Stats and levels need to die in RPG

[emilyek]

If you don't like stats then you are LARPing on your computer.

The original point of the RPG is the 'Role' you play-- as in, the role you fill in a party; as in you are the healer and not a damage dealer.

Moerover, RPGs are (were...I guess) really about geeky number crunching, but with a fantasy gloss-- not this feminine-dramatic-language-game-dress-up stuff.

But OP will probably get his wish, since the RPG will soon completely morph into a lazy, numbers-free cinematic shooter with some dialogue-based choices that result in different story outcomes, which is pretty much the complete opposite of what they began as.

The modern 'RPG' will be as much like a traditional RPG as one man is like another man who has had his testicles removed.

 

[cronos]

I knew there would be outrage from the the current MMORPG crowd. I was concerned about stats being removed at first but after seeing how it would all work first hand I'm not anymore. The reason I posted what I did is I was recently contracted to work for a new MMORPG. I was told it would be something totally different from the current concepts and boy were they right. They plan to announce in June when the final team is complete. I'm not involved in the full project, I was contracted to do some mock ups for that June announcement.

I will not go into who is doing it or what it is based on, I value my income too much for that, but will say I have never seen anything like it. Their monthly fee is steep anywhere from $24.95 - $29.95 but I understand the reasoning behind that fee as they are going to do a lot that has never been done before like replacing most of the NPC with real people not scripts and it also is a one server world which can get costly. If I didn't know the companies involved I would say it was all a bit too big an undertaking but they have the talent and the resources so I think it will happen. Announcement coming June 2010

You could have just said this right at the very beginning, instead of troll-baiting first, but then where's the fun in that, right?

I say bring it on. There's no reason why someone shouldn't try something different like this. I also don't see any reason why the old, tried and true, system has to die completely though. People have different tastes, and options are always good.

 

[coloumb]

If you don't like stats then you are LARPing on your computer.

The original point of the RPG is the 'Role' you play-- as in, the role you fill in a party; as in you are the healer and not a damage dealer.

Moerover, RPGs are (were...I guess) really about geeky number crunching, but with a fantasy gloss-- not this feminine-dramatic-language-game-dress-up stuff.

But OP will probably get his wish, since the RPG will soon completely morph into a lazy, numbers-free cinematic shooter with some dialogue-based choices that result in different story outcomes, which is pretty much the complete opposite of what they began as.

The modern 'RPG' will be as much like a traditional RPG as one man is like another man who has had his testicles removed.

Isn't this basically how the RPG system in Mass Effect 2 works? There are "levels" - but your "level" really doesn't mean much as every enemy seems to be at the same level - your level only allows you to "learn" different abilities.

I'd say a game that represents what the OP is talking about is Stalker COP - there are no levels - you find weapons which can be repaired / upgraded - and you have to test each weapon to see what works best against a certain enemy.

For this type of system to work in an MMORPG - you'd have to get rid of "levels" - which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing - but I think most people like "levels" and "visible stats" so they can show off how big their epeen's are.

 

[BladeVenom]

Didn't call Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth keep the screen free of any stats, bars, and numbers.

I'm for first person RPGs losing the grind, and relying on the actual players improving their skills instead of grinding for the character to gain levels.

 

[Sureshot324]

Didn't call Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth keep the screen free of any stats, bars, and numbers.

I'm for first person RPGs losing the grind, and relying on the actual players improving their skills instead of grinding for the character to gain levels.

Why not just play an actual fps then?

 

[Russwinters]

I have played MMO and ARPG's for a long time, even competitively.

I could talk all day about my views on what would make an awesome MMO, since we are talking about statistics and character progression I can say this:

I would like to see levels dissapear, but stats dissapearing...that would not really be useful.

Like it or not, people in real life basically have stats, while they arn't measured by "Wow, that guy is fast, he must have high agility" We can agree that some people are faster then others, some people are stronger, and some people are smarter at certain things.

Taking away stats would be a step back.

I think the direction RPG's should go has actually been done, just not fully executed.

Skill progression should be based of doing things that would raise that skill like you would in real life.

If you want to be a good archer...then you need to set up targets...and practice aiming...if you want to get better at shooting while on the move...then you need to practice shooting on the move, and your aim will improve.

There would have to be some sort of system in place that only lets you max out so many things, or else everyone would just be a master of everything, and that would be boring imo. If you let everyone be a master of everything then you may as well take away skill progression.


Stat progression would run hand and hand with skill progression, if you perform skills that have to do with strength, then your strength will increase. You could go a step further and to make things balance out, if you attempt to perform a skill that will increase your intelligence...for every 1 intelligence you gain you would lose .5 str, or something. This would force a player who wants to make a str/intel hybrid class have to balance their skill training to make sure they are getting the right amount of str/intel that they want.


That is just one quick idea for character progression, I wont even get into abilities, and gear, etc haha.


These discussions could go on forever, we can all dream that our ideas would manifest themselves, but the only true way to do that is to found your own game studio.

 

[DominionSeraph]

People are always going to want to maximize their characters in an RPG. Only a very dumb game wouldn't require a player to have to know stats.

You have ability, "Scion of Winter." Which is better for your character, the blue icicle-draped Greatsword or the normal-looking dagger?

Hidden stats:
Greatsword has 8 normal +1 cold damage. 50% accuracy on a 2 second swing for your character type.
Dagger has 6 normal. Ignores target armor. 100% accuracy on a 0.5 second swing.
Scion of frost gives 11 points cold per hit.

Dagger does 34 dps.
Greatsword does 5 dps, mitigated by armor.

I'd really rather not have to spend hours doing eyeball estimates on unlabeled health bars to figure out these interactions.

 

[Fingolfin269]

***oh and random addendum: raiding needs to start at level 1

Agree.

 

[crownjules]

If you don't like stats then you are LARPing on your computer.

The original point of the RPG is the 'Role' you play-- as in, the role you fill in a party; as in you are the healer and not a damage dealer.

Moerover, RPGs are (were...I guess) really about geeky number crunching, but with a fantasy gloss-- not this feminine-dramatic-language-game-dress-up stuff.

This is a very literal and silly interpretation. Pen and paper RPGs were mostly a form of collaborative storytelling. Look at how many D&D supplements are centered around stories and ideas versus the rules. Outside of the player's manual and DM manual, there aren't many. Most supplements are about premade worlds, themes that can be applied to any game, new monsters/items/gods/etc, etc. Things that enrich the storytelling experience and give people new ideas.

RPGs were always about the story first and foremost and numbers were used as a rules framework. And because numbers are involved you are of course going to attract players who love to tweak them. Power gamers, or min-maxers, participate in RPGs to create the most powerful character allowed by the rules. Sometimes to the detriment of the other players.

But OP will probably get his wish, since the RPG will soon completely morph into a lazy, numbers-free cinematic shooter with some dialogue-based choices that result in different story outcomes, which is pretty much the complete opposite of what they began as.

If anything, RPGs have long catered to the power gamer archetype. WoW, Diablo, Borderlands, DoW2 - the RPG "elements" in these games are simple stat progression with no actual "role-playing" other than a bare minimal effort to wrap you in some story. Bioware's latest games (ME1/2 and DA:O) are the closest things lately to story and character driven games.

The modern 'RPG' will be as much like a traditional RPG as one man is like another man who has had his testicles removed.

Your post in no way made me think you had any idea what a traditional PnP RPG was like anyway.

 

[cronos]

Is this it?

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=233684

 

[CountZero]

This is a very literal and silly interpretation. Pen and paper RPGs were mostly a form of collaborative storytelling. Look at how many D&D supplements are centered around stories and ideas versus the rules. Outside of the player's manual and DM manual, there aren't many. Most supplements are about premade worlds, themes that can be applied to any game, new monsters/items/gods/etc, etc. Things that enrich the storytelling experience and give people new ideas.

RPGs were always about the story first and foremost and numbers were used as a rules framework. And because numbers are involved you are of course going to attract players who love to tweak them. Power gamers, or min-maxers, participate in RPGs to create the most powerful character allowed by the rules. Sometimes to the detriment of the other players.



If anything, RPGs have long catered to the power gamer archetype. WoW, Diablo, Borderlands, DoW2 - the RPG "elements" in these games are simple stat progression with no actual "role-playing" other than a bare minimal effort to wrap you in some story. Bioware's latest games (ME1/2 and DA:O) are the closest things lately to story and character driven games.



Your post in no way made me think you had any idea what a traditional PnP RPG was like anyway.

RPGs were not always first and foremost about story. They started off as an offshoot of wargaming where folks wanted to make rules for controlling a single character.

Really those earliest modules resembled Diablo more than ME with a loose story that gave the characters an excuse to plunder a dungeon. And the dungeon itself was barely more than a series of increasingly difficult encounters without much rhyme or reason except challenges leading up to the 'big bad'.

These days there are as many or possibly more pnp rpgs that are heavily story driven rather than heavily dice driven. There are plenty of folks that enjoy strategy vs story and trying to mix the two leads to no end of frustration. But to deny that one group isn't really playing a RPG just because it isn't how you think it should be is wrong (and this goes for both sides of the argument).

 

[Juddog]

Everquest tried to do use the "hidden stats" for a while, with developers being very secretive about what the stats did, even going so far as lying in the instruction book on what the stats did. What ended up happening is the statistics guys started writing their own programs to test various aspects of the game and figuring out how everything worked.

It's unavoidable these days. Even if you have a game with no visible stats, people will still be min maxing and running parses to determine the best possible combinations to use.

 

[AstroManLuca]

Everquest tried to do use the "hidden stats" for a while, with developers being very secretive about what the stats did, even going so far as lying in the instruction book on what the stats did. What ended up happening is the statistics guys started writing their own programs to test various aspects of the game and figuring out how everything worked.

It's unavoidable these days. Even if you have a game with no visible stats, people will still be min maxing and running parses to determine the best possible combinations to use.

Another good example is Call of Duty. It's not an RPG but you can still customize your items and the different weapons and attachments have different stats. The game has stat bars (which lie) for weapons and brief, barebones descriptions for everything else.

But I (and many others) have found guides giving the exact statistics of everything. A few people got to testing everything and now we know the REAL stats.

So you're right. It doesn't really matter if they try to hide the stats, people will figure them out. If you really want to de-emphasize stats, there are ways of doing it. I also like the idea of using a certain type of weapon to level your skill in it rather than putting points in it.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

Why not just play an actual fps then?

if i could find a game that was essentially counterstrike with swords and axes, i'd be all over it.

 

[heat901]

if i could find a game that was essentially counterstrike with swords and axes, i'd be all over it.

I remember seeing a mod for HL2 that was like that. Knight and castle or something... its was ok but a mod is a mod sometimes.

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

if i could find a game that was essentially counterstrike with swords and axes, i'd be all over it.

Hexen 3D!

 

[PingSpike]

I would find the learn-by-experimentation game you propose a.k.a. Bourne Identity far less realistic unless you had some sort of plot point that covered why your character suddenly lost their entire lifetime stock of knowledge (amnesia + strange planet?)

Right. Because stuff like amnesia on a strange planet and magically powers that you had to use to see how they worked have NEVER happened in any video game I've played!

 

[Juddog]

Hexen 3D!

By the Duke Nukem team?

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

By the Duke Nukem team?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexen

Nope, but it doesn't have the 3D tag at the end like I thought.

 

[Tiamat]

People are inherently quantitative in nature. They make comparisons based on numbers and it helps them to make decisions faster. Qualitative analysis (without numbers) leads to subjective contests that do not allow one to fully access the capability of an item.

A sword made out of wood, ceramic, iron, carbon steel, titanium, they all have mechanical attributes which can be quantified. I see "stats" as these numbers written down for your own memory (albeit simplified), perhaps given to you by a merchant when you are comparing them.

A treatment of a blade that does "+5 dmg" is simply just a relativistic point of view so that you can gauge the price/performance of other treatments that do "+2 dmg" or "+10 dmg". Most people do not understand quantifications in pure mechanical/chemical engineering lingo, so gamers simplify these terms to very simple terms that still hold a similar proportional quantification.


An example: I go to a sports shop to pick up some golf clubs. Naturally, the sales man has the clubs lined up from "entry level" to "pro" left to right in his store. For some people, that breakdown is good enough. For me, I want to know the material properties of the clubs, the weight balance, types of polymers used for the grip, etc. and I can forge my own quantitative analysis.

The stats and levels of standard RPGs (there are some RPGs out there that have even finer gradations or do away with them) is a dumbed down version of real quantification of material properties for the general mass of people.

I agree that leveling a character in an RPG is a thing that is more game than realistic. I think that more RPGs should begin to have a more active leveling system depending on the actions you do (some games do this on a partial basis). If you are swinging your sword to kingdom come, I'm thinking your strength is gonna increase and your ability to swing the sword improves. If you are reading a ton of books, I think your knowledge (wisdom) increases. If you run around the map rather than taking a horse, I think your endurance is gonna increase... etc.

 

[PingSpike]

Hexen was 2.5D, doom engine. Hexen II was true 3D though. A little old now I'm afraid.

Anyway, back to OPs idea. As this thread has no doubt shown you, stats and number crunching have by tied to the idea of an RPG computer game for so long that they have become the definition of the genre. That, along with grinding out to get ever better and more magical uber gear that has higher stats. One can argue that this actually represents a strategy game and that the role playing game name is just a ruse, but its really just semantics at this point. As you can see though, people have a pretty rigid idea of what an RPG is.

You made an incorrect assertion in your OP: Are people walking around with test dummies and slicing them and recording how they work? They ABSOLUTELY will do this. Stats are a part of the game, and knowing them is part of the game.

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

Hexen was 2.5D, doom engine. Hexen II was true 3D though. A little old now I'm afraid.

My "suggestions" were clearly made tongue-in-cheek, hence the

 

[Modelworks]

Is this it?

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=233684

no comment

 

[blurredvision]

Hmmm, I liked the OP's ideas. A lack of stats and numbers would be refreshing.

 

[mooncancook]

Stats are fine and needed as they are. Imagine you pick up an one-handed short sword and a two-handed axe, you know the sword has better attack while the axe has higher damage, but by how much? Since you don't want to test your weapon during a real battle, you'll find a tree or sth to test your weapon. You estimates the attack speed visually by how fast the weapon can be swung, and judge the damage by how deep the weapon cut into the tree. With the sword you'll also test thrusting damage. Imagine doing these kind of tests for every weapon you pick up. You'll need to test the armors too. I think these kind of tedious things are just novelties and actually distract from enjoying the game. I rather see that the axe does 10 damage while the sword does 5, though I don't know what precisely it means, I can expect that on average the axe does twice as much damage as the sword, while the attack stat might tell me that I can expect the sword to have a much better chance of landing a hit.

Even in real life we have a lot of stats too. Like the weapon stats in Jagged Alliance, all real world guns comes with stats like range, firing rate, ammos, weights, length, reliability, accuracy and damage, etc, and these stats are very important in picking the right weapon for the job.