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It's pretty much inevitable to run into numbers in an RPG. Wether the level system is used, your character's health, money, basic stats, or whatever are all going to be represented by numbers or numerical values (yes, even a health bar has numbers backing it up) which will increase over time.

I think we all fondly remember the classic First Boss syndrome. You're new at some game, still a little unsure of the mechanics behind the game, and find yourself facing the first boss, who wipes you out (dealing 20 points of damage every attack to your pathetic 45.) So you run around, kill stuff, and gain a single level: all of a suddent your character sports a raging 80 HP and takes a meager 15 HP of damage (HP + 35, Def + 5!) Your level 2 badass wipes the floor with the boss.

Fast forward to the eight dungeon, where your character is now level 30 and has 1500 HP. The boss deals roughly 250 HP of damage to you every turn, and you get beaten. You level up some and gain a level, going from 1500 HP to 1560 (A massive +60 Hp boost!) and taking 230 HP per blow (+20 defense!!) Little bit of math: you could take 6 hits before dying (without healing) before. Now? 6.8 roughly; we'll say 7. Compared to the 2.25 -> 5.3 increase from before, suddently, gaining levels seems to matter less and less. Unless you learn a new spell or whatnot.

Let's take Final Fantasy X, where attacks can do upwards of 25,000 damage. What's the point of gaining a level and doing 25,250 damage when enemies have 1,500,000 Hp? OMG! 250 extra damage!

This leads me to my point.

Why are so many games STILL using linear equations to express calculated stats?!

When coming up with the battle system for Endless Saga, it hardly seemed any more difficult to plug in exponential values to calculate things such as HP growth to give the player a reason to put a little extra effort in going from level 80 to 81. And in the end, it felt almost easier to balance things out. Yet so many games just toss in 2-3 variables (such as level, attack power, and strength), and add/multiply them together. Boink. End of story. You find yourself getting (relatively) massive, important increases at first, then it quickly seems trivial to put effort in going just one step further before the next boss because the increase is no longer worth it.

So... what the heck? Where's the adaptivity? For that matter, why are levels so numerous? Give the player lower numbers to work with and make the increase worthwhile in relation to the situation. A level 60 character can easily be as powerful as a level 50 character, yet there's a massive 10 level gap right there. The impact is hardly noticeable in many games while it should be. The fact most games build themselves around having the player finish them around level 50 doesn't contribute to this.

Little rant. But hey. Discuss!

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

well its becuase if you double in power everytime like you example for lvl1-2 then the bosses would have to have MILLONS of hp to counter the fact that your power lvl is 2^60 power which is a lot as opossed to 2*60 they do this to save memory i guess becuase 1,500,000 hp is a lot smaller then lets say 9,999,999,999 becuase each boss would have to be at least 8 times more power then the last one because of the massive gain you got from a non linear lvl

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procastinate now, dont put it off

I can sum this up with one little phrase-

If it ain't broke don't fix it.

The 50 to 60 gap you speak of usually happens at a time in the game where it hardly matters. 40-50 is usually boss beating range. Much beyond that is nothing. The only FF i've seen where the 50-60 gap had any signifigant impact was FFIV. Purely for meteo reasons.

Like I said- Why use something else when people don't seem to have a problem with the old system?

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If you've been mod-o-fied,
It's an illusion, and you're in-between.
Don't you be tarot-fied,
It's just alot of nothing, so what can it mean?
~Frank Zappa

Sins exist only for people who are on the Way or approaching the Way

Linear equations are easier to handle.

Even if you used a geometric or exponential progression, you'd run into problems. It's a trade-off between what happens at the lower levels and what happens at the higher levels.

And I still found leveling to be worthwhile in FFX.

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Veni, vidi, dormivi.

Exponents are not limited to integer values. You can have x^1.05 for instance and have a much slower, smoother curve. In any event, it isn't so bad. Let's suppose HP is calculated by (off the bat...) Initial HP + (Level ^ 2), where Initial HP is 10.

Lv Hp
1 10
2 14
3 19
4 26
5 35
...
95 9125
96 9226
97 9409
98 9604
99 9801

Going from level 80 (6400) to 90 (8110) is suddently quite an interesting leap, far more than if you had a linear equation like (Level x 95) + Initial Hp, where you'd go from 7610 to 8560. Difference? 1710 HP over 950. Quite a leap, and much more worthwhile to obtain. This is something I cooked up on the fly; obviously a final, definite equation for a game would be thought out a bit more than this. For that matter, why have 99 levels in the first place? Spreading out 9999 HPs between 99 levels means you have to cut it up a LOT more than if you spread it out between, say, 20 levels.

Interesting properties: no matter which level you're at, you still gain a significant boost. And if stats are built the same way, gaining a level remains just as worthwhile start to finish.

Why fix what's not broken? Well, why produce 3D games with high-quality graphics and innovative systems if the old classics still captivate people? Because better is, frankly, better.

This post has been edited by Silverlance on 29th April 2005 20:41

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

The lower numbers you speak of is most evident in games such as Soul Blazer for SNES and Kingdom Hearts for PS2. You level up in Soul Blazer, you get 2HP everytime and on occasion defense and attack +1. This system worked for the entire game and massive leveling was never in order. Kingdom Hearts, the most HP your character can have is just over a hundred. Defense and attack are maxed at 100, and your mp barely reaches 10!

This numbers could've been increased by say 10 times. The game would've been just the same. Prehaps they would've sold better on the market with the appeal of the higher numbers that some players love.

The idea of an exponential increase seems to work fine. Or at the very least, the use of "Stat Points". Say for levels 1-5 you get one point to assign to a variety of strength, dexterity, vitality, and so forth. Level 6-10, you now have two stat points to assign. Even a meger 1 point at the start of the game makes a big difference. And eventually as you gain more levels and face off against stronger monsters you're going to need more and more points to stand a chance.

Games where levels 50-60 make no difference reminds me of Star Ocean 3. You can beat that game at level 100, but your character's max level is 255. At level 200 or so, you don't stand a chance against the ultimate hidden bosses. However, those minor increases in HP, MP, Strength and such over those last 55 levels makes a huge difference.

Questioning the level system is understandable. But, do you question the existence of Excalibur 2 in FFIX? A weapon that has a slightly higher attack power than the Ultima Weapon that Zidane gets BUT you don't have to rush through the game in 12 hours to achieve.

Do you spend that 500,000 gil to buy that armour that raises your defense by a single point, simply because it is the best in the game? Of course you do, because you play RPGs and you know every little bit helps in the end.

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This is my world: (Got my second chapter up, 3rd Chapter about 80% complete)
http://www3.sympatico.ca/daniel876/homepage.html

Wow, this is a topic for me to watch. I've been trying to figure out how to design stat algorithms for my own RPG, and the one thing that I know I'm not using is the linear model, which (in my opinion as well) Silverlance has correctly described as being a bad idea.

And now, looking just at the very simple equation that Silverlance came up with

Quote

HP(x) = HP(1) + x^2
where
x=experience level
HP(x)=HP, as a function of experience level

I find that a pretty good start. Of course, that doesn't take into account things like maxHP-increase items, but it's still a good start. I'll have to start messing with that.

As a comment about absurd level-up stat increases, I should of course mention Sailor Moon RPG: Another Story. I so remember how, at some level, my characters had around 35 maxHP, then suddenly one of them gained a level and ended up with about 60 maxHP. Yet damage still stayed below 10 on even the easiest enemies, making battles long and tedious. (What an unenjoyable game.)

This post has been edited by Glenn Magus Harvey on 29th April 2005 21:23

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Quote (Glenn Magus Harvey @ 29th April 2005 16:22)

And now, looking just at the very simple equation that Silverlance came up with

Quote

HP(x) = HP(1) + x^2
where
x=experience level
HP(x)=HP, as a function of experience level

I find that a pretty good start. Of course, that doesn't take into account things like maxHP-increase items, but it's still a good start. I'll have to start messing with that.

Excellent! Glad to see I'm giving people ideas.

In Endless Saga, I've used an equation similare to this, only with a few stats factored in (obviously, the innocent catgirl character isn't going to benefit from as rapid an increase in HP as the seasoned war veteran character!) Converting linear equations to exponential ones is surprisingly easy once you run a few tests to make sure you aren't going overboard; I've pretty much used exponential equations in every calculations in the game.

The hard part came when I had multiple exponential stats affecting a stat calculated exponentially (say, Stat X = level ^ 1.05, then Stat Y = Stat X ^ 1.1 + (level + StatZ) ^ 1.5) Changing one stat has pretty important repercussions on the others, and I often found myself noticing insane results ("Huh? But, how can this character hit 25,000 HP?? All's I did was change the way I apply defense bonuses...") But once you get the hang of it, these things become pretty trivial.

1- Set yourself a max value and tailor your calculation around that. If you want your character to have no more than 7500 hp through natural growth, tweak the expression so it gives you that much hp at the highest level (or whatever). It's easier than doing it the other way around.

2- Double-check when you're done. Usually, nothing important needs to be changed, but the occasional tweak when stats depend on each other can lead to problems if you don't check them afterwards.

Easy as pie, and the slope, no longer being linear, keeps the game's challenge mostly constant.

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."