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- Sep 23, 2019
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How do you decide how many weapons & armors to include in your game?
I’m not talking about weapon types but about the amount of say different swords the player can find throughout the game.
I’m really struggling with this lately. Since I decided to complete the database as much as possible before starting to event, I was putting some thought into this stuff and recognized that I played a lot of games which handled this kinda badly.
Let’s take the Witcher series as an example:
In the first part of the series, you will get your hands on three different armors. They are increasing in strength and don’t differ in any other way, so you won’t ever have to think about which one is the best to use. The first of them is given to you right at the start.
This very small amount ‘ruined’ the mechanic for me. Why making this piece even equipable, if the player will do so just two times, throughout several dozens of hours of playtime? Why even include them? The protagonist could also just use the same armor all along, since you just get the other armor at some kind and equip them without a second thought.
The third part of the series takes this to another extreme, but with the swords: Every bandit you kill drops a sword, there are hundreds of smuggler’s hideouts & hidden treasures and every one of them offers at least one sword and they are all different.
The sheer amount of sword available ruined every excitement about finding a new one, since I knew I would use this for like ten minutes, before finding the next. Also, since there are so many, the differences in power became incredibly small. It just doesn’t feel much like an achievement if you switch your 300 damage weapon for a 302 damage weapon.
(Don’t get me wrong by the way, I love these games)
So those are the extremes. How do I find the sweet spot in the middle?
Of course, this depends heavily on the kind of game you are making, but even if your games are totally different from mine, I still would like to hear about your experiences as a player and a developer.
To tell you something about the game I am asking this question for, it’s not revolutionary if it comes to equipment: The actors will level up and get higher stats, so will the enemies. Weapons are there to increase some of these stats and take advantage of other: A sword will raise your ability to attack, to parry & to counter, while the damage is calculated through attack & strength. A pistol needs time to reload and is not that useful for parrying, but it will give you a very high attack bonus and won’t need strength to calculate damage.
Most actors will be able to choose between 2 to 4 different kinds of weapons. Different kinds of weapons deal different kinds of damage that’s effective against different types of armor.
Right now it takes 15 to 20 hours to level up to level 20 (I try not to include grinding in my game, all this happens throughout the story).
So, after all this talk (sorry for that) how frequently would you let your protagonist find a new weapon during this time?
Since there are different ways to acquire a weapon in my game that I wanted to be represented I just counted them at first:
However, this is the first of five arcs, which would let us to 40 different swords in the whole game. Multiplied with the amount of different weapon types there might be half a thousand in the end.
Is this to much? Is it not much at all, for a game of this length? I have no idea x.x
Do you know of any better way to calculate stuff like this?
I’m not talking about weapon types but about the amount of say different swords the player can find throughout the game.
I’m really struggling with this lately. Since I decided to complete the database as much as possible before starting to event, I was putting some thought into this stuff and recognized that I played a lot of games which handled this kinda badly.
Let’s take the Witcher series as an example:
In the first part of the series, you will get your hands on three different armors. They are increasing in strength and don’t differ in any other way, so you won’t ever have to think about which one is the best to use. The first of them is given to you right at the start.
This very small amount ‘ruined’ the mechanic for me. Why making this piece even equipable, if the player will do so just two times, throughout several dozens of hours of playtime? Why even include them? The protagonist could also just use the same armor all along, since you just get the other armor at some kind and equip them without a second thought.
The third part of the series takes this to another extreme, but with the swords: Every bandit you kill drops a sword, there are hundreds of smuggler’s hideouts & hidden treasures and every one of them offers at least one sword and they are all different.
The sheer amount of sword available ruined every excitement about finding a new one, since I knew I would use this for like ten minutes, before finding the next. Also, since there are so many, the differences in power became incredibly small. It just doesn’t feel much like an achievement if you switch your 300 damage weapon for a 302 damage weapon.
(Don’t get me wrong by the way, I love these games)
So those are the extremes. How do I find the sweet spot in the middle?
Of course, this depends heavily on the kind of game you are making, but even if your games are totally different from mine, I still would like to hear about your experiences as a player and a developer.
To tell you something about the game I am asking this question for, it’s not revolutionary if it comes to equipment: The actors will level up and get higher stats, so will the enemies. Weapons are there to increase some of these stats and take advantage of other: A sword will raise your ability to attack, to parry & to counter, while the damage is calculated through attack & strength. A pistol needs time to reload and is not that useful for parrying, but it will give you a very high attack bonus and won’t need strength to calculate damage.
Most actors will be able to choose between 2 to 4 different kinds of weapons. Different kinds of weapons deal different kinds of damage that’s effective against different types of armor.
Right now it takes 15 to 20 hours to level up to level 20 (I try not to include grinding in my game, all this happens throughout the story).
So, after all this talk (sorry for that) how frequently would you let your protagonist find a new weapon during this time?
Since there are different ways to acquire a weapon in my game that I wanted to be represented I just counted them at first:
- The story gives them two you
- You find them
- You buy them
- You craft them
- An enemy drops them
However, this is the first of five arcs, which would let us to 40 different swords in the whole game. Multiplied with the amount of different weapon types there might be half a thousand in the end.
Is this to much? Is it not much at all, for a game of this length? I have no idea x.x
Do you know of any better way to calculate stuff like this?