Heroes of the Clan

[dsheroh]

Maybe people do not see the differences while leveling up and that might be discouraging. They just see a number but do not know the formular that is used in battle.

Yes, that's exactly the problem that Nox is talking about.  The formulas aren't visible to players, so the natural tendency is to assume that progression is linear.  "Oh boy!  I just leveled!  Now I get to... increase two out of 14 stats by one point each when they're all up around 500?  WTF?  I just went up a level and my overall ability increased from 14,000 total stat points to 14,002 - a whole 0.03%?!?  What's the point?"

Rescale the inputs to your formulas if you have to, but the player-visible numbers must provide the appearance of meaningful progression when you level.  Seeing big increases in your stats that are actually meaningless behind the scenes will tend to give you happier players than seeing tiny increases that actually move mountains in the background.

Of course, it would also be nice to provide some actual context to the numbers...  Does a Melee Skill of 500 mean you have a base 90% chance of hitting or a base 10% or what?  And how much does Dodge 150 reduce the chance of being hit?  Etc.

I do have ideas though to let people feel that something happens while leveling up but it's
not in the game yet but it is improvements to some of their five skills when they reach certain levels.

Not good enough, for two reasons:

1)  Players want to feel like something significant happened every time they gain a level, not only "when they reach certain levels".  Personally, I think mainstream MMOs have gone too far with this (when you level in City of Heroes these days, you get an instant full heal (including a free rez if you're dead), plus 50% buffs to attack, accuracy, and defense, 30% buff to damage resistance, and near-immunity to all crowd control), but that's what most players want.

2)  If you try to address this only by putting in occasional skill enhancements, it still won't do anything for the "why do I have to waste my time putting two meaningless points onto my stats?" issue.

There are more things than just the stats you improve, you also get better and better gear.

Erm, yeah, about that gear...  Doing a Solo Adventure earlier today, my Ranger found a pair of boots that gave +5 to Range and Melee Skill.  That's nice and all, but, again...  "Why should I care about bothering to level when I can just randomly find items that instantly increase my abilities as much as going up five levels?"

I have noticed that things that yourself as a programmer take for granted that people would have no problems with they have. I guess that, among other things, is what makes the difference between an experienced programmer and quite a rookie like myself.

Nope, that never changes.  You will always be the worst person in the world at usability-testing your own code. 

[Sagefire135]

Dont get me wrong, i do like the idea of keeping players from being ridiculously over powerful. i also like realistic aspects in games like...if a person gets stabbed with a sword once, they might be ok; if a person gets stabbed with a sword 10 times, they are dead...period. i really dont like how HP in games can easily get up to the 100,000's either. if a person goes to the gym for a day they will gain some strength, yes. if a person goes to the gym for a year, they will also gain strength, but not 365x as much as they got in just the first day. and if they stop going, they are going to lose strength, thats just how it works.

Its things like that they irritate me, so like i said before...this is an amazing game, because its alot more realistic. my problem is not with how things work, its how things appear to work. I dont mind a very slow rate of advancement, but i do want to notice the advancement happening.  what dsheroh said pretty much nails it.

. . .
 "Oh boy!  I just leveled!  Now I get to... increase two out of 14 stats by one point each when they're all up around 500?  WTF?  I just went up a level and my overall ability increased from 14,000 total stat points to 14,002 - a whole 0.03%?!?  What's the point?"

Rescale the inputs to your formulas if you have to, but the player-visible numbers must provide the appearance of meaningful progression when you level.  Seeing big increases in your stats that are actually meaningless behind the scenes will tend to give you happier players than seeing tiny increases that actually move mountains in the background.

Of course, it would also be nice to provide some actual context to the numbers...  Does a Melee Skill of 500 mean you have a base 90% chance of hitting or a base 10% or what?  And how much does Dodge 150 reduce the chance of being hit?  Etc.

and it wouldnt hurt actually make the progression faster instead of just making it appear faster.

[saljutin]

yeah Sage but its easier to make game where strength just adds -> train 10 times = strength+10*StrengthGain
but some people manage to use really good formulas (f(x)=x^1/2) or something to define more normal growth but at the end majority of players doesnt like such system and you got a game with 50 "fans"

[Sagefire135]

yeah Sage but its easier to make game where strength just adds -> train 10 times = strength+10*StrengthGain
but some people manage to use really good formulas (f(x)=x^1/2) or something to define more normal growth but at the end majority of players doesnt like such system and you got a game with 50 "fans"

of course its easer that way, but why does it have to work like that at all? surly there is more than one way to code a gym, right? but why stop there? does leveling up always have to give you more HP? does leveling up always have to be a function of experience gained from npcs? when you battle do you have to deal huge amounts of damage to win? does a shield always have to add defense, or can it provide a chance to block attacks instead? why doesnt a plate mail armour usually give you a speed penalty? why doesnt a dagger give you a speed bonus? WHAT exactly is the deal with gold as a primary currency?! i could easily go on and on and on.

gamers and game makers have this mindset that everything must work the same from game to game...but it doesnt have to always be like that does it? just by changing a few things you get TOTALLY new ways of playing a game. given the choice between playing a cookie cutter bbrpg made from an open source script and playing a game where you dont even level up at all, which sounds more interesting?

[lindhsky]

Some good points, thanks.

I do not agree with everything but when I say that I do it as a gamer myself, not a game-creator. Still I am not the kind of gamer that many are and that holds me back a bit when I try to change things in my game, because I do not have to reach max level fast like many gamers have to. I do not have to max some stats as fast as possible. I love to work on my characters over a long time and see them grow. I love when there are no end. If I put 2 points into a stat I know that I am 2 points better and that is enough for me. I am not more happy because a game-creator transforms those 2 into 20 or even 200. I do not have to know every calculation and formular in games. But like I said, I am like that and have been in a lot of MMORPGs I have played through the years. In Warhammer Online I ran around with one of the best guild on the server with the worst piece of crap on my character doing PvP. I did fine and had fun but when people inspected me they were laughing. I am just trying to describe how I am as a gamer and why my game is shaped the way it is at the moment. But you're right - there are more people wanting to feel process and want it fast. And the people playing my game are more important than myself when it comes to things like that. 

But I really see your points and I am saving a lot of your suggestions and advices. So thanks all!

 

[incarnate]

Yes, that's exactly the problem that Nox is talking about.  The formulas aren't visible to players, so the natural tendency is to assume that progression is linear

How is the stat progression linear? You can choose what stats to add to...

Your game was a nice surprise to me and it has a lot of potential. There is a lot of fine tuning and kinks to work out, but I hope you stick with it, because it looks promising so far. I like the % system for skills and think you should keep it that way (perhaps we'll see conditional activations later?), sometimes I can't help but feel patronized when I'm playing some dumbed-down version of a good concept. It's almost comical how other's are commenting on how flawed the progression is when not even a week has passed. Personally, where some people miss it, I think some of your ideas are spot-on.

A few things I'd like to see:
- a cleaner battle results page, it's a bit cluttered as is, and hard to read
- couldn't find a logout button anywhere.
- explanation somewhere on stats

It was great to see something creative and something that wasn't a cookie-cutter game for once. It's amazing for a first try and better than a lot of the other crap people put out. I'd love to trade button links with you.

Cheers

[dsheroh]

yeah Sage but its easier to make game where strength just adds -> train 10 times = strength+10*StrengthGain
but some people manage to use really good formulas (f(x)=x^1/2) or something to define more normal growth but at the end majority of players doesnt like such system and you got a game with 50 "fans"

"Easier" to think up (as in "you can design it that way without having to think"), perhaps, but not significantly easier to code.  Here's the actual stat gain code from my game:

Code: [Select]

  $self->gain_rank($roll->xp / $self->full_rank) if $roll->xp;
where "$self" is the skill being used.

Granted, I'm not using a level-based system.  You have a chance to gain xp in a skill each time you roll the skill, but, if you do, the increase in skill is divided by the current skill rank, which slows progression as you get better and is still dead simple.  In your example, this could either be implemented the quick-and-dirty way as "train 10 times = strength + (10 * StrengthGain)/strength" or (if you don't want to essentially provide a bonus for doing occasional big training sessions over lots of small ones) "train 10 times = for (1..10) { strength += StrengthGain/strength }".

Yes, that's exactly the problem that Nox is talking about.  The formulas aren't visible to players, so the natural tendency is to assume that progression is linear

How is the stat progression linear? You can choose what stats to add to...

I was talking about the progression of increased capability as the stat increases, not overall character progression.  i.e., Most people will assume that a Melee Skill of 1000 is twice as good as a Melee Skill of 500.  Under that assumption, increasing a stat by 0.2% (e.g., from 500 to 501) is, for all practical purposes, utterly meaningless.

Whether the formulas used behind the scenes are actually so non-linear that going from 500 to 501 is the difference between "can't hit the broad side of a barn" and "can catch a fly with chopsticks while blindfolded" isn't terribly relevant because, unless you reveal the formulas, players will see "number went up by a meaningless amount" and assume "capabilities went up by a meaningless amount", which most will find unsatisfying.  (Even if the formulas are revealed, many players will still walk off in disgust without bothering to find out whether 500-to-501 actually does anything or not.)

[Nox]

incarnate > here we go again, right how dare we express our opinion!

How do you know you won't find the cluttered combat result better after weeks?

On top of that noone criticized long-term flawed progression, we're discussing the immediate visible effects, aspect we see and feel *now* ...and honestly I want to get enjoyment from the game from the start, not hope it will be better after weeks....wouldn't you agree?

How is the stat progression linear? You can choose what stats to add to...

How the progression curve even remotely relates to being free to chose stats to improve?

[Chris]

does leveling up always have to give you more HP? does leveling up always have to be a function of experience gained from npcs? when you battle do you have to deal huge amounts of damage to win? does a shield always have to add defense, or can it provide a chance to block attacks instead? why doesnt a plate mail armour usually give you a speed penalty? why doesnt a dagger give you a speed bonus? WHAT exactly is the deal with gold as a primary currency?! i could easily go on and on and on.

Because we (players) are familiar with that. You get exp to level up, level up gives you HP and some points to distribute among stats/skills. Armours reduce speed because these are heavy. Daggers do not add speed, magic boots add it, in all fairy tales it works this way.
I would dislike a game that put it upside down for the sake of "originality".

I do agree with gold, more use of silver and copper coins would be nice

[jannesiera]

We know you see every game as a standard rpg, Chris, but there are enough successful games that do it differently. I completely agree with Sagefire.

[Nox]

On one hand - it is of course wrong to change thoughtlessly every possible aspect for sake of originality

On the other hand - if you make a concept that is focused on something and original yet logical - and interesting and fun, than it's very good

And the more logical it is, the easier time making it understandable you'll have
So in the end, players won't have a problem to like it

Take Hypemaster's idea for example - one of his main focuses is that you don't get any experience points, you only levelup and that's only upon death, which is interesting and on top of that well supported and explained by the game's plot so it's logical....and it's interesting, original and entertaining

[incarnate]

incarnate > here we go again, right how dare we express our opinion!

How do you know you won't find the cluttered combat result better after weeks?

On top of that noone criticized long-term flawed progression, we're discussing the immediate visible effects, aspect we see and feel *now* ...and honestly I want to get enjoyment from the game from the start, not hope it will be better after weeks....wouldn't you agree?

Um, because one minute is enough to draw conclusions on something static like the results page, but three days is not enough to comment on character progression or concluding stat changes as insignificant. You want him to change the stat system, but you maintain you weren't criticizing progression? Uh huh.

It's fine to have opinions, but how can you draw them so quickly on something long-term like character development? Especially, if we're assuming stat effects are non-linear (I don't recall the op stating this exactly though).

[Sagefire135]

I actually find the results of battles to be very useful. seeing the order of actions, the damage being delt, the abilities being used, how often heroes dodge and miss, ... you can get a damn good idea of what the other teams stats look like and how they have their abilities set up. if i know the enemy hero has 75% into a skills that lowers my AR, i can make sure i have a hero boosting my AR back up. if they have a high single damage hero, i can make my cleric and druid focus on single hero healing. if they have a bunch of wizards casting spells damaging everyone, i can focus on group heals. if you take the time to actually read through everything and try to get into the opponents mind, it makes beating them that much easier. it may look sorta messy at first, but its rich in information.
it might be a good idea to move the final result table up to the top though, that way you can immediately see the overview and not have to scroll if thats all you wanted to know.

on the stat system. if i have a weapon dealing 1-15 damage, 500 strength, fighting someone with 50 armour, and i only do 13 damage that is all the info i need to conclude 500 strength doesnt mean a large increase in damage. that being said, i can also say that adding an additional 10 points to strength is going to have such a small effect that i probably wont even notice it. i can clearly see how HP is calculated, and the OP said i was right there, health/10 is your HP, so putting 10 points into health increaces my HP by 1. it took me 7(i think, i have 14 at level levels to get 10 points to use though, so from level 1 to 7 my HP isnt able to change, and when i can finally change it, i only gain 1 HP. 1 HP for 7 levels isnt alot and i can still get beat by a level 1 player which is disheartening. i know that ill be getting more training points as i level, but right now, there is no significant difference in stats between a level 1 player and a level 8 player. none of this is guessing, the numbers are doing the talking here. when i get up to say, level 10 i should be able to find the formula for stat points per level. then ill be able to draw some more longterm conclusions about stat progression

EDIT: i spoke too soon, a quick glance at points at a few different level says you get 2 points per level (at least on the lower end). so every 5 levels allows you to add 1 HP, the difference between a level 1 and a level 40 character is 80 points or 8 HP (or +80 to another stat, which as i pointed out above is probably not going to be all that noticeable) and a all the various skill upgrades. with no extra equipment it is not unreasonable for a brand new hero to beat a level 40 hero. This is a little extreme dont ya think?

[incarnate]

I see what you're saying but I don't have a problem with it. Level 8 is reached pretty fast, and I like how higher levels doesn't equate to an automatic victory, but rather a small advantage. That said, the classes need balancing.

[Nox]

Then I would suggest that levels have some non-combat advantage

Um, because one minute is enough to draw conclusions on something static like the results page, but three days is not enough to comment on character progression or concluding stat changes as insignificant. You want him to change the stat system, but you maintain you weren't criticizing progression? Uh huh.

It's fine to have opinions, but how can you draw them so quickly on something long-term like character development? Especially, if we're assuming stat effects are non-linear (I don't recall the op stating this exactly though).

Okey, I guess we were both on different track

What I was focusing on was that OP (as I understood) hinted that 0.2% increase has actually higher influence then this, so I (and others) suggested that since presented and real value is different, than he should make the presented value at least as high, or possibly higher, than the real value, rather the other way round....so static thing

[incarnate]

Fair enough, after more playing though I think the bigger problem is the balance in the game. Especially 1:1 battles, there just seems to be too much luck involved. OHKOs are very possible and it's just something that tends to make setting up tactics moot. I like group battles a lot more but I can't find it available anywhere other than dailies.