Developers Corner

Last time I posted a thread about my unamed steampunk game idea, now named Tin Law :P

A lot has changed since then, the tech, the mood, the lore, the setting, and gameplay.  I am also not going to post it all in one thread, it was a little overwhelming.

So this time I am just going to post about stats and skills.

Stats

Every player character has 15 points to distribute between 3 stats, Body, Mind, Heart, the slots do not do much by themselves but they can be filled with training, which is the strength of stats.  No one stat can go above 10 or below 1.

Body - can be filled with power, critical, attack speed, endurance, recovery, regeneration, etc.

Mind - can be filled with recall, range, accuracy, device efectiveness, hold, cool down, etc.

Heart - can be filled with charm, intimadation, taunt, fear, lie, willpower, buff, debuff etc.

Skills

Player characters can have 100 skill points total, they start with 10, ready to be distributed between the starter skills. You can respec later.  When you get a new skill you can put 1 to 5 points in it, these points, like stats, open slots in which training can be placed.  In skills training's effectiveness depends on its respective stat.  You can only use one specific training once per skill, but you can use training from any stat group. 

EX. 

Skill: Power Attack - 5pts

Power (+damage)

Quickness (+attackspeed)

Weakspot (+damagevsblock)

Anatomy (+rending)

Mocking (+taunt)

So with 5 points in power attack this sample build includes 2 body training for a little more damage and speed, 2 mind training for better guard penetration and a bleeding effect, and 1 heart for a localized taunt effect.

Training

To get training you have to do achievements.  These achievements are like Xbox achievements in that you can do them anywhere at anytime as long as you meet the requirement.  These are not about grind so much as they are about playing well.  When looking at the training page, an individual training achievement would look something like this.

Might (+criticaldamage) - execute 30 players or NPCs LOCKED

or

Might (+criticaldamage)

if you have it unlocked.

So any thoughts, not enough customization? too much? too confusing? whatever.

ohh yes mate, i like your ideas, but Players shouldnt not be allowed to see when or how they can unlock the skill, it is still premade hwat u have to do, but to do it in way i feel its good is well...

lets use yours example

Might Skill, u need to execute 30 players

I love that part, well then we dont show players how to do, we hide it and then when the player achive it we start a timer of 15min. and suddenly out of nowhere the player gets message

"You have mastered Might Skill, open you abillity tab to place it on you action bar"

or something like that (action bars ? YES, I have love for WoW)

and my oppinion about the stats and all, its my feeling that we dont wanna start with something, all should start a 0 in everything, like an ordinary "idiot" and buildt up from there, that what its all about for MMORPGs

Hiding the requirements may be a good idea, it wouldn't completely stop people from figuring out the requirements for a certain training but it would help, maybe if they didn't get access to the skill till they restedor a timer like you said.  This would put a dent in metagaming, hopefully.

The thing about stats though is that everyone starts with 15 and that number never increases, at the start players have all 100 skill points, they can only fill up 10 from character creation.  Health and energy too do not increase they are 100 for everyone.  The reason I do not want to make players earn more stats or skill points is because it lends itself to grind and it would fragment players based on slots and points.  I am trying to focus on balance where new players are not really any worse than veterens, they are just not as well customized.  So that may have some objection to the general MMORPG community.  So instead of progression I am going more for customization via training and gear.  This is important when considering the stat and skill system.

ahh yes yes, keeping veterans and newbs on basicly same level, but then where is the advacement?

I mean i would love to get out there and do some grinding, but it could be like real life you know

You built stats, and then if you dont use it, your stat lowers on a weekly basic, that would be working out a high rule for each ppl, It migt be it, we will never get around the grind, becase u will have to grind something at some point, u can expect to get everything served on a silver plate

I can use some of this acctually, i know u read my bits of ideas about a combat system, a grind system to keep your stats up will be good, but the combat system, will still allow new chars. to beat veterans if the dammed player have the"gift" , hm hmm

idd say maybe starting out as a "noboddy class" then choice Class and then train the skills u need for the class, though being the class.... sounds like Oblivion without leveling, basicly

I read your steampunk post too, very interesting read indeed.  For example:

3 – Your knowledge page lists all your training currently in use, you can have access to more training than you can use in your current knowledge build, to use it you have to free up memory by “forgetting,” some of your other knowledge.  It is also important to note that knowledge is not skills.  Knowledge does not determine how good you are at doing anything, it just gives you access to different actions, the player determines how good they are at things.  Knowledge could be anything from anatomy, useful to doctors and assassins alike, to mechanical physics, which is useful to both mechanics and fighters. Some knowledge or combination of different knowledge gives you access to different actions, which can be hot-keyed to your 1,2,3,4,5,… keys.  There will not be specific knowledge like “make a sword,” or “special attack,” I want the knowledge to be general techniques like “edge making,” or “leverage,” and then let the player figure out how they want to apply the knowledge.

Now, are Knowledge and Skills still different things?  Or was that part revised?  From what I understand, your revised Tin's Law was that Training improves Skills as "add-ons" onto the Slots of the skills, the amount which depends on the amount of points invested intot that skill (5 points = 5 open slots).  The Training, likewise, have a specific stat associated with it, which is a generalization of the attribute/type that it holds, correct?  Am I understnading these right?

Oh, and why did you name it "Tin's Law"?

Yeah I changed the terms, I figured instead of learning new words and such I would stick to jargon people were familiar with, so knowledge became skills.

The old way I had it was where training was seperate from knowledge, knowledge deteremining what abilities you had and training altering how they controlled a bit. So in the old system if you had a +damage training you had +damage for all abilities. Also abilites depended on the combination of knowledge and training, for example to mix chemicals you needed chemistry knowledge, and mental training to make it more effective, chemistry knowledge also effects metalergy. 

The problem with the old system was there was too much bleed over with knowledge, to the point where trying to specialize was next to impossible, after all anyone with chemistry knowledge can mix chemicals, metalergy, make gunpowder, medicine, poison, etc. you see my problem.

Now I decided to make the training a part of skills, this way you can alter each individual ability rather than altering all the abilities in the same fashion.  So you can do + damage on one skill and maybe +slowdown on another, influence CoH. I still have the broad form of alteration called stats, so under your Body stat for example, say you have 6 body, you have six open slots that you can fill with training, this is like the old system in that training put directly into the stats themselves effects all of your abilities, but it isn't as effective as it would have been in the old system.  Also skills are more specific, a smelt skill seperate from chemistry skills and such, to promote specialization.

The name Tin Law goes with the new feel of the game, the old one was too dark and depressing, so I wanted to spice up the world a bit, the new direction is more lawless, like the wild west, don't think it is a cowboy game though.  And in the wild west law was enforced by citizens and volunteers, done by their own fighting ability, these voluteers, sherifs, worn tin stars as a symbol of their earned authority.  So Tin Law describes how law is enforced in this game, by the players, I am steering away from army vs army and going towards individual communities being protected by volunteer player forces fighting other more chaotic player gangs.

To Thunderhead

I am not doing classes actually, I figured just let players develope skills and have titles rewarded thus, I guess you could say they are given a class name depending on their skills and deeds, not given skills depending on their class.

Something else I wanted to do differently was advancement, I am balancing stats, skills, and gear, meaning statistically there isn't really any flat out better option, it is relative to how you like to play, so that players do not win on numbers alone.  I guess training does add more numbers, but it is pretty small actually, training won't dramatically change anything.  Gear is balanced as well, meaning statistically no armor or weapon is any better than another, but they all are balanced differently, and finding your ideal gear can be tough.

Advancement in my idea comes in the form of options: unlocking more skills, more training, more clothing, as well as building and owning more things.  All of which although are not needed to play the game are useful in customizing your experience.  Putting advancement as a secondary and in essential part of the game does avoid the grind a bit, though like you said not entirely, and makes advancement more fun in my opinion.  The main source of grind I forsee, is missions, not doing mission after mission to advance like WoW, but having to retry them a few times when you fail.

I did think of a system that allows for some atrophy of skills, don't know if it is any good mind you but, when you use skills and gear repeatedly you gain proficiency, a high proficiency will boost the skills effectiveness or the gear's stats, minor mind you, when you don't use them they will lose proficiency and you lose your bonus, so you have to use them often to keep up your bonus.

Another thing I want to do differently is the focus of the game, RPGs now center around the character, making the player more passive, I want to focus on the player, making the character just a tool of the player, and is another reason I want to avoid numerical hierarchy.  In most RPGs the difference between one characters damage and another could be 100% to 300% mine is more like 5% to 10%, a noticable difference but not something that will make you automatically win fights.

Sorry to shamelessly bump myself, trying to get more responses

Does anyone find this coherent,  and better yet actually useful for developing a character?

Hey CactusmanX ^^

Sorry, for not being here, had suff to do

about not doing classes stuff, i like it at first reminds me of Oblivion, but then the term of ppl will pick the best from all parts of the game to form their char. found on net, tho i do like the whole free thought... I asume we are using same Game Combat system that we posted earlier on about ? with that it could become awesome.. but a thing is the balance will get raped big time, coz lets face facts some ppl are better than me ^^ (Yeah i knowit suck)

as in a Tinlaw Game with a Player Skilled System, th