Chess is a very simple game and yet it is very diverse in the ways it can play out. The RULES in chess are simple, but when you are actually playing chess, you will find that it quickly becomes very strategic (depending on who you are vs'ing). Therefor, a simple game can be both. | |
Spuzzum wrote:
But it randomly selects from a hard-coded set of pieces. If Tetris had randomly generated pieces every session, it'd be a lot more complex. With Tetris generating random pieces would give the exact same end result, since the hard-coded pieces make up every possible 4 square combination. | |
With Tetris generating random pieces would give the exact same end result, since the hard-coded pieces make up every possible 4 square combination. Yes, but what about 3-piece tiles? 5-piece tiles? 6-piece tiles? 3 piece tiles could make tiny bars or angles, 5-pieces could make anything from a cross to a T, and six pieces is even less predictable. That's my whole point. (Plus I don't much like the original Tetris, either. Gets boring way too quickly.) | |
Lazyboy wrote:
Chess is a very simple game and yet it is very diverse in the ways it can play out. I know that, but he did make contradictory statements; he stated that chess was a simple game, then said that the game itself wasn't simple just because the rules were simple. =P And I don't even like Chess. Not random enough for me. ;-P | |
Spuzzum wrote:
[snip] [snip]I hate simple things -- they can entertain me for a while, but I can only truly be engaged in something that has nearly infinite diversity and unlimited possible ways it can play out. I'm a subscriber to the "simple complexity" idea... I believe that it is possible for a simple thing to be complex and vice versa... Sure, if you want to argue semantics and pure technical definitions, then this is an impossible contradiction... However, if you think of it more loosely, it is entirely possible... The example given of Chess is a good one... Chess is a relatively simple game in terms of rules... It has a limited number of pieces, that each have a very specific and simple method of being moved... The game also has a very simple goal... Yet, Chess is by FAR not a simple game... It is extremely complex... It is made of simple parts, but it is a complex whole... Simple complexity... Another example I like to use is the video game Super Smash Bros... The game's controls and objective are extremely simple...even among the fighter genre... I mean, there are only two attack buttons, that can only be varied slightly by combining them with differing directional movements... There aren't a huge number of moves that can only be accessed through memorizing lists of button presses ("like half-circle towards, high kick", or "up, down, up, down, low punch") like most other fighters... And there's only one way to win: knock your opponent off the board... Simple... Very simple... But is SSB a simple game? Not in the least... If played well, it becomes an extremely complex experience... Simple complexity... | |
You like roguelikes, don't you? heh Somehow I knew you were going to point this out. Roguelikes would annoy the heck out of me except for the simple reason that they are turn based and everything happins instantly. I can easily create my character and be in the dungeon in less than a minute since I've gotten so good at memorizing all the menus. So it's not frustrating at all to lose a character early on, because it's quick to get back in the game. In a more realistic game like the one you were mentioning getting back into combat would take a painful amout of time since you'd probably want to simulate that it's hard to move around with a damaged leg. But I do get frusterated with rougelikes. Whenever I lose a character that I've been playing for a week or so I do tend to stop for a month or so before getting back in. So are you saying that chess is simple, or that it's complicated? You basically made two contradictory points. =P The rules are simple. The gameplay is simple. Winning against a good chess player is not :). But it randomly selects from a hard-coded set of pieces. If Tetris had randomly generated pieces every session, it'd be a lot more complex. You have to eventually set the constraints for your randomness. It wouldn't be much fun to lose instantly since the game decided to generate a tile that was 65,000 tiles tall and wouldn't even fit within the map. The constraints ot the randomness were set to be appriopriate for the game. I'm sure for gameplay reasons you're also going to restrict the randomness. You aren't going to randomly decide in your game that it should take two tenths of a second to five hours to make a move are you :)? [Edit] And you want to limit your random success/failure such that there is an insignificant chance of loseing if one side is much more overpowering than the other. I was just in a game of incursion where the odds favored me and I should have atleast caused a criplling blow to my opposition but after a long string of bad rolls I ended up losing the game in the next few turns. My stratagy wasn't faulty just my dice rolls. This is very annoying as my crippling attack quickly turned into my decisive defeat. | |
I think the best way to limit powerplaying is to have a game that's completely focused on socialization and not at all on skill or item gain.
However, I don't want to play one of those games, I want to play a game oriented around skill and item gain. And as others have said, powerplaying is just going to happen in those games. But you can limit how far ahead the powergamers can get. I think a learning system such as MLAAS has is a pretty good one, where it costs more to learn a skill the more you have. And you can control the rate at which the cost increases. MLAAS I think makes it so every time you learn a skill it costs 1 more point per rank. But you can very well put in exponential curves to shape your player base. This idea isn't ideal, but no idea is ideal here. No one in the gaming industry has ever come up with a way to slow down power gamers without hurting the normal gamers too. It just can't be done. People play at such vastly different rates; your ideal player may play 5 hours a week, your power gamer 40 and your casual gamer 1. Even a seemingly simple solution -- make it so that past 5 hours a week, combat gains you very little exp -- has problems. What about your ideal players who have exams one week and can't play, but want to catch up during the break? Well, they can't, sorry. Only 5 hours of exp per week allowed. Change it to 20 hours per month? More flexible, but it also allows your powergamers to shoot ahead, cause trouble, get bored and leave. So the point is there is no magic bullet. What you choose will always have drawbacks. We see the same problem with any system designed to keep oldbies from outfitting newbies with gear... any restriction on giving or buying/selling impacts legitimate giving, buying and selling. Plus, as someone else (Spuzzum?) said, if you put level restrictions on items, that's one more pound of pressure on people to powergame, get up to the next level so they can use this uber sword. One somewhat draconian way to prevent gearing up newbies is to separate players of varying levels into classes; say a class with level 1-5, one with level 6-15, and one with 15 up... people can only trade/give items and money, cast at, or attack people in their own class. (This will also prevent most newbie-killing. Until people figure out they can use non-targetted spells to do it.) Z | |
Spuzzum wrote:
(Plus I don't much like the original Tetris, either. Gets boring way too quickly.) I agree with you a hundred percent, but that is us not the game. For some a simple speed increase and the thrill of a rising tower threatining all you've worked for is enough to keep their attention for hours. | |
Each day, a person will be allocated 1 "advancement point," and 2 of these points on weekends. The advancement point, essentially, allows a player to gain 1000 experience points, gain one level, or any good stuff like that. So, as you level up / gain experience, you use up your advancement points. New players would start off with a good deal (10-20) of advancement points, in order to get them started off, since they are most likely starting the game when they have a bunch of free time.
Once you have used up all your advancement points, everything is X times slower. 10 times is a good number. As an added bonus, you could drive advancement points into the negative, at a 1.05 to 1 ratio (every time you gain 1000 experience or gain a level, you lose 1.05 advancement points, if you don't have any remaining). This quite handily deters powergaming, without provoking huge inverse-powergaming powergamage. Get it? But, what of those casual gamers who don't use all their advancement points? Well, the answer is simple: allow them to be trained by other players. The trainee will give up one advancement point, and the trainer one half of an advancement point, and the result will be the trainee gaining all the benefit of the advancement point. Now that I think about it, 20 advancement points per day (40 on weekends) with each having 1/20th the effect would work out to easier math, but I'm too lazy to change it. Oh well, that's my idea. | |
I agree with you a hundred percent, but that is us not the game. For some a simple speed increase and the thrill of a rising tower threatining all you've worked for is enough to keep their attention for hours. The whole point of most of the older arcade style games is not to get rewarded by a cheesy ending or cutscene it's to try and get as high of a score as possible before you inevitably lose. It's all about bragging rights which you don't get in most games today :P. [Edit] And since it's been brought up my best run in the gameboy version of tetris was level 21 with 210 lines :). | |
I dont know if this was suggested, but why not just add a level requirment to equipment and items.
so if Joe (level 100) gives Jim (level 5) and level 80 sword, Jim cant use it until he is at least level 80! | |
Shades wrote:
I dont know if this was suggested, but why not just add a level requirment to equipment and items. Because that encourages Joe to find the quickest way to get Jim to level 80, even if it includes cheap tricks and hacks, so he can use the sword. And if easy enough to acquire, screws over legit Jim's. | |
Make it really hard to powergame by making mega hard skill levels to achieve
Make it so one player cant get skills from another Make it so it in some way costs money to train (by making them by arrows, or have to get there sword/whatnot repaired from a blacksmith every so often). Finally, if all else fails, make a REALLY crummy game and you wont HAVE to worry about powergaming! | |
Currently I'm using a class-less, level-less system based on skills.
Each skill has a rating of 1-10, and a difficulty of 1-5. Equipment has a required skill to use (ex: A rapier requires MELEE or the SWORDPLAY specialization). Some even have a minimum skill level to use, although those are not common. The cost of a skill is equal to it's rating (1-10) to the power of the difficulty. Most combat skills are difficulty 5 (to discourage combat wombats). In other words, to buy MELEE level 10, a player has to pay 100,0000 CP Characters gain CP (character points) by performing quests. They also get a small amount for every given time unit they are online, something like 1-2 pts for every hour online. Combat gives no CP. Not entirely realistic, but again trying to limit combat-wombat powerlevelling. The only way to gain CP is in the above ways, or an event staff awards you some for an event. Unfortunately, there is no way to completely limit powergaming. There will always be some edge that can be gained by the avid player over the weekend player. The best you can do is try to limit that advantage without hampering gameplay. | |
Combat gives no CP. Not entirely realistic, Yeah, and everyone's quick to point out how "unrealistic" this, but on the other hand, how realistic is it that the main/quickest/only way to become a better priest, thief, merchant, or whatever is to kill a hundred orcs? :P I like the time-based approach as the main way, at least if the focus of the game is meant to be on developing a character and not developing a series of statistics. | |
Combat should only advance certain characteristics rather than none at all. If you fight, you shouldn't get experince so that you could become better with, let's say growing potatoes.
[edit] this is just my opinion | |
I did consider that. However, since I am not keeping track of experience gained towards specific skills, I found this to be the best solution. And I do not plan to change to the way I handle XP (or CP).
However, not to worry. There will be plenty of combat oriented quests. And some that aren't, that will have the option and/or requirement of combat. The CP and money rewards for performing those quests will be far more than if you had just gone out and killed random monsters, were I to give out CP for combat. Ex: The city is infested with rats. The ratcatcher will pay you for each rat you bring to him. If I gave CP for combat, each rat would be worth around 3-5 CP, and possibly a crown or two. The quest, however, is worth 7 CP and 10 crowns per rat. Basically, you can still be a combat monkey and advance, but I'm enforcing a semblance of storyline by making you take on quests. Anyway, thanks for input :) | |
Illiania wrote:
I'm working on a rpg and I'd like suggestions or ideas on limiting or at least slowing power playing. I was considering a mandatory time period that must pass between trainings or something. Also wanting a way to prevent high levels from just giving everything to newb..they need to start from bottom too Back in the old gaming days... Sierra used to make nice storybook games with stats. The thing you can use to force the users into the storyline is to make them complete tasks or quest before they can advance. Also by combining multiple tasks and quest you can lead up to a bigger over all goal that plays well into story line. For the giving new guys stuff... you should just put stat and level restrictions on various armors/weapons/items. Also class/player type restrictions force a player to play more along that role. LJR | |
Maybe to you. To me, it'd be extremely fun and engaging.
I won't bother refuting the analogies. =P
You like roguelikes, don't you?
So are you saying that chess is simple, or that it's complicated? You basically made two contradictory points. =P
But it randomly selects from a hard-coded set of pieces. If Tetris had randomly generated pieces every session, it'd be a lot more complex.