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Multi-Branching Ability Tree
Topic Started: October 8, 2012, 11:18 am (810 Views)
Arcvalons
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Lord of the Octoroks, all hail!
Looking for feedback for this game design system for skills/abilities, it's a Multi-Branching Ability Tree. Basically, near the beginning, characters would aquire the first ability here labeled as the 'Base Ability', which would be something like the ability to sense magical stuff or whatever - by the time characters can have a second ability, they will need to specialize by choosing from a basic ability in one of five different ability branches. Eventually this five branches can produce and spread into more, further specilaized branches. Each of this branches would represent a different style of abilities, as an example, one would include healing abilities and such, while other could have abilities related to martial arts (hit harder, faster, etc.) - more specialized branches would include even stronger abilities.

The idea, however, is that a character won't ever be able to unlock ALL abilities (in total around 150 or so) , so by the endgame they would end up with very personalized movesets. This system would also allow the GM to personally design the abilities with feedback from the players, according to the corresponing lore of the game, and preventing overpowered characters.

Posted Image

In this example, Abilities A, B, C, D, and E are the start of specialized branches, while BC, DE, etc. are even further specialized branches.
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Onime No Ryu
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This might actually be interesting provided it's executed correctly.

Are the branches one-way only, or can you continue branching out if you want a jack of all trades, master of none type character?

For instance, if you can branch out, a character's path might look like this:
Posted Image

But a one way path would look like this, with the blue x's representing paths that are "blocked" and no longer obtainable:
Posted Image
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Arcvalons
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Lord of the Octoroks, all hail!
You could branch out only from the base ability, and any branches after that could only go in one direction. For example, with 5 unlocked abilities, you could have scenario: Posted Image

Note that 3 is only unlocked because 1 and 2 are both unlocked, and 3 requires a connection with both. Also 5 can be unlocked since it starts at the base ability.

In theory you could open all five initial paths with five abilities, but in the end you wouldn't go much further in any - while if you concentrate in one or two, you'd have access to some powerful abilities later on.
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Onime No Ryu
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So once a path starts it only travels one way, but you can have multiple paths branching out from the base.

What would determine when and how these abilities are unlocked?
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Arcvalons
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Lord of the Octoroks, all hail!
I'm not sure, the first that comes to mind is Ranks, but everyone hates them for some reason.

Instead, characters could find certain items in-universe that would unlock abilities, and it would have to be clear that doing certain things like completing a specific mission, defeating a boss, or clearing a dungeon is going to result in abilities beforehand.
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Onime No Ryu
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The thing I hated about Ranks was that A, any passive abilities you wanted didn't matter because everyone's physical and magical attributes just generally went up over time; for instance, Tai had a passive ability that was supposed to make him better at unarmed combat because of intense training, but if he and Matt were to hit one of those "how hard can you punch" arcade games, they would have hit equally hard because they'd been around the same amount of time and done the same amount of stuff, even though Matt didn't have that passive skill.

B, you handed the things out like candy.

C, you favored certain players like you always fucking do.

D, the way they stacked was retarded and made combo attacks pointless, and there were no clear definitions of what each rank entailed. I had a rank six ability at one point that only gave me a 5x buff or something, whereas I remember another player having like a rank 2 ability that gave them a 10x buff. Plus when other people brought up similar issues you pulled bullshit like "a rank 1 spell may be more effective if the player's overall rank is higher" so a level one fireball could potentially do as much damage as a level five fireball depending on who was casting it and the whole thing was generally dumb and retarded.

As for my suggestion as to how you could determine who gets these abilities and when, I think you have three options:

EXP points, which are a little bit hard to do but MIGHT work if you just set certain amounts for different tasks--like defeating a certain enemy is 100 exp and solving a dungeon puzzle is 25 exp and so on and so forth. As an example, say you send us into the forest dungeon. There are 5 players in the group. Player 1, 2, and 3 stay together and players 4 and 5 get split up. Players 4 and 5 solve a puzzle and beat some lesser enemies, netting them...let's say 50 exp. Players 1, 2, and 3 don't solve any puzzles (maybe 4 and 5 opened the doors for them remotely from their locations) but they beat the boss. This first boss is worth 100 exp. Then you could add bonuses for good roleplaying, teamwork in battle, and clearing the dungeon as a whole. So Players 4-5 get, say, 50 + 25 bonus, and Players 1-3 get 100+15 bonus or whatever for different reasons.

Obviously players who do more get more points. And to keep constant grinding from being very profitable, later enemies will be worth vastly more exp. Like, at the beginning maybe Gohma is woth 100 exp. By the end of the game, Ganon might be worth 10,000 exp. We may very well end up getting into hugely ridiculous numbers, but eh.

The second option is the AIO system this board has. Make abilities cost a certain amount of money. You could also sell items and other shit this way too. This encourages overall activity on the site, but you'd need to monitor people to make sure they weren't just spamming posts for money.

The third option is to have each progression in the story, such as beating a boss or a dungeon, confer an ability upgrade. The problem here is that players who don't follow the plotline word for word or who can't be here for certain IRL reasons will be left behind.
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NTNP
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I kinda like this idea overall. BO, make us an example with actual names... perhaps from say a series you are familiar with like... Final Fantasy or the Tales of series or something like that? It would be nice seeing what this would look like in action.
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Arcvalons
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Lord of the Octoroks, all hail!
Well, basically each branch would roughly correspond to one class. I went ahead and made a pre-alpha version of how it would look like, since using FF stuff would be harder - the red lines represent the rough classes each branch would represent in that direction.

Posted Image
Edited by Arcvalons, October 9, 2012, 1:30 pm.
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Arcvalons
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Lord of the Octoroks, all hail!
Now I'll explain each of the hypothethical abilities I put out there:

Awakening:
A passive ability which allows the character to use and sense planes beyond the perception of normal humans.

Release Lv1 (Swordsman):
A passive ability that releases the spiritual power of the user, increasing all his/her physical attributes by a factor of 1.5

Sonicboom (Swordsman):
A passive ability that amplifies the power of the user's physical strikes through weapons, producing powerful and loud shockwaves with each strike.

Energy Wave (Sorcerer):
Allows the user to fire low-intensity energy waves.

Energy Beam (Sorcerer):
Allows the user to fire low-intensity energy beams.

Wave Release (Martial Artist):
Allows the user to release an ominidirectional low-intensity energy wave from his body.

Divine Flame (Release Lv2):
A passive ability which causes the energy inside the user's body to explode in an instant, covering them with a fiery aura to double all their (base) physical attributes.

Sacred Sword (Templar):
A passive ability which covers all the user's weapons and strikes with holy flames, rendering attacks against the evil and the undead highly effective.

Regeneration Lv.1 (Cleric):
A passive ability that increases the rate of regeneration of the user when wounded.

Restoration (Cleric):
Instantly heals an ally's wounds. <<This seems lame and boring, might change it.>>

Poisonous Miasma (Alchemist):
A passive ability with which the user constantly relases a small cloud of poisonous miasma from his body, prolonged exposure to this gas can knock out foes and friends alike. However, it can be mostly supressed (there'd still be the smell, and be slightly nocive when fully supressed).

Shadow Camouflage (Rogue):
A passive ability which makes the user nearly invisible when covered by a veil shadows.

Shadow Step (Rogue):
A passive ability which makes the user quicker and more silent when covered by a veil of shadows.

Beastmaster Lv1 (Beastmaster):
A passive ability which allows the user to communicate with creatures of the wild and influence their actions to some degree.

Capture (Beastmaster)
An ability which allows the user to completely bind the will of a beast.

Darkspawn (Necromancer)
An ability which allows the user to spawn (weak) monsters and demons from the darkness.

Absorb Lifeforce (Necromancer)
A passive ability which absorbs the lifeforce of defeated foes, ethereal substance which they can use for necromantic abilities.

Summon Familiar (Summoner)
An ability which allows the user to summon a permanent familiar.
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Keith
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this sounds neato but it kinda kills moveset diversity
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Onime No Ryu
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burntmeat
October 9, 2012, 3:33 pm
this sounds neato but it kinda kills moveset diversity
Yeah, having all the abilities be pre-determined moves and whatnot might present some issues.

Then again, how many players do we really have? As long as there are plenty of options available, I doubt there will be many people sharing the exact same skills--for example, I'd probably go Martial Artist, Matt will go swordsman, and NTNP might go Paladin or something. There may only be 12 classes, but we only have 8 people RPing anyway.
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Keith
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but youre stuck with those archetypes and can't do more unique takes on them
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Onime No Ryu
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burntmeat
October 9, 2012, 4:24 pm
but youre stuck with those archetypes and can't do more unique takes on them
This is true. But limits do, to an extent, inspire creativity, so maybe we can come up with interesting ways to use these pre-determined techniques in different ways.

Like, take the Release skill, for instance. The user releases their inner power or whatever to get a temporary buff to all attributes. Let's say the attributes in question are Strength, Agility, Defense, Wisdom, and Accuracy. Maybe the user could instead focus their power on only the Strength attribute, for instance, in order to increase the power of the buffing effect.

Also, being stuck with archetypal characters just means we have to make our characters' personalities stand out through their actions and development.

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NTNP
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Or you could allow for hyridization. Maybe at first allow a character to activate TWO paths and move forward from either of them when leveling up? Say I went Paladin, I might also choose say Cleric to go with it to make a White Knight. Or maybe Matt goes with Swordsman, he could combine that with Sorcerer and become a Magic Swordsman. Or for a lot of fun, we could combine two classes with nothing to do with each other like a Necromancing Martial Artist or a Beast Taming Alchemist.

Although I must say one thing, we need a few more classes for this system to realistically work. But I do think the archetypal thing (if combined with the option for Hybridization) could let us have enough creativity to make it work.
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Arcvalons
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Lord of the Octoroks, all hail!
You could branch from the center as much as you like, and each path could further split - for example, the sorcerer path eventually branches to specialize in one element.

I agree there could be more classes, but I tried to order them the best way possible, and even used TvTropes :(
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Onime No Ryu
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Octy
October 9, 2012, 6:26 pm
You could branch from the center as much as you like, and each path could further split - for example, the sorcerer path eventually branches to specialize in one element.

I agree there could be more classes, but I tried to order them the best way possible, and even used TvTropes :(
Player feedback can help a lot of that I suppose.

For example, I think it might work better if you organize it by what classes have what similarities. Martial artist seems to me like it should go between swordsman and thief, not between swordsman and wizard. Maybe have the spectrum go from purely physical classes on one end towards purely magical classes on the other.
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Perascamin
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The idea of this is very creative, and it would make things a lot more simple to understand. Like say in any NPC or PC fight it comes down to using skills inside the skill tree. Because everything is predetermined, we wouldn't have to waste time trying to understand a person's original skill or even making unique skills ourselves.

Plus, no one could really feel ripped in battles because all of the abilities are predetermined. So long as we have the basic understanding of the trees, then no problems should be presented. One of the other upsides as to this already mentioned: It prevents a character from having overpowered abilities. By taking away the "creative" aspect in move-sets we eliminate massive explosions, conjuring hurricanes, having giant monsters to fight for you, and attacks with a retarded range.

All in all, I'd really like to see this idea used in an RP-setting.
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NTNP
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Hmm, I actually have a suggestion on the classes at least. Why not sort them based on how close they are to the actual "pure" version of each group? I'll give an example:

Purest Form of Warrior:
Warrior

Warrior with a little Rogue:
Swordmaster

Warrior with some Rogue:
Martial Artist

Warrior with equal parts Rogue:
Ranger

Rogue with some Warrior:
Dragoon

Rogue with a little Warrior:
Assassin

Pure Rogue:
Rogue

Warrior with a little Wizard:
Knight

Warrior with some Wizard:
Spell Blade (think magic using fighter)

Warrior with equal parts Wizard:
Paladin

Wizard with some Warrior:
Druid (Beast Master)

Wizard with a little Warrior:
Necromancer

Wizard:
Wizard

Wizard with a little Rogue:
Summoner

Wizard with some Rogue:
Cleric

Wizard with equal parts Rogue:
Illusionist

Rogue with some Wizard:
Alchemist

Rogue with a little Wizard:
Bard
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Onime No Ryu
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NTNP's suggestion is closer to what I was talking about as to how the classes and their skills could be sorted, but you also have to make sure that their skills are different enough that they're still their own classes. Obviously they'll share a few base skills--hopefully as few as possible; for instance, both Warriors and Swordsmen might have a Taunt skill or some shit, but maybe that's all they really have in common and the rest of their skills are fairly unique.

Now another question I can see rapidly coming up is, how game-like is this intended to be? Aside from skills, other ways to "control" character growth and strength are their equipment, their natural/racial abilities, and stats. None of those three things should really, in my opinion, be implemented in an RP (multiple races are cool, but telling a player they can't be a rogue because they're a Goron isn't.) because they'll require too much number crunching or item creation/sorting.
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Arcvalons
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Lord of the Octoroks, all hail!
Actually thinking of using this but only to include spells. Basically make the entire Multi-Branching Ability Tree for wizards only.
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Arcvalons
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Lord of the Octoroks, all hail!
This thread is a year old! Wow! Anyway bumping because I need this.
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