I have this project that I have been working on for a while which has be out a few times and the training system always seem to be... for a lack of words "off".
Up to now I've made it how most Byond games have them to where there are bags which will only help you start off and from there you must self train or fight monsters in order to get stronger. Using a system like that I've come across a good amount of problems, or at least I think are problems.
-One hit kills
-People skip training with bags and lose to someone with a lower level who train with bags tends to make them leave the game mad.(not a real problem with the system just makes the game lose players.)
-Very few people playing. It seem when your able to self train, no one really plays the game they seem to just AFK train.
-Very there is no level cap so there is a huge level gap that most times can not be closed from the people who just started and the people who started early.
-One hit kills
-Skill Points are given to learn skills and boost stats. The only way you learn skills is by paying skill points. With those same skill points you can also pay to boost up stats because after you learn all the skills the skill points would serve no point. Most time people just boost up one stat and they are able to kill with just one hit.
-Lacks any real work or creativity.
I have a few ideas that might work but I kind of what to see what you guys think of what I want to do before I do anything, none of these idea are most likely anything new.
-Remove all bags and self train. All training will be done by combat.
-Leveling and learn skills. This can be done a few ways.
*1. Random. Give a rand 1 to 10 every time you gain a level for all stats.
*2. You can have a choice in what stat you would want to focus on and as you level up you will gain more in that area. This can be done when you first start, or give you an option to change it in the middle of the game.
*3.Make a level up system for every stat. This can be done in two ways
+Give every skill you use give you exp to the stats that the skill is base on. So if you keep taking damage you def exp will go up, if you keep punching your str exp, if you shoot energy attack that will rise. So what ever skills you use you will gain a level and that stat will raise.
+Or the same as the one above and you in all stats but most with the one that made you gain a level.
*3.Skill will be learn by using them. Let's say you start with a fireball. When you first use it it will take more energy and stamina. The more you use it(as in hit someone with it not just shooting at nothing) You will gain exp with that skill and while you are learning to master it you will use less energy and you will learn the next level of the skill. Just as in the chain as you buy skills but it is done by using it. You learn the first part of the chain from a NPC or at the end of another chain.
*4. Keep the skill points and give them no stats only skill points and let them choose how they want it. But have a stat cap based on your level so you can't poor everything into let's say str and one hit kill people.
Level Cap
This is something that I think need to be done because if someone starts before someone else it seems to give them a fighting chance to catch up for a lack of words. Because we all seen those games where there are those few that seem to be unbeatable and no one is able to reach. Yeah the person at the cap will be able to beat someone half his level with ease. But they will always have a chance to catch up to him because there is no where from him to go up to. Which brings us to the problem were there is no higher level for them to get to, which would seem kind of pointless.
Well that kind of what I have to this point. I didn't really proof read this it was a long day of work so sorry if it makes little sense and look forward to hearing what you guys think.
ID:1351569
 Aug 12 2013, 5:09 pm
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Aug 12 2013, 6:08 pm
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GamerMania
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I think there should be more ways to level up than killing things. Perhaps solving puzzles, finding magical items that give you "knowledge", or a few non-combat quests. Immediately starting off with combat will make the player lose interest if it's not designed carefully enough. They will either feel too overpowered, giving them no reason to level up and play the damn game, or too underpowered, which is pretty frustrating.
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I used to play a PvP survival game called Haven and Hearth. It was pretty fun. Here's how they managed their PvP system:
1) Permadeath: If you are dead, you lose your character. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, proceed directly to start. (You do get to keep a certain percentage of your skill points, though.) 2) Combat vs Community: They moderated the PvP system by allowing players to select a "focus". Players would have the opportunity to focus on combat skills by moving a slider once a day, or focus on learning skills faster by moving the slider to the opposite side. Players that focused in combat would lose a greater percentage of skill points than those who did not. 3) Always Online: If you log out, you aren't safe. Kept people nicer. Getting murdered in your sleep is the best way for the community to deal with a problem player that's just a bit too powerful to take on normally. Players with innocent souls (I.E. Not murderers) were much more immune to this. 4) Training wasn't actually done by using skills at all. Instead, training was done by discovering new items, new places in the world, and studying curiosities. Curiosities are rare drops and hard-to-craft items that you can keep in your inventory for between 30 minutes and 72 hours. After that time has elapsed, you gain a certain number of skill points. 5) Finally, they managed to keep PvP fair by making it so that it was NOT fair. The side with the greater numbers didn't always win, and the strongest player didn't always win. This made it so that there was always a *Chance* that you would get steamrolled by a run of bad luck. Effectively, this meant that those who put themselves in harm's way would run a greater risk of being harmed, rather than the opposite. This resulted in a certain reluctance to PvP, which made PvP that much more fun, because when it was happening, there was a really good reason for it. The reasoning for PvP was almost always resources and territory. My village lived next to some swedes who focused in peaceful farming and animal husbandry. We liked the swedes, and started a regular trade of manpower for high-quality cheeses and meats. This allowed us to develop our village much faster, and allowed them to expand faster as well. We built a good relationship for about 3 months, when some Russians started moving south, scouting out good territory. They harassed our borders, but we were a bit more secure than the friendly swedes. The swedes were wiped out in less than three days from our first encounters with the Russians. Now, we were all friendly gents that were quite ready for a fight at this time. We pooled our resources and spread the word. A village of Poles to our south, and some redditors to our east were more than willing to chip into our war effort in order to help get rid of the red horde. We armed the mob, and set them loose while we prepped our seige engines to take out the Russian stronghold. The war went on for about five days, on and off while the stronger russian forces chased us off. But we were more persistent than them. They didn't like being threatened on their home territory, and they didn't like being the people having to watch their backs. There were so many of us on high alert that they couldn't even make solid raids anymore. We starved them out, essentially, and as their numbers dwindled we started winning fights. Yeah, we paid a heavy price in lives, but we eventually wiped them out, and spread the goods from the battle to settlements as far out as an hour away, that they had raided. In doing so, we made strong alliances with our sector of the server and actually wound up keeping the Russians out of that portion of the map for good, using our allies to help kick them out every time they tried to set up shop. All this in a tiny little 2D MMO that could easily have been written in BYOND. If you incentivize it right, PvP can be a major feather in your game's cap. If you turn it into a metagame, though, you are just wasting your time even having it. PvP should be a *part* of your game from the very beginning, but it shouldn't always be something you have to do. Design your gameplay so that the PvP will balance itself, and not necessarily so that you ensure players are always PvPing. | |
Ter13 wrote:
I used to play a PvP survival game called Haven and Hearth. It was pretty fun. Here's how they managed their PvP system: I wish i can make this game it sounds amazing but then it would be said to be a fangame. Also the game sounds amazing so i'm trying to try the game out :). | |
Hi there, personally I don't like idea of "using skill to learn it" but rather "using skill to master it". You can make a quest or something before you can learn it or minigames. I remember when I played games with bag training, it wasn't that bad idea or maybe I have sentimental attachment to that but who knows. The best option is to combine these two types of games. Training shouldn't be easy (it's training ffs).
-One hit killsTo balance the game you can always do something like base damage + bonus damage thing to prevent many 1 hit kills. Something like: You trained strenght for a while and you get 100 strenght points but 100 points it's not 100 extra damage but it's like 5% of your attack damage and so on. But when a new player joins the game and then he meets experienced player it shouldn't be surprise if he gets one shoted. -People skip training with bags and lose to someone with a lower level who train with bags tends to make them leave the game mad.(not a real problem with the system just makes the game lose players.)lvl shouldn't mean so much in PVP, that guy didn't know game machanisms and thats why he died - he deserved it. But all the MMO games should put PVP in the middle. I mean, more experienced player should have advantage over newbie one but it shouldn't be 100-0. Skill > Stats in 65:35. Stats makes you stronger, not overpowered. Skill makes you overpowered. You must have skillshots in the game. -Very few people playing. It seem when your able to self train, no one really plays the game they seem to just AFK train.Too boring training or probably lack of good PVP or challening players -Very there is no level cap so there is a huge level gap that most times can not be closed from the people who just started and the people who started early.Make level caps. Make ranks and each rank has different level cap? Haven't thought about it yet. -Skill Points are given to learn skills and boost stats. The only way you learn skills is by paying skill points. With those same skill points you can also pay to boost up stats because after you learn all the skills the skill points would serve no point. Most time people just boost up one stat and they are able to kill with just one hit.Make skills reliable on many other stats: Defense, intelligence, agility. -Remove all bags and self train. All training will be done by combat.Truth lies in the middle. Training makes you stronger, combat makes you skillfull. *2. You can have a choice in what stat you would want to focus on and as you level up you will gain more in that area. This can be done when you first start, or give you an option to change it in the middle of the game.2. There should be classes/traits. Players should have freedom to what they want to add stats. What if they want to be a mage with strenght stats so they have decent spells and decent combat? Other would rather put every skill point in ability power and have huge damage spell. There shouldn't be restrict way where you want to put your skill points, if you want to waste them, you are free to go! *3.Make a level up system for every stat. This can be done in two ways3. So I start weak as hell and to get me stronger I have to fight? Should I fight with other weak players (other newbies) or with stronger players where there is no fun and challenge for them to do it? Don't go that way. *3.Skill will be learn by using them. Let's say you start with a fireball. When you first use it it will take more energy and stamina. The more you use it(as in hit someone with it not just shooting at nothing) You will gain exp with that skill and while you are learning to master it you will use less energy and you will learn the next level of the skill. Just as in the chain as you buy skills but it is done by using it. You learn the first part of the chain from a NPC or at the end of another chain.*3. Skills shouldn't be learnt by using them or watching others doing it. They should be learnt by quest or mini game . But on the other hand you can master it by using it, make it deal extra damage, make it faster, lower cd (But when I think about it, it's the same thing but I put it in the better words, player should now that he has it but it's only the begginning, he can master it!) Level CapLvl caps (haven't thougt about cons yet), make traits and eachother is vulnerable to other one. Someone is master in handcombat and other one is master in swordcombat - challenge accepted. There are 2 kinds of games: 1. You need time to master it and when some newbie comes you just beat the cra* out of them. Hardcore game. 2. There is no such a thing as master. When you think you have mastered it some other newbie comes and beat the cra* out of you this time! You played more than him but you have lost. Which is more fair? People should be rewarded if they are good and if they trained more and better than others! Hope I helped a lil bit. | |
I've always felt that learning skills, or training those skills up, should mirror real-life. You should have to actually do the thing that you want to train up (or something related) to train it up.
I do not want to research artifacts to gain sword combat prowess. I want to hack things with a sword to gain sword combat prowess. Now, there are all kinds of secondary stats that support sword fighting. You've got strength, agility, dexterity, balance, perception, etc., etc. These are all traits that can be improved, and should contribute to the player's overall sword fighting skill. (or whatever skills also require these things) These are all also traits that can be improved through other actions outside of sword fighting. You could chop wood or tend crops for strength, you could set up obstacle courses or jumping puzzles or whatnot to improve agility, you can have tasks involving the hands to improve dexterity, etc. But everything should match the skill/stat that it is increasing. More importantly, though, is finding a way to make each of these training exercises fun and engaging. It is boring to stick your character next to an object, click a verb, and watch him go. It is much better gameplay if the training forces the player to actually do something, especially when that is something that they can improve their own ability to control (to improve agility, perhaps there's a minigame where things are thrown at the player, and they need to dodge them; not only does the character get a stat boost, but the player behind the keyboard can also get the "boost" of becoming better and better at playing that minigame; of course, you then also need to scale up the difficulty of your training minigames, to keep pace with the player for a while) | |
Archfiend Master wrote:
*1. Random. Give a rand 1 to 10 every time you gain a level for all stats.No, no and no. I'd never play a game where stat gains were random for all players. The luck of a random roll should never factor into stat gains. *2. You can have a choice in what stat you would want to focus on and as you level up you will gain more in that area. This can be done when you first start, or give you an option to change it in the middle of the game.This is similar to how a lot of games will handle stat gains for different classes. Example: Warriors gain more Strength, while Wizards gain more Intelligence. *3.Make a level up system for every stat. This can be done in two waysThis reminds me of the Skyrim levelling system, which seems to be quite popular amongst gamers. It gives the players the chance to focus on levelling up each skill individually. Though with Skyrim, you have a skill tree attatched to each skill, I'm sure you could work up some sort of variation. *3.Skill will be learn by using them. Let's say you start with a fireball. When you first use it it will take more energy and stamina. The more you use it(as in hit someone with it not just shooting at nothing) You will gain exp with that skill and while you are learning to master it you will use less energy and you will learn the next level of the skill. Just as in the chain as you buy skills but it is done by using it. You learn the first part of the chain from a NPC or at the end of another chain.I think my previous comment sort of applies to this too. *4. Keep the skill points and give them no stats only skill points and let them choose how they want it. But have a stat cap based on your level so you can't poor everything into let's say str and one hit kill people.While this isn't necessarily a bad idea, I've never really been a fan of using skill points to boost my stats. Though I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) Mystic Journey did this, and that seemed to work out quite well. Extensive testing and balancing will ensure that players can not dump all their points into one stat and easily run through the game, though I suppose a cap wouldn't be so bad. Level CapYou mentioned it was a fangame, which a believe most of on BYOND offer unlimited stat/level gains. There is always some apparent agoraphobic insomniac who will do nothing but train for weeks on end until he is at an insane level. I've seen a games entire economic system crumble due to a single player who has mountains of wealth and can easily obtain/create items. | |
Well I mostly hear that I should keep it balance, which is kind of a no brainer. But the question is how. Because it seems that there isn't many ways to do it without holding back a group of people. For example, if there is a level cap the ones who started first will be held back as people who just started are able to reach them, and if there is no level cap then the new people aren't able to reach the few who started first.
But reading this I did get a few more ideas to keep the the strong from being unreachable. Permadeath(kind of) for example there is a level cap but the cap will rise due to a set amount of time. You get a set amount of lives, in the game you can do quest and jobs to gain lives. And if you were to die and have no lives left you will lose half of your stats, skill points, and all your money. This way you play as you life matters and you will always be in reach of the cap and able to keep playing. For training I get the mini game idea, but from what I've played I really don't like watching arrows pop up and me trying to match them and find it hard to see how a puzzle would help anyone get stronger. Yes I understand training should be like real life, and you train in order to fight. But it would end up being a punching bag and push ups. IF anything I can see a mini game like you punch the bag when a hit button pops up on your screen to build your reaction time, the faster you do it the more exp. But it wouldn't really help the game play. Or did you guys mean a different sort of mini game. Well thanks for the ideas that you guys have posted so far. | |
Okay here's a couple more ideas Archy.
The level cap can be around level 250 just for starters if it seems like that's to low i would increase it to 350. The battle factor where perfecting skills through using it is a great idea. I had a bit of idea how it would work. My idea is that at first it does less than the actual damage it should do, but when you get to average level with it, it does = to the amount of damage it's supposed to do then you get to expert with it where it does 10% more damage than it should then Master which does 25% more damage, and takes less power to use it. Or when you use a skill it has a high cool down which gradually gets lower as you construct it, and perfect the skill. The idea with exp being put into stats might need a bit of limitations like say weaker mobs that are easily killed should give a low amount of exp in stats while the larger much stronger mobs give moderate, but not wooo i got max everything. (Of course sounds like something i would do take 500 hours, and reach max level, and get all the stats to completely piss everyone off xD. Oh well. I do support the removing of afkness to support more grinding fighting mobs, but i did however play many games where that was the focus to reach max level sadly i never do cause i end up getting bored so giving another alt to obtaining exp is amazing. Of course i support chain quests (Quest that eventually built up to a bigger cause) that rewards good exp at the end, and just doing a quest like that is exciting. | |
Archfiend Master wrote:
Well I mostly hear that I should keep it balance, which is kind of a no brainer. But the question is how. Because it seems that there isn't many ways to do it without holding back a group of people. For example, if there is a level cap the ones who started first will be held back as people who just started are able to reach them, and if there is no level cap then the new people aren't able to reach the few who started first. Sadly i don't support someone losing things, because of lives. A noob can easily be spam killed for infinite amounts of times, and nothing to stop a capped player from doing so. Then if a noob just afk kill someone or somehow catch them when they're coming from a boss ultimate battle, and i lose so much of my stuff i will be pissed. Extraordinarily pissed. Also i don't mind someone reaching the same level, and possibly become a good challenge. Of course if they start bragging about killing me then we'll have a problem, and i'll have to switch out to my gladiator set of weapons to destroy them which is exactly my next idea. It's used in allot of rpg's. A set of armor/weapons with kinda the same name such as Great ranged sword of the gladiator, and Great Ranged Staff of the gladiator. If all the equipment with the words Great Ranged, and Gladiator is equipped you gains a huge power boost. | |
Read to much of my ramblings haven't ya xD?
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Actually the game Dragon Universe has a way to keep the game balanced. The way they do it is if you die by a stronger person and put out a fight you get zenkai zenkai is when you die by a player stronger then you you get extra power like someone their stats and powerlevel something like that.
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XKingBooX wrote:
Actually the game Dragon Universe has a way to keep the game balanced. The way they do it is if you die by a stronger person and put out a fight you get zenkai zenkai is when you die by a player stronger then you you get extra power like someone their stats and powerlevel something like that. I wouldn't call it "balanced" when new players can be spam killed, binded, permanently injured, or have a bounty put on their head and be shipped to jail for no good reason. Not to mention the other problems with the game systems in general but I digress. Honestly, there can be no true balance. If you don't give players who spend their valuable time on the game some type of advantage then the game will end up losing their attention but if you make it harsh on new players the game could end up only being for hardcore gamers who dedicate their time to being the best at a game and you'll probably lose a lot of casuals. One way to avoid this is somehow helping new players out and giving them the confidence to believe they can someday reach the power of those high level players. You can do this by making protected areas where players under a certain level/rank can't be killed or kill people but instead can train until they get to the point where they are no longer protected. When I look at a lot of pvp games on byond all I can think about is that new player griefing/rage quitting because he is killed by that high level who owned him in one hit. I think it is all about knowing how long to give the player this protection from being killed because if you give it to them too long the game can get boring for high levels and they might end up quitting but if you take it away too soon that new player wouldn't have gotten strong enough to really defend themselves besides running. | |
Honestly, I disagree. Attempts to make the game fair will only open the game up for abuse. Attempts to balance will only result in players all flooding to the most min/maxed build possible.
I think it's about designing a game that has more than one direction for players to pursue, and avoiding boiling your entire game into a series of "metagames". It's really best to offer an environment where people are going to be able to pursue their own goals, than to drive them toward a series of predefined goals. | |
Redrogrin wrote:
XKingBooX wrote: I think what you said is total bullshit if you give a person a safezone of some kind they will abuse it for example: a high level is running to you because you stole cash from him then you hide in the safezone where you can't be injured since you're a lower level it doesn't seem fair at all. That is why DU took away safezones in the first place a lot of people were abusing the safezones to run from problems. Also the game is PVP what do you expect also spam killing is very rare and permanently injured takes off after you died and you can learn how to unbind yourself after you get enough energy and skill points. | |
Whelp... There goes the thread. Was nice knowing you guys.
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Ter13 wrote:
Honestly, I disagree. Attempts to make the game fair will only open the game up for abuse. Attempts to balance will only result in players all flooding to the most min/maxed build possible. +1 | |