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Stats are for Sissies: Alternatives to Traditional Growth Mechanics
author=LockeZ
I bet you noticed the stats from the new equipment, which all has level requirements. While WoW has a shitton of stats, you get somewhere between 95% and 99.9% of your stats from equipment. Level requirements on equipment are one of the things that keep you growing as you level up.
Oh yea, for sure. Getting new pieces of equipment were way, way more noticeable than leveling up - and a subclass of that is your weapon, because whenever you get a brand new weapon your damage or healing efficiency goes through the roof - way more than any piece of armor.
Another thing that keeps you growing as you level up in WoW is the fact that enemies have levels, and your level is directly compared to the enemy's level every time you attack it. If the enemy is too high above you, you'll get glancing blows and do almost no damage, and it'll get crushing blows when it attacks you back and do tons of extra damage. So instead of levels giving you stats, it's simply the levels themselves that are important. I think this would be a workable system in a lot of games (especially if they had anti-grind systems).
DnD 4e has a similar feature - much of your %-to-hit and other stats are directly tied to your level, with some bonuses from items or creation choices.
This is something you rarely see in solo RPGs, and I'm kind of curious how it would work. Instead of HP, Attack, etc., you could just rate your level vs. the monsters. Thus, higher level monsters would require more trickery or non-renewable resources to defeat, and lower level monsters would require little or no trickery or resources. I'm sure there would be some challenge in designing it, but I think it could work.
author=Craze
slashphoenix: Nope, I haven't done that since V&V.
Ha, just wondering. I'll admit I ignored them when I played it - they were kind of hard to remember.
Stats are for Sissies: Alternatives to Traditional Growth Mechanics
Yea, I've found it's better to address maybe one sentence from him at most and skip the rest.
BACK TO THE TOPIC
Craze! I like the idea of "choosing" your growth instead of just randomly getting level-ups. I know I personally never noticed level-ups in FF7, 'cuz they didn't mean much besides a little more damage and health. Materia level-ups, however, meant cool new spells and abilities.
As a corollary, when I played WoW, the level-ups are nice and shiny, and while you get some stats automatically, I never noticed those. I did notice the talent points, which I got to assign wherever I wanted and often got cooler, more interesting bonuses, not just "+1% damage".
So in general I agree, give choices to the player, although it's cooler to give them bigger bonuses less often, because the player suddenly feels like he's getting stronger. If it's a gradual change, he may not even notice.
On a side-note - Craze, do you still use like 8 attack stats with crazy names?
BACK TO THE TOPIC
Craze! I like the idea of "choosing" your growth instead of just randomly getting level-ups. I know I personally never noticed level-ups in FF7, 'cuz they didn't mean much besides a little more damage and health. Materia level-ups, however, meant cool new spells and abilities.
As a corollary, when I played WoW, the level-ups are nice and shiny, and while you get some stats automatically, I never noticed those. I did notice the talent points, which I got to assign wherever I wanted and often got cooler, more interesting bonuses, not just "+1% damage".
So in general I agree, give choices to the player, although it's cooler to give them bigger bonuses less often, because the player suddenly feels like he's getting stronger. If it's a gradual change, he may not even notice.
On a side-note - Craze, do you still use like 8 attack stats with crazy names?
Going commercial?
author=DE
That said RPG Maker led me to learning how to do pixel stuff and currently I do work on graphics for commercial projects which earns me money. But the best thing about it, except the pay of course? These projects get FINISHED. I can be almost guaranteed to see my pixels move on the screen in a coherent manner and people enjoy looking at them while playing the game. That's... grand. Amateur projects? 99% of them crash and burn in a not very spectacular manner and all the work that was put in them can as well go to the dumpster. Not cool.
I totally agree - and I've had the same experience.
I find it's damn hard to set deadlines for yourself when there are no actual reason for deadlines - like getting paid or keeping your job - but if you actually wanna finish, it's usually more efficient to set a schedule or create some sort of organization.
Back in the day I used RPG Maker as more of a therapeutic exercise and never really strove to finish the games. I would spend weeks on the mapping of a city, and, looking back, I knew I wanted to finish my game, but I needed discipline. That's the reason I'm taking game-making to the next level.
It's still possible to do it as a job and a hobby. Even when I'm working on projects with strict deadlines, I always still have one little experimental prototype to goof around with in my spare time - and ironically, the stuff I learn from these prototypes very often help me with my legitimate projects.
Going commercial?
I can honestly say that if I can scratch out a living making games, I'm going to do it. I absolutely love everything that is making games - the design, the flow, the experimentation and the testing, and of course, the utterly countless tweaks to perfection.
If I make good games that are worth playing, I won't feel bad asking for money for them. It's a fair trade and everyone comes away happy.
I already spending huge amounts of my work time making games, and yet when I come home I still have the urge to spend my free time making other games. The psychology behind fun is a blast to explore.
There are very very few fields that you absolutely can't utilize while designing a game. Of course, there are a couple very important ones as well :D
If I make good games that are worth playing, I won't feel bad asking for money for them. It's a fair trade and everyone comes away happy.
I already spending huge amounts of my work time making games, and yet when I come home I still have the urge to spend my free time making other games. The psychology behind fun is a blast to explore.
author=Max McGee
Game Design is a lot like a science anyway. I'd say it's about 50/50 between science and art.
There are very very few fields that you absolutely can't utilize while designing a game. Of course, there are a couple very important ones as well :D
What are you thinking about? (game development edition)
author=Max McGeeTry making a smaller, more manageable game. Like one that would take a weekend.I've done that. Sometimes it takes about a month, once it took about three years.
ok maybe you need a little more practice
Going commercial?
author=calunio
Also, even though I believe I could make games that people would pay for, that would drastically reduce the number of people who would play it, and it matters to me more than money.
That's a pretty noble reason and I can appreciate it. You could always go with the "pay-what-you-want" route if you wanted to make money - you'd make less money than actually selling the game, but history has shown that some people really desire to reward developers for what they make - people sometimes pay between $50 and $100 for a game that normally costs 10$ - and if they want to pay you, you might as well let 'em.
author=calunio
Another thing is, thinking that I was making a PRODUCT would affect negatively a lot of my design choices. It would make my mind stiff, and I'd be to worried about being "professional" and lose spontaneity... which ultimately would reduce the quality of my games.
This is something I'd definitely worry about, although I already spend a lot of focus on making my games just the right level of challenging without being frustrating. The biggest thing I'd worry about would be censoring myself to "acceptable" game content, although I've seen quite a few successful indie games with either outlandish / strange gameplay or normally inappropriate content.
When it comes down to it, no matter what you make, someone will probably want to buy it, ha.
Going commercial?
Going commercial?
author=chana
... (waiting for more explicit statement).
It's almost as if some people think that because they've devoted themselves to the sciences instead of any other number of professions, they are superior human beings. Which is, of course, just silly.
Morality: What do you do to design around it when designing for it?
Could you expand more on what you meant by now you have a better idea of "scope"?
I mean that I personally have become a better judge of what I can accomplish as a designer, programmer and artist, and how much time it takes to accomplish those things. I don't bite off *much* more than I can chew.
And no, Binding of Isaac didn't try and tiptoe around any bounds, and that's why I appreciate it. If you want to make a game concerning religion or another taboo subject, it will feel more realistic if the developer isn't beating around the bush.
FF7 didn't do a great job of making you feel bad for being a terrorist, but it did a good job of saying "hey, this corporation is truly greedy and corrupt, and that's bad", which hits home a lot closer than "I'm an evil space king on the moon".
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