Importance of Literal Equipment

[Alexander Amnell]

   I've been working on battles and balance a lot recently and one thing I've been considering is the importance of having legit equipment such as weapons, armor headgear and shields and such. Now obviously in a game where you are wandering around fighting people or monsters the characters are going to have equipment like that on them, however I find myself wondering how important it would be to actually have a large array of it in game. Would it bother you if you played a game where the characters kept the same armor and weapon throughout the game and you had to rely on other factors such as buffs and stuff to enhance your character to get an edge rather than always browsing around for the next new equipment.

   As I try to balance my game I find myself being tempted to do away with the convention of equipment all together. One of the reasons that I believe this will work is I'm utilizing an alchemic potion crafting system that gives you powerful items that you can use before battle to greatly buff your party, along with skill levels so that the more you use skills the more powerful they become.

   I don't know, so far to me I feel balancing the game would just be easier if I didn't have equipment stats to worry about in addition to these other ideas. In addition to this the convention of higher and higher equipment never made much sense to me, between a sword that is rusted and close to broken and a sword that has been well-maintained of course there would be a realistic difference in it's abilities, but between two well-kept blades while some types of blades may be more well-made than others the difference would be negligible compared to the difference in skill between the two combatants. With armor it makes a little more sense but honestly once you get to where you are wearing actual armor and not thrown together militia relics it isn't likely that there are going to be 12+ greatly improved variants at any given time period, just because armor has been made out of many different materials over 1000 years shouldn't mean you could go all the way from stone and hide to woven leather and plate-mail in the span of a single game, right?

   I basically want to know what the community thinks on this idea, as large equipment pools are so standard they are expected and I'm not sure what the reception to taking that standard away would be. I know I've seen a few games that did this and I liked them, but they're rare and few between.

 

[Kes]

As my vote indicates, if, and only if, it is well implemented, then I'd be fine with it.  I think there might still be a case for variations in accessories, even the standard ones have their place (poison protect, confusion protect, that sort of thing) which is probably why they have become standard.

 

[Zoltor]

My forum bugged out, I wanted to select the 2nd option, and I 2nd ksjp's sentiment, there's a huge if It's executed well(well as in like flawless, and masterpiece standards).

As for you/anyone else thinking to do such though, unless your/their name happens to be ATLUS, Nippon, Gus or Chunsoft, I highly advise not to even try to design a game like that.

 

[MagicMagor]

Upgrading your equipment in the next town is just one way to progress your character. Especially if there is no variety in equipment and all you basicly get is "Sword Lv1, Sword Lv2, Sword Lv3..".

Sure it is a standard that most people familar with rpgs probably expect, but that doesn't mean it has to be so. Having a fixed equipment throughout the game is perfectly ok, if there are other areas where the characters visibly progress. If you focus on your alchemy-system and the leveling skills i find it perfectly fine to ignore the equipment.

Like always it has to be implemented well, but i wouldn't hold the missing equipment against the game. Instead it makes the game stands out and can be a huge selling point for the game if it is done well.

 

[Bloodmorphed]

I think upgrading your equipment through crafting should be an option if you are going this route. When I play RPGs its all about getting stronger (unless it is story driven). Now I don't know how your RPG is going to play out. But when I am playing an RPG I love becoming strong. However, with the method of upgrading your equipment, this could simply have a lot of flexibility. You could also do some other things with a system like this.

I am not going to vote, because I could easily go against and for it.

 

[Eschaton]

Balancing around stats is hard.  I don't even know how to begin to balance equipment, so I feel your pain.

 

[Alexander Amnell]

   I get the need for customization and such in a game, and will probably have something akin to accessories at least to allow for passive buffs and all of that... what I'm wanting to do away with is merely the "start game with +4 armor and +3 sword, end game with +777 armor and +777 sword and of course that stuff in-between is mostly worthless". Basically I just want to do away with that aspect that you grind to get gold just to buy all the latest armor and weapons when until you go the route of them being magical weapons with magically sharpened blades that are much sharper than regular blades it just doesn't make sense that the weapon alone would make that much of a difference in the combatants ability to fight. I'd still probably plan on having 'strategic' aspects to the game like being able to place certain effects/elements/poisons on your weapon and some sort of way to equip passive buffs... I don't know, I just feel that the armor and weapons being needed and making so much of a difference on combat performance is just unnecessary grinding because you always usually have to do that to get all the good equipment, and personally I don't like grinding very much, but that's a different discussion entirely.

As for you/anyone else thinking to do such though, unless your/their name happens to be ATLUS, Nippon, Gus or Chunsoft, I highly advise not to even try to design a game like that.

This I've got to disagree with, a couple of the games I've seen that did something similar to this best were actually hobbyist rm games... just because I am not a professional game company does not mean that I am incapable of incorporating an idea that is semi-unique and has rarely been done before successfully. Conversely, just because ATLUS is ATLUS does not mean that they will incorporate these ideas effectively, either.

 

[Bloodmorphed]

-removed-

 

[Cozzer]

I think it's better if equipment is something more than "just throw the highest level stuff you can afford on everybody".

In the end, plain "+X to stat" equipment is somehow redundant with levelling up (unless you have to choose which stat gets the bonus, but that can be implemented as part of levelling up too).

 

[Bloodmorphed]

The way I was working on a project I have something like this:

Level 1-10 equipmetn

level 11-20 equipment

etc etc.

For Example:

Helmet

Chest Piece

Leggings

But you repeat that for each levels you have made. Slightly increasing it;s base stats then you count of your affixes to do the rest.

Dark Helmet of the Bear

^ gives dark resistance and some HP.

It repeated itself but I put affixes based on the items level. Also you couldn't buy the items with the affixes, so it was purely you have to find the weapons and equipment you want.

You would have to mix and match to get what you needed. For example you could have made a fire set armor. Your attacks do fire damage and you a resistant to fire. Or something like this.

This system gives the player to do what they want to do. Do you want to be a tank? DPS? Do you want to have everyone be resistant to each element and do damage to each element, do you want this? Or want that?

The only problem with this system is... the amount of items you would spend looking through, which to some people is fun as hell especially if thre is a good reason to do so.

 

[Alexander Amnell]

   @Bloodmorphed I understand that a lot of people love that kind of game, personally I can't stand it. I do not like sifting through long lists of armors and weapons to figure out that "dark helmet of the bear" give hp as well as a dark resistance, or what the suffix "of the bear" even does for it. I like customization options but I like it to be concise so I'm thinking more along the lines that you say have a sword, just one sword but you can transcribe runes or something that have special properties... so you just click on your sword and have a list of whatever effects you have available like "transcribe fire" makes your physical attacks do fire damage and "transcribe bleeding+" increases your swords likelihood of causing bleeding damage. Similar for armors you can apply a single elemental resistance that you've found/purchased of your choice, just without the lists and lists of armors and all the huge stat growths attributed to them. At the end of the day maybe I'm just lazy and don't want to deal with all the extra variable numbers but I do kind of feel I'd at least prefer it this way, more emphasis on personal ability rather than weapons and armor made for gods.

 

[Kes]

One thing which as a player I find irritating is having to work out which of the 16 swords I have collected will have just the right combination of attributes (because only that combination will work) to deal with the enemy which I think I'm going to encounter next.  And then have to do that with the bow and the axe and the dagger and the.....  So I would be in favour of a greatly reduced number of weapons which could be used flexibly.  If the system is adaptable enough, then yeah, just have one of everything.

 

[Bloodmorphed]

   @Bloodmorphed I understand that a lot of people love that kind of game, personally I can't stand it. I do not like sifting through long lists of armors and weapons to figure out that "dark helmet of the bear" give hp as well as a dark resistance, or what the suffix "of the bear" even does for it. I like customization options but I like it to be concise so I'm thinking more along the lines that you say have a sword, just one sword but you can transcribe runes or something that have special properties... so you just click on your sword and have a list of whatever effects you have available like "transcribe fire" makes your physical attacks do fire damage and "transcribe bleeding+" increases your swords likelihood of causing bleeding damage. Similar for armors you can apply a single elemental resistance that you've found/purchased of your choice, just without the lists and lists of armors and all the huge stat growths attributed to them. At the end of the day maybe I'm just lazy and don't want to deal with all the extra variable numbers but I do kind of feel I'd at least prefer it this way, more emphasis on personal ability rather than weapons and armor made for gods.

I think I might like your idea better, though since my game is a dungeon crawler I wouldn't know if that would work in a dungeon crawler very well.

 

[Zoltor]

I think it's better if equipment is something more than "just throw the highest level stuff you can afford on everybody".

In the end, plain "+X to stat" equipment is somehow redundant with levelling up (unless you have to choose which stat gets the bonus, but that can be implemented as part of levelling up too).

In that case, have it like Lufia 2, where each piece of equipment has a special ability while equiped, in addition to the normal stats.

 

[Matseb2611]

I wouldn't mind to play a game that uses this kind of system. In the end all that matters to me is that the game is 1. balanced, and 2. fun. If you're confident about your system, then why not use it. On the other hand, having buffs and skills play a role in combat AND having equipment play a role gives the players a lot more flexibility and also is less likely to be repetitive. For example you could apply a certain buff because it works well against a certain enemy type, but what if you could also wear a piece of equipment that works well against that enemy. Cool. But wait, you have this good buff and this good piece of equipment, and separately they might be good against that enemy but when in combination this buff works a lot better with another piece of equipment, which separately is worse than the initial. This is ought to get the players to actually approach the combat with a certain degree of strategy, though the amount of customization has to be kept in control or else it could confuse the player (and be hard to balance correctly).  

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

It wouldn't even matter to me if you remove them all along... just as long as you can justify the reasoning behind and implement it beautifully...

 

[Cozzer]

Oh, also: if you use the "every piece of equipment is special" option, make it so the player can change equipment in battle (maybe sacrificing a turn?).
If you don't, your game will turn into "read into the developer's mind and prepare yourself for battles you can't predict!".

 

[Zoltor]

Oh, also: if you use the "every piece of equipment is special" option, make it so the player can change equipment in battle (maybe sacrificing a turn?).

If you don't, your game will turn into "read into the developer's mind and prepare yourself for battles you can't predict!".

I said make it special, I didn't say make it game breaking lol, aside from a possible bonus/end game boss or something, the ability tied to various equipment shouldn't be a "huge" game changer. However in bonus dungeons, and end game bosses, I'm sure the player can figure out what equipment/ability they'll need(It's not exactly rocket science).

 

[Cozzer]

But wouldn't it be WAY more interesting if you had to manage your equipment according to what you see, instead of having to guess what kinds of enemy the next boss will maybe be?

And how can the player "figure out" in advance which equipment to use, if not by trial-and-error?

Unless there's a set of equipments that are strictly superior to the others, which would defy the point of having "not tiered equipment".

 

[D4yz]

I don't think so. Mid game gear swaps would make things repetetive. Where as if you have:

Valkyrie Mail

10 DEF

+5% [EVA]

+15% DMG to Flying Creatures.

OR

Straps of the Demon Hunter

10 DEF

+5% [EVA]

+15% DMG to Dark Creatures.

For example, 2 party members each equipt with those, you have a better overall coverage. And armor bonus's should never be game breaking. In the sense that you should never HAVE to have Valkyrie Mail equipted to every member in order to be able to succesfuly defeat flying creatures with relative balance and ease. It should infact be breaking the balance to a degree, by being even on just 1 character. Otherwise that zone is relatively impassable without the necessary armor? And also, fore sight of encounters to come is never a bad thing. If I see a dark cave and have one of my party members equipt the recently acquired Straps of the Demon Hunter, I damn well expect to be fighting some Dark things. I don't intend to be fighting a whale in a cave. But in the same breath I don't expect to be only fighting Dark things. I think armor should always give a subtle bonus, but not sugar coat the path ahead. Which, is undoubtably easier to do if acquiring multiples of a peice is hard to do. I.E. rare monster drops, expensive shop gear. Then comes the balancing of how hard it is to get and the pay off.

EDIT: And in the case of boss encounters, there should be a degree of build up to the encounter, but ofcourse not every encounter is forseen.

"A Dark enemy approaches." Would be the tackiest thing ever to see in a game, ha. But something like a visual que in regards to element or type, maybe even just conversation had prior in regards to the target, can all be subtle ways of allowing players to prepare themselves for the encounter.

Doesn't have to be hit or miss. Better off being, predictable slightly; assuming the player has gone out of their way to gather info in the first place at all. Letting players decide is in essence the best possible method. Did they read the diary sitting randomly in one of the castles lower quarters mentioning talk of King Reynolds Festered Wounds (Poison) attack? If so, they equipted ahead of time, if not, trial and error. Subtle, yet rewarding. My personal goal when I play ANY game is, how far can I go before ever dieing. And it's much more rewarding if the dieing is hampered due to my excessive sleuthing skills, and NOT by ease of play.