Full Games List
Featured Games
New Games
Reviews
Media
Images
Blogs
Game Updates
Images Feedback Summary
Game Design Highlights
Tutorials
Articles
Scripts
Utilities / Plugins
Resources
Engines
Engine Bulletins
What is Makerscore?
Past Events
Achievements
Misaos
Forums
Post History
Chat
New to RMN?
Full Store List
RMN Music Pack (free)
STAT DIFFERENTIATION
Posts
Jabbo
140
Jabbo
View playlists
CloseOkay, this is something that's plagued me for awhile now, but HP and Defense are essentially the same stat. Yes, there are plenty of subtle differences, but when it comes right down to it, gaining a point in HP and gaining a point in Def serve the exact same purpose: you live longer before you die.
Now, okay, you might say something like "What about a low HP, high Def monster?" Well, how is it any different from a high HP, low Def monster? It still takes just as long to kill, and what its actual health number is doesn't matter. You might also say that HP is for both physical and magical resistance, and Def is only physical. But that's just complicating the issue. Because you're going to have some sort of magic resistance stat, too, and then why give a few points in HP rather than just one point in Def and Res? Or you might say that low HP, high Def benefits more from heal spells, but that's a really weak argument.
Quite frankly, what it comes down to is that HP is the weaker stat, and it's much better to have high Def/Res and low HP than it is to have high HP and low Def/Res. All this depends on balance, of course (it would be really easy to make HP worth more than Def/Res, just edit the formulas).
The standard solution is to simply make HP AND Def/Res increase every level and be done with it. Your tanks get high HP and high Def, your mages get low HP and low Def, and you'll have like a berserker with high HP and low Def (and honestly that just equates to medium HP, medium Def). So why bother with HP at all?
I can only come up with a few reasons:
One, in collection-based games where leveling up isn't as important as finding cool stuff, HP and Def can have different methods of going up, which adds a cool feeling to the game and gives you more to collect. Like you collect HP stones to get HP and get Def when you level up, or get HP on levels but have to find new armor for Def.
Two, Fire Emblem. FE has the lovely weapon triangle which is actually pretty deeply tied to stats. Swords are weak, fast, and high critical, which works perfectly against the high HP, low Def axes; they can deal a lot of damage since they don't have to deal with enemy Def (and critical x3 damage is very effective). Whereas axes are high attack power, low hit rate, which works great against the defensive spear units, since their attack power can overcome the high defense and their low hit rates don't matter because the spears are just that slow. And then spears are awesome against swords because swords can't break their defense, and swords don't have enough HP to deal with getting hit by a spear. The point here is that axes get HP and spears get Def, and because of the Att - Def damage system, they work fundamentally differently.
Three, Att - Def damage systems. This ties into the above, but if you think of a game like Paper Mario, a point in Def is pretty much an entirely different animal from a point in HP. But in Paper Mario, you never actually leveled up Defense directly, which I guess goes back to the first point.
I've toyed with the idea of just making HP constant throughout the game (Max HP = 100), and only using a Def stat. Is there any good reason not to do this?
And another point, when speed's primary purpose is to determine how often you can attack, how is it any different from Att or Mag? I mean, yeah, having them both in good balance will equate to maximum damage, but why should a game designer force the player to work with that? When they want to deal more damage, they're going to put points in whatever they think will help them do that best. Why give them two options that lead to the same result? I guess this is a more intricate issue, because light, fast characters feel like they play differently from huge, clunky powerhouses. Honestly, though, it's all the same.
Just wondering if anyone else has thought about this.
Now, okay, you might say something like "What about a low HP, high Def monster?" Well, how is it any different from a high HP, low Def monster? It still takes just as long to kill, and what its actual health number is doesn't matter. You might also say that HP is for both physical and magical resistance, and Def is only physical. But that's just complicating the issue. Because you're going to have some sort of magic resistance stat, too, and then why give a few points in HP rather than just one point in Def and Res? Or you might say that low HP, high Def benefits more from heal spells, but that's a really weak argument.
Quite frankly, what it comes down to is that HP is the weaker stat, and it's much better to have high Def/Res and low HP than it is to have high HP and low Def/Res. All this depends on balance, of course (it would be really easy to make HP worth more than Def/Res, just edit the formulas).
The standard solution is to simply make HP AND Def/Res increase every level and be done with it. Your tanks get high HP and high Def, your mages get low HP and low Def, and you'll have like a berserker with high HP and low Def (and honestly that just equates to medium HP, medium Def). So why bother with HP at all?
I can only come up with a few reasons:
One, in collection-based games where leveling up isn't as important as finding cool stuff, HP and Def can have different methods of going up, which adds a cool feeling to the game and gives you more to collect. Like you collect HP stones to get HP and get Def when you level up, or get HP on levels but have to find new armor for Def.
Two, Fire Emblem. FE has the lovely weapon triangle which is actually pretty deeply tied to stats. Swords are weak, fast, and high critical, which works perfectly against the high HP, low Def axes; they can deal a lot of damage since they don't have to deal with enemy Def (and critical x3 damage is very effective). Whereas axes are high attack power, low hit rate, which works great against the defensive spear units, since their attack power can overcome the high defense and their low hit rates don't matter because the spears are just that slow. And then spears are awesome against swords because swords can't break their defense, and swords don't have enough HP to deal with getting hit by a spear. The point here is that axes get HP and spears get Def, and because of the Att - Def damage system, they work fundamentally differently.
Three, Att - Def damage systems. This ties into the above, but if you think of a game like Paper Mario, a point in Def is pretty much an entirely different animal from a point in HP. But in Paper Mario, you never actually leveled up Defense directly, which I guess goes back to the first point.
I've toyed with the idea of just making HP constant throughout the game (Max HP = 100), and only using a Def stat. Is there any good reason not to do this?
And another point, when speed's primary purpose is to determine how often you can attack, how is it any different from Att or Mag? I mean, yeah, having them both in good balance will equate to maximum damage, but why should a game designer force the player to work with that? When they want to deal more damage, they're going to put points in whatever they think will help them do that best. Why give them two options that lead to the same result? I guess this is a more intricate issue, because light, fast characters feel like they play differently from huge, clunky powerhouses. Honestly, though, it's all the same.
Just wondering if anyone else has thought about this.
Shadowtext
120
I think you're really underestimating the importance of how a game "feels," as opposed to what's actually happening. A character that attacks often but does less damage per attack and a character who attacks infrequently but for a lot of damage might have the same "damage per second," but they're going to feel quite different to players. And ultimately everything comes down to the player's experience. That comes before any other consideration in a game (other, perhaps, than "do I have the time/capability to implement that feature" or "does the budget support that?" But in a perfect world, those two wouldn't be considerations).
Ultimately every game is essentially just rolling dice against arbitrary target numbers, or else having the player guess at what the appropriate value for a variable is to hit a target. How it's executed makes all the difference in the world.
That said, there's no problem with coming up with ways to make the stats different in more ways than just how you dress them up. To give you an example, there's a much bigger difference between raw attack power and attack speed than you're giving credit, too, in an in-depth system.
For one thing, speedsters can use their turn for more than just attacking--they can also use items or abilities. It costs the damage-dealer a lot more to give up a turn than a speedster, because a speedster's only going to sacrifice a fraction of the damage-dealer's damage output to take an action other than attacking. You also get to throw accuracy and critical hits into the equation: more attacks means more chance to score a critical hit, or against an enemy who's really good at evading attacks, it means an extra chance to hit. Enemies with low HP but huge evasion are much better attacked by speedsters than damage-dealers.
Also, you keep throwing out arguments that are entirely valid like "low HP, high Defense benefits more from heal spells." How is that not a valid argument? It can have a huge effect on a player's strategy. Being able to use "Cure 1" spells to heal your tank means a lower overall MP drain on the Healer, freeing him up for other magic or just more healing. Even if the tank's the only one taking damage, one that can be fully cured with the weakest cure spells but still last as long between heals is going to last a lot longer than one who requires full cures at the same rate.
Essentially, it sounds like you would like to avoid gameplay depth. Fair enough--simplicity often leads to elegance. But it also alienates a fairly large swath of players. And since you seem to be talking about RPGs (since most of these are fairly RPG-specific stats), it's going to make up a pretty big portion of your audience.
Ultimately every game is essentially just rolling dice against arbitrary target numbers, or else having the player guess at what the appropriate value for a variable is to hit a target. How it's executed makes all the difference in the world.
That said, there's no problem with coming up with ways to make the stats different in more ways than just how you dress them up. To give you an example, there's a much bigger difference between raw attack power and attack speed than you're giving credit, too, in an in-depth system.
For one thing, speedsters can use their turn for more than just attacking--they can also use items or abilities. It costs the damage-dealer a lot more to give up a turn than a speedster, because a speedster's only going to sacrifice a fraction of the damage-dealer's damage output to take an action other than attacking. You also get to throw accuracy and critical hits into the equation: more attacks means more chance to score a critical hit, or against an enemy who's really good at evading attacks, it means an extra chance to hit. Enemies with low HP but huge evasion are much better attacked by speedsters than damage-dealers.
Also, you keep throwing out arguments that are entirely valid like "low HP, high Defense benefits more from heal spells." How is that not a valid argument? It can have a huge effect on a player's strategy. Being able to use "Cure 1" spells to heal your tank means a lower overall MP drain on the Healer, freeing him up for other magic or just more healing. Even if the tank's the only one taking damage, one that can be fully cured with the weakest cure spells but still last as long between heals is going to last a lot longer than one who requires full cures at the same rate.
Essentially, it sounds like you would like to avoid gameplay depth. Fair enough--simplicity often leads to elegance. But it also alienates a fairly large swath of players. And since you seem to be talking about RPGs (since most of these are fairly RPG-specific stats), it's going to make up a pretty big portion of your audience.
I have thought about the idea of HP being constant or relatively constant as well. However, if you think about advancement of characters... you really need max HP to increase. It represents added ability to keep going despite pain/injury as you get more battle experience... no reason why that willpower and toughness would remain constant.
Defense is static in both my games. It is only changed (and it is changed a lot) by armor. It represents nothing but how much physical force is mitigated by armor.
Defense is static in both my games. It is only changed (and it is changed a lot) by armor. It represents nothing but how much physical force is mitigated by armor.
Jabbo
140
author=Shadowtext link=topic=1329.msg20165#msg20165 date=1213563679
For one thing, speedsters can use their turn for more than just attacking--they can also use items or abilities. It costs the damage-dealer a lot more to give up a turn than a speedster, because a speedster's only going to sacrifice a fraction of the damage-dealer's damage output to take an action other than attacking. You also get to throw accuracy and critical hits into the equation: more attacks means more chance to score a critical hit, or against an enemy who's really good at evading attacks, it means an extra chance to hit. Enemies with low HP but huge evasion are much better attacked by speedsters than damage-dealers.
Yeah, and that's what I meant about the issue of speed being more intricate than HP/Def. I wouldn't dream of removing a speed stat from a game entirely, but when you have a huge powerhouse with 80 attack and 10 speed (let's say that's 8 dam/s) and you get the option of upgrading attack by 20 or speed by 20, speed is better. (100 attack 10 speed is 10 DPS and 80 attack 30 spd is 24 dps). I guess what's I'm trying to say here is that when you combine the traditional speed yields more attacks setup with a choice of statistic gain, it is always better (assuming the stats are actually balanced properly) to approach middle ground. And if they aren't balanced properly, then it's better to approach whatever ratio they're balanced at, which WILL be constant.
So in effect, the ideal strategy is to approach middle ground with all your characters, which completely screws over character depth. If I choose to focus entirely on one stat, like attack, or speed, my character shouldn't be inherently weaker than a character who went for a balance between attack and speed just by the definition of the statistics. Why bother having a straight rogue or a straight warrior when you can hybridize and minimize the disadvantages of both sides? I suppose my point is that the speed = # of attacks formula may be flawed in itself, and that speed should be used for other things (like you mentioned; accuracy, criticals, and evasion). Or at the very least throw in some square roots on the # of attacks so that leveling up attack actually DOES give you more DPS than leveling speed, and then use speed for other things as well.
author=harmonic link=topic=1329.msg20168#msg20168 date=1213564889
Defense is static in both my games. It is only changed (and it is changed a lot) by armor. It represents nothing but how much physical force is mitigated by armor.
This is effectively the same thing, and it's just a matter of the semantics of whether a point in defense is actually the toughness of your "hide" or if a point in defense is actually a more complicated idea of how well you are at guarding and parrying (which reduces the damage you take on average even though you don't physically see the guards and parries). And is HP your willpower or the physical integrity of your flesh? I guess in my ideal battle system, defense would not only reduce the damage you take but also increase the actual chance of "Guard!" or "Parry!" appearing on-screen (which would also be modified by your equipment). So defense and speed-oriented characters operate basically the same way, with the difference being that speed-based characters have much more randomness in when and how they die. And everyone has 100 HP, but the speed character is probably going to take all 100 if he gets hit, while the defense character will only take maybe 20 when she does.
The only reason games can get away with having rogue-types and warrior-types, and having HP AND Def stats and it being okay, is because they don't offer a choice of a statistics at all, and you just gain stats on level according to your character class, and that's that.
Also, random thought: a Golden Sun-type equipment system where equipment actually offers percentage increases instead of rote increases might help to mitigate the middle-ground concept, because if you have +80% attack, putting 10 points into speed will probably be a bad idea because you can get 18 points if you just put it into attack instead.
Shadowtext
120
author=Jabbo link=topic=1329.msg20178#msg20178 date=1213568697This is where it's handy to look at Dungeons and Dragons. If you have a lot of monsters with a high Damage Reduction type of defense--which means "Any damage less than X is reduced to zero", not having a character who can dish out insane damage in a single attack would be a really bad idea....while for different enemies, not having a character with the ability to throw lots of tiny attacks would be crazy. Speedsters and even the well-balanced sort are fairly useless against a monster that can only be taken down by huge attacks.author=Shadowtext link=topic=1329.msg20165#msg20165 date=1213563679I guess what's I'm trying to say here is that when you combine the traditional speed yields more attacks setup with a choice of statistic gain, it is always better (assuming the stats are actually balanced properly) to approach middle ground.
For one thing, speedsters can use their turn for more than just attacking--they can also use items or abilities. It costs the damage-dealer a lot more to give up a turn than a speedster, because a speedster's only going to sacrifice a fraction of the damage-dealer's damage output to take an action other than attacking. You also get to throw accuracy and critical hits into the equation: more attacks means more chance to score a critical hit, or against an enemy who's really good at evading attacks, it means an extra chance to hit. Enemies with low HP but huge evasion are much better attacked by speedsters than damage-dealers.
I suppose that DR counts as DEF in D&D, but I really like how D&D handles "general" defense (and FF1 does it similarly too, iirc)--AC. I can't believe that Shadowtext didn't mention Armor Class.
AC is basically the sum of all protection that a character has, from the ability to dodge to half-plate to magic energy fields. If an enemy attack roll isn't higher than the target's AC, it simply doesn't hit. No damage. Otherwise, full damage (most of the time; most undead and giant mechanical things and elemental monsters have some sort of damage reduction but there is no DEFENSE stat). You can increase a character's HP/level via base stats, but again: no DEF.
I like that.
AC is basically the sum of all protection that a character has, from the ability to dodge to half-plate to magic energy fields. If an enemy attack roll isn't higher than the target's AC, it simply doesn't hit. No damage. Otherwise, full damage (most of the time; most undead and giant mechanical things and elemental monsters have some sort of damage reduction but there is no DEFENSE stat). You can increase a character's HP/level via base stats, but again: no DEF.
I like that.
D&D Rules Laywer Alert!
DR Correction: DR is a simple damage subtraction. If you hit the enemy for 6 damage who has DR 5/-, 6-5=1 point of damage. Its possible to ignore DR if you attack with the same type of attack as what's after the / . Example: For DR 5/Piercing, if you attack with a piercing weapon, it completely ignores the DR.
Magic spells accuracy depends on the spell itself. Ray spells need to beat your touch AC for example, which is just the spell hitting the player and not deflecting off of armour, a shield, tough hide, ect. Other spells always hit if the player is in range but the player gets a Reflex save to take half/no damage. The save is completely independent of AC, DR, and most other stats (It depends on your Dexterity stat and your class levels). Fighters and other high defence characters generally suck against spells since they just simply ignore the tank's best qualities, but they can suck it up better than the harder to hit rogues and monks since they have better HP (barring some interesting builds and bad hit die rolls)
Also AC is horrible at higher levels for avoiding damage. Enemies get obsurd bonuses to hit at higher levels to the point where anything short of a natural one is a hit. AC helps with the full attacks (each subsequent hit goes for -5 to hit until the attacker runs out of attacks), but there are raw % to avoid attack abilities. A Cloak of Displacement, I think, has a 20% of the wearer dodging an attack which is independent of the attack roll (even the auto-hit natural twenty doesn't let a hit land if they failed the 20% chance roll)
End D&D Rule Lawyering
Speed is more important than just how often you can attack. Even attacking alone, if speed = more turns, there'd be less damage overrun when you kill something. For example, lets say...
Your attacker does 60 damage/turn and gets one turn in. Two enemies are alive, one has 20 HP and the other has >60. You'd kill the weak enemy so there's one less enemy after you, but 40 HP of damage goes down the drain.
Now, if your attacker does 30 damage/turn and gets two turns in with the same enemies, the attacker could finish off the first enemy (wasting 10 damage) and attack the second for 30 damage.
What if the enemy you target has a resistance you don't know about? You could waste your heavy attack and have the enemy laugh at you, while the faster character would waste half the damage potential and could switch attacks/targets for the second.
Speed isn't always better in cases like Shadowtext's example too. If you can't overcome an enemy's defence while the heavy hitter could, the speed guy is going to have to find something else to do.
Other scenarios: A healer!
You could have your healer heal more HP by giving them more INT/WIS/whatever, but if your healer takes forever to get a turn in, a character could die when you wait for your healer to act. If two enemies hit the same character (lets say they have a buff too that a character gave them) and kill him, it doesn't matter how much the healer can heal for. Even if they can revive the character, they've lost the buff and you've lost the bonus of the buff and/or a turn to recast it. Now if your healer was faster, they could've gotten a turn in between the enemies, heal the targetted character, and have them survive.
Speed isn't just a DPS matter. It does depend on the game/battle system though, for its importance. A turn based game like FF1, I'd rather have a very fast/slow (fast preferred) character who could reliable act at the start/end of turns.
On the note of constant max HP, I personally think that it would be a bad idea. There's no bigger numbers being thrown around, no real appearance of growth (I am a Disgaea fan so I'll let that speak for itself :\ ). There'd be a few issues with healing too. I'd see the following situations if you had constant health:
- Initial healing items would be shit, as you get richer to the point where you can buy more healing items better ones would be available. Makes the start of the game suck. (and if the defence character loses a fifth of their health when they get hit and the faster outright dies...)
- Good healing items are immediately available. Once you start making more cash, the cost of healing becomes negliable and mid/late game attrition damage is thrown out since you'd have enough healing items that its a nonfactor.
- Effect of healing items/spells is reduced as you level up. I guess this works but its the same deal as having more HP. Or cost of healing items could go up I guess. Maybe on the level. (but then what about spells?)
I'd require some good design work to have it comparable to/better than growing HP I think.
*edit*
Holy shit
DR Correction: DR is a simple damage subtraction. If you hit the enemy for 6 damage who has DR 5/-, 6-5=1 point of damage. Its possible to ignore DR if you attack with the same type of attack as what's after the / . Example: For DR 5/Piercing, if you attack with a piercing weapon, it completely ignores the DR.
Magic spells accuracy depends on the spell itself. Ray spells need to beat your touch AC for example, which is just the spell hitting the player and not deflecting off of armour, a shield, tough hide, ect. Other spells always hit if the player is in range but the player gets a Reflex save to take half/no damage. The save is completely independent of AC, DR, and most other stats (It depends on your Dexterity stat and your class levels). Fighters and other high defence characters generally suck against spells since they just simply ignore the tank's best qualities, but they can suck it up better than the harder to hit rogues and monks since they have better HP (barring some interesting builds and bad hit die rolls)
Also AC is horrible at higher levels for avoiding damage. Enemies get obsurd bonuses to hit at higher levels to the point where anything short of a natural one is a hit. AC helps with the full attacks (each subsequent hit goes for -5 to hit until the attacker runs out of attacks), but there are raw % to avoid attack abilities. A Cloak of Displacement, I think, has a 20% of the wearer dodging an attack which is independent of the attack roll (even the auto-hit natural twenty doesn't let a hit land if they failed the 20% chance roll)
End D&D Rule Lawyering
Speed is more important than just how often you can attack. Even attacking alone, if speed = more turns, there'd be less damage overrun when you kill something. For example, lets say...
Your attacker does 60 damage/turn and gets one turn in. Two enemies are alive, one has 20 HP and the other has >60. You'd kill the weak enemy so there's one less enemy after you, but 40 HP of damage goes down the drain.
Now, if your attacker does 30 damage/turn and gets two turns in with the same enemies, the attacker could finish off the first enemy (wasting 10 damage) and attack the second for 30 damage.
What if the enemy you target has a resistance you don't know about? You could waste your heavy attack and have the enemy laugh at you, while the faster character would waste half the damage potential and could switch attacks/targets for the second.
Speed isn't always better in cases like Shadowtext's example too. If you can't overcome an enemy's defence while the heavy hitter could, the speed guy is going to have to find something else to do.
Other scenarios: A healer!
You could have your healer heal more HP by giving them more INT/WIS/whatever, but if your healer takes forever to get a turn in, a character could die when you wait for your healer to act. If two enemies hit the same character (lets say they have a buff too that a character gave them) and kill him, it doesn't matter how much the healer can heal for. Even if they can revive the character, they've lost the buff and you've lost the bonus of the buff and/or a turn to recast it. Now if your healer was faster, they could've gotten a turn in between the enemies, heal the targetted character, and have them survive.
Speed isn't just a DPS matter. It does depend on the game/battle system though, for its importance. A turn based game like FF1, I'd rather have a very fast/slow (fast preferred) character who could reliable act at the start/end of turns.
On the note of constant max HP, I personally think that it would be a bad idea. There's no bigger numbers being thrown around, no real appearance of growth (I am a Disgaea fan so I'll let that speak for itself :\ ). There'd be a few issues with healing too. I'd see the following situations if you had constant health:
- Initial healing items would be shit, as you get richer to the point where you can buy more healing items better ones would be available. Makes the start of the game suck. (and if the defence character loses a fifth of their health when they get hit and the faster outright dies...)
- Good healing items are immediately available. Once you start making more cash, the cost of healing becomes negliable and mid/late game attrition damage is thrown out since you'd have enough healing items that its a nonfactor.
- Effect of healing items/spells is reduced as you level up. I guess this works but its the same deal as having more HP. Or cost of healing items could go up I guess. Maybe on the level. (but then what about spells?)
I'd require some good design work to have it comparable to/better than growing HP I think.
*edit*
Holy shit
One thing hasn't been mentioned. Well maybe it has, but my eyes hurt to much to proof read these walls of text.
Going for too much realism in video games can decrease fun. It usually does.
The debate as to how HP and DEF function in RM games in reference to what they represent... be they willpower / integrity of flesh / etc / etc pales in comparison to how un-fun it is to have stats the player can't increase or modify. I wish I had the energy to elaborate on this further but I think the point's been made... goodnight!
Going for too much realism in video games can decrease fun. It usually does.
The debate as to how HP and DEF function in RM games in reference to what they represent... be they willpower / integrity of flesh / etc / etc pales in comparison to how un-fun it is to have stats the player can't increase or modify. I wish I had the energy to elaborate on this further but I think the point's been made... goodnight!
Jabbo
140
Sorry, I always write too much. It's a problem I have, so I'll try to be concise (so people actually read what I say).
- Spillover damage exists in RPGs but it's too unpredictable to be used as an argument for anything. Heavy hitters that deal 50% of the monster's health at once get no spillover, so spillover is only an issue when the conditions are right.
- "Any damage less than X is reduced to zero" is in a similar vein to the Att - Def situation. It's just that most games don't have these mechanics in place, probably because players don't like to *chink* when they attack. So if you put them in you're adequately doing stat differentiation (ta-da!). Whether this is fun is another question.
- "Wasting one attack" honestly shouldn't be relevant except in boss battles, which you're likely going to be fighting more than once anyway. One attack will rarely decide a battle anyway, regardless of its strength.
- Healers: true. I can't think of a counterargument. Of course if everyone's constantly on dire straits, your healers are all going to approach middle ground anyway. They need to heal enough to get people back up, but also often enough so that people don't die. Slow = Death and Fast = Heals that are too weak.
- Max HP should go up to show progress: very true. My personal system isn't turn-based, though, and being able to have a point of reference for just how much damage a character received on the fly will be helpful to the player. In turn-based systems, I guess you pretty much have to.
- Healing item efficacy: it's a personal opinion that all healing items and spells should heal percentage HP instead of straight values. Or at least a hybrid (10% + 20). Maybe it's just me, but I never use better healing items until I have a lot of them (when I can afford a lot of them). So do you really need to be using Elixirs in the late game? You have 99 of them, anyway, so they may as well be Potions. Not really a solid argument, just food for thought.
- Fun: good point. Personally when I play a game and have the option of modifying HP or Def, I'm annoyed because I don't know which one to pick. Other people might be the opposite. Should I put things in my game that I find aren't fun, simply because other people find them fun? It's a difficult question.
- Spillover damage exists in RPGs but it's too unpredictable to be used as an argument for anything. Heavy hitters that deal 50% of the monster's health at once get no spillover, so spillover is only an issue when the conditions are right.
- "Any damage less than X is reduced to zero" is in a similar vein to the Att - Def situation. It's just that most games don't have these mechanics in place, probably because players don't like to *chink* when they attack. So if you put them in you're adequately doing stat differentiation (ta-da!). Whether this is fun is another question.
- "Wasting one attack" honestly shouldn't be relevant except in boss battles, which you're likely going to be fighting more than once anyway. One attack will rarely decide a battle anyway, regardless of its strength.
- Healers: true. I can't think of a counterargument. Of course if everyone's constantly on dire straits, your healers are all going to approach middle ground anyway. They need to heal enough to get people back up, but also often enough so that people don't die. Slow = Death and Fast = Heals that are too weak.
- Max HP should go up to show progress: very true. My personal system isn't turn-based, though, and being able to have a point of reference for just how much damage a character received on the fly will be helpful to the player. In turn-based systems, I guess you pretty much have to.
- Healing item efficacy: it's a personal opinion that all healing items and spells should heal percentage HP instead of straight values. Or at least a hybrid (10% + 20). Maybe it's just me, but I never use better healing items until I have a lot of them (when I can afford a lot of them). So do you really need to be using Elixirs in the late game? You have 99 of them, anyway, so they may as well be Potions. Not really a solid argument, just food for thought.
- Fun: good point. Personally when I play a game and have the option of modifying HP or Def, I'm annoyed because I don't know which one to pick. Other people might be the opposite. Should I put things in my game that I find aren't fun, simply because other people find them fun? It's a difficult question.
Red, I was trying to make it easy to understand; not everybody knows/cares about D&D's rules! Besides, I believe that 4e discards DR (absolutely DO NOT quote me on this, my books haven't arrived yet). You do bring up excellent downfalls about AC, however. A Tarrasque's +57 Bite and other five +52 attacks are... yeah. I am going to combat this by saying that fighting more balanced and less exploit-crazy CR1-10 encounters are more entertaining. =D
MODIFY: I just re-read some excerpts from the DMG and PHB; it mentions DR. Scratch that line, Craze! I think's more like 2k3 or FF, however: 200, normal, 50 or 0% damage. Something like that (no more slashes).
MODIFY: I just re-read some excerpts from the DMG and PHB; it mentions DR. Scratch that line, Craze! I think's more like 2k3 or FF, however: 200, normal, 50 or 0% damage. Something like that (no more slashes).
author=Jabbo link=topic=1329.msg20264#msg20264 date=1213631997
- Spillover damage exists in RPGs but it's too unpredictable to be used as an argument for anything. Heavy hitters that deal 50% of the monster's health at once get no spillover, so spillover is only an issue when the conditions are right.
The quantity is, I think, on a per game basis. Most games don't give you how much health the enemy has whenver you want it. I find that spillover damage is something I regularly think about in a game like Persona 3 where you can always see an enemy's health bar, but other games where you can't even scan the enemy its a much smaller issue to even think about.
author=Jabbo link=topic=1329.msg20264#msg20264 date=1213631997
- "Wasting one attack" honestly shouldn't be relevant except in boss battles, which you're likely going to be fighting more than once anyway. One attack will rarely decide a battle anyway, regardless of its strength.
First attacks are relevant when you can't rely on an attack to always do damage, even against regular enemies. Again, this is more of an on-game basis. You can count on regular attacks working against 99% of enemies in FF6, but in Persona 3 (again) you might find that your first attack against an enemy whose resistances you don't know can actually give you a game over (extreme case, its more likely that you'll do trivial damage, no damage, or heal than actually game over. I only had it happen once)
It is me picking at a minor issue though. Probably because that extreme case happened to me the same day I did that post.
author=Jabbo link=topic=1329.msg20264#msg20264 date=1213631997
- Healers: true. I can't think of a counterargument. Of course if everyone's constantly on dire straits, your healers are all going to approach middle ground anyway. They need to heal enough to get people back up, but also often enough so that people don't die. Slow = Death and Fast = Heals that are too weak.
Then don't pump your healer with useless stats like strength :P
There's also items which don't rely on personal stats (except when the character's turn comes up so they can use the item). There is the sweet spot of where healers can act quickly and effectively, but there's other possible builds too. You can add HP/Def so they can survive more hits so another, less efficient at healing, character won't have to take over if the healer goes down (Counterpoint: Pump speed so they don't die in anything short of a single hit, but the rate those blows occur is a factor in the character build and if its even possible to get that much speed with a similar cost to getting the HP/Def to not die).
author=Jabbo link=topic=1329.msg20264#msg20264 date=1213631997
- Healing item efficacy: it's a personal opinion that all healing items and spells should heal percentage HP instead of straight values. Or at least a hybrid (10% + 20). Maybe it's just me, but I never use better healing items until I have a lot of them (when I can afford a lot of them). So do you really need to be using Elixirs in the late game? You have 99 of them, anyway, so they may as well be Potions. Not really a solid argument, just food for thought.
I never liked %-based healing items. They either suck (10% of your health? They'd be useless in battle and after battle you're pumping your characters with them like they're drugs. It gets worse if they're expensive that you can't effectively heal after battles with them or if there's annoying item limits (Imaginary example: You can only hold 20 10% HP healing items! Sounds like a huge pain and running from most battles is in order)
Maybe a compromise would be to have decent healing % items (50% lets say) and have something like SD3's inventory/storage: You could take 9 items into battle but you could hold 99 in your storage (which you can't access during battle). I know you never mentioned inventory limits, that's my own little tangent :\
author=Jabbo link=topic=1329.msg20264#msg20264 date=1213631997
- Fun: good point. Personally when I play a game and have the option of modifying HP or Def, I'm annoyed because I don't know which one to pick. Other people might be the opposite. Should I put things in my game that I find aren't fun, simply because other people find them fun? It's a difficult question.
Nah, make the game for yourself first. You will get people who don't like it (there's plenty of other games for them to play anyways) and you will get people who do. There's no way around it and you'll never get anything everybody likes. Think of it as messing with the mold without completely breaking it. Just make sure that you at least find it fun when you've implemented your idea.
Argh I'm terrible at these posts. Most around too much :\
I think what harm is trying to say is people like to see their numbers grow. It makes them feel good to see their characters get stronger.
As for the defense/HP issue and speed issue, I'll discuss it using my game's system...
In Philadelphia, your characters themselves are quite customizeable with equipment. New equipment doesn't necessarily replace old equipment; it just provides different bonuses. There's your generic defense+/speed- heavy armors, sure (and as a side note, defense is extremely important in Philadelphia), but some things have a more subtle impact. There's even equipment that negatively effects defense in lieu of some nice offensive bonuses.
As for speed, in Philadelphia it's importance is relative. There's 'weight' skills characters can equip if they actually want to lower their turn priority - and there's reasons to do this, seeing as how skills can often work in conjunction with one another. In some instances, boosting everyone's speed might be high priority - a fast boss, for example. Sometimes it's probably best not to fiddle with it at all.
Note that my game is turn-based, however.
As for the defense/HP issue and speed issue, I'll discuss it using my game's system...
In Philadelphia, your characters themselves are quite customizeable with equipment. New equipment doesn't necessarily replace old equipment; it just provides different bonuses. There's your generic defense+/speed- heavy armors, sure (and as a side note, defense is extremely important in Philadelphia), but some things have a more subtle impact. There's even equipment that negatively effects defense in lieu of some nice offensive bonuses.
As for speed, in Philadelphia it's importance is relative. There's 'weight' skills characters can equip if they actually want to lower their turn priority - and there's reasons to do this, seeing as how skills can often work in conjunction with one another. In some instances, boosting everyone's speed might be high priority - a fast boss, for example. Sometimes it's probably best not to fiddle with it at all.
Note that my game is turn-based, however.
hima
3742
Well most of the games I play(namely Megaten series.) , DEF (or VIT) differ from HP. DEF make you live longer against PHYSICAL attack, while HP make you live longer no matter what kind of attack that is. DEF usuaylly deal with physical attack and not magic, so I don't see any confusion between increasing DEF or HP. Of course, in that game they make HP more useful by having skills that cost HP instead of MP.
Darken
3952
author=hima link=topic=1329.msg20976#msg20976 date=1214050985
Well most of the games I play(namely Megaten series.) , DEF (or VIT) differ from HP. DEF make you live longer against PHYSICAL attack, while HP make you live longer no matter what kind of attack that is. DEF usuaylly deal with physical attack and not magic, so I don't see any confusion between increasing DEF or HP. Of course, in that game they make HP more useful by having skills that cost HP instead of MP.
Pretty much what I was going to say. DEF is useless agasnt spells.
Koregoth
0
HP and Defense the same? I've never ever put those two together, they help one another but they're two very different stats.
A character can have 0 Defense and 1 HP but not 1 Defense and 0 HP. Almost any player in a game will keep an eye on their Health first and foremost, without it your dead, period. Now as for defense over all, magic ect, forget the variables, defense isn't hp at all. Its the counter to damage or power. Its sole purpose is to reduce the damage coming in, without the incoming damage its utterly useless, HP on the other hand is what keeps your character still playing in a since. Now I can see what your saying in that yes you could gives yourself say 100hp throughout the game,and only up defense but you'd hit a wall. Eventually after upping defense for a while, your gonna end up at a point where its 1 damage or 0 damage. At that wall no matter what your character will die in 100 hits or wont take any damage at all. Now while that is a lot of time, its a limit... That the players never gonna get around, he's either invulnerable or hes geting pinged slowly to death. Now yes theres healing spells, potions ect, but the raw stats are lacking. Then take in account your speedster coment, they fight someone same defense ect as them, but the speedster is faster, so they ping 1s more often. This is a key weakness. However I'm not saying HP has to go throu the roof. But leaving it at 100 doesnt make since.
If you punch a brick wall every day, your hand slow gets use to it and it hurts less and less. Your hands still naked, no armor whatsoever, and the body only has skin as its defense, you become use to it, your knuckles callous and you don't bleed after hitting it after a while, this represents HP. Defense however is something that can only go up so much, someone can take beating after beating and eventually they can take more and more(or they drop dead) where as your body will still take a bullet the same way you might be able to walk with one in your leg where as prior you were on the ground in pain. However if you in turn put on a bullet proof vest and get shot, never being shot before, it'll hurt but it wont stop you, not cause your health has gone up but because somethings acting as a second skin. HP should increase always as you level its a basic law of RPGs, on top of wich it makes since. Defense however unless your a karate master or something should usually come from armament(in the case of karate you learn to better use your body to defend itself and in turn take less damage. AKA if you block a punch with your face it'll hurt like hell but if you block it with your arm, its not gonna hurt nearly as much.)
Now on the speed thing, its often inter changed with both damage and defense. Case in point, warrior wielding a 2h war hammer in full plate in comparison to a rogue with a pair of daggers and leather armor. Its rare you'll see a game where they make a character fast and heavily defended with nice hp and throw one exactly the same but slow in for this reason. Also when you make a slow heavy hitting tank, you tend to up his accuracy, to make those hits count (especially so in the case of a 2h weapon wielder, as both hands are guiding the weapon ect.
But to sum up what I'm trying to say, defense is how much of the hit you resist, HP is the total amount of damage you can take, you'll barely ever find a game where you can just defense you way throu it, after all people would have made 1hp O><O defense games if so. Chances are thou no matter the defense theres a good chance that 1s going right passed the defense and pinging you. Usually thou, defense is 80-90% armor and health is 80-90% your lvl. AKA sometimes people don't have the money to upgrade both armor and weapon so they get the weapon, and lvl up there life and take tons of damage in place of armor, but by setting a static hp you take away this option. You also pretty much destroy a large option of classes as well as the point to having higher lvl cure spells. Wheres the difficulty if the hp is low the armor is ridiculous and you can heal him for 4 mana when you have 4000? I just don't see the difficulty in it.
Well thats my rambling bit on your HP= Defense >>
A character can have 0 Defense and 1 HP but not 1 Defense and 0 HP. Almost any player in a game will keep an eye on their Health first and foremost, without it your dead, period. Now as for defense over all, magic ect, forget the variables, defense isn't hp at all. Its the counter to damage or power. Its sole purpose is to reduce the damage coming in, without the incoming damage its utterly useless, HP on the other hand is what keeps your character still playing in a since. Now I can see what your saying in that yes you could gives yourself say 100hp throughout the game,and only up defense but you'd hit a wall. Eventually after upping defense for a while, your gonna end up at a point where its 1 damage or 0 damage. At that wall no matter what your character will die in 100 hits or wont take any damage at all. Now while that is a lot of time, its a limit... That the players never gonna get around, he's either invulnerable or hes geting pinged slowly to death. Now yes theres healing spells, potions ect, but the raw stats are lacking. Then take in account your speedster coment, they fight someone same defense ect as them, but the speedster is faster, so they ping 1s more often. This is a key weakness. However I'm not saying HP has to go throu the roof. But leaving it at 100 doesnt make since.
If you punch a brick wall every day, your hand slow gets use to it and it hurts less and less. Your hands still naked, no armor whatsoever, and the body only has skin as its defense, you become use to it, your knuckles callous and you don't bleed after hitting it after a while, this represents HP. Defense however is something that can only go up so much, someone can take beating after beating and eventually they can take more and more(or they drop dead) where as your body will still take a bullet the same way you might be able to walk with one in your leg where as prior you were on the ground in pain. However if you in turn put on a bullet proof vest and get shot, never being shot before, it'll hurt but it wont stop you, not cause your health has gone up but because somethings acting as a second skin. HP should increase always as you level its a basic law of RPGs, on top of wich it makes since. Defense however unless your a karate master or something should usually come from armament(in the case of karate you learn to better use your body to defend itself and in turn take less damage. AKA if you block a punch with your face it'll hurt like hell but if you block it with your arm, its not gonna hurt nearly as much.)
Now on the speed thing, its often inter changed with both damage and defense. Case in point, warrior wielding a 2h war hammer in full plate in comparison to a rogue with a pair of daggers and leather armor. Its rare you'll see a game where they make a character fast and heavily defended with nice hp and throw one exactly the same but slow in for this reason. Also when you make a slow heavy hitting tank, you tend to up his accuracy, to make those hits count (especially so in the case of a 2h weapon wielder, as both hands are guiding the weapon ect.
But to sum up what I'm trying to say, defense is how much of the hit you resist, HP is the total amount of damage you can take, you'll barely ever find a game where you can just defense you way throu it, after all people would have made 1hp O><O defense games if so. Chances are thou no matter the defense theres a good chance that 1s going right passed the defense and pinging you. Usually thou, defense is 80-90% armor and health is 80-90% your lvl. AKA sometimes people don't have the money to upgrade both armor and weapon so they get the weapon, and lvl up there life and take tons of damage in place of armor, but by setting a static hp you take away this option. You also pretty much destroy a large option of classes as well as the point to having higher lvl cure spells. Wheres the difficulty if the hp is low the armor is ridiculous and you can heal him for 4 mana when you have 4000? I just don't see the difficulty in it.
Well thats my rambling bit on your HP= Defense >>
Jabbo
140
author=hima link=topic=1329.msg20976#msg20976 date=1214050985
Def is only physical.
Yeah, I mentioned that originally. The whole why do Def for physical and HP for magical when you can do Def for physical and Res for magical thing.
author=Koregoth link=topic=1329.msg21591#msg21591 date=1214357783
1 damage.
That's actually completely wrong. If you actually make your formulas properly, damage will consistently be whatever throughout the game. Just think of the 100 HP as a percentage.
author=Koregoth link=topic=1329.msg21591#msg21591 date=1214357783
Semantics.
Call it Def or Con or whatever the hell you want, but there are multiple interpretations of what these stats are. Def doesn't have to be the thickness of your armor.
author=Koregoth link=topic=1329.msg21591#msg21591 date=1214357783
Numbers.
Not every game is Final Fantasy or has numbers that work like Final Fantasy. Don't assume that just because HP sticks at 100 that all the other stats in the game will completely outstrip it. What if MP caps at 100, too? What if Att caps at 40?
The point here is that all of this has been addressed already. It's a matter of which is more important to you, simplicity of statistics or player choice? In traditional setups, the stats are what matters and you customize characters by customizing their stats. My alternative, which I assure you is viable, is to reduce the number of statistics to give the player a better feeling for them, and then allowing them to choose among a small number of options, each of which has a dramatic effect on just how the character fights.
I'm not saying my way is better, since there are apparently a lot of good reasons to use the traditional setup in a traditional system. But you should at least consider these things when you make a game. Does every single stat you have really add to the gameplay? Do you really give the player a chance to explore each in its own right? Or do you just throw a bunch of darts and assume that the points'll add up to enough?
Koregoth
0
author=Jabbo link=topic=1329.msg21596#msg21596 date=1214359183So what your saying is damage is always gonna be the same, I can just see your average player getting bored when they gain 20 lvls and still do 30 damage. If you say percents then that would suggest that your going to increase hp , defense would just reduce, and the damage done. It'd be the same as the typical lots of health and defense method would it not?..author=Koregoth link=topic=1329.msg21591#msg21591 date=1214357783
1 damage.
That's actually completely wrong. If you actually make your formulas properly, damage will consistently be whatever throughout the game. Just think of the 100 HP as a percentage.
author=Jabbo link=topic=1329.msg21596#msg21596 date=1214359183author=Koregoth link=topic=1329.msg21591#msg21591 date=1214357783
Semantics.
Call it Def or Con or whatever the hell you want, but there are multiple interpretations of what these stats are. Def doesn't have to be the thickness of your armor.
Never said it couldn't be something else but thats just a basic example.
author=Jabbo link=topic=1329.msg21596#msg21596 date=1214359183author=Koregoth link=topic=1329.msg21591#msg21591 date=1214357783
Numbers.
Not every game is Final Fantasy or has numbers that work like Final Fantasy. Don't assume that just because HP sticks at 100 that all the other stats in the game will completely outstrip it. What if MP caps at 100, too? What if Att caps at 40?
So why compare HP to Defense then? Smaller numbers is something online gamers have done for a while now in other games (map editor style maps for instance) if your basically saying keep the damage the same throu out the game I can see the simplicity but not sure a player would be as interested. Bigger numbers tend to excite some people lol.
author=Jabbo link=topic=1329.msg21596#msg21596 date=1214359183
The point here is that all of this has been addressed already. It's a matter of which is more important to you, simplicity of statistics or player choice? In traditional setups, the stats are what matters and you customize characters by customizing their stats. My alternative, which I assure you is viable, is to reduce the number of statistics to give the player a better feeling for them, and then allowing them to choose among a small number of options, each of which has a dramatic effect on just how the character fights.
I'm not saying my way is better, since there are apparently a lot of good reasons to use the traditional setup in a traditional system. But you should at least consider these things when you make a game. Does every single stat you have really add to the gameplay? Do you really give the player a chance to explore each in its own right? Or do you just throw a bunch of darts and assume that the points'll add up to enough?
Simplicity is important for both the creator and the player, however the smaller option base allows more and less. Larger variety allows for more specialized stats while smaller variety allows for more impactful stats. As you said thou, a matter of choice.
However lowering all the numbers isn't really something new.
It simply comes down to this.
If you merge the two stats into one, there is no way to illustrate damage mitigation versus vitality remaining, which should be different. I could be a inch away from death, but my armor is made from diamond. Extremely high DEF, low HP. Or I could be on cloud nine, feeling perfect, but wearing nothing but a loin cloth. High HP, low DEF.
Also, if you can't increase a stat, but you can level up... how boring is that...
If you merge the two stats into one, there is no way to illustrate damage mitigation versus vitality remaining, which should be different. I could be a inch away from death, but my armor is made from diamond. Extremely high DEF, low HP. Or I could be on cloud nine, feeling perfect, but wearing nothing but a loin cloth. High HP, low DEF.
Also, if you can't increase a stat, but you can level up... how boring is that...
Jabbo
140
Well, honestly, I can't really figure out a way to make the 100 HP thing work. But there are a couple reasons why I want it to.
In the game I'm talking about here, I have five characters:
Lead: Offensive mage-type (medium HP, medium Def)
Girl 1: Defensive mage-type (low HP, low Def)
Boy 1: Speed type (low HP, low Def)
Girl 2: Defensive type (medium HP, high Def)
Boy 2: Offensive type (high HP, medium Def)
Now, for every single character, their Def and HP stats are the same caliber, except the last two, which can be attributed to gender. So what's the point? Attack (Fire), Defense (Earth), Speed (Wind), and Magic (Water) are required statistics, and I already have my four, one for each element. Why do I need HP?
In the game I'm talking about here, I have five characters:
Lead: Offensive mage-type (medium HP, medium Def)
Girl 1: Defensive mage-type (low HP, low Def)
Boy 1: Speed type (low HP, low Def)
Girl 2: Defensive type (medium HP, high Def)
Boy 2: Offensive type (high HP, medium Def)
Now, for every single character, their Def and HP stats are the same caliber, except the last two, which can be attributed to gender. So what's the point? Attack (Fire), Defense (Earth), Speed (Wind), and Magic (Water) are required statistics, and I already have my four, one for each element. Why do I need HP?
So when you're hurt, you heal yourself, your DEF recovers? As odd and un-fun as that sounds, I suppose..........
Also, if just so happens that your def and HP are of the same caliber in your particular game. What about the huge barbarian in a loin cloth, or the tiny girl in full armor in other peoples' games? My avatar is a big, strong character with no armor. She has high HP!
Also, you want all damage to hit without mitigation? And ignoring physical vs magical damage?
When they level up, their DEF goes up I guess... And it goes up when they equip armor... sounds skewed extremely heavily against your casters, especially since magical damage mitigation doesn't seem to exist.
Also, if just so happens that your def and HP are of the same caliber in your particular game. What about the huge barbarian in a loin cloth, or the tiny girl in full armor in other peoples' games? My avatar is a big, strong character with no armor. She has high HP!
Also, you want all damage to hit without mitigation? And ignoring physical vs magical damage?
When they level up, their DEF goes up I guess... And it goes up when they equip armor... sounds skewed extremely heavily against your casters, especially since magical damage mitigation doesn't seem to exist.
