A drawback to skill point assignment games.

[Locut0s]

Something that has become a little pit of a pet peve to me are games that advertise letting you build your character the way you want to by assigning skill points. Now of course this all gets its start from the old D&D rules sets. IT works very nicely if you know what you are doing. However it also allows one to easily fuck up and build a useless character. The problem I have is that it allows too much freedom really. They advertise being able to build a character the way you want, play the game they way you'd like to. But the problem is of the thousands of different skill point assignments there are often only maybe 10 or so arrangements that lead to playable characters. The rest end up being horribly hampered. This sounds like I'm just whining and complaining about nothing if your used to these systems but it can be a problem for newbs.

For example a newb might say, I want to create a really wise warrior character who uses spells, picks locks and only occasionally uses his sword. Sounds good enough but in most games if you distribute the points like this you will end up with a weakling that can't do anything. Why allow such characters to be created in the first place, if there are only a small number of possible viable characters?

Anyone else feel this way or am I just calling the whaambulance?

 

[Mike Gayner]

This is complete nonsense. In most games, you can build either a specialised or well-balanced character without prior knowledge of skill assignment. A little common sense is all that is required.

 

[Locut0s]

This is complete nonsense. In most games, you can build either a specialised or well-balanced character without prior knowledge of skill assignment. A little common sense is all that is required.

Sort of. And sort of not. You can hopefully finish the game with most sensible assignments. But when it comes to getting everything out of the game, like playing on hard difficulty level and the like it is often the case that you have to have fairly specific point assignments.

Let's say you had a game with a willpower attribute that affected stamina and or mana and other skills in some way. Lets you are a warrior and put most of your points into willpower and relatively few into strength thinking that you wanted to master one specific skill or something. This kind of thing will often lead to an unplayable character before long.

 

[Newbian]

All I do is add every point to charisma so I can sleep with the ladies.

 

[SunSamurai]

Too much freedom of choice?

 

[zinfamous]

This is complete nonsense. In most games, you can build either a specialised or well-balanced character without prior knowledge of skill assignment. A little common sense is all that is required.

Maybe for dorks that like to run around in circles and pick locks for mary jane rottencrotch only to acquire that one fucking cake she needs, because she's the only NPC that can give you that super rare herb that allows you to create that super awesome alchemical potion that grants dragon scale strength...

and too bad that the lockpick/alchemical skills are completely incompatible, and you need to level up both of them to complete this quest because you want 2 or 3 of the super awesome items that those categories allow, and yet you're now trapped with a fucking stealing low-rent organic chemist that runs and hides in shadows whenever a monster approaches, your only hope of winning is tossing a vial of flesh-scorching incendiary that singes the bastard's toes while you cower in the nooks, the pissed-off monster grabs your noggin and uses it for a bowling ball.

fuck morrowind and all that BS. what a worthless game.

 

[zinfamous]

Too much freedom of choice?

hell fucking yeah.

garbage way to design a game

 

[SunSamurai]

If the game has shitty rules yeah, but I never heard of too much freedom of choice a bad thing. Customization while being bound by the same rules as everyone else is what makes it fun.

 

[Inspector Jihad]

do they have a game where instead of lame points assignment, you level up on things as you use them? e.g. use your bow more than your sword and it'll slowly level up as you keep using it.

 

[Lonyo]

do they have a game where instead of lame points assignment, you level up on things as you use them? e.g. use your bow more than your sword and it'll slowly level up as you keep using it.

Yes. They called it Oblivion.

 

[Lonyo]

Sort of. And sort of not. You can hopefully finish the game with most sensible assignments. But when it comes to getting everything out of the game, like playing on hard difficulty level and the like it is often the case that you have to have fairly specific point assignments.

One might assume that if you are playing on a hard difficulty level, you would also have at least an understanding of game mechanics and be able to make a character which is suitable.
If you don't know what you're doing and how skill points will impact things in the long run, should you really be playing on such a hard difficulty level?

I played KotoR a long time ago and towards the end I found it relatively easy, then I went back and played it last year, and made a much better character that was far more suited to my playing style because it was a second playthrough and I had the understanding of the game, but it was harder initially because I set my path up in such a way that I would have a weak initial character but a strong end-game character.

That's the difference between going in blind and going in with an understanding of mechanics and the way the game works.
You can enjoy it both ways, but when you understand it gives you more choice, but you have to take that learning step first.
If that's not to your liking, maybe you should look at other games. If you're trying to get everything out of the game though, you should probably be doing at least 2 playthroughs.

 

[Fenixgoon]

do they have a game where instead of lame points assignment, you level up on things as you use them? e.g. use your bow more than your sword and it'll slowly level up as you keep using it.

yes, oblivion/morrowind. on paper it sounds 100% sensible. in practice, it's the most awful way to play and it's so easy to totally gimp your character. TOTALLY.

your strong skills will level you up fast. however, your stat bonuses are based on how much you leveled certain skills. inevitably, you will have to level some weak skills to maximize your stat bonuses. this is a HUUUUUUUUUUUUGE grind and makes it an awful experience. of course, you can choose not to max your stat points upon leveling, but then you will have no health/strength/magic/whatever due to lack of stat points. and your character will get raped.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Ultima Online is like that. I find it gives more freedom, and newbies should just use a premade template anyway, that's what the game forums are for.

I have a character in UO that is s necro paladin bard. Was tricky fitting all those skills on a char but it works pretty well actually.

 

[shortylickens]

This was less of a problem with Classic D&D and AD&D, and much more of a problem with D&D 3rd. I have been told D&D 4th has moved away from this formula a little bit.
If you are talking games in general, yes I agree. Final Fantasy 1 was great because you didnt have to pick stats when your characters leveled up. Everything happened automatically. While it didnt allow for much customization, it did allow your characters to fully develop into what they were supposed to be.

Allowing you to pick points at level up in D&D 3rd didnt matter much because there was really only one good way to develop your character if you wanted them to be powerful. In fact there were two special players guides made for D&D 3rd that told you exactly how to build your character and which feats & abilities to pick as they moved on.
http://www.amazon.com/Power-Gamers-3-5-Warrior-Strategy/dp/0974668133/ref%3Dpd_sim_b_1

There was an article in Dragon magazine back in the early 90's that said gaming had been reduced to simple number crunching and was no longer about the fun & adventure & plot and other good stuff. I think they were right. And I think its gotten worse since then. Looking at those power guides makes me believe the third edition of D&D only made the problem worse.

If the enjoyment people are getting out of Dragon Age is any indication, it looks like folks have started to think less about the numbers and more about the fun.

BUT, Diablo 2 has been out for a long time & is popular and thats the kind of so-called "RPG" that gives the rest a bad name. I really wish software companies would stop calling such games RPG's but thats another discussion.


Also, for RPG's I prefer the Shadowrun style. You dont have character levels, you get Karma after each adventure and you put individual points into your stats or skills as you see fit. This may seem like an even worse version of the above systems but in gameplay it actually works quite well.

Then there is the Palladium system, where you do have XP and character levels but after character generation, you dont do much customizing at all. Each level you gain means a set number of % points added to each skill you have. That system also works quite well.

EDIT:
And there are a handful of RPGs that dont do point assignment at all. You either have a skill or you dont, and thats pretty much it. You dont level up in the traditional manner, and the whole game system is setup so your experience is based on the choices you make, not the stats you have.

 

[sdifox]

So RTFM?

 

[cheerio]

Ultima Online is like that. I find it gives more freedom, and newbies should just use a premade template anyway, that's what the game forums are for.

I have a character in UO that is s necro paladin bard. Was tricky fitting all those skills on a char but it works pretty well actually.

I remember playing UO back when it first came out. I was so addicted. Then they started having a ton of server issues so i quit

 

[Red Squirrel]

I remember playing UO back when it first came out. I was so addicted. Then they started having a ton of server issues so i quit

Yeah think they still have lot of issues lol. I run my own server and it's pretty bad when my server has better uptime then theirs lol. Whenever there's updates it takes them forever to get the servers back up. I have arranged so when I apply updates they are done live and it just needs to restart to apply the changes.

They did lot of WTF moves as far as game mechanics go, like it seems they are ruining the game. That's usually what happens when EA buys something though. :awe: