RPG Mechanics: Skill Progression and Roles

[Suhiira]

This is a very good vid on RPGs vs shooters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpSUwcEEaGc

VERY good (in terms of the analysis of RPGs) vid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lC3mehnQF0Q

 

[metalmaniac21]

To make a PnP-accurate product one don't even need to make an RPG. Remember Call of Cthulhu: DCotE? 75% of it is literally 'Escape from Innsmouth' PnP scenario, including the dumbest plot parts.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

This is a very good vid on RPGs vs shooters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpSUwcEEaGc

I normally can't stand these nearly/early 20's know-it-all youtubers who played 1337 hours of Skyrim, made two mods for it and now know everything. But this guy actually seems to have a point there (and further on the plus side he doesn't sound like wanting to be a she with an over excited nasal lisp like the most of them that I've heard and gracefully quit after a minute because I just can't....).

VERY good (in terms of the analysis of RPGs) vid. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lC3mehnQF0Q

I kinda wish I had any interest in Tyranny, but I'm so burnt out on fantasy that I could not bring myself to play it. There was so many options for doing that "evil won" thing in a non-fantasy non-medieval setting...

To make a PnP-accurate product one don't even need to make an RPG.

Well, it's not really accurate if it ignores the gameplay portion of the PnP and only takes it's fiction.

 

[Rawls]

Well, it's not really accurate if it ignores the gameplay portion of the PnP and only takes it's fiction.

That judgment depends on how much can be changed in one's subjective opinion before the gameplay portion of the PnP becomes "ignored."

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

That judgment depends on how much can be changed in one's subjective opinion before the gameplay portion of the PnP becomes "ignored."

I don't fully understand what your response is trying to say. What does subjective opinion have to do with this, or changing it?

 

[Lisbeth_Salander]

In Fallout New Vegas the player was able to use skills during a dialogue, as a form of persuasion or argumentation, and also for other stuff. So a few special dialogue options were enabled if you had a very high skill level.

There's a scene in which you find a survivalist and only players with many points in the survival skill would be able to gain his trust...And there are many other examples, if there was a broken military machine only the ones with a high developed repair skill would be able to repair it. (keep in mind that the main porpouse of the survival and repair skills are making food and repairing items, respectively.)

My point is that in New Vegas, skill X wasn't only for doing Y, but for doing A, B, Z and so on. Each skill wasn't only for one or two porpouses, they had many many other ones. So yeah, it'd be great to have that.

 

[Suhiira]

Yeah, the skills (other then persuasion) your character has should come into play during the game and result in something worthwhile (but not game changing). If not why bother including them in the first place. And I don't mean once during the entire game as we see so often in other games.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

New Vegas had the right idea. It's biggest faults were that everywhere it used binary "yes/no" checks where you always knew the outcome at a glance, even with the dialogs; and that it showed the numbers [49/50]Nope, too hard, can not even try. The character never "tried" anything, he either did it in exemplary fashion or couldn't comprehend it at all.

 

[Rawls]

I don't fully understand what your response is trying to say. What does subjective opinion have to do with this, or changing it?

It's hard to explain the point I was trying to make succinctly ... and honestly it's probably not worthy of trying to redeem. Have you ever gone back to a post an realized it was poorly conceived from the start? This is where I'm at. Rather than try and do it again I think I'm just gonna waive my hands a pretend like I never said anything -

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

Have you ever gone back to a post an realized it was poorly conceived from the start? This is where I'm at.

Sure. It happens from time to time. We'll move on.

 

[Sardukhar]

I don't fully understand what your response is trying to say. What does subjective opinion have to do with this, or changing it?

I think he means that "ignoring" PnP is a relative value. From my perspective, if the system is tough on failure, sucks to get hurt in and uses a realism-based skill system (perks, bah) named after actual skills in the real world, that's the PnP portion that really matters to me. I'd love to see Init rolls and Awareness checks a la PnP, but if not, as long as the above values are in place, I feel FNFF has been recreated.

Whereas you might feel that if the tabletop rules system doesn't incorporate BTM, stun/shock checks, MA numbers, bleeding-dying timers, autofire rules ( every point above TN is an extra hit, one round to cover each 1 meter separate between your targets in a multiple-target scenario) etc, then PnP rules are being ignored.

Tabletop systems are clumsy replications of a "feel" that a game designer is going for. Much of what we are attached to exists just because the designer couldn't render it any better way.

If CP2077 gets that dirty, nasty cyberpunk 2020 combat feel and that real-world skills deployed against variable difficulties ( I have tools, I'm wounded, it's loud, I've done this before, etc) I'm cool with the PnP feel that gives me.

If it's a rules/reality-lite system like, say, FO4, blech.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

I think he means that ...

Ah, so it was about the interpretations of the rules afterall. That's fair, and agreeable, but in the case where the rules are missing completely (and/or replaced with something unrelated... like bananas) and you only have the fiction, the differing interpretations are irrelevant (since there's nothing left to interpret). That, I guess, was what I was driving at with the original comment, half of the package as designed and sold is discarded; it's not so much "relative" anymore when it's "gone".

 

[DarthRaver8686]

I just hope that however they do the skill/progession system, i hope it differes greatly from the witcher 3's progression system. It was honestly the only thing about the game i wasnt crazy about. I didnt hate it, i just thought that there was alot of way it could of been improved. But hind sight is always 20/20 of course. I just wish they would of implemented skills that helped you outside of combat. It just seemed kind of bland and boring to me and i kinda felt like alot of things didnt really make any difference in gameplay until you invested alot of points into it. But again just my opinion. Im sure many will disagree.

 

[Sardukhar]

I just hope that however they do the skill/progession system, i hope it differes greatly from the witcher 3's progression system.

Right? "So I'm a 100 yrs old super-trained man and my ENTIRE SKILLS PACKAGE is how to stab people to death, how to zap them to death, how to Force Persuade them in rare dialogue schemes...and how to make neato potions. I may have mis-spent some of my life..."

I mean, it was okay, but it wasn't skills-skills. And the upgrades were occasionally useless or just weird (so now my magic powers source regenerates when I stab people? Odd.) as well as being not-really-adjusted for your level.

To this day I'm not sure how strong or dextrous Geralt is compared to, say, Yen - and I have no idea what skills outside of stab/zap and boil either one of them has. Ride horse, I guess?

I might have liked a skill -relating- to Witcher Sight, that I could improve or at least measure. I mean, Outdoors Tracking is an actual skill. As well as using a crossbow, swimming, running, climbing, lying to people, seduction, etc.

All those things we generally equate to role-playing. So yeah, a lot of us are hoping for a more skills-based system for Cyberpunk. After all, we here in the Near-Cyberpunk Age now, have a battery of skills ourselves. Be weird to have characters without them.

@kofeiiniturpa
I still give the fiction and the choice greater importance in terms of role-playing, since I need to be able to role-play as a character, not a stats-package. But yeah, without some kind of structure to build the house of my character upon, it's really a lot harder - and way easier to fall back into playing myself - usually with Sooper Dooper combat skills and this -odd- take damage system where instead of organs, I have.. a single red bar? Wha?

 

[Suhiira]

I just hope that however they do the skill/progession system, i hope it differes greatly from the witcher 3's progression system. It was honestly the only thing about the game i wasnt crazy about. I didnt hate it, i just thought that there was alot of way it could of been improved.

Given that in W3 you were playing a preset character who specialized in monster slaying I was OK with the system being pretty much purely about how you slew them.

Now for CP2077 we shouldn't be playing a preset character, with a preset occupation, so a variety of available skills is FAR more important.

 

[Sardukhar]

Now for CP2077 we shouldn't be playing a preset character, with a preset occupation, so a variety of available skills is FAR more important.

I don't want to play one, but a complete playthrough as a Medtechie with no combat skills should be doable...with hired NPC help of course.

I do want to play as a crazed Rockerboy named Erik Omega, though. Friend of mine did this once...TONS of fun. Kinda jealous of him ever since.

 

[Lisbeth_Salander]

are you being ironic about what?

About me enjoying having a fixed character in Cyberpunk 2077 (which I won't). I would rather want a game that allowed huge customization options for main characters because I think it would stay closer to the source matterial you know... a tabletop game.

 

[sv3672]

Agreed, but I'm less "on the fence," and more "I'm just not going to play it at all until it's on sale for 60% off." I'm tired of fixed protagonists. We have plenty of them. CDPR can, and IMO should, try to step out of their comfort zone and try something new.

I'm sure I'll play it eventually. Just not going to pay full price. There's too many other great games coming out.

How about something like for example in Kingdom Come: Deliverance, where you play as a guy named Henry with some background story? But there is a decent amount of freedom at the gameplay level.

But again, an impactful story doesn't mean that there won't be character creation.

There will obviously be some level of customization, at least when it comes to the appearance of the character, even The Witcher 3 allows for different hair and beard styles, armor dyes, and other features that let the player's Geralt look unique. And of course things like character skills (however they are implemented) and different story branches are also basically a given, so Cyberpunk's roles can appear at least in those. Beyond that, no one knows what we will get, it could be anything up to an Elder Scrolls like "be anyone you want" character.

 

[metalmaniac21]

Seriously though. The story will be very good and the character creation will be huge. My bet.
My bet from the bottom of my heart.

Good story and characters are not something even to consider if the gameplay is poor and not RPG, RPG in a sense of CP2020, not The Witcher 3's perk-only system.

 

[Sardukhar]

Good story and characters are not something even to consider if the gameplay is poor and not RPG, RPG in a sense of CP2020, not The Witcher 3's perk-only system.

Totally disagree. I would look forward to a Witcher 3 style Cyberpunk. Absolutely. Be a lot of fun. So absolutely to consider.

I'd -prefer- something of a deeper RPG nature, but I'd be happy with the limited Witcher-style if CDPR gave me a fun game with a great story and a protagonist to sink my teeth into.

I doubt that's gonna happen, though. I think actual RPG mechanics - speech, choices, customization - are likely.