/games/ - Games

>>29482
Morrowind and Oblivion had the right idea in that rather than just using only fixed classes, they allow you to create your own and all classes do is tag what skills will get a startinng boost and advance your character's growth. Otherwise, there are no restrictions and you are free to try archery as a Battllemage or wield axes and heavy armor as a Thief and eventually even become proficient in them, but without level up.bonuses.

I enjoy freedom to buildcraft, so either classless of multiclassing options. But of course then the balancing becomes much greater issue. If game systems heavily incentivise focusing on one playstyle, then for all practical purposes you might as well have classes, while letting player be master of everything like TES undermines player choice.
Recently I played Pillars of Eternity 2 and really enjoyed the character building there. Lot of options for what you want to be, and virtually all of them are viable, as opposed to something like Pathfinder, where thinking outside of the box means shooting yourself in the foot.

>>29487
Yeah, multiclassing good. Like, in Grim Dawn finding synergies between classes and their skill sets is half the game's fun.

I prefer classes in RPGs but skill systems don't bother me that much. I always had a fascination for Ultima and those games don't use classes.

I've used skill trainers to advance skills, but i think there should be less of them with lower level caps. The good thing about morrowind leveling is that grinding involves using the skills and skill trainers can advance a skill proficient enough to become useful in combat or crafting.

>>29487
>letting player be master of everything like TES undermines player choice.
Most angband-likes i've played make each class very distinct, not only because leveling is usually slow. Spellcasters cannot wear gloves and get penalties from AC and hybrid classes like paladin get less experience and don't receive some abilities of the pure classes.

These restrictions do however make classes feel linear. You could adapt this to a TES-style class builder by spending character points on abilities that lift restrictions, for example casting in heavy armor, learning spells in schools other than mysticism or sneaking in heavy armor. You could also provide "class discounts" i.e. not being able to learn destruction spells gets you bonus points in restoration.

The producer for Fallout and Arcanum posted a video today that talked about things I hadn't considered. Rather than giving experience on skill use (or per kill) he prefers to award it through quests, since it's easier to make quests with multiple approaches when you don't need to worry about whether players using one approach/build are getting more experience than if they used another approach.

>>29487
>If game systems heavily incentivise focusing on one playstyle
I think the thing is that computer games based on the Pathfinder or D&D rule sets will inevitably favor one play style or another. Once the combat encounters, skill checks, terrains, and other specifics are set in stone, the whole game can be reduce to a math problem for which an optimal solution can be found. Personally it frustrates me a bit when the community around these games inevitably focuses on number crunching rather than role playing. Of course this problem is not so severe in the tabletop versions of these games because the GM and the players can tweak campaigns (even on the fly) to suit their play style and characters. So while in Pathfinder Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous some classes and builds are definitely not viable, some immersion of the setting and campaign are preserved.

Skill based advancement makes the most sense done in the TES way where actually using it levels it. Class-based games are usually defended more on the basis that you get specific features related to that class in parallel to the skill system, but that can be handled in other ways. It usually works better with the story if it is - where does your character get the training that unlocks those new abilities? A lot of systems just have you get them automatically and abstract away how that works even more egregiously than happens with experience granting you levels. There should be some in-world reason why you learn things like an improved barbarian rage or can start casting higher level spells. And those are all things that can be tied to quests or some kind of social economy (like getting someone to train you).

>>29743
>since it's easier to make quests with multiple approaches when you don't need to worry about whether players using one approach/build are getting more experience than if they used another approach.
But if there's an easier way to do the quest using different skills, it makes sense that it would reward less XP. The quest reward should be the quest reward, treasure, story progression, etc. The XP should be the gameplay reward. Finding an easier way to beat something should get you less XP since the character got less experience, but they get to enjoy the intrinsic reward with less effort or in less time.

>>29482
classless and point buy system for peak min-maxing and emergent gameplay. the problem is that game designers always try to cover the rigidity and poor design of their games' mechanics with pointless restrictions or even narratives imagine reading game dialogs lmao
many of the big roguelikes got it more or less right: even when there are classes, they are vessels for different game mechanics so the limitations actually make sense. I can't stand modern RPGs because they all feel boring and pretentious, professional developers are not even trying anymore

>>29766
If you can't even be bothered to read dialog then sorry that the RPG genre moved on from endless dungeonwank.

>>29743
The producer for Fallout and Arcanum posted a video today that talked about things I hadn't considered. Rather than giving experience on skill use (or per kill) he prefers to award it through quests, since it's easier to make quests with multiple approaches when you don't need to worry about whether players using one approach/build are getting more experience than if they used another approach.
That's not so novel anon, it is a common tabletop thing, as it allows for even distribution.

>>29765
>Finding an easier way to beat something should get you less XP since the character got less experience
Then you might as well cut out the easy/clever options, since players won't bother seeking them out.

>>29482
What matters is if the combat is fleshed out. Build design is secondary, if the primary combat system of any type is missing features or it’s badly designed from its foundations, it doesn’t matter what build you make, your gameplay experience is always shit and most fights will likely end the same way.

>>29775
I didn't mean to imply it was new, just something I hadn't considered before.

>>29777
You can offer rewards other than XP. You can even build-in costs incurred as the flipside of earning XP (like depopulating an area affecting its economy) that automatically rewards the clever solutions in other ways.

>>29743
This is what immersive sims do because it doesn't require you to grind enemies to progress and it makes variable playthroughs perfectly viable.

MMOs and RPGs should EITHER prioritize class OR prioritize levelling, rather than prioritizing both. WOW is an example of prioritizing both and what ended up happening is that both the classes and levelling experience suffered because both were intrinsic mechanics of the game. A game like morrowind otoh prioritized levelling and any class you pick at the beginning does nothing but influence your starting skills in certain magic schools or combat skills. A game like tf2 prioritizes class and barely has levelling at all and therefore has great pvp gameplay where strengths and weaknesses are what you need to understand to gain skill as a player.

>>29817
I’ll expand on this. It’s better any RPG has its progression focus on at most, two connected systems of its progression, because it prevents feature creep and improves accessibility of that game. Like you said, WoW is a fucking monument to what happens if a game dev tries to include every system at once at the same time, the games so over bloated with systems and features tied as core components to its progression that it’s unapproachable for both veterans after a break and new players. Admittedly those systems aren’t hard to learn, but they become a headache to manage mid to late game. Worse having too many systems alienates players from the world they’re in, because they’ll end up spending more time thinking about their build than the time they actually spent playing through the game. Seriously look at how many max level characters wow vets have on their accounts but don’t give two shits about talking to any generic npc about their day, or their experiences with any encounters, dungeons or low level raids. It’s hard to take those kinds of things seriously when your first concern is how long it’s gonna take before you get your next skill points.