sword Merchant' idea is good, and I like the idea of the more you kill something, the easier they are to kill (Damage bonuses, weaknesses exposed, etc). The first Diablo did that sort of (I don't remember if the second one did...isn't that funny?), if anyone remembers. The more you killed a certain monster, the more you learned about it and it's weaknesses (It appeared in the enemy's health bar).

Examples:
You complete a quest that has you rescuing slaves from a bandit slaver group and you get the achievement ('Let my people go!' or something) and now, because those people are free, you get access to merchants that didn't exist before (Because they were slaves! Get it?), plus a slight combat bonus against bandits.

You've used daggers only so much that you now have a damage bonus with them, a speed bonus to your attacks, but you're slower with two handed weapons and do less damage with them (We didn't say there couldn't be negative effects!).

You killed an enemy by picking up and throwing some non-combative object at them (Assuming physics...and first person perspective, I suppose) thus unlocking the achievement ('Jackie Chan!') and getting a damage bonus to all improvised weaponry.

Man, with this system you wouldn't even NEED levels! I like it. Sign me up. Who wants to make a pen and paper with this system?

 

[Doug]

The Diablo concept sounds good too!

But really, anything that stirred the RPG pot abit would be a good idea - the Dungeon's and Dragons framework is alright, but XP, Levels, and all that has always seemed abit abstract to me (in the words of Fallout 2 characters: "I feel like I've pasted some attributary level of experience").

Basically, the RPG isn't inheritantly bad, just stale. Imagine if C&C was the last word in RTS'! It was a good game for its time, and C&C 3 is sometimes good for simple straight forward voilence, but it would RTS' would feel bland without games like Ground Control, EndWar, Sins of a Solar Empire, etc.

Same with RPGs - there suck in a mold cast by the pen-and-paper games they originally came from.

EDIT:
Not saying Pen-&-Paper is bad, just that having 1 form of the genre is quite restrictive and binding.

 

[Caliostro]

This seems interesting but needs a very careful approach to it.

1 - It has to remove grind, not mask it. An achievement such as "Kill 100000000 goblins - get 1 level" might as well by good'ol grind. The achievements should be interesting and challenging, but not repetitive and grindy or it's all for naught and might as well have the actual grind.

2 - It still needs to be used in an actually good game, which there aren't many of... One click and/or turn based combat can go suck satan's dick in hell. Use a real form of combat (with actual hit detection... You know, like a real game and shit). Once again, it's all for naught if the achievements are brutally crippled from the start by a restricting and failed combat style.

3 - They need to be in increasing difficulty in order to reflect the leveling arch. But skill-based difficulty not grind based. It shouldn't be "cut off 2 zombie heads" and then "cut off 20000 zombie heads" 20 levels later... Otherwise, and yeah you guessed it, it's just grind... More along the lines of "cut off a zombie's head" - level up. "kill a dragon with a stabb to the heart" - Level up. This way, a low level newbie should never be able to cut off a dragon's head, but cutting off a zombie's should be easy. This makes leveling more dynamic and skill based instead of arbitrary "kill x amount of y monsters to get you z million experience to level up". There's only so much you can learn by beheading the same fucking creatures...

If these things are met, I think we got a nice little formula for RPGs that don't suck.

 

[jh322]

Later iterations of Guild Wars had titles [http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Title]. Some of them did stuff.

Of course, getting them was grindtasticly boring -- a lot worse than the actual main character-building process.

-- Alex

Yeah I hit hero rank 6 in GW before I stopped playing, but emotes and a few changes in chances when salvaging and opening chests were about it. They weren't really an integral part of gameplay. I guess the hall of momuments changed that a little, but even then that seemed to much like an advert for GW2 for me

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

I actually really like this idea, the whole idea of earning your abilities has always appealed to me.

There is a lot you could do with this...

 

[Alex_P]

Yeah I hit hero rank 6 in GW before I stopped playing, but emotes and a few changes in chances when salvaging and opening chests were about it. They weren't really an integral part of gameplay. I guess the hall of momuments changed that a little, but even then that seemed to much like an advert for GW2 for me

Over time, they infiltrated more of the gameplay.

I think maxing out the "Lightbringer" title gave you something like 40% more damage against the critters in the Nightfall "elite" area.

In Eye of the North, all the "PvE skills" were keyed off of titles.

-- Alex

 

[jh322]

yeah, you're right. Point taken. I didn't really think about that that much because I stopped playing PvE a long time ago. But yeah, they did affect quite a bit of the gameplay. In fact, to a certain extent they were a substitute for XP and skill aquisition, as well as equip farming, because of the caps in all the other areas. Maybe this is why I liked the game so much...Alex...if you make me start playing again...message me in game ^^ (Joey Hunts Tigers)

 

[Camarilla]

I do like the sound of this, as the arbitrary XP and level system mose RPGs use does irk me a bit. Even the system used in Fable and Dungeon Siege is better in my opinion. In these games, you only gain skill in a certain area by using abilities attributed to it. For example, if you use swords as your method of attack, you won't have access to the better spells and ranged abilities and so on. It was always quite odd that my bow using Ranger in NWN could use swords almost as well as a Ranger who fought exclusively with swords, and conversely, he was almost as good at using a longbow as I was (minus a few feats like Point Blank Shot, Cleave and so on).

 

[jh322]

Yeah I hit hero rank 6 in GW before I stopped playing, but emotes and a few changes in chances when salvaging and opening chests were about it. They weren't really an integral part of gameplay. I guess the hall of momuments changed that a little, but even then that seemed to much like an advert for GW2 for me

Over time, they infiltrated more of the gameplay.

I think maxing out the "Lightbringer" title gave you something like 40% more damage against the critters in the Nightfall "elite" area.

In Eye of the North, all the "PvE skills" were keyed off of titles.

-- Alex

meant to quote you before so you the message for sure. my bad. read up plz

 

[Camarilla]

Wall of text

I think you misunderstood his post, he's not specifically talking about having Xbox Live Achievements unlock in game bonuses, simply making the game recognise things you have done and rewarding you accordingly, rather than using the old fashioned XP and level system used in things like D&D.

 

[jh322]

Wall of text

I think you misunderstood his post, he's not specifically talking about having Xbox Live Achievements unlock in game bonuses, simply making the game recongnise things you have done and rewarding you accordingly, rather than using the old fashioned XP and level system used in things like D&D.

Got to agree with you there. "thinking like game developers" was sort of the point. As far as I was aware, this was a "what would you like to see in an RPG" discussion. "Achievments" was just the name we gave to the idea, call it accomplishment if you want some differentiation.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

Wall of text

I think you misunderstood his post, he's not specifically talking about having Xbox Live Achievements unlock in game bonuses, simply making the game recognise things you have done and rewarding you accordingly, rather than using the old fashioned XP and level system used in things like D&D.

I figured the same thing...

I freaken love the idea, come on now.

50+ Enemies Killed With a Sword = Sword Master, new ability unlocked.
50+ Conflicts solved using words = Mediator, new ability unlocked
etc.

It could be really awesome and personally I'd enjoy levelling more if it worked like this. Elder Scrolls comes close, but this would make it more concrete and fun.

 

[Alex_P]

The idea behind achievements was that there be a reward for accomplishing difficult tasks throughout the game for the purpose of bragging rights that you're the superior gamer. This was to drive conflict between players to get people playing MORE so that they could show off to their friends. Except for Achievement whores, few people have gotten behind the concept of gaining achievements because they've no reason to brag and couldn't care less about having a higher gamer score.

I interpreted this idea more from the perspective of a system that resembles "achievements" rather than necessarily something that has to plug into the platform's general "achievements" system.

In most RPGs it would make sense for these to be character-linked rather than account-linked, for instance.

-- Alex

 

[Alex_P]

Anyone remember how Summoner worked? Like, with the combos, specifically?

(I don't, but I vaguely recall it being similar.)

-- Alex

 

[Frigori Laecasein]

You've used daggers only so much that you now have a damage bonus with them, a speed bonus to your attacks, but you're slower with two handed weapons and do less damage with them (We didn't say there couldn't be negative effects!).

This reminds me of the skill development in Final Fantasy II. Although it was rather rudimentary, characters developed based on what they did in battle. But that system of negative effects can be frustrating when a warrior character starts losing Max HP and attack power if he tries to branch out into another skill set.

 

[Camarilla]

It could be really awesome and personally I'd enjoy levelling more if it worked like this. Elder Scrolls comes close, but this would make it more concrete and fun.

The problem I have with the Elder Scrolls games is that you're forced to make a character before you really know what each skill does and how useful it is for how you want to play, and once you've made your character, you're pretty much stuck with those skills. For example, when I first started Oblivion, I chose the Archer class, because I wanted to use bows, but have some swordfighting abilities as a backup, and that's what the game recommended. What I ended up with was a character with Blade, Blunt and Hand to Hand as core skills, and ended up finding levelling difficult because I never used maces or got into fistfights, but by this point I was stuck with it. I've also had characters with Athletics as a core skill, which ended up being completely useless for the most part. There's really no room to experiment, and you're stuck into a particular avenue of playing whether you like it or not.

Also, from an immersion standpoint, how do I have these skills before the game starts? I'm just some random farmhand/prisoner/other RPG cliché, thrust into an impossible situation... except I've apparently spent years learning to create fire from my fingertips, and I can shoot a gnat's genitals off from 100 yards... wait, what?