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Author Topic: <--Archived--> (Feats concept)  (Read 6809 times)

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Offline rudistoned

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<--Archived--> (Feats concept)
« on: June 23, 2013, 04:23:13 AM »
What are feats?
Abilities that characters can learn and that do not need detailed modeling by the game.
« Last Edit: November 04, 2014, 03:18:27 PM by Xela »

Offline rudistoned

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Re: Power-ups concept
« Reply #1 on: June 23, 2013, 04:41:20 AM »
I'd like to start the discussion with what we've said so far:

Any ideas on how do we want leveling system to work? [...] Do girls get 'power ups' every 5 - 10 levels, developing traits or higher stat caps?

We need to write concept for power-ups first but We should definitely get those, system where player gets to choose from a tree sounds good...

Concerning leveling benefits, I think girls should gain higher skill caps, or 'power ups' or both. I'm against traits, as many traits represent things you cannot learn (unless we say it happens through "magic", at which point any further explanation is futile). Power-ups (we could also use the word feats) could be organized in trees and grant skill cap increases or skill boni that can raise the current skill level above the cap, or provide new skills to use (like Otherworlds classes do). If we decide to have power-ups, I would vote for turning learnable traits into power-ups (example: "Seductress" could be a power-up as you can learn to seduce people; "Angelic beauty" could not be a power-up as you cannot learn to look like an angel. You either do, or you dont). I think sibr1x had a power-up tree which I liked. We could do something similar :-)

When we'll have BE, we could use it for battle occupations to learn new spells/skills that cannot be learned by other means.
Actually, we could use slightly different trees for different occupations. Warriors don't need seductive skills, and whores don't need combat skills.

Two questions we should address early are the name for this game element and what it should actually represent.

Should we use "power-up" as name for this game element?

 To be honest, I don't like the name "power-up" very much as it is a bit unwieldy. I'd like to propose the name "feat" (again, inspired by D&D), whish is shorter, one word, no dash and some people might already have an idea what it is based on their experience with D&D-based games. I'll use feat here to talk about whats called "power-up" in the quotes above.

What is a feat?
A feat is a noteworthy ability a character learned. This ability does not require detailed modeling by the game, because in that case it should be a skill. In some games, feats are also used to describe innate abilities of characters, abilities these characters were born with. You either have or don't have innate abilities and you cannot learn them (unless by magic or divine intervention). I would suggest that innate abilites should be traits in pytfall rather than feats, or maybe they should be a new category of abilities called advantages.

How do feats relate to traits? What are traits, actually?
« Last Edit: June 23, 2013, 04:45:48 AM by rudistoned »

Offline DarkTl

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Re: Power-ups concept
« Reply #2 on: June 23, 2013, 05:07:42 AM »
Traits are, well, traits of personality and appearance intended to describe the character in outline according to the source, to be flags for events and to change initial stats.
Strictly speaking, we don't have enough traits to make every single character truly unique, but when we'll have BE with skills, spells, etc., things will improve hopefully.

As example, Not Human is a general trait for all elves, fairies and so on; it has various bonuses and penalties to stats and it could be important for some customers. Innate elven low light vision feat from d&d could be useful in some dungeons only, druid's venom immunity feat could be useful against venomous mobs only, etc.
« Last Edit: June 23, 2013, 05:12:10 AM by DarkTl »

Offline Xela

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Re: Power-ups concept
« Reply #3 on: June 23, 2013, 05:28:25 AM »
Yeap, that's a fair explanation.

In WM, girls gain traits on leveling up. We can build a tree, unlocking many things (like unique jobs, abilities, increases of relevant max stats and so on). I made a list of my immidiate coding plans, if you guys want to work on concepts, go right ahead, it is at least as useful as coding.

PS: Traits are basically rather simple modifiers to stats, their options are limited. With feats (just like effects) we can be much more specific, for example, getting actual, solid bonuses while performing jobs (that couldn't be achieved by simply increasing stats). We can do stuff like faster exp gain, free extra shift when performing specific job, better luck in finding good items when raining catacombs and so on. Same thing can be achieved with checking for specific traits obviously but we with feats we can build actual trees (once again, can be done with traits :D).
« Last Edit: June 23, 2013, 05:35:48 AM by Xela »
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Offline rudistoned

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Re: Power-ups concept
« Reply #4 on: June 23, 2013, 05:33:12 AM »
Just to be clear:
I'm not proposing we adopt D&Ds feats, I am proposing we adopt the concept of feats from D&D.

So, currently traits are used to represent any of the following in the game:

Magic talent -> an ability the character was born with and could not learn

Virgin -> an attribute the character was born with and could not learn

Long hair -> an attribute the character aquired without effort

Big boobs -> an attribute the character was either born with or aquired through surgery (if the techlevel/availability of magic in pytfall allows that)

Scars -> an attribute the character aquired after birth

Courtly demeanor -> an ability the character learned through training

Fighter -> a profession  the character learned through training

Lesbian -> a sexual orientation

Caught a Cold -> a disease temporarily affecting the character



I think it would be easier to talk about game concepts if traits were not used to describe almost everything.
« Last Edit: June 23, 2013, 05:35:09 AM by rudistoned »

Offline Xela

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Re: Power-ups concept
« Reply #5 on: June 23, 2013, 05:40:00 AM »
Just to be clear:
I'm not proposing we adopt D&Ds feats, I am proposing we adopt the concept of feats from D&D.

So, currently traits are used to represent any of the following in the game:

Magic talent -> an ability the character was born with and could not learn

Virgin -> an attribute the character was born with and could not learn

Long hair -> an attribute the character aquired without effort

Big boobs -> an attribute the character was either born with or aquired through surgery (if the techlevel/availability of magic in pytfall allows that)

Scars -> an attribute the character aquired after birth

Courtly demeanor -> an ability the character learned through training

Fighter -> a profession  the character learned through training

Lesbian -> a sexual orientation

Caught a Cold -> a disease temporarily affecting the character



I think it would be easier to talk about game concepts if traits were not used to describe almost everything.

Caught a cold will be turned into effect, that's not even up for debate... Otherwise, Dark is working on Items/Traits, we should hear his thoughts on changing this first.
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Offline rudistoned

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Re: Power-ups concept
« Reply #6 on: June 23, 2013, 05:43:12 AM »
Of course. I'm not doing anything, I'm just talking. And I'll take this stuff over into the traits concept thread were it belongs.

Offline DarkTl

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Re: Power-ups concept
« Reply #7 on: June 23, 2013, 06:19:44 AM »
I'm not proposing we adopt D&Ds feats, I am proposing we adopt the concept of feats from D&D.
But feats are narrowly focused in d&d compared to our traits.

Offline rudistoned

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Re: Feats concept
« Reply #8 on: June 23, 2013, 06:45:31 AM »
Yes, they are, that's my point. I would like feats to be a well-defined concept, not a catch-all category. The concept of feats becomes more valuable to us if it carries meaning.

Offline DarkTl

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Re: Feats concept
« Reply #9 on: June 23, 2013, 06:57:57 AM »
Ok, so traits have to describe the character in general, and feats have to reflect more unique features and abilities.
Like Not Human for all not humans, and, for example, darkvision for elves only, flight for fairies only, etc.

Offline rudistoned

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Re: Feats concept
« Reply #10 on: June 23, 2013, 07:14:43 AM »
Well, not exactly. Feats should represent abilities that can be learned. In the optimal case they are quite unique to a certain occupation, religious or magical tradition, but there have always been pretty general feats. Though (being trained in resilience and endurance from an early age) is an example of a very general trait that many characters could have. Well, maybe not in this game, but I think you get my point.

Offline DarkTl

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Re: Feats concept
« Reply #11 on: June 23, 2013, 07:34:01 AM »
Well, the thing is that most of traits could be acquired or lost permanently via items, events, schools and jobs. I mean all non-appearance traits.

Offline rudistoned

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Re: Feats concept
« Reply #12 on: June 23, 2013, 07:44:45 AM »
Yes, that's true. So, what are you saying? Do you mean it's a problem that many current traits fit the description I gave for feats?
Well, I suppose that is a problem to some extent because feats will probably not be implemented in XML. They are meant to be able to do more than modifying stats and skills, similar to advantages (see the traits concept thread for what I mean by advantages). If many of them could be implemented in XML, it would be a waste not to do it.