SLASH'S PROFILE

My problems with leveling is that is a slow and often dull way to play a game, but it's such on obvious path that many people do it anyway.

Example:
If you want to beat a boss, but you can't - let's say he's weak to Ice and you don't know that. The game creator might've failed to get his weakness across properly, or maybe the player is just dumb/lazy/can't be bothered to exploit weaknesses. So, he assumes he needs to level up to take on the boss, and he 1) spends a few boring hours grinding mobs over and over again or 2) quits playing.

It's a little pessimistic, but it's true - generally speaking, grinding is a boring process. An enjoyable battle system can lighten the load, and some people enjoy grinding, but it is never as fun as actually exploring new areas and fighting new monsters and bosses.

That being said, equipment is fun because it provides a significant boost to one stat, instead of small boosts to all stats. All of a sudden, you're doing a noticeably larger amount of damage, or you're taking a lot less damage, or you have a new spell. It's a more obvious, noticeable and fun reward - one you get for beating a huge boss or discovering a secret room, opposed to the "congratulations, you beat 20 monsters, here's a few more HP".

The ability to grind levels past where you should be is a crutch, not for the gamer, but the developer, who doesn't have to tune his battles as well because the player can just level up to meet his challenge.

This being said, Paper Mario had a great system for leveling up, where every level took 100 Star Points to reach and only buffed one stat (by a large-ish amount) that you could choose. As you reached higher levels, enemies would give less Star Points - Flying Goombas would go from 2 to 1 Star Point a kill, until they became worthless. The game also gave out badges for "cooler" bonuses to your attacks.


EDIT: Oh yea, and Coy, your system is fun because people can direct their character's growth, but like Craze said it's been used in FF6, as well as Tales of the Abyss and Tales of Symphonia.

EDITEDIT: And like Craze said, stealing ideas is fine - most RPGs use the D&D mantra "kill monsters get loot" deal, but the trick is making your take on a system unique - such as how it meshes with your storyline, other mechanics, and gameplay as a whole. If your equipment decides what stats you gain... do you explain this in-game (the weapons are forged with magic), do you match weapon types to their stats (wands give MGC, huge swords give STR, daggers give DEX), do you limit which characters can wear what weapons? These are the things that make systems unique, even if it's based off a general idea.

OKAY I AM DONE NOW

EDITEDITEDIT: NVM I LIED Craze I am borrowing a couple of general ideas from V&V hope you don't mind kthx

A ton of stats only have one purpose: Attack's only importance is almost always determining damage, for example. (Yes, not for every game, but for most.) They don't have to be multi-purpose; what if you want a guy who attacks quickly but can't dodge well?

And I get that you don't like primes, although I really don't know why >.>

The number of stats doesn't have to be divisible by anything unless it has an opposite, Wolfcoder. Take Speed - it's only importance it's how your character stacks up relatively to the enemy in Turn Order (assuming SPD in your game doesn't mean crit/evade).

Things like ATK/DEF and MGC/SPI make sense to have opposites, but some stats don't need them.

Hahahahahahaha, nice.

Kirby's Air Ride did it first, but that game was completely overlooked by most people. The multiplayer is pretty damn fun though.

author=Blitzen
I felt that there was no real practical advice in the "So you wanna be a game designer" video. It was as though it gave you all the ingredients for a recipe but no instructions. It's kind of a hollow list of traits, "know ur maths past advanced algebra, also be good at talking to people," without any sense of how to apply them.

I can't imagine any game involving more than advanced algebra (unless you are the programmer, heh) but you should probably know algebra before attempting to make a video game...

But this may just be my interpretation. I'm someone who has a certain perspective and interest in aspects of game design(academic but also practical), but for everything I do know about game design in theory and practice, I felt it really taught me nothing, not because I had already heard what he had to say (although its the same sort of one-liners that are thrown around) but because there was flawed logic behind his presentation of them. Not all "great games" are Bioshock, not all great game designers know anything about math, myth, or fundamental psych for that matter.

The thing is, all great game designers DO know about math and psyche, even if they don't realize it.
1) Math is used in virtually every video game, from points in Tetris to HP in Final Fantasy to how far Mario can jump and how fast Sonic can run. Knowing and abusing the mathematical limits of your character is how people beat games.

2) A large portion of fundamental psyche is about reward/punishment and how it affects people. In other words - fun. While you may not have formally "studied" psyche, you are probably using it to make your games, and people who make great games know how fun works - teaching their player through rewards, and creating an enjoyable game.

The OoT deconstruction was more practically useful. In terms of revealing design principles and emparting skills, it's analysis of OoT dungeon design was concise and direct, and shows you how episodic progression is tied to environmental design in a particular way to enhance playability, exercise problem solving, and keep the game from breaking itself. Very insightful.

Well of course, but that's because the OoT deconstruction is an application of the theories presented in this video.

You're right about the video, it's vague and unapplied theory, but that doesn't mean it's bad. It's a good overview of what the title Game Designer entails. Just because you like playing games does not mean you will like being a game tester, and just because you want to make a video game does not mean you will like being a game designer. I do agree that the whole "crafting an experience" thing was overkill.

Game Design is about applying ideas practically to create fun games, and I think this video got that point across.

P.S. There are a TON of good articles on the site involving more applied game design theory for anyone interested, including the" FUNdamentals of RPGs" series and almost any article by TheRealBrickroad.

P.S.S.
http://rpgmaker.net/articles/23/ (FUNdamentals of RPGs Part I)
http://rpgmaker.net/users/The%20Real%20Brickroad/articles/ (TheRealBrickroad's articles)