Goblin Squad Member
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@GrumpyMel I agree with you, but the same logic applies to the naming system which they are dead set on implementing.
If you'll glance over the thread Naming Conventions, you'll see I'm opposed to that. I'm also, and I'm being honest about it for the first time in this thread, opposed to the restrictions based on stats I've proposed here. I'm painting my argument here in the same absurd light I saw in the names thread.
You could say that, like Jonathan Swift, I am not actually advocating skinning Irish babies to make soft gloves for fine English ladies.
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Goblin Squad Member
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once again, ignoring the charisma debate (for now), forcing players into an even more narrow form factor than just a race is just bad game design. it limits the creativity to imply a very narrow expectation of skills/capabilities vs appearance. A yoked dude that is huge "must" have a high str, and can't possibly be dexterous. This isn't immersion supporting or breaking, its just stereotyping. Yes it would make it easier to scan a field of characters and pick out who does what, but that expectation not really even based in reality, much less in anything other than very stereotypical archetypes. I am more interested in seeing a MMO that has as much freedom to design a character as the tabletop. There is no rule saying STR requires a robust form factor. if it were so, a halfing could never compete with any of the other base races for pure strength. As the rules are written, they can actually achieve similar levels of strength, despite having at most a third the body mass of a generic human. A half-orc can have 20 STR & 18 CON, and still be a beanpole, wiry and unbreakable. A noble fop can have dirt for CHA and still desire to wear the most desirable and elaborately expensive clothes he can pay for.
Its about freedom to the player. Its not about argumentative reductionism and absolutes, like arguing an elf can dial in the appearance of a dwarf. No one is arguing that, and to suggest it is quite disingenuous to the discussion.
Now to the CHA debacle (an argument as old and as stale as alignment IMHO): There's nothing saying a low CHA person need be limited in anyway in fashion or appearance. the second this person opens their mouth in a social situation, they're likely to show off a terrible ability to communicate, or convince others of his sense of self worth. This person can be gorgeous to behold, and completely incapable of a convincing lie, intimidation, or any sort of social interaction. Obviously this is designed as an abstraction. Most gamers are not accomplished politicians or diplomats, capable of persuading 9 of 10 enemies to lay down arms for a reasonable discussion. Many gamers have decided they want to play that kind of character, so the rules abstractions of CHA have been used to prevent awkward bumbling communicators from having to embarrass themselves in front of a table full of other gamers.
In the MMO space, there can't really be an easy way to convince other players that YOU the player are any more or less charismatic than the avatar you're piloting. You the player are completely in charge of all the aspect of communications that will dictate how other players react to you. Your avatar might have sway with NPCs, but even this sort of mechanic won't translate well from the table to the MMO.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Blaeringr
Yep, I had lost track of who was arguing what point in that mess. I want as much freedom in creating names and appearances as possible. Got a Dwarf with an Elvish name? Don't care. I don't really even care if someone tries to look like a Drow and call themselves Drizzt, if we avoid names that are created solely to annoy. If it sounds vaguely fantasy, I'm alright with it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Here is how I envision the underlying mechanic working. Very, very preliminary stuff here.
Your stats don't mean anything accept how fast you train skills related to that stat. An 18 Strength doesn't mean you're super strong, it means you have the potential to learn Strength related things more quickly than someone with 3 Strength.
What does that mean in practice?
It means that people who want to focus on character abilities that require merit badges that have Strength-linked skills as pre-requisites will have high Strength scores.
To earn those merit badges you have to do a bunch of stuff related to the merit badge. So, for example if we had a "Lift Bars" merit badge, you might have to lift 50 bars to earn it. But you might also have to have trained the "Upper Body Physique" skill to a certain level. Then you'd earn the "Bar Lifter" ability. Which might make your ability to lift those bars slightly better, or that you could lift slightly higher bars, etc.
Awarding that merit badge could trigger a physiological change in your avatar to represent the fact that you're getting more upper-body strength.
So basically think of everyone starting with a fairly generic body, and then that body changing over time based on what they actually DO IN THE GAME, as opposed to what someone does to them with a fiddly slider bit before they even exist in the game world.
RyanD
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Goblin Squad Member
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So basically think of everyone starting with a fairly generic body, and then that body changing over time based on what they actually DO IN THE GAME, as opposed to what someone does to them with a fiddly slider bit before they even exist in the game world.
This is exactly what I was recommending, although I was thinking about it synchronically versus Ryan's diachronic approach. All it is a way to visualize via ones avatar features which are usually apparent in RL and makes social interaction more interesting. I would be much more likely to back down from a fight with a guy who is 6'5" and built like the hulk than some 5'6" librarian...yes that librarian might be Bruce Lee (who probably only had a STR 11-12 and would have been a finesse fighter), but that is a risk I take for stereotyping.
While I would like to see ones' ability scores have a more dynamic effect on the way one is able to interact with the world (high STR allows faster climbing and running, etc). I can definitely see the logic of using the merit badges to represent when you "learn" to actually use the newly acquired attribute.
Thanks for the feedback Ryan (preliminary unconfirmed...got it).
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Goblin Squad Member
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now this is significantly less arbitrary an idea... i'm still not totally stoked on not having the freedom to define outside of expected norms, but at least this has a causal effect associated with it.
/offtopic: there's no way in the seven hells Bruce Lee only had a STR of 11-12. I'd reckon a 16, min. but then he also wasn't going off of a point buy system, and likely had some pretty sick rolls.
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Goblin Squad Member
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/offtopic: there's no way in the seven hells Bruce Lee only had a STR of 11-12. I'd reckon a 16, min. but then he also wasn't going off of a point buy system, and likely had some pretty sick rolls.
Actually, I think Ryan's vision fits this real-world use case perfectly. Bruce Lee may not have had any more potential than most people, but he worked his butt off to earn lots and lots of Merit Badges.
I really like this model, although I hope they're careful about the physiological changes associated with Merit Badges.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As I understand it in the Pathfinder PnP ruleset Strength is not simply a measure of raw muscle-mass but how effectively you are able to apply that muscle-mass. That's why they can logicaly justify it having an effect on Melee to Hit rolls....if it were simply raw muscle-mass that wouldn't make any sense, and it would logicaly only apply damage, maybe.
There are big intimidating looking guys that don't do well in fights or physical contact sports (I have a buddy like that). Some because they may have size and mass and even arm size, they don't have actual muscle tone. Others, who may have significant muscles, but just aren't very effective/coordinated at applying them outside of very controled situations (i.e. lifting weights)....that even goes outside of any training or experience....it's not just having the muscles/mass, it's also being able to apply them effectively...and some people are just naturaly much better at that then others.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Nihimon - I would say that Lee had very high Str, Dex, Int & Con scores. And low Wis. and we'll never figure out how to quantify something like his Cha.
He was a bright, dedicated, talented guy who had a laser focus on creating a whole new category of person - international martial arts movie star. That's a LOT of aptitude.
Then he earned a tremendous number of merit badges - created his own school of Kung Fu, wrote a book about it, successfully operated in two VERY different cultures, etc. etc.
He's a grey example of what we're trying to accomplish.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Ryan, Bruce Lee strikes me as more of the Batman-model of super-hero. There's nothing supernatural about him, he was just extremely dedicated to perfecting himself physically and maximizing his potential.
An 18 Strength doesn't mean you're super strong, it means you have the potential to learn Strength related things more quickly than someone with 3 Strength.
Within that framework, I'll accept that Bruce Lee had "very high" Strength as long as it's possible for a "normal" person to increase their Strength to "very high" through dedicated training. I truly believe that every person has the potential to approach that level of excellence if they dedicate themselves to that goal as completely as he did.
[Edit] This conversation makes me nostalgic for my teen years, sitting around with my friends speculating on the attributes of different people from pop culture or history :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yeah I do suppose that is the main question... will these skills be capped? Trainable? Boostable with items, merit badges?
If so... what is your plan to avoid the trap eve had, in which characters were pretty much foolish to actually not spend their starting training on such boosts... but then basically that kind of threw a wrench into getting started as they couldn't train skills that had current use for a while?
If not, what are the plans on re-specs? Certainly frequent respecs negate the value of the system as a whole, (Oh I need to train str skills this week, time to respec) Though too infrequent could also lead to... OK I've maxed out every str skill I want... I'm at 20 badges for the fighter archtype... guess I'm not really training until I can get a re-spec to put my wizard to use.
(this isn't complaints of either BTW, more probing to get vague ideas of the gameplan of which I am more than aware, is written in very light pencil at this phase of development).
second question that I still have on the plans, and may be very far off from when you are able to tell us about, but I am still going to ask in the off chance you are willing/able. What limiting factors do you intend to do towards the multiclass 20/20/20's? Eve obviously used the ships as that factor (IE someone who was a master frigate pilot, and a master warship pilot, while having the versatility to swap ships, obviously didn't get the full benefit of all of his frigate skills when in a warship). Is gear likely to be "the ship" in this example? I mean obviously a 20/20/20, will be drastically more powerful than a single 20, if he's smiting evil, against a favored enemy, for full sneak attack damage. At least in logical balancing points there's 3 I can think of.
1. Most damage boosting skills tied to specific weapon classes to allow developers to control which can and can't be mixed.
2. Most damage boosting skills being mutually exclusive toggles. (IE a favored enemy toggle, and sneak attack mode being mutually exclusive 1 at a time).
3. GW2 style skill equiping
4. the concept of directly damage increasing skills, is a more or less non-factor somehow
I may have strayed from the topic a bit, and certainly understand if that is unanswerable due to either being very much undecided, or currently under wraps, but if it is possible, which of the 4 seems currently most plausible, or are there even options I hadn't even considered that are currently on the table?
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Onishi - EVE's mistake was having skills that you trained to make your skills train faster. Obviously if you simply don't care about actually PLAYING the game immediately, those are the skills you would train first. That was just a game design mistake, but they dragged their feet way to long before fixing it, and now that its fixed they'll never go back. Chalk that up to one of those "things we can learn by looking at the history of other sandbox MMOs". We won't do that. Right off the bat, training skills doesn't actually DO anything mechanical to your character so we avoid that trap easily.
As to respecs, I'll be happy to wait as long to have a system for them as EVE did. (5? years?)
Gear will absolutely be the thing that lets you use your abilities in useful ways, and swapping Gear will be more complicated than clicking an inventory button. How, why, where, when? Totally unknown at this point.
There should be a system of negative feedback loops between archetypes. You want to cast arcane spells like a wizard? Then the Gear you need for that interferes with the Gear you need to do melee combat damage like a Fighter. How that plays out across a really huge matrix of archetypes is something I'll leave to Lee and his design team.
RyanD
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@Onishi - wrote a big post but the Terrasque ate it. Hope this doesn't end up as a duplicate.
EVE made the mistake of having skills that you could train to cause your skills to train faster. That was just a game design mistake. We'll chalk that up to "lessons you learn by studying what other sandbox games have done". Also, training skills in our game doesn't have any mechanical effect on your character so we've killed the immediate concern before we even start.
I'll be happy to wait as long to worry about respecs as EVE did (5? years)
Gear is absolutely the limiting factor on how you use character abilities. And swapping Gear will be something requiring more than just clicking an inventory button while wandering across the landscape.
Ideally all archetypes should have pre-requisite Gear to use the linked abilities which conflict with the Gear required for other archetypes. So if you want to cast arcane spells like a Wizard, you'll find that you have a Gear conflict with what you need to do melee damage like a Fighter. By "conflict" I don't mean "either/or", but penalties and failure chances, and speed reductions and such.
Figuring out how to do that on a 11-dimensional array for Barbarians, Bards, Clerics, Druids, Fighters, Monks, Paladins, Rangers, Rogues, Sorcerers, and Wizards is a problem I'll leave to Lee and his design team.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I still do not agree that Bruce Lee had more than a STR 11-12. A person his size and weight would have been able to throw their body around pretty well with that STR. And I do not think STR of much more than that would have been realistically possible with his native physique and extreme focus on Dex training. I am not making any claims of the two being mutually incompatible, rather he only had x hours out of the day and spent all that time pursuing his Dex based merit badges...which also made him strong, but not supernatural strong. And I guess it depends on whether you guys are talking about Bruce Lee in film, or RL.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Ryan - I got that...I am having a little difficulty reconciling that with PF P&P but I will wait for a better explanation via a blog.
And thanks for pointing that out, sorry I neglected to get to the point of my previous post...someone recently mentioned figuring out caps or limits. If training the ever greater levels (badges?) of x takes increasing amounts of time, you could hypothetically keep training x (just as I suggest BL continued along Dex based paths), but it would result in a cap of sorts on other skills/attributes. The two dependant variables are diminishing returns and the cap enforced by time.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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If I understand the basic concepts correctly, in PFO, a character with high strength and low intelligence who chooses to become a wizard will need to spend more (real) time to learn (some/all?) skills which are in the wizardry archetype as prerequisites for wizard merit badges. Once that character has those merit badges, their abilities are just as effective as a character with high intelligence who has earned exactly the same set of merit badges?
I think that it's entirely reasonable to have equipment grant a bonus to some abilities and a penalty to others. Those bonuses and penalties don't have to be primarily numeric, either.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It seems like some people forgot about one of the earlier blogs.
Character Development in Pathfinder Online
Now that you've got the background you need, let's take a look at what we're currently planning for our game. Your Pathfinder Online character will be described by four primary types of information.
Attributes: These correspond to the classic six abilities of the tabletop game (although we may rename one or two just for the sake of clarity given the way they'll work in the online game). In Pathfinder Online, these attributes have two aspects: The first is that they determine how long it takes to train a skill that uses that attribute as a base. The higher the attribute score, the faster your character can train those kinds of skills. The second is that they determine how effective the character is at resisting certain types of effects. Instead of the tabletop game's three saving throws, in Pathfinder Online there's a resistance bonus or penalty associated with each of the six attributes.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@DeciusBrutus - yes.
I guess I oversimplified a bit earlier too. Your attributes will have some effect on your saving throws, so that is a mechanical benefit, but the effect will be on the margin and not the majority of the bonus/penalty mix for most characters against most saves.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Blaeringr - exactly. Your attributes indicate your aptitude not your abilities.
This is quite a cool concept and a big departure from what ability scores traditionally represent in DND. In some ways I can see that it relates to RL, in that people tend to have different inherent aptitudes for things.
You can have someone who is a naturally talented with Dex skills (such as riding a skate board, skiing etc) and someone who is just plain average. The skilled person may spend less time becoming proficient, while the average person would take a longer time to reach the same level of skill. The only time you might really notice a difference in aptitude is if the talented person devoted a huge amount of time to become truly skilled. In RL an average person may never be as good as someone with the inherent talented. While in PFO its merely a matter of spending enough time so the average person could eventually be as skilled (max ranks) as the talented person.
I also like that Ryan mentioned that training in certain skills could change the appearance of our avatars. It would certainly make you think twice about taking on the hugely buffed guy. Because you know he must have spent a lot of time training in certain skills to alter his appearance.
Imagine if due to merit badges and training in certain skills your character could actually run faster and/or longer, or throw a spear further than others because of the time devoted to such activities. That would be truly epic! You could even have athletic competitions that would mean something rather than everyone being equal.
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So basically think of everyone starting with a fairly generic body, and then that body changing over time based on what they actually DO IN THE GAME, as opposed to what someone does to them with a fiddly slider bit before they even exist in the game world.
I love this! I see a lot of people suggesting we should have the freedom to choose whatever looks we want (the hulking brute str 6 wizard), and that restrictions are inherently bad.
But what I want is the simple concept that choices have consequences, which requires that you can't have it all (at least not immediately and effortless).I love the concept that my looks express who my character is, ie. the choices I have made in the game. Along with titles, looks can tell your history. That ranger is skinny because he survives on his own in untamed wilds. That merchant is obese because he runs some very profitable gathering and crafting operations. That barbarian is bulging with muscles because of years of working out with his greatsword.
I like the implication that there could be entire paths of 'cosmetic merit badges'. Clerics being tonsured (or tatooed?) after being initiated into the order, fighters getting scars from duels or mass battle, etc.
In short, the GOOD effects in my opinion far outweigh the BAD effects.
PS: if certain looks are tied to prestigious achievements, then the disguise skill...
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yeah it is a very cool concept, and assuming GW is able to put in a wide enough variety of merit badges/abilities you could end up with characters who have exactly the same attributes, classes and levels actualy being quite different in play becuase they've focused on learning different merit badges related to thier attributes.
I also think it'd be cool if you sprinkled in a few merit badges/abilities that were usefull to classes but based on attributes outside what was considered Prime for thier class. If I remember right the Pathfinder PnP system did a bit of this (for example, I think there were a couple usefull feats for fighters based off INT) and it worked well. I like the idea that for a Fighter, for example, it's not always an obvious choice that you just dump an 18 into Strength. That way there are reasons to think about shaving that down a couple points and dropping it into a different stat as it opens up different options to you. Adds more depth to character generation choices. Pathfinder seems to do a good job with that. For example, often times when I make a melee fighter character, I'll drop as couple points of Strength to bolster my Dex as it allows me better AC and access to some usefull Feats.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It does generate the question, how much customization will be available outside of the "use Defined" idea (reminds me a bit of GTA: San Andreas). Will we have the option of fattening or shortening our avatars? it seems a pretty standard practice to allow some customization beyond race, so we can generate a bit more of a sense of ownership over the character.
Clearly I'm a fan of as much freedom as possible within the bounds of each form factor of race. Hopefully when i load up on day one i won't run out the front door and smack into 50 identical faces.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It does generate the question...Thank you.
You're Welcome! I almost didn't catch that mental error when i was thinking up the comment. "raise" would have been a better word choice but "generate" certainly beats out "begging"
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Goblin Squad Member
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I certainly feel like character customization is NOT an area that should be skimped on in any capacity. Building your character is usually your first experience in a new game, and helps you identify with your character from early on. A failure to connect with your character during creation, can create a lack of interest in the overall game. What creates a failure to connect is if you don't have the options to create an appearance you are satisfied with, and there are a LOT of factors that go into that. Some people will want their characters slender and feminine. Some will want them stout and masculine. Some will want a clear complextion, others will want to be gritty and scarred. Some will want a perfect body with pronounced curves, others will want to be thin and sickly, or packing some extra weight.
Members of the 7th Veil and GL who remember the debate over Ryzom will remember that I personally said I was not interested in the game because I could not identify with my character. I felt all of the models were far too feminine and the barely existent facial hair options were a joke. It really killed my interest in the game to the point that I quickly tired and quit playing it, where with a more gritty and masculine character I could identify with, I might have stuck with it a bit longer and maybe gotten into it. By contrast I am sure if all that game offered is gritty bearded men, a lot of other people might not play it. Hell I wouldn't be too happy if every other character looked like mine.
So overall point to this rambling. Variety, variety, variety. Character customization is not just a minor feature. It could be a determining factor in success or failure of the game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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... I was not interested in the game because I could not identify with my character. I felt all of the models were far too feminine and the barely existent facial hair options were a joke... with a more gritty and masculine character I could identify with, I might have stuck with it a bit longer and maybe gotten into it.
This is extremely important. I've made the same point a couple of times about Vanguard - the Elves looked weird, like sick aliens, and the Kojani (the only Human race capable of playing Sorcerers) forced a very oriental look. I ended up playing a Thestran Human Paladin, and was able to really get into that character, but was always frustrated that I couldn't play a Sorcerer that looked appropriate to me.
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Goblin Squad Member
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So basically think of everyone starting with a fairly generic body, and then that body changing over time based on what they actually DO IN THE GAME, as opposed to what someone does to them with a fiddly slider bit before they even exist in the game world.
I love this! I see a lot of people suggesting we should have the freedom to choose whatever looks we want (the hulking brute str 6 wizard), and that restrictions are inherently bad.
But what I want is the simple concept that choices have consequences, which requires that you can't have it all (at least not immediately and effortless).I love the concept that my looks express who my character is, ie. the choices I have made in the game. Along with titles, looks can tell your history. That ranger is skinny because he survives on his own in untamed wilds. That merchant is obese because he runs some very profitable gathering and crafting operations. That barbarian is bulging with muscles because of years of working out with his greatsword.
I like the implication that there could be entire paths of 'cosmetic merit badges'. Clerics being tonsured (or tatooed?) after being initiated into the order, fighters getting scars from duels or mass battle, etc.
In short, the GOOD effects in my opinion far outweigh the BAD effects.
PS: if certain looks are tied to prestigious achievements, then the disguise skill...
Yeah I'm a big fan of this idea straightaway. Form and function being telling a history.
Also:
Gear is absolutely the limiting factor on how you use character abilities. And swapping Gear will be something requiring more than just clicking an inventory button while wandering across the landscape.
This sounds like another breath of fresh air too. So much for magic pockets. Haappy days.
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Awarding that merit badge could trigger a physiological change in your avatar to represent the fact that you're getting more upper-body strength.
I like this. Physical changes to the character based on their skills and merit badges is a very nice idea. Unrealistic strength for the amount of muscles a character has, has always been a pet peeve of mine. You see some fresh character that looks like a body builder and can barely hold their sword up straight, and then some slender character with no muscle definition that's smashing through giant stone doors with a massive hammer.
I think the idea of a slender, not so bulky fighter isn't unrealistic, but they would have skills like weapon finesse, tumble, and rapiers. Not power attack, super strength, and great axes.
I would consider not forcing all stronger warriors to look ridiculously muscle bound though. Especially female ones, as I really doubt every strength based female fighter wants to look like this as opposed too this. Some decent sized and well toned muscles can count for quite a lot. Just no ribs poking out and sickly arms that look like bones wrapped in skin.
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I have to say I'm not too thrilled on the psychical changes to character over time. Also would there be changes based on Dex? How would those look? Con? Why be Str-centric other than its the easiest to quantify? Just give me a slide and who cares I say. If anything can we please keep it within Gina Carano proportions for the females? Or is this what you want? If someone playing a female avatar wants to look like this fine, but make it optional please.
Oh and as far as Bruce Lee goes he benched 260lbs in 3 sets of 10 on "heavy" days cycling in 100lbs 30 times on off. Given I actually weight-lifted for competition I can tell you at his size and weight that's fairly above average. Given in Pathfinder 16 Str means you can lift over your head 230 pounds I think its fair to give him a 14-16 Str. See you don't become cut like THIS by "Dex training"... Biceps and triceps are NOT the only muscles in the human form, nor does anyone trained to throw punches use only their arm strength. Trust me on this one.
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More dextrous people should move more smoothly, make less sound when they move. Their gestures should be more graceful. They might do interesting things while idle like juggling, flipping daggers or using butterfly knives in interesting patterns, or rolling coins across their fingers.
People with good constitutions should have brighter eyes, more bounce in their steps, longer and/or more lustrous hair, straighter backs, etc.
Of course all of this has counter points for lower scores. And some of it could be hidden or suppressed by character abilities.
And much of it might not be possible given the size limitations of the avatars, the animation time required to achieve it, and the rendering capabilities of the engine.
RyanD
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Goblin Squad Member
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I understand the idea you're going for behind the examples, a fit person with and a unfit one. (Pale skin vs a healthy flush for example.) Though I would wonder how much more straight is 12 Con back vs a 18 and would it matter enough to the player visually to justify time programming it even if you did have the size needed. In fact it sounds too much like a Peter Molyneux/Fable idea. Nice on paper, not so much in practice. Though I do like idle animations and looking graceful...
I think sliders aren't all that great (ok, not great) but I do like the system in EVE for muscle manipulation. The ability to sculpt our bodies would appeal to a lot of people. Most of all if you do it in a Dragon's Dogma fashion with the ability to do postures.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Waruko - EVE's character system is the result of a couple of years of programming by a team of about a dozen people. I'd conservatively estimate it's cost at $10 million.
And as far as I know, you still can't exit your quarters, go into a common shared area and see another player's avatar in-game yet...
So we're not going down that path. Way too much cost for way too little return.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Well they have hinted its to be used in WoD Online so I think at this point its unimportant to them if you can leave your captain's quarters or not. (Massive assumption.) Though I am surprised to hear that estimate for development for a system where all you do is pull on 3D muscle tissue. Not that I have any clue or experience with developmental cost. Its just surprising. I thought ABP also had a good system but considering the massive amount of money hemorrhaged into that game I don't even want to think on what might of been spent.
I just love options and fine manipulation of a model for added individuality. I liked City of Heroes, Champions Online, APB, and EVE but I dislike limited ones like WoW with 4-6 body parts with 12 options each.
In the end you'll have to make the system that meets your needs of course. I just hope whatever you make will be a fun and interesting one for me to create in.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I understand the idea you're going for behind the examples, a fit person with and a unfit one. (Pale skin vs a healthy flush for example.) Though I would wonder how much more straight is 12 Con back vs a 18 and would it matter enough to the player visually to justify time programming it even if you did have the size needed. In fact it sounds too much like a Peter Molyneux/Fable idea. Nice on paper, not so much in practice.
Fable is EXACTLY what came to mind when I first read this idea. And I agree that Fable implemented it poorly. Fable, or "Project Ego" as it was known when I started following it failed to deliver on a LOT of promises though. It was a good game, but not half of what was promised to the players.
There is a lot that can be learned from Fable by a project as ambitious as Pathfinder Online. But I think that visual representations of skills is an idea well worth looking into. I think the message that Pathfinder Online should take from Fable is that people don't like to have their skills dictate their appearance. I know both me and my ex put less points into strength than we wanted to because we didn't want our characters to look like meatheads. Especially her.
I think Ryan is on the right line of thinking though. Merit badges can grant a bit of appearance change. I think in the end though, the player needs to decide if they want their super strong fighter to look like this or this but simply not be able to look like this and your wizard who has never taken a skill that even looks strength related shouldn't have the option to look like any of those options except maybe the third. (Sorry Cloud fans but if anyone could wield that sword they sure as heck wouldn't look like that.)
One thing that does concern me Ryan is that you really want to tie appearance to every stat from the sounds of it. This is what resulted in skill changing character height and magic forcing you to have ugly blue tattoos in Fable II. I fully encourage you to explore your options. Making dexterous characters have a more graceful walk or the a clearer complexion to a more charismatic character makes sense, but don't stretch too hard to make sure that every character's wisdom and intelligence and constitution are as easily seen as their strength. Strength is a very visual attribute. You can roughly size up someone's strength by looking at them. While I believe people's facial expressions can give away some of their mental attributes if you know what to look for... they simply are not as visual of attributes as strength. Don't try to force them to be. It might be cool to see a high level wizards robes flutter from winds that aren't there sometimes to show their magical powers, but don't force it too hard. If people complain that their super clever rouge just doesn't get as much eye candy as for being quick and clever as Urg Narg the barbarian with a strength of 22 and intelligence of 4... Tell them to deal with it. Nobody could pick Albert Einstein out as intelligent as easily as they could an amateur body builder as strong if they didn't already know who he was. That is life.
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Goblin Squad Member
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That's the thing though if they do add it in I'm feeling it will most likely be a "one size fits all Str 14". Not a piece mail selection of muscle features as you raise in strength skills. If that is the case I rather just do that at character creation so I already look how I want to look. Nor do I want to raise my Con solely so it looks like I used pantene pro v the night before. So I'm going to be skeptic on this one.
And as much as I like Cloud I agree. You need to look more like this. Couldn't find a pic of Vargus (Escaflowne) when he is training with Van. Just trust me when I say he looked capable of swinging that sword.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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(Sorry Cloud fans but if anyone could wield that sword they sure as heck wouldn't look like that.)
Heresy warning:
Mage's weapon
PropertyAnyone proficient with simple weapons or the dagger is proficient with this weapon.
Mage's fullblade- just about anyone can use this sword even though it is bigger than them.
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Goblin Squad Member
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More dextrous people should move more smoothly, make less sound when they move. Their gestures should be more graceful. They might do interesting things while idle like juggling, flipping daggers or using butterfly knives in interesting patterns, or rolling coins across their fingers.
People with good constitutions should have brighter eyes, more bounce in their steps, longer and/or more lustrous hair, straighter backs, etc.
Of course all of this has counter points for lower scores. And some of it could be hidden or suppressed by character abilities.
And much of it might not be possible given the size limitations of the avatars, the animation time required to achieve it, and the rendering capabilities of the engine.
RyanD
I would stay away from things like hair length, or something that can be logically altered by the player, or another player(possible parallel to the image designer in SWG).
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Goblin Squad Member
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I set my stall out early, I'm not that concerned about visual customization, though appreciate fully many people are. But I like the sounds of visualization <-> information <-> skills. So you can access what sort of threat another player might pose in what directions. The nice thing about this information "processing" is that it then can be reversed so that disguises and the ilk are misinformation. :)
Even a few pointers such as tossing knives when lazing around is sufficient to inform an observer about another player. Imperfect information is definitely an interesting addition when there potentially are lots of skills and items and attributes to access from a visual pov. Imagine coming across a rival party and checking all members with a quick, sweeping glance?!
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Goblin Squad Member
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That's the thing though if they do add it in I'm feeling it will most likely be a "one size fits all Str 14". Not a piece mail selection of muscle features as you raise in strength skills. If that is the case I rather just do that at character creation so I already look how I want to look. Nor do I want to raise my Con solely so it looks like I used pantene pro v the night before. So I'm going to be skeptic on this one.
I would agree they should do it right, or not do it at all. But I think if they put some thought and care into the system they are designing they should be able to make a system that most players will enjoy. Doing it right involves giving the player some control over how far the changes go, and not forcing every stat to give highly visual changes, if any at all.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yeah, as mentioned, I'm really not a big fan of the idea. In a ROLE-PLAYING about the worst thing you can do is remove the players control over thier own character....especialy when it comes to things involving behavior. I can see maybe adding/removing a few options when it comes to extremes on the scale for some physical characteristics, but anything more then that is really pushing it (IMO).
So I'm wanting to play the stoic, disciplined, inauspicious type but my characters got to be constantly twirling daggers and coins around simply because they have a high dex or have achieved some merit badge related to pickpocket or backstab?
Talk about removing my ability to play my characters personality the way I want it?
Or I'm a fighter who spends weeks in the field fighting in the muck and grime but I've got to have long lusterious hair that looks like I belong in a Prell commercial simply because I have high Constitution? I'm walking around with a "bounce in my step" after I've just completed a 30 mile forced march and fought in a grueling battle where I watched my best freind cut down?
Really?? Does anyone else see the problem with this?
It's one thing to put some limitations on gross physical aspects....although even there I think one should tread lightly. It's quite another to start taking away things that are related to the characters behavior, personality and mood. You go down that route and you are going to be loosing alot of the people who are actualy interested in ROLE-PLAYING.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If something like this could be implemented, I think that what should happen is that when you gain a character ability that carries with it a potential visual appearance change you have options on how that change is implemented. So instead of using sliders at character creation, you get sliders throughout the character's life.