ID:266039
 
For quite a while now I have been playing many role-play, rpg, and strategy games on byond. All of them have been fun but only a select few have been able to hold my interest for a while. Role-play games either involve grinding to get strong enough for battle role-play or they were round based so nothing you did could be used later. I don't like grinding yet I want a game where I could feel like I was progressing. RPG games on byond now days seem to be the good old school turn based games or fast paced pvp games. Both RPG systles are great but they usually involve hours of grinding in order to have the edge over other players. I have a concept of a game where they do not develop through experience but through actual knowledge of the game.
// How this would work
A player would start out given quite a few clews to learn of areas where they can learn or develop their spells, techniques, and skills.
There could be many secret walls, passages, puzzles, and relics that will all store their own powers and be used to unlock and find more secrets.
/*How to prevent meta-gaming
With the internet there will always be guides on how they found an object or lists of spells that can be pronounced in order to perform this spell or who to talk to in order to get this technique*/
When it comes to some of the more powerful stuff it could be randomized the hints can easily be manipulated [n] can be changed according to the new hidden location after someone else found it's old location.
Super rare items wouldn't have any clues they would need to be stumbled on before the location it was found at vanishes.
//Sharing is caring.
Players could share locations of the weaker items, how to use certain spells and such. findtext() would be constantly in use with the spells and they would be active only with wand, staff, fairy in jar. Equiped in the users hand. To prevent a user from accidently saying a spell the spells would most likely need to be in latin, draconic, Made-up language to prevent such actions.
"To prevent a user from accidently saying a spell "

What do you mean by this?
To prevent grinding, simply remove any type of level advantages in the game. Here's an example.

A person can be 1 of 2 classes. Warrior or Mage.

Warrior starts with X skills. (All of them) and cannot learn more.

Mage starts with Y skills. (All of them) and cannot learn more.

The Pvp arena will be won on skill and luck, rather than stats.
In response to Resonence
Resonence wrote:
"To prevent a user from accidently saying a spell "

What do you mean by this?

I thought the findtext() would have explained this.
In order to preform spells in this game a player would simply have to speak the incantation. Player says "Okay now taste my flamioustacosauce" and magically the Flamioustacosauce spell would be launced. Spell casting would have to be done through spoken which could slow them down a bit allowing melee types an edge.
In response to Lugia319
Lugia319 wrote:
To prevent grinding, simply remove any type of level advantages in the game. Here's an example.

A person can be 1 of 2 classes. Warrior or Mage.

Warrior starts with X skills. (All of them) and cannot learn more.

Mage starts with Y skills. (All of them) and cannot learn more.

The Pvp arena will be won on skill and luck, rather than stats.

Lugia319 no offense but that idea totally goes against what I stated above. I want a way for players to gain stats but without grinding. My grammar may be horrible but please try and read through before posting. Thank you.
In response to Legato_frio
To gain stats without grinding simply do not let them control how or when they gain stats.

EDIT: Frankly I don't see the big deal about grinding. If a person wants to waste their life away on a game to gain an advantage, be my guest. The person who put the most time into an MMO deserves to get the most out of it.
In response to Lugia319
Lugia319 wrote:
To gain stats without grinding simply do not let them control how or when they gain stats.

EDIT: Frankly I don't see the big deal about grinding. If a person wants to waste their life away on a game to gain an advantage, be my guest. The person who put the most time into an MMO deserves to get the most out of it.
He still wants people to put time into the game, but instead of the typical grinding he wants people to find skills in special locations using hints.
In response to Xyphon101
I know, I read the post. But every player is eventually going to brickwall and they get all of the skills. Doing puzzles and all, I support. But to gain stats by doing puzzles, whatever floats your boat, but in the end it's going to come down to who is better. Take Puzzle Pirates for example.

They have many puzzles and you are assigned a rank on how well you can do a puzzle. This game has no numerical stats. It's all down to player ability. But it still has a grind for whoever can be the best at said puzzle.

Long story short, in any competitive game, there will be grinding. Because there's no point in people trying to get better stats without something to test those stats against. Is there any point in me leveling up my white mage if it won't give me a better heal to assist my allies and defeat foes to gain levels to beat stronger foes until I've won? Not really.

Even in this new puzzle, zelda thing that I am imagining the OP to create, people will STILL GRIND TO GET ALL OF THE SKILLS. They will do them in rapid succession. Put a timer on it? Now it comes down to who can time their logins to match when it runs out. Randomize this timer? Now it comes down to who can get lucky. Now Bob will complain that Susie had an easier time of the game because of luck. You can't win. The grind exists in any competitive game, and I dare you to find a game with stats that people don't grind on.
In response to Lugia319
Lugia319 wrote:
The grind exists in any competitive game, and I dare you to find a game with stats that people don't grind on.

You won't, simple as that. Grinding and Dynamic Stats are interwoven together and can't be separated, no matter how hard you try. If stat progression can be done faster, it will be done faster.

What I would do in order to break up the grind in any game is to keep quests and ways to progress dynamic and unpredictable. The soul of the term Grinding is to progress ones self through repetitive actions. If you make a ton of different quests with different goals, you can typically break up the grind a little, but still, grinding is always there. You may have all of these dynamic quests, but someone will always be out there to try their best at completing quests faster and more efficiently. They're now grinding quests.

All in all, the thread title "Zero Grinding" is an oxymoron. Unless used in conjunction with a board game or some non-competitive platform where all players are equal from start to finish.
In response to Danbriggs
Yeah, let them grind. They enjoy doing so.
However, I see the game Legato_frio wanting to make is actually catering to himself and not other people.
So, I think he should give it a try and see if he can make a good game.
I actually understand where he's coming from. It would be nice to have a progression of some sort without having to grind. I tend to want to build something, though.
Which is why my current project will have something like that in the future. (Building stuff and it being permanently in the game for yourself and everyone else to interact with.)
In response to Danbriggs
My definition of grinding is the need to kill the same monster or repeat the same task over and over again. I could care less how fast someone levels they could be maxed out in a few seconds it's not the point. Grinding is the repetitive task of killing the same creature over and over just for experience. Grinding is the difference between castlevania (zero Grinding) and castlevania 2(Massive grinding). Obviously definition of the word has been obscured since my time.
In response to Complex Robot
Complex Robot wrote:
Yeah, let them grind. They enjoy doing so.
However, I see the game Legato_frio wanting to make is actually catering to himself and not other people.
So, I think he should give it a try and see if he can make a good game.
I actually understand where he's coming from. It would be nice to have a progression of some sort without having to grind. I tend to want to build something, though.
Which is why my current project will have something like that in the future. (Building stuff and it being permanently in the game for yourself and everyone else to interact with.)

Future you say sounds sweet. Ya I was hoping to having any land that was natural to be build-able on and keep my secret passageways away from the natural lands. I think time travel would be an awesome idea also.
In response to Legato_frio
By, "in the future" I meant in real life. I didn't mean in-game. (As in, it's a feature I will implement later.) But, yes, time travel is awesome.
In response to Legato_frio
If you make it, the gamer will find a way to grind it.
In response to Lugia319
Lugia319 wrote:
If you make it, the gamer will find a way to grind it.
You're sounding a little rude now, basically telling him that his idea is worthless. He just wants to make something different, that's all.
In response to Xyphon101
He is confusing Grinding with power gaming. I am not telling him his idea is worthless it's just off topic.
I think I see what you are getting at, but alternative systems have their drawbacks as well. It can be boring to spend hours fighting slimes and goblins in order to reach level 8, but it can also be frustrating to spend hours trying to walk through every panel or type every conceivable phrase to find the secrets.

It can also be frustrating to play a game where luck seems to have too great a role in the outcome.

Think about a balanced approach, where grinding is possible but has rapidly diminishing utility, where the most powerful items and abilities are attained through secret actions but the game is fully playable without secrets, and where luck has a role in combat but is not seen to be the main factor.
In response to Legato_frio
Legato_frio wrote:
He is confusing Grinding with power gaming. I am not telling him his idea is worthless it's just off topic.
I didn't quote you, I quoted him.
In response to Xyphon101
Hey, I support creativity. If you want to make a game do it. I encourage you to. I'm saying that there is no way to escape the grind. I mean, I myself have considered a dungeon crawler way to gain new skills. I didn't turn it away either, and it's actually a feature in a game that I am currently making. The idea itself is fine.

Although if I were to complain it'd be about your spell system. Seems like it could become OP. Allowing users to "say" the spell aloud can easily lead to macros. And macros are easily spammable, so set a cooldown.
In response to Lugia319
I personally don't think that Grinding or Power Gaming should be seen in the negative light that this thread seems to give it. Grinding allows more hardcore players to spend their time advancing themselves faster than others, they rightfully should be able to advance faster. If I powered through 10 straight hours of game play, I expect to be a lot farther than the next guy who's casually meandered through 6 hours. Players wanting to invest a lot of time in their characters ought to be able to see something out of it, otherwise, what's the point? Why would you spend all that time progressing yourself when you still play on the same level as someone with less experience than you?

In summary, Power Gaming should be encouraged with proper rewards. Grinding can be minimized by keeping game play dynamic and different.
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