-
Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.
"This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.
Are there any RPGs that implemented skill improving by using, in a decent manner?
- Thread starter kaizoku
- Start date
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2011
- Messages
- 814
No levels. The right way with raise by use systems.
In all seriousness, there are probably games out there. But I always find levels to be a really weird combination in systems where you raise skills/stats by use. It feels a little redundant IMO.
The whole point of levels is to give the player noticeable steps where they are able to develop and progress in how they build their character. You level and you up certain skills, or get a new ability, etc. But with a raise by use system, that's completely integrated in the player's natural progression of skills. So, what's the point? A focal point to design challenges around?
DraQ
Arcane
"Has been done" in no way follows from "can be done".
Also this. Levels are shitty artificial construct and cause more trouble than they're worth.
Raghar
Arcane
- Joined
- Jul 16, 2009
- Messages
- 22,916
Do you mean improving by using?
kaizoku
Arcane
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2006
- Messages
- 4,129
Not sure if I understood correctly.
You're saying that no game has ever done it in a proper form. But that it is possible to do so. Is that it?
Yeah... I knew the thread title was somewhat looking weird. Fixed it.
Thanks
Raapys
Arcane
- Joined
- Jun 7, 2007
- Messages
- 4,960
I've always liked level ups, at least with complex character development systems. Improve-by-use systems tend to be somewhat boring since the 'jumps in power' are small and linear, sometimes not even noticeable, and you usually end up having to artificially repeat an action lots of times to actually improve the skill. Which is realistic, but doesn't make for great gameplay.
Wise Emperor
Arcane
Jumpty jumping jump in Morrowind.
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2011
- Messages
- 97,793
Maybe we should first make a list of all RPGs that used this kind of system. There actually aren't that many.
Betrayal at Krondor?
Quest for Glory?
Ultima 8?
(that actually improved stats directly, there were no skills)
Betrayal at Krondor?
Quest for Glory?
Ultima 8?
(that actually improved stats directly, there were no skills)
kaizoku
Arcane
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2006
- Messages
- 4,129
Hence the reason for this thread.
Maybe some game implemented a mechanism of decreasing return of experience. The idea would be to make grinding useless.
Example: kill 1 goblin, get 20xp. kill another goblin, get 18 xp. (edit: for the appropriate skill that was used to kill them)
Gregz
Arcane
"skill improving...decent manner"
Not a well-formed question, kinda open ended.
The Dungeon Master's "skill" system (attribute system) was improvement through practice, which I think is what you are asking. I found it fun.
Wasteland also improved player skill through skill use (repetition) alongside leveling which improved stats and HP, although repetition could be exploited using the in-game macro system.
Telengard
Arcane
For it to work in a computer game, there are a few issues that need to be conquered:
1. Many computer games concentrate on the use of a few skills, eventually making those raise the highest, so no matter what your character starts out being, they all end up the same in the end. ie, it's hard to stay a bard in a completely combat oriented skill-based game.
2. In a skill-based system, on a computer, you never know what power level the characters are going to be. In PnP, the GM can know what the characters are ahead of time at any given moment. In a computer game, in a level-based system, a 4th level character is pretty much a 4th level character. But in a computerized skill based system, you'll never know where the characters are going to be at. So, if you want to put in a challenging encounter half-way into the game, you're pretty much guessing as to what's going to be challenging - unless you implement some kind of control system, or the dreaded level scaling.
3. Skill spamming raises the skill just as much as proper use of the skill.
Betrayal at Antara attempted to fix these by putting in a max rank per chapter.
Jagged Alliance attempts to fix it by making the skills few and raising them really slow and rare.
Quest for Glory attempts to fix it by making the skill raises the point.
Dungeon Siege attempts to fix it by making all skills combat skills.
Bringing in P&P
Chaosium & Runquest let you checkmark each skill used during an adventure once and once only. Then at the end of the adventure, you roll to see if those checkboxed skills go up.
A few older games in a similar vein let you use your intelligence to raise skills that didn't get used during the adventure.
1. Many computer games concentrate on the use of a few skills, eventually making those raise the highest, so no matter what your character starts out being, they all end up the same in the end. ie, it's hard to stay a bard in a completely combat oriented skill-based game.
2. In a skill-based system, on a computer, you never know what power level the characters are going to be. In PnP, the GM can know what the characters are ahead of time at any given moment. In a computer game, in a level-based system, a 4th level character is pretty much a 4th level character. But in a computerized skill based system, you'll never know where the characters are going to be at. So, if you want to put in a challenging encounter half-way into the game, you're pretty much guessing as to what's going to be challenging - unless you implement some kind of control system, or the dreaded level scaling.
3. Skill spamming raises the skill just as much as proper use of the skill.
Betrayal at Antara attempted to fix these by putting in a max rank per chapter.
Jagged Alliance attempts to fix it by making the skills few and raising them really slow and rare.
Quest for Glory attempts to fix it by making the skill raises the point.
Dungeon Siege attempts to fix it by making all skills combat skills.
Bringing in P&P
Chaosium & Runquest let you checkmark each skill used during an adventure once and once only. Then at the end of the adventure, you roll to see if those checkboxed skills go up.
A few older games in a similar vein let you use your intelligence to raise skills that didn't get used during the adventure.
- Joined
- Jan 6, 2012
- Messages
- 3,876
No. Never has, never will. That's why class based systems are king, and skills should only be imrpoved by pumping in skill points you get at level up.
Jagged Alliance 2 I thought did a good job of it.
SwiftCrack
Arcane
- Joined
- Oct 3, 2012
- Messages
- 1,836
Final Fantasy 5 has a job system which would 'level' with JP next to character level which would level with EXP. No gain stats by using factor.
Final Fantasy 2 has a 'increase by using' system though; http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Final_Fantasy_II (it's also considered one of the worst FF games, so take that how you wish).
sea
inXile Entertainment
- Joined
- May 3, 2011
- Messages
- 5,698
The problem with any skill system that rewards skill use directly is that it becomes prone to abuse. Effectively you have to have a limit, either hard or soft, on how often the player can use skills or at least how much XP is distributed to them.
One way to do it is to track how often the skill is being used and provide diminishing returns, so if the player is jumping around to boost athletics, eventually you'll hit a brick wall where it's more trouble than it's worth to do so.
Another way is to simply limit the amount of times the skill can be used successfully in the quests and gameplay themselves. Stealing is easy to level up in Skyrim because you can steal anything from anyone and get XP... but that's only the result of having lots of random crap in every NPC's inventory. Get rid of that stuff and suddenly leveling up stealing becomes more interesting simply because only certain NPCs will have things worth stealing. The same obviously applies to say, respawning trash mobs and combat skills.
Yet another way to do it is to put a cap on how often the player can raise skills before performing some other task. For instance, you could stop all skill leveling after the player has leveled X number of times, until the player goes to get a night's rest at an inn.
A "softer" way to handle it is to reward skill synergies more than skills themselves. Let players get a boost to their stamina by leveling up heavy armor, one-handed and two-handed weapons, etc. and now the player doesn't need to grind one particular skill to get what he or she wants. Same goes for different types of magic all providing boosts to teach other. If you balance this right you won't feel the need to grind one particular thing, though it doesn't necessarily stop all grinding period, just diminishes the incentive to waste time doing it. This is more realistic than being great with daggers but useless with swords, as well, and still lets players specialize in one thing but remain decent at other skills, without simplifying skills down to the basics.
One final way to do it is how Fallout did it - add a global time limit or some other impending event that prevents the player from just standing around and grinding skills. It doesn't have to be "lose the game if you take too long", but could be, say, a time limit on one particular quest, and if the player misses it then they have to repeat it again. In Fallout, a lot of skills took time to use (and raise via books) so before that time limit was rendered moot halfway through the game, there was a concern that grinding might be counter-productive.
Even so, just about any leveling and progression system can be broken when you have an infinite way of gaining whatever currency the progression system uses. Doesn't matter if you have per-skill levels or not, if you can gain XP repeatedly then one way or another, players will try to exploit it.
One way to do it is to track how often the skill is being used and provide diminishing returns, so if the player is jumping around to boost athletics, eventually you'll hit a brick wall where it's more trouble than it's worth to do so.
Another way is to simply limit the amount of times the skill can be used successfully in the quests and gameplay themselves. Stealing is easy to level up in Skyrim because you can steal anything from anyone and get XP... but that's only the result of having lots of random crap in every NPC's inventory. Get rid of that stuff and suddenly leveling up stealing becomes more interesting simply because only certain NPCs will have things worth stealing. The same obviously applies to say, respawning trash mobs and combat skills.
Yet another way to do it is to put a cap on how often the player can raise skills before performing some other task. For instance, you could stop all skill leveling after the player has leveled X number of times, until the player goes to get a night's rest at an inn.
A "softer" way to handle it is to reward skill synergies more than skills themselves. Let players get a boost to their stamina by leveling up heavy armor, one-handed and two-handed weapons, etc. and now the player doesn't need to grind one particular skill to get what he or she wants. Same goes for different types of magic all providing boosts to teach other. If you balance this right you won't feel the need to grind one particular thing, though it doesn't necessarily stop all grinding period, just diminishes the incentive to waste time doing it. This is more realistic than being great with daggers but useless with swords, as well, and still lets players specialize in one thing but remain decent at other skills, without simplifying skills down to the basics.
One final way to do it is how Fallout did it - add a global time limit or some other impending event that prevents the player from just standing around and grinding skills. It doesn't have to be "lose the game if you take too long", but could be, say, a time limit on one particular quest, and if the player misses it then they have to repeat it again. In Fallout, a lot of skills took time to use (and raise via books) so before that time limit was rendered moot halfway through the game, there was a concern that grinding might be counter-productive.
Even so, just about any leveling and progression system can be broken when you have an infinite way of gaining whatever currency the progression system uses. Doesn't matter if you have per-skill levels or not, if you can gain XP repeatedly then one way or another, players will try to exploit it.
No. As long as we are talking about single player games it's not the skill system that is the problem; it's the players who abuse it.
The biggest problem is in games like Morrowind. If you were dumb/naive enough to have Running, Shield and any Weapon skill as major skills in Morrowind and then the game elevates you to demigod levels of power mostly from running from place to place (which most players do to speed things up) and from fending off cliff racers. That is surely a broken system when you have to pick your least used skills as majors just in order to prevent your character from being too powerful too early.
I guess the problem with Morrowind was the mix of skills and character levels.
Morkar Left
Guest
From the top of my head:
Jagged Alliance 2 - you could abuse but UI never felt the need for it and waisting time on it.
Magic Candle - basically not possible to abuse because time is ticking away and enemies need time to respawn.
In general I prefer Levelbased systems for crpgs. They are more rewarding and can't be abused that much. A combination of both is nice, too; skills getting better by use and training while attributes get higher on levelups and some perks/traits as additional candy.
Jagged Alliance 2 - you could abuse but UI never felt the need for it and waisting time on it.
Magic Candle - basically not possible to abuse because time is ticking away and enemies need time to respawn.
In general I prefer Levelbased systems for crpgs. They are more rewarding and can't be abused that much. A combination of both is nice, too; skills getting better by use and training while attributes get higher on levelups and some perks/traits as additional candy.
The first Lands of Lore game had a very simple version of this sort of progression. It might have been present in further games in the series, but I never played them. As has been mentioned, Quest for Glory also did this well. TBH though I don't love the system from a design standpoint, as it inevitably introduces a grind-factor into a game. If someone could figure out a way to make the skill progression more compatible with the speed of progress in the game itself, that would be a very interesting system.
sea
inXile Entertainment
- Joined
- May 3, 2011
- Messages
- 5,698
Fight more dudes = level up combat skills
Cast lots of magic = level up spells
Steal lots of things = level up stealing
Obviously you would need to adjust skill level XP gain to compensate if you made those sorts of changes, but if you limit the potential for grinding in the level/world design then the typical Elder Scrolls "skill training" problem disappears.
Another potential hybrid system that worked well: Fable has you gain different types of XP depending on what sorts of combat skills you use. Avoids the "grind combat, become a better talker" problem while also not making it necessary to grind one specific skill to get good at it.
Looking at Morrowind, and alchemy in particular. One of the more broken things about it was the availability of reagents in the shops. You could buy them, make potions, and sell for profit. And then repeat ad infinitum.
Ignoring the broken potion mechanics themselves, this illustrates sea's point about the number of times you can use a skill. If you can only get reagents from killing monsters, or the shops don't replenish, it might fix one of the issues of alchemy (becoming a master alchemist without leaving town). You can then apply this logic to other skills.
One thing I haven't seen anyone mention is the degree of success. In most of these games you can grind skills in situations where you have no chance of failure, or ignore the difficulty requirement.
You shouldn't be able to become a master swordsman by slaying rats (or anything that has no chance to defend against you) over and over, nor should you be able to become the greatest healer by casting a "heal 1 health" spell over and over. Or level dodge to the max by encountering some rats and going to sleep, leaving the game going.
I don't really think it's up to the player to not abuse the system, rather that it's up to the developer to make it not so easy to do so. There was literally no point not jumping around in Morrowind unless you didn't want to "overlevel" (a separate issue entirely) nor casting 1 sp spells to train your spell casting skills as you ran around. I think the majority of players don't set out to abuse a system, but when it feels like you're limiting yourself to avoid doing so, there's a problem.
The other thing people have brought up is the issue of levels. If the character system is skill based with skill increase on use, then why have levels at all? It should be your skills and stats that define your character. Having a level is just a meaningless artifact of a different character system (xp-based).
Ignoring the broken potion mechanics themselves, this illustrates sea's point about the number of times you can use a skill. If you can only get reagents from killing monsters, or the shops don't replenish, it might fix one of the issues of alchemy (becoming a master alchemist without leaving town). You can then apply this logic to other skills.
One thing I haven't seen anyone mention is the degree of success. In most of these games you can grind skills in situations where you have no chance of failure, or ignore the difficulty requirement.
You shouldn't be able to become a master swordsman by slaying rats (or anything that has no chance to defend against you) over and over, nor should you be able to become the greatest healer by casting a "heal 1 health" spell over and over. Or level dodge to the max by encountering some rats and going to sleep, leaving the game going.
I don't really think it's up to the player to not abuse the system, rather that it's up to the developer to make it not so easy to do so. There was literally no point not jumping around in Morrowind unless you didn't want to "overlevel" (a separate issue entirely) nor casting 1 sp spells to train your spell casting skills as you ran around. I think the majority of players don't set out to abuse a system, but when it feels like you're limiting yourself to avoid doing so, there's a problem.
The other thing people have brought up is the issue of levels. If the character system is skill based with skill increase on use, then why have levels at all? It should be your skills and stats that define your character. Having a level is just a meaningless artifact of a different character system (xp-based).
Excommunicator
Arcane
- Joined
- Oct 19, 2010
- Messages
- 3,524
I've never seen a use-based system implemented to my satisfaction, or in a way that came close to the sense of satisfaction I got from manual levelling and point allocation.
I used to almost idolise the intuitiveness and connectedness that a use-based system offers, but the more I learnt about game design, the more and more I realised what a flawed system it is when implemented as the dominant character progression method. It can certainly be implemented quite well as a way to support manual allocations, but only in a minor way.
For the record, the system used in the likes of the Gothic games (and Ultima 7 too) I find as the least satisfying form of character progression there is. It takes the lacking sense of progress that you get from a standard use-based system but the major advantage of the use-based system (do this -> get better at it) isn't there, neither is the major advantage of the allocation system (get the points -> spend them however you want). It makes some sense from a realism point of view, but it really takes the fun out of gaining skill points in my opinion because then you have to go traipsing around the damn countryside for some hermit who may or may not teach you what you want and after he does you probably won't notice the difference anyway. I like the M&M way of trainers - teach the skill initially and the "elite levels" but all the point allocation is done manually whenever and wherever you want.
On another note, the use-based system of Oblivion combined with its mindless level scaling certainly made me feel a lot worse about the game than Gothic ever could. I remember trying to make an archer with archer type skills but all the non-combat skills levelled me so fast that I was stiill fighting as a level 5 or whatever character but all the spawns were max level daedra and such. I ran through every Oblivion gate without killing anything to close them all up just to see that utterly disappointing ending (which I had been told was good, hence my rush to it). What a bad experience
I am looking forward to DraQ's system though. I assume he has already done most of the work that such a system requires. I wonder how well it will work out
I used to almost idolise the intuitiveness and connectedness that a use-based system offers, but the more I learnt about game design, the more and more I realised what a flawed system it is when implemented as the dominant character progression method. It can certainly be implemented quite well as a way to support manual allocations, but only in a minor way.
For the record, the system used in the likes of the Gothic games (and Ultima 7 too) I find as the least satisfying form of character progression there is. It takes the lacking sense of progress that you get from a standard use-based system but the major advantage of the use-based system (do this -> get better at it) isn't there, neither is the major advantage of the allocation system (get the points -> spend them however you want). It makes some sense from a realism point of view, but it really takes the fun out of gaining skill points in my opinion because then you have to go traipsing around the damn countryside for some hermit who may or may not teach you what you want and after he does you probably won't notice the difference anyway. I like the M&M way of trainers - teach the skill initially and the "elite levels" but all the point allocation is done manually whenever and wherever you want.
On another note, the use-based system of Oblivion combined with its mindless level scaling certainly made me feel a lot worse about the game than Gothic ever could. I remember trying to make an archer with archer type skills but all the non-combat skills levelled me so fast that I was stiill fighting as a level 5 or whatever character but all the spawns were max level daedra and such. I ran through every Oblivion gate without killing anything to close them all up just to see that utterly disappointing ending (which I had been told was good, hence my rush to it). What a bad experience
I am looking forward to DraQ's system though. I assume he has already done most of the work that such a system requires. I wonder how well it will work out
As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.