Larian Studios Forums Beyond Divinity (English) General A foreseen imperfection.

{{{A foreseen imperfection.}}}

Lar told Myrthos on part two that <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/riftrunner.gif" alt="" /> would not improve the technicality of acquiring skills by relating practice to the system.
Finding a book or joining class with a teacher gives primary knowledge and a basic level to acquire a skill, and this is said to be implemented already in <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/riftrunner.gif" alt="" /> as it was in <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" />

The problem is that teachers in real life and in fantasy may not increase your level within a skill if you fail to practice it, like improving your skill to solve mathematical problems by solving problems, which is simply practicing your skill.

If acquiring a skill was through finding books and teachers, and then improving skills through practice then what would gaining points by killing enemy get spent for, you may ask?

In my humble opinion one should not get points for the act of killing in itself as the fight gives experience automatically to the skill being used, but there was an obstacle removed by removing the enemy and the enemy was removed to reach a goal and not for the crave for gore but for a higher goal that contains the *Game Points*.

Game points should only reflect the percentage of completion of critical main-quests in a number and optional sub-quests in a different number. This should work as a good indicator of how far are you in the game or what other entertainment have one missed.

In that way we do not need to worry about gaining free points to spend irrationally or haphazardly but rather focus on the game and play it as it was designed to be played.

This means the choices you make are shifted from a task of distributing points intellectually to real-time playing choices that have greater meaning.

What choices do we make in real time, you may ask?

C1 - Saving the game.
C2 - Choosing coordinates to move your avatar.
C3 - Choosing the timing at which the avatar should move.
C4 - Making a decision to attack.
C5 - Making a decision to retreat.
C6 - Being cautious and investigating ahead and making plans, you gain precision and lose time.
C7 - Being in a rush and hasty, you gain time and lose precision.
C8 - Choosing the method of attack and the skill to use in handling a situation

Q - So how can I develop my character into a mage, you may ask?

A - By using magic and as a consequence you improve your skills in casting spells; hence you become what you do best.

Q - So how can I develop my character into a thief, you may ask?

A - By robbing every NPC you encounter and picking every lock you find.

Q – Does this mean that I do not get any points to spend on my stamina, strength, manna capacity and so on?

A – You don’t; why would anyone need such a crippled system if using magic increases your manna capacity and that specific skill; why would you need to spend points to improve your health if you eat, sleep and then fight like a devil, which should increase your health, stamina and your strength concurrently but based on the type of action you do. If you run a lot and for longer periods, your stamina must increase but you get hungry and at this point I would love to introduce the concept of Energy.
Not like classical RPG “red-bar” representing health, but a “new concept” (for RPG) of biological energy, where you can spend your available energy at high rate and for short time for tasks that require strength or at lower rates and for longer time for tasks that require stamina. During a fight there is a rate of fatigue that decreases your energy faster then if you were simply walking from one place to the other. You also consume energy to live and breathe, which begs for a system of acquiring food.

In a magical world like that of <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/riftrunner.gif" alt="" /> one does not expect to find food like in real life of course.
This means that there should be something alternative such as energy fountains or energy crystals that become charged at a steady rate until they are full to maximum from which the avatar extracts his needed energy.

The idea is not to restrict “food” to a literal meaning but to keep the concept.

So the character could start out with a small crystal and find bigger ones later in the game or even solve a hard quest to get a very special one.

Intelligence and Strength seem to be tradeoffs by choices made to react reflexively or tactically, that is, if you decide to spend more time on hammering your enemies you grow muscles but if you spend more time in setting traps and shooting enemy at a range and louring them into your traps, you improve your intellect.

The result of implementing such a system is that the avatar shall reflect your true character and the essence of your true skills rather than an artificial “No; that could never be me” thing.

On the other hand, when you try to change your character in the game, you gain true life mental experience as a reward and your tactics would become real life strategic decisions experience.

Since playing an RPG is a real life mental activity the game should increase your intelligence as you learn more tactics.

What can be more entertaining and rewarding than that, I wonder!

Kindest regards.

<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wave.gif" alt="" />

"In my humble opinion one should not get points for the act of killing in itself as the fight gives experience automatically to the skill being used, but there was an obstacle removed by removing the enemy and the enemy was removed to reach a goal and not for the crave for gore but for a higher goal that contains the *Game Points*." DAD

just what i would like too see in RPGs. maybe a bit like more like dungeon siege where more usage of certain skill areas will make your character better in them. unfortunately all skills in dungeon siege are means to kill & not anything else. so i hope skills/abilities in future larian games, maybe DD2 can have plethora range of skills other than ones use for killing. there's barter, diplomacy, persuasion, stealing, lockpicking, perform(bard-like), etc... .

RRR is a good start for larian to improve on their previous endeavour, DD. now there's at least a skill in crafting better arrows from ordinary ones. this is a non-lethal skill though its implication will lead the player there.

I want a game with imperfections.

I may only play a game 2 or 3 times over and that's fine by me. I don't see the point of playing a game until you beat it into the ground. Of course the game is so much easier on mulitple tries as it should be. That's just a personal preference on playing something over and over again. But I don't want lose what makes the game so great for playing it through once.

Larian can't make everyone happy, but if people want to keep pumping quarters into a game then that's what the arcade is for. I want one great experience and then maybe I will play it a couple times over at that. A great game I will play over again but mindless battles is nothing more than Diablo.

I'm speaking from an adventures point of view and how many people play those games over. What's the point because you know what is going to happen. Then again in a RPG there are many ways to make it happen.

Make it happen Larian because people love your games more for the first time through.

I don't mean anything negative by what I said.

I kinda feel more like if you want the folling that King's Quest or Quest for Glory had, you will stay true to your game. There are alot of great suggestions for combat but you damn sure didn't win the people over for that. Do what you do best and improving on that is only a plus. People looking for combat will leave your game in a heart beat when something better comes along.

Your adventuring made this game have heart and soul, at least that's what I truly believe. Of course I mean that in a RPG kind of way. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mage.gif" alt="" />

no harm done, staples. it's good to have your opinion voiced. & thanks for the feedback. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/up.gif" alt="" />

Thanks janggut and I thought DAD did a great write up.

But since you mentioned Dungeon Siege, fantastic music in that game also!

I disagree. An imperfection is when it would be unbalanced. Either system can result in an unbalanced game. A good balanced game with the current system is good in my opinion and not an imperfection because it doesn't implement something that appears to resemble reality.

The system as it is now uses the time between two level ups. Only after a certain time you can increase your skill, not through practice but through knowledge. You can learn many things, but you can practice only a few. So this basically boils down to you needing to focus on a certain path and using only a limited set of skills (afterall you can only practice a few) or you can learn any skill and use the ones you think are usefull.

Either implementation results in a different game and would require a different balancing. I'm not convinced that your way would create a better gaming experience.

"Either implementation results in a different game and would require a different balancing. I'm not convinced that your way would create a better gaming experience." myrthos

i agree on that as different play systems will make the game into a different beast. but whether or not u're convinced, it remains to be in the hands of the developers who can make such system enjoyable to play with. the XP system or method in dungeon siege is quite different & therefore refreshing & actually enjoyable to play with. just that other factors in the game made the whole experience sour. so i feel this 'practise' method of XP increment has very good potential, but only if the devs are willing to make it so. we haven't seen enough of others with radically different XP method/system to make comprehensive comparisons.

if only final fantasy RPG series are in pc format. (note: only 1 is; FF8 & now FF XI which is MMORPG).

"So this basically boils down to you needing to focus on a certain path and using only a limited set of skills (afterall you can only practice a few) or you can learn any skill and use the ones you think are useful."

u can also practise on a wide range of areas but in the end your knowledge in all of them barely scratch the surface of either one. it's the same with the conventional level-ups that reward u with skill points, scatter your earned points all over the place & u also barely scratch the surface of any skill. just that the conventional is pre-meditated(putting points in skills in anticipation of its use) & practise increases skill right off the bat as u make use of it.

I don't entirely agree. The current system gives enough skill points to use a variation of skills. Having a need to practice them requires you to select a skill and then practice it before it becomes usefull. As a result the further you are in the game the less rewarding it will be to learn a new skill, afterall it will be rather useless against the more powerfull monsters. This was what I meant with a need to choose a direction. Invest in skills early on and then practice those that are fitting to you. Then you will have a powerfull set in the end. Either that or having skills later on that start of at a certain level which you can get at that level (similar to D&D).

Having skillpoints allows you to give several skillpoints to new skills and be able to use it effectively directly without the requirement to get 'experienced' in it. It still requires planning, but it gives you more variation in my opinion.

Best example of the above (skills getting better through use) is Morrorwind - Elder scrolls 3. There are no experiance points in game, you level by using you skills and you wont get better in any skill you dont use. Some skills are combat, some are theiving, spells, talking, running...every thing.

You have 10 main skills, and loads of secondary ones...every time you gain a point in a main skill you get one point towards leveling. You need 10 points to level.

This would not suit riftrunner, it's not that type of game. It mainly combat and quest awards, not skill use.

Both systems are good, but both only work in their respective game engines.

Not quite true. Nature mages have quite a few non-combat skills at their dispoal. Transmute, for example, changes items into gold. They also use several healing spells: healing wind, healing hands. Life balance, mana balance... The combat mages even have a few: harmony, reconsitution.

Anyway, it's not quite the issue at hand but I had to defend DS a little.

flixerflax, i stand(actually sit) corrected. what i was trying to say is that majority of skills in any RPG are about killing or enhancing oneself for kills.

nice to know from plowking that morrowind has a different approach to its game. larian did mention that they wanted to build RPGs that are closer to its roots & therefore more RPG. i am counting on this. & i really hope there is as much adventure as there is hack & slash & not leaning too much on H&S as most 'RPG's now.

myrthos, u have a point in saying that practise does mean limiting to certian skills & it's glaring towards later part of the game as it's no longer rewarding to learn when enemies encountered are much harder to kill with such low level skills.

however i still believe this system has potentials in that it makes the game more skill-based than item-based or twitch-based. causality is more evident, in my eyes. u reap what u sow.

maybe this can for games of a different ilk. Divinity universe may need to have slightly uniformed system to make the series flowing. however i hope that larian may consider & develop a better & more engaging system which can bea lot of fun to play with.

thanks for the feedback.

DAD, I totally dissagree

I've always been of the impression that games are just that, there GAMES, I dont care how unrealistic they are. I agree that gaining 'skill points' from gaining 'expirience' from killing monsters and then allocating these points to skills in unrealistic and in no way how the real world works, BUT, its FUN! and thats the important thing, being fun is the primary important thing for me in a game, I dont care if gaining skill points is unrealistic, or unbelievable, or whatever, as long as its fun, im happy <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Tho I will agree that your proposals do sound interesting <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/think.gif" alt="" /> (i really like some of them)
But its more important (IMO anyway) that they are implemented in a fun and easy-to-use way, then to keep them strictly to what is 'right' (so some ideas may have to be scraped as theyd be too hard to make fun).

I also have nothing against distributing points intellectually rather then through real-time playing. I get a level of enjoyment out of 'planning' the development of my character and what skills i will aquire.

Have you play'd Dungeon Siege? That has a crude version of what your proposing, where using a melee weapon increases strength and your melee skill, whereas using magic increases your mana reserves and magic skill.

Who wants a realistic RPG! That would be a simulation not an RPG.
When I talked about real life I was referring to you sitting at your computer playing and enjoying the experience as a human being. I do not want the game to be realistic by simulating life at all, I want you to gain mental experience as you play the fantasy and when I say you I mean YOU in the real life not your avatar inside the game.

If you were rewarded a 100 points to “spend” then you should be ready to “spend” time not playing the game but clicking 100 times guessing at whether it is better to be stronger or more intelligent, which has nothing to do with the game in any direct sense.

I also did not specify skills exclusively because I included the means of improving health, manna, strength, intelligence, stamina, luck, ambition, holding breath under water <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" /> the number of knee-jerks per second and the speed of growing hair.

I did not have any particular game in mind in comparison, while the target was to minimise the “not-playing” activity and maximise the playing experience.

It is much more rewarding to find a book that explains to you a skill or a funny teacher that you can enjoy learning from, rather than clicking on an icon that have a brief description of the damage the skill can cause to enemy and the cost of using that skill. The teacher can tell you *when* to use that skill and *how* to use it and with what kind of enemy or in which situation.

Another obvious merit is that anything you do gives you either skill or experience or improves your character instantly rather than having to wait until the end of a level.

Myrthos is correct in his fears of maximizing a skill or three that would discourage you from using newly acquired skills as the enemy level grows. However, the balancing can be done superbly by forcing the player to use the new skills because a new enemy is vulnerable to that new skill only while being invincible to your maximized skills.
The level of the enemy is high indeed because that enemy is invincible to your most powerful skill but concurrently you have acquired a new skill with which you can defeat that enemy and improve the skill simultaneously.

What I see is that all the comments posted under this thread were very good indeed.
We are not in opposition at all, even though some misunderstanding might have taken place.

I would be surprised if an RPG did not give me a Godzilla to kill and a score of nasty skeletons that shake my bones.
But I do not want the RPG to be exclusively based on the experience I gain by killing creatures either.

As Myrthos said, the critical criterion is the balancing of the game and I agree with all my heart.
My main target was to get rid of the task of assigning points by automating that task rather than keeping it clumsy and manual.

Kind regards.

<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wave.gif" alt="" />

Ok, thats fair enough, tho quite complicated to implement, so finding the company to choose that over the traditional way wont be as easy as simply asking them nicely I dont think. Especially as I personly dont mind clicking on buttons to choose my skills, it doesnt bother me at all.

Tho I agree that what you propose would be better then that, and more fun, but I dont consider it necesary, there are other areas I'd preffer the company to get right before that, and to save that for later when they have a bit of time to try and implement it.

Of course, somthing that big and complex wouldnt be somthing that they could 'try and implement' if they had a bit of free time, so its kind of a difficult one, but as long as they get other important areas right, I'd be happy.

I'm not saying your wrong or anything, just that its a lot of effort to fix somthing that, IMO, isn't broken. I'm all for it if I know the company can pull it off without getting too involved with just that and ruining the rest of the game.

In summery, I disagree that it is an 'imperfection' (unless we're going to get pedantic, in which case all games are full of imperfections and it becomes moot) more of somthing that could be improved on, should they wish to and have the man power and skill to pull it off.
Unless thats basicly what you ment and im missunderstanding you and thinking your saying its worse then you acctually are O.o <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/think.gif" alt="" />

Calling it an imperfection was in the sense of not yet being perfect.
It is a fact that RPG, Simulation and Strategy games share a big area of intersection already.
One type can benefit from ideas in the other two concerning technicalities related to engines, interface and memory management.
The heart of my critics is based on requesting the automation of manual tasks when such manual tasks are not true choices or that can produce obtuse results. Read the latest news on <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/beyond.gif" alt="" /> and you shall notice that combat strategy had been added and that is where real choices would be enjoyable and fulfilling. By mixing in some simulation traits such as increasing specific experience points when specific experience is acquired into the field in which experience is being practiced then we almost have a “hands off” automated character development system which follows our choices we make already; so if you wanted to develop a mage the why would you be practicing with bows and arrows more than spells!

It is that simple really.

<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wave.gif" alt="" />