Defining Progression Within Games 55
GameSetWatch is running a piece discussing some of the ways in which gameplay can progress from simple to complex. The author talks about how acquiring items, new abilities, or just increasing the player's overall effectiveness can make it difficult for game designers to keep their content balanced and interesting. Quoting:
"What do I mean by progression? There are at least two distinct types of progression in computer games, which I'll label player progression, and character progression (narrative progression is arguably a third). Player progression is the increasing aptitude of the player in mastering the game: whether through learning and understanding the technical rules of the game (surface play) or the implications of those rules (deep play). ... Character progression is the unlocking of additional rules of play, or altering the existing rules, by choices or actions within the game."
This is why mages in D&D are stronger than fig (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This is why mages in D&D are stronger than (Score:5, Interesting)
As someone who's actually made a game (Game! - The Witty Online RPG [wittyrpg.com]) I'd say that balance is very tricky to maintain, probably even the hardest aspect of designing a game, but yet extremely central to having a fun and challenging game. You can plan out a scale of progression initially, but unless you plan out everything in advance (which is basically impossible), you'll still end up with things that are tricky to effectively balance later on.
You mentioned the idea of giving particular classes more abilities than others, and just by chance at least some of those will be overpowered, making the character overpowered. That's true, but you also have to consider the interaction between different abilities, and with more abilities, the number of combinations grows exponentially.
Starcraft is a great example of balance done correctly, and I think that's the main reason it's still popular today. Speaking of Starcraft, I doubt Blizzard anticipated that people would become so adept at microing just about everything (try watching a game between two good players these days!), and that changes the balance of the game a lot too.
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Yep, Macroing was the secret to me SC awesomeness back in the day. I won a lot. But the time to reward factor starts getting skewed and it wasn't worth it to me to start doing global tournies; which were just starting in a serious way.
I wonder if thy made macroing allow more complex macros in SCII?
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I was always a Total Annihilation guy. Whenever I played Starcraft, I thought the whole game layout was just dumb.
In TA, if I want to build a hundred rocket kbots, I hold shift and click on it 20 times (shift increments +5). Then I wait a bit, and they're done and hanging around. In Starcraft, nope. You cant. If I want a hundred zerg, I need to babysit the hive they come out of and keep the damned clicking. ANNOYING.
In TA, if I can afford it, I can have 100 nuke facilities each building 10 nukes. No limits
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Im not even talking about mod tools. If you want to though.... 5000+ new units each with unique models, and those are the good ones.
And you have no clue on balance when there's a force 1000 strong against a enemy base. Me and my ally would go against the enemy (and their ally) and would routinely get slaughtered... and they would send their wave on us.
On the modded versions we play, we have mech facilities, extremly long range cannons mounted on expensive vehicles, redesign on every unit to create better ba
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Let me know when a Starcraft game will have 10000 units on the field at once. I've been in games with twice that at maximum.
Which games would those be? I'm always looking for good RTS** games, and while it's not a deal breaker, I enjoy having more units visible on screen. To me it seems to help increase the immersion levels a bit. Helps to give the battlefield a grander scale and all that.
** Actually, I'm more partial to the types of games that mix turn based and real time battlefields such as the Total War series, Imperial Glory, etc - but I still enjoy RTS games as well.
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Total Annihilation, with a patch, allows 5000 units per side. Up to 10 sides.
It is a bit unstable with that amount though, as it was originally made for 200 per side. A recent rewrite by a modder , called TAWP, allows stably 1000 units per side, with many enhancements in the scripting and units in general. It also beefs up the AI script so that it uses all technology equally.
The TAWP mod was made for overall fairness in fighting between each other regardless of side picked (Arm or Core) however choices for
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Here's a beta of TAWP.H [fileuniverse.com]
TAWP's website is currently offline, so I cant get the TAWP.G release.
Balance (Score:3, Interesting)
Perfect BALANCE made Starcraft the best RTS ever made.
And in which patch was that finally achieved?
While I enjoyed Starcraft, personally I thought Myth II was the "best RTS ever made" because of its balance of finite units. You would be given a handful of seemingly pathetic units -- a few archers, a few berzerkers and one dwarf -- and yet the balance, and strategy, made it possible for you to hold off wave after wave of enemies.
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I spend a lot of time replaying old console RPGs from the Nintendo and Playstation era.
I wish they had additional levels like "Easy" where are the monsters points are cut in half, for when I feel like a quick walkthrough of the game, or "Hard" where the points are doubled for additional challenge. Squaresoft provided Easy and Hard levels for Final Fantasy 6, which was a good idea, but sadly never caught on.
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Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Torment & Neverwinter Nights I & II all do this.
Re:This is why mages in D&D are stronger than (Score:4, Informative)
SIgh, it wasa ctually better balanced then people think.
First mages 'shoot there wad' pretty quickly
Second - You were supposed to be a group of about the same experience points, not the same level.
Third, hardly anyone actually played with the encumbrance rules.
Forth, They are squishy, even at high levels.
The were design to be glass cannons.
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Reading the post, it most likely was the original D&D/AD&D that was referred to. The game was balanced in a way that reflected its Chainmail roots, with different XP thresholds for each class. What you describe are the ways munchkins to this day use items that were added later to the game that the original balance paradigm was not equipped to handle.
AD&D Magic Users were artillery pieces who benefited the most from feature creep. After all, magic is the easiest route to add new, more amazing thi
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Not quite, and it doesn't always work that way.
In D&D 3rd edition, mages went from being "artillery pieces" (past about level 10) to being ornaments for the fighters. Their "best" spells weren't the ones that hit the enemy, they were the ones that gave buffs to the fighters to allow them to attack 4-5 times around, at Full Power Attack, while still needing only to not roll a 1 to hit the enemy.
Their secondary spells, the best ones, were the battlefield-control or debuff types - again a buff to the fight
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Solar Angels can be beaten, in fact SHOULD be beaten if you're facing a collection of enemies (rather than one action-starved uber-CR enemy). And if you're at the level you can cast Gate, the game is already fundamentally broken.
As for the rest... saving throw, saving throw, saving throw, saving throw, environment that doesn't allow its casting, saving throw...
Ray of Enfeeblement: you should try empowering it. And then you should realize that at the higher CR's, even a (max roll) 16-point strength penalty i
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Now you're talking about specifics in a version I never played, son*. What I was talking about was how the level system originally evolved out of the primitive level system of wargames (for example "Green"-"Veteran"-Elite"), and that the different numbers of XP needed to reach each level were supposed to balance this. It had nothing to do with how experience really played a role in how the heroes developed, but was to keep the magic users from stealing the show too soon. That's why different character class
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No, the problem is that people are role-playing (which, if you think about it, should encourage a magician to act like a munchkin) in a tabletop fighting system that tries to balance the game and reward people by elevating their ranking. That's totally incompatible with achieving success through your character's actions.
Why on earth should "classes" be expected to balance? Magic just IS better than swords, 99% of the time.
Balance needs to considered by the designer before starting the world - if magic is po
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I think we both have the same idea, the whole "blind men describing an elephant" thingy. The original D&D was balanced for a win/lose of opposing players, not for players on the same side being equally rewarded.
I used to play a lot more AD&D, since it was the only game the rest of the group would play, but it wasn't ever my favourite rule system. I preferred games like Traveller and GURPS, where you only had one role: Protagonist.
I also agree with your philosophy that the only balance necessary in a
Level Up... (Score:2)
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And I wont play it because it's yet another site to demand a login to a game.
No reason why it cant be anon in exception to those that want to brag.
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Touches on something lacking in RPG's (Score:5, Interesting)
Interesting comment, asking whether or not rewarding players is because there isn't enough in the gameplay or story to keep them playing.
Also interesting was the question about a level 50 warrior's gleaming sword being nothing really more changing than a level 1 character stabbing at a giant rat. This is something that I have felt often in games - as you progress, nothing changes much except the prowess of your enemies. This requires some interesting story mechanics - why didn't the level 35 people just come down and kill you right off the bat if you were so important? Some stories can overcome this difficulty because the story is otherwise so good (e.g., Baldur's Gate, a personal favourite).
I have also tended to think of what would happen if instead of you and enemies becoming so ultra-powerful that you could essentially wipe out an entire town in on spell, would there be a way to instead have your power come from being able to deal more quickly/efficiently with multiple enemies at once? Let's face it, you can train all you want, but it still takes only a few slashes with a sword to kill you. Battle skill comes in killing the other person before he can kill you. The better you are, the faster you can do that while taking fewer hits.
With this approach, "tanks" would not really be in existence anymore; battles would be seen more as a part of a larger scale battle, not you+4 verses 60, and you just have "that much health." Magic, unfortunately, throws a wrench into the equation.
Another interesting RPG comment, this time by me - I have always felt that the most pleasing RPG experiences, with regard to story and gameplay, are those in which I was part of a larger battle, not fighting on my own. Example would be in Baldur's Gate II when you defend your "keep" (Nalia's family's castle). You defend it along with the keep's guards. Seemed much more realistic.
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We won, and I received the special Imperial armor. Fame, fortune etc etc... only to not be treated any different by the shop keepers or highway men on the road. It was very disappointing, and it really takes you out of the world you're supposed to be immersed in.
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Baldur's Gare II and its expansion, Throne of Bhaal, expanded considerably upon the first BG's adventure by letting the protagonist reach (respectively) level 20 and 40, and finally giving him a chance at ascending to Godhood...and the problem of balance reared its ugly head.
There is simply no way a level 40 Fighter can compare to a 25/25 Fighter/Mage hybrid who will benefit from the High-Level Abilities (basically, Epic-level pen&paper feats) of BOTH their classes - at these levels, anything th
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I believe you got a few levels higher. Interestingly, I enjoyed Baldur's Gate I far more than any of the second ones. Partly because you really DO feel like you're starting out at "nothing" ... and getting *gasp* TWO Magic Missiles when you cast it is amazing.
Plus, the story was enticing. You had no idea what was happening... at least I didn't (and it was the first RPG I'd ever played).
Now, it seems like having a "weak" character makes a "boring" game to most people.
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That's what made me stop playing Two Worlds. At the beginning of the game, even a couple of wolves are a real danger (but that's OK because you can always resurect not to far away), resources are scarce and every level up is really good news so it is really intense, but a dozen hours later, when I first encountered a dragon, I first panicked, ran away, cast all my strongest power up and invocation spells and took my chance, only to be disapointed after almost oneshoting it. Globaly, all the second half of t
Re:Touches on something lacking in RPG's (Score:4, Interesting)
I think it's a problem with a lot of games, that the more powerful you become the less of a challenge the game becomes. Get Fuzzy brought it to a point when Rob was playing a Rugby video game, trying to unlock the best team. "So to get the team that lets you beat all other teams, you have to first beat all the other teams and prove you don't need them?"
I personally think the Bigger Guns With Experience metaphor is slightly broken. You don't reward the Good Stuff after you finish the adventure, really. The best reward is unlocking a new part of the game, or other sorts of information. Complete the level to get the next mission, collect the bits you need to get the McGuffin and so on. Characters levelling up may be fun in, say, Diablo, but it's not realistic. Years of training are compressed into a single night (or a few days in the sequel).
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I personally think the Bigger Guns With Experience metaphor is slightly broken. You don't reward the Good Stuff after you finish the adventure, really.
I can agree with this. For instance take WoW's Arena. The higher your ranking the better you are as a player and the better gear you get to give you a game advantage over other players. This doesn't quite seem right. If we all are to have fun why are you giving the biggest guns to the guys who have already proven that they are the best in terms of skill on a semi even playing field?
All you are doing, in at least the instance of WoW Arena, is making it easier for those at the top to stay there. While they s
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That's why I've never been as interested in RPGs as everyone else seems to be. Spend enough time and you will generally be able to get better equipment or more experience points and whatnot. Better players may be able to level up more quickly, but given enough time anyone can get to level 70 and get decent equipment by doing raids with their clanmates or whatever. I prefer games like FPSes where the characters are all equal and the difference is all about player skill (or very slightly by equipment you know
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Voluntary handicaps would be a very interesting thing to see. Arena really should be a place for skill, maybe give every player a set of standard arena gear so that everyone is in comparable gear.
There are a dozen ways you could fix just that one instance of pvp play.
I have noticed in many rpg's there are some inconstancies in the variables of power. Most notably in Oblivion. The guards are always stronger than you. all the monsters level up to your level. Bandits in the country side level up with you. If e
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Let's face it, you can train all you want, but it still takes only a few slashes with a sword to kill you. Battle skill comes in killing the other person before he can kill you. The better you are, the faster you can do that while taking fewer hits.
Within the realm of Pen and Paper RPGs, this is something I've always liked about shadowrun (3rd ed at least). You have a fixed sized life pool, and nothing changes that. You do become tougher, but that only means that you shrug off some of the impact. The system is based on exponentially raising difficulties for rolls, though, so the increase in deadliness from a pistol to a shotgun makes a tough character be able to be almost unfazed by the handgun, but still get pulverized by the shotgun unless he's wear
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Another interesting RPG comment, this time by me - I have always felt that the most pleasing RPG experiences, with regard to story and gameplay, are those in which I was part of a larger battle, not fighting on my own.
I've been playing in the FFXI "Wings of the Goddess" expansion areas lately. This is basically a FvF environment, with the Bad Guys faction being all AI. You don't even get drops, other than an award of XP and some scrip at the end of a battle. But the style of play is completely different from the rest of FFXI. And people get killed regularly, so when you're in FvF mode, you don't lose XP for dying. While you can form parties, the only reason is for party-effect spells and party chat.
And while it's normal
Easy, Cake! (Score:2, Funny)
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It's the "Designing a Magic System" guy (Score:4, Informative)
Call me when they have a real AI to run a CRPG... (Score:4, Insightful)
This is why I don't enjoy computer RPGs, only a subset of tabletop ones. Computers can do RPGs, sure, but not the type that I like.
RPGs can mean a variety of different things. The character that you take on the role of overcoming challenges that come before them (the most classic of which is the dungeon crawl), exploring the world and content of the game (Morrowind or Oblivion would be examples that are decent at this), or playing a story that your character is the protagonist in.
Since it is flatly contradictory for one person (say a game developer or GM) to author a story, and another person to determine the actions of their protagonist in any meaningful way, this leaves the player of the protagonist to author the story. The GM exists to facilitate this story. Computer games can't react to the limitless potential of human authorship without having a true AI. At best such a game run by a game designer (such as in a CPRG) can only railroad a story (be it a multi-track railroad, a very well disguised railroad with the illusion of choice, etc... but railroad none the less).
Progress in types of games I enjoy would mean conflicts that either introduce complications to the story, events which get the protagonist closer to their goals, conflicts that illuminate the thematic content of the game, or similar story oriented events.
Not even the most open and flexible of computer RPGs even start to cover this style of RPG. Final Fantasy series is often the classic held up for story telling CRPG. It's railroaded as far as the story is concerned. The content is there to provide challenges and to explore the world the game designers built. You can't play out the protagonists story, because your choices don't affect the story in a meaningful way.
So called open ended games like Morrowind are similar. You can't affect things in a meaningful way... you can just go on one of several pre-selected railroad tracks the game designers built into the game, so far as the story is concerned.
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Re:Call me when they have a real AI to run a CRPG. (Score:5, Funny)
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+1 if I had it to give
Re:Call me when they have a real AI to run a CRPG. (Score:5, Funny)
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Fallout (2)! Could be much better (i sure hope fallout 3 wont screw things up), but its awesome game, where your action influence what you can do next. It's all designed but still not bad. And i don;t think we need some true AI for good stories, just some advanced procedural generation techniques and maybe some little additional stuff.