I’m trying to figure out a system that doesn’t revolve around EXP, and know few action-based games that doesn’t depend on it
Does anyone happen to know of any action-like games, 2d or 3d, that feels rpg-ish without the level-grind?
Why I’m trying to get around the EXP thing, I don’t want people to just grind their way through, I personally feel it’s boring and a waste of time
what kind of combat? guns or swords, or fists?
the Rocksteady Batman games are well regarded for their combat system. also Mount & Blade is one of my all time favorites. both seem to fit your needs
with playing the Batman games, I also know they put in an EXP system and you leveled gear, which is what I want to avoid. Giving the player a choice of gaining EXP in anyway just gives them an excuse to grind to get ahead…and I sort of found the Batman system to be clunky…like most Western developed games
my works is revolved around a 6 character cast, each vary (this is why I brought up saying rpg-ish)
and I also wanted to make the battle more interactive, like the system used in Legend of Dragoon, but improve on it with timed guarding. I just don’t want EXP, but I know that would need to be replaced with another form of level progression so players feel they are improving
if it wasn’t for the 6 character cast, I would’ve done for more of a Legend of Zelda approach. If I purge the cast (I already removed 2 from the playable characters) but I don’t think I can purge anymore due to me wanting to keep this focused on character and story development
EXP is just a label for a scoring stat. Attach that scoring stat to reward table and now you have a functional score/reward mechanism. Its no different then back in day, when players were rewarded extra character life when reaching a specific score. Arcade Games had a single scoring stat called POINT, today games have borrowed from RPGs providing several score/reward mechanisms with character attributes, skills stats, weapons stats, etc.
The problem here isnt EXP, its the reward table requiring larger values to dish out an award. The amount of time it takes to increase this value is Grinding. To eliminate Grinding is to reduce the amount to time it takes to reward the player. However, to keep the player engage for decent duration without running out of rewards is the challenge, requiring more content to consume. The content is produced by you the developer, unless you provide tools for the player to create within your game.
So in conclusion, the solution to Grinding is providing in-game tools for the player create themselves an infinite amount of content to consume.
that honestly doesn’t sound like a solution, more like lazy design. I’ve played those open-world games where you can do so much stuff (like GTA games), are the most boring games I’ve ever played. They try so hard to put so much into the game, but master nothing about it, they just do it to make it seem like it’s worth the $60
Its not lazy design, in fact the very opposite requiring more planning in the design. I failed to provide an example of a creation tools or mechanisms. A small example of a creation tool is character customization, allowing the player to modify their characters appearance to their desire. The more options provided, the more creative the player can be with customizing the character. Being able to easily create is very rewarding, its one of many reason Minecraft was extremely successful. But if you dont find creating things rewarding, you will not find value in implementing creation tools/mechanisms in your game.
Another possibility to deviate from the standard ‘EXP’ score/reward model, may be to implement even a greater number of score/reward mechanisms, lets 100s or even 1000s of them. I call them micro-stats, and its a concept that went into the design of my game’s attribute system. Here’s the base RPGAttribute Blueprint → https://arcadekomodo.com/home/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/MEDALLION-32x32.png for the implementation to review.
and I can’t do that, nor will I. My character are per-made with fleshed out personalities and backgrounds. I hate games with customizable characters because how it negatively effects the story telling (in other words, makes it bad as the character talk at you or around you, ignoring you), so no way I’ll do it myself
Sorry I didn’t mean to offend. lol. Ok, no creation mechanisms. But after reading:
My train of thought on this, is to offer more than just combat to offer more than just EXP. The question is how can we put the 3 Classes to use in a non-combative way and take advantage of their different skillsets, offering the player other ways to improve. There are single player RPGs offering crafting and resource management elements.
you know, I wasn’t sure how it would work…or if it could, I was thinking like battle partnerships. You pair up a melee with a mage and they guard each other. Melee of course would take physical damage, mages with the magical damage. And you have to time the switch right or it won’t happen, and follow it up with a guard/parry/counter whichever work
and you didn’t offend, it’s just…I’ve played many lack luster games where you craft your characters, or at least on the Japanese game side (the writing it just so bad), I haven’t had much interest on the western side, but I hear Mas Effect doesn’t do that because they write dialogue for the main, instead of keeping him/her silent
thanks for the link, has me curious to find a game that’s an RPG based on skill (having no level-up system, but still have progression in skills) because if the enemgy level matches your character level, it’s pretty much the same effect of having no level in the end