Sawyer and new ideas

[Brother None]

On the General Gaming forum at Iplay, and not speaking about Fallout3 Ewen Brown asked this question:

<blockquote>are there any good alternatives to leveling
all the use to improve methods i've encountered pretty much sucked the thing is leveling doesn't completely make sense
any ideas?</blockquote>

In the thread, when someone mentioned darklands,JE Sawyer replied by saying:

<blockquote>Yes. No levels and a learn-by-doing system that never seemed to get in the way of the game. It also almost never resulted in abuse. However, I'd take their learn-by-doing system a step further and reward the player more for failure than success. It would help slow the progress of a single skill.</blockquote>

G3N13 didn't agree with Sawyer, and stated that powergamers would just reload picking locks until they failed at it, to which Sawyer replied with:

<blockquote>And, properly designed, the tradeoff is that the lock now cannot be picked. Success has inherent rewards, and failure brings the potential for rewards. That's the thing. Failure doesn't insure progress, but it helps. I used this in a pen and paper system a long time ago, and it worked very well. Players wanted their characters to succeed, not fail, but failure did help them advance their skills from session to session.</blockquote>

G3N13 pushed his point further on the topic of reloading, to which Sawyer said:

<blockquote>Again, failure doesn't guarantee that the character will improve, and any individual failure need not inform the player of its effect on their chance to improve. The goal is to get players to simply play the game and sort of forget about the "gamey" aspects of it. This is something Darklands did very well.</blockquote>

Link to thread

This is not related to Fallout3, just an inside look on the gaming design ideas of J.E. Sawyer.
And some other threads of lesser interest:

Thread about rotating camera angles

Thread about armors, in which Sawyer again noted his intention to balance the power armor to prevent it from becoming an uber-armor

 

[Briosafreak]

Edited because it was in the General Gaming Forum and not Fallout related, but it`s indeed interesting Kharn.

 

[Montez]

While I like the idea of a system that gives you exp for failure rather than success, I don't think they should change Fallout's leveling up system. IMHO it's the best system around as you never need to purposely go out and level up - you progress very nicely as the game progresses. Why change it?

And why the hell do those BIS idiots get so up in arms about "powergamers"? Jesus, leave it alone, focus your feeble brains on suggestions that will help make the game better, not complaining that someone could potentially exploit a game mechanic.

 

[Brother None]

While I like the idea of a system that gives you exp for failure rather than success, I don't think they should change Fallout's leveling up system. IMHO it's the best system around as you never need to purposely go out and level up - you progress very nicely as the game progresses. Why change it?

I don't think Sawyer is planning to, he was just discussing the mechanics of gaining XP on a thread about levelling up.

It'd be cool if he did change something about the "+25xp for lockpicking the door"-thing from both Fallouts, it didn't work perfectly.

I wonder if a system would work where, after failing to pick a lock, the game wouldn't notify the player of gaining skill until his next level-up, where he is notified that "for honing your skills, you get +3%/skill points lockpicking, +5 stealing and +2 medic" or something...

PS: oh, and sorry, Brios, my bad. Heh

 

[Sander]

.....


Oh, brilliant, Sawyer thought of the idea I have been toying with for two years. yay.....

Good idea, though.

 

[Briosafreak]

.....


Oh, brilliant, Sawyer thought of the idea I have been toying with for two years. yay.....

Good idea, though.

Yeah he always said that making Fallout3, like he is doing, and a DarkLands game withing that system he`s speaking on that thread were always his big dreams.

He now wants to do a tactical combat game set in the WWII too, but the Silent Storm guys did it first.

 

[JJ86]

I think a game engine shouldn't be over-engineered to remove the benefits from reloading. The gamer should know which way he wants to play and if he gets off from playing the game the easy way then that is his choice. When learning a game I do reload often but then when I really want a challenge I can go through the game without being dependent on reloading until I get the best possible outcome.

 

[Wooz]

It's all very nice, but what about perks?
I can't imagine Fallout without a "perk-every-three-levels" feature...
If it would come to happen, they'd probably make them based on skills I guess, at least on the result of the "learning" (failures) feature in skills. But then again, the damn perk feature would be spoilt since you'd have to know at which skill level you choose it...

 

[atoga]

The Trade Agreements Act of 1979 (TAA), Pub.L. 96–39, 93 Stat. 144, enacted July 26, 1979, codified at 19 U.S.C. ch. 13 (19 U.S.C. §§ 2501–2581), is an Act of Congress that governs trade agreements negotiated between the United States and other countries under the Trade Act of 1974. It provided the implementing legislation for the Tokyo Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. The stated purposes of the TAA are: Approve and implement the trade agreements negotiated under the Trade Act of 1974 Foster the growth and maintenance of an open world trading system Expand opportunities for the commerce of the United States in international trade Improve the rules of international trade and to provide for the enforcement of such rules, and for other purposes[1] The TAA can restrict procurement of goods and services for federal contracts, if the program management office decides to check TAA compliance. In many ways the TAA supersedes the Buy American Act, because the TAA allows the President to waive the Buy American Act under certain conditions. Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) Subpart 25.4 includes guidance for TAA compliance.[2] In general, a product is TAA compliant if it is made in the United States or a "Designated Country". Designated Countries include: Those with a free trade agreement with the United States such as Canada, Mexico, Australia, and Singapore Countries that participate in the World Trade Organization Government Procurement Agreement (WTO GPA), including Japan and many countries in Europe Least developed countries such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Laos, and Ethiopia Caribbean Basin countries such as Aruba, Costa Rica, and Haiti Notably absent from the list is the People's Republic of China. A full list of Designated Countries is in FAR 25.003.[3]

 

[The physopathic Polock]

Yes. No levels and a learn-by-doing system that never seemed to get in the way of the game. It also almost never resulted in abuse. However, I'd take their learn-by-doing system a step further and reward the player more for failure than success. It would help slow the progress of a single skill.

And, properly designed, the tradeoff is that the lock now cannot be picked. Success has inherent rewards, and failure brings the potential for rewards. That's the thing. Failure doesn't insure progress, but it helps. I used this in a pen and paper system a long time ago, and it worked very well. Players wanted their characters to succeed, not fail, but failure did help them advance their skills from session to session.

Again, failure doesn't guarantee that the character will improve, and any individual failure need not inform the player of its effect on their chance to improve. The goal is to get players to simply play the game and sort of forget about the "gamey" aspects of it. This is something Darklands did very well.

This "learns by doing" thing smacks of Morrowind to me...

 

[JJ86]

I think the system they had in Wasteland was good and yes it could be abused if you were prone to cheat through the game. But then again that was the player's choice. I think Sawyer is headed in the right direction here.

 

[Ratty Sr.]

I believe the Elder Scrolls games have been using the same system since 1994. In Daggerfall you could see neither progress of individual skills, nor progress towards level-up, so you really didn't need to concern yourself with experiencing and levelling. You just had to play the game, use your skills and *poof* suddenly you are one level higher. I like that system very much.