Ideas on skill acquisition, quests and leveling systems.

[LordSquirrel 150]

Hello everyone. I've recently been thinking about skill, quest and leveling systems in RPGs and I've come up with a few interesting ways to do all of them and figured it would be interesting to share. Feel free to share your own ideas as well.

 

I have two ideas on skill acquisition systems:

 

-1. Skills purely through quests.

This one is fairly simple, the characters do not get skills from leveling up, only stat points. This could be only through main quests or side quests or both. This could easily make people more interested in the world or side stories because they will need to go through them for skills, obviously you wouldn't put skills that are essential in side quest, but you could put ones with unique ones with cool effects, or just ones to help out with the ones gained in main quests. 

 

-2. Skills through area exploration.

This is a slightly more interesting one. You could have the players start off the game with a certain number of skills that can carry them through the game, but have a bunch of extra ones scattered through the game maps. You could either do this just from reaching a certain point in a map, or a landmark in the map. Or even have there be a puzzle that leads to some sort of skill manual or something like that. This is also a good way to get people interested in the world and as more of proactive way of getting skill rather then grinding for five hours.

 

Quest system ideas:

 

I really only have one quest system idea, so let's get to it.

My idea is less of an overall system and more of an idea for areas without any real NPCs or story. The idea is to have a series of objectives show up whenever players enter this type of area listing off things like "Kill X Gargoyles", "Collect X Daisies", "Discover X amount of landmarks" y'know, that kind of thing. Once they finish all of those object then they get whatever kind of EXP, gold or skill reward you decide.

 

Leveling Systems:

 

Got two ideas again.

 

-1. Idea number one is inspired by how older TES games used to do character leveling. Basically, you have three requirements before you can level up: 1. Required amount of EXP. 2. Required amount of kills (separated into categories like Human, Animal, Monster, ect.), and another requirement that you decide yourself. After you get all three requirements completed then you go back to tavern, or homebase, or whatever and rest. While resting you can choose what attributes to increase and what skills to acquire that are available to your current level (there's a bonus skill acquisition method for you.) and then you get new requirements for the next level and repeat the process.

 

-2. Final thing here. This is slightly less awesome, but any interesting way to get players interested in sidequests. The basic idea is to require a specific amount of quests completed before you level up. This is more of a way to make sure that the player is around a certain level when they reach a certain area in the game. Not really much more to say about this one.

 

Well that's all of them. These are mostly ideas that I've more mused over then meticulously thought about, but I think they all have some merit to them. Anyway. What do you think about these ideas? Are they cool? Bad? Stupid? Do you have any other interesting ideas for these kinds of systems? Post and discuss below!

[Kayzee 4,033]

I always liked learning skills through battle somehow, like the SaGa series's "glimmer" system, where using attacks and skills in battle can randomly have you learn a new skill, or the Final Fantasy Blue Magic/Enemy Skills system where getting hit with some skills teaches them to you. Also maybe learning skills as the result of using particular moves. I once had the idea of making a mimic character that would sometimes learn the skills they mimic permanently, but that was the only way for them to learn skills. Another idea might be a martial artist who has a counter attack command and could learn more moves when other ones are countered, or someone that learns skills by finishing monsters with a particular move to steal their soul.

 

As for leveling, honestly I rather just ditch the traditional leveling system all together. I much prefer pure stat/skill grinding systems where you raise everything directly by practice, or point systems where you can just spend character points on stats/skills directly. I don't see the point in having a hybrid system most of the time. The only real advantage I see to character levels is a quick and dirty way of comparing the power of two battlers, and even then levels could be calculated from their stats rather then the other way around if it came right to it.

[Lord Vectra 414]

Skills

When it comes to skills, I like to use multiple ideas at the same time. I usually have it where you can learn skills from books, trainers, and a reward for doing a quest. I be having 200+ skills that are all unique. I also like to have a skill upgrade system in the mix of all that. With so many skills to learn, you know it'll be a long time before you can say "I've seen everything that could happen in this game."

 

Leveling

You can gain levels from 3 ways. You can learn EXP from trainers(though it'll cost a lot), reading books you've haven't read before, and a reward for quests. I like to have a skill point system in the mix of this one. I use a script to make the Max Level 200 and yes, I do make my games long. Though sometimes, depending on the game, I will make it like 100 or 150. The first game I do finish is probably gonna be a few GB's(I use videos in my games).

 

These are my ideas and I like them.

Edited July 10, 2015 by Vectra

[HeckHound 61]

Skill Acquisition

 

* Somewhat tied to your ideas but more specific: skill unlocks through a method that is thematically tied to a class, or the skill type. For example, Warriors - or physical skills - could duel with other Warriors around the world to learn different skills and maybe even new weapon types, while Mages - or magical skills - can find old spells in ancient ruins, or craft spells (although how reasonable that would be I'm not sure).

* Skill unlocks through use. For example, Warriors train their longsword skill which unlocks skills for longswords, while Mages refine their use of Fire Magic skills to unlock new Fire Magic skills.

* Spend skillpoints in order to unlock skills. You level up, gain skill points, spend skill points to unlock skills

* Skill unlocks through stat allocation. For example, raising your DEF stat above a certain amount would unlock the passive Bulwark which further reduces damage taken, while raising your MAG stat above a certain amount unlocks the passive Arcane Efficiency which lowers mana costs. The higher the stats, the more powerful the passive skills are.

 

Questing

 

You really are kind of tied up with quests. The only types there really are are:

 

* Escort/Fedex - For example, a merchant has asked you to escort him/her to the next town. If you accept he/she joins your party (with limited combat ability) and leaves when you arrive at said town. The reward for this could be a discount when you buy stuff off of him/her.

* Kill/gather X - This could be done on different scales. For example, kill all of the monsters in the sewers of a town would net you XP, while travelling the world and collecting components nets you a special weapon.

* Discovery - Whether it be discover a place or discover something else (intel about an impending attack?).

 

Leveling

 

* Leveling Classes - For example, a Warrior has the Warrior class by default. When the Trainee class has reached Level 10, they unlock Swordsman, Shieldbearer and Barbarian, all of which have their own skills, weapons and stats.

* Leveling Skill Use - For example, a character that uses a greatsword would level up their greatsword skill - thus improving their use of the weapon and unlocking skills for it - while using a greatsword.

* Aging - For levels, you don't get XP. Instead, over the course of a period of time your level slowly advances until you go up a level. Whatever you did in that period of time would then confer bonuses to you. For example, training purely with a greatsword for that level would unlock Longsword Mastery passive that, along with increasing your skill with the weapon (higher damage with longsword, lower skill cooldowns etc), it also increases certain base stats such as ATK (the reasoning behind it being you've built muscle). How feasable this is though I don't know.

[Veethree 11]

Skill Acquisition

 

* Somewhat tied to your ideas but more specific: skill unlocks through a method that is thematically tied to a class, or the skill type. For example, Warriors - or physical skills - could duel with other Warriors around the world to learn different skills and maybe even new weapon types, while Mages - or magical skills - can find old spells in ancient ruins, or craft spells (although how reasonable that would be I'm not sure).

* Skill unlocks through use. For example, Warriors train their longsword skill which unlocks skills for longswords, while Mages refine their use of Fire Magic skills to unlock new Fire Magic skills.

* Spend skillpoints in order to unlock skills. You level up, gain skill points, spend skill points to unlock skills

* Skill unlocks through stat allocation. For example, raising your DEF stat above a certain amount would unlock the passive Bulwark which further reduces damage taken, while raising your MAG stat above a certain amount unlocks the passive Arcane Efficiency which lowers mana costs. The higher the stats, the more powerful the passive skills are.

 

Questing

 

You really are kind of tied up with quests. The only types there really are are:

 

* Escort/Fedex - For example, a merchant has asked you to escort him/her to the next town. If you accept he/she joins your party (with limited combat ability) and leaves when you arrive at said town. The reward for this could be a discount when you buy stuff off of him/her.

* Kill/gather X - This could be done on different scales. For example, kill all of the monsters in the sewers of a town would net you XP, while travelling the world and collecting components nets you a special weapon.

* Discovery - Whether it be discover a place or discover something else (intel about an impending attack?).

 

Leveling

 

* Leveling Classes - For example, a Warrior has the Warrior class by default. When the Trainee class has reached Level 10, they unlock Swordsman, Shieldbearer and Barbarian, all of which have their own skills, weapons and stats.

* Leveling Skill Use - For example, a character that uses a greatsword would level up their greatsword skill - thus improving their use of the weapon and unlocking skills for it - while using a greatsword.

* Aging - For levels, you don't get XP. Instead, over the course of a period of time your level slowly advances until you go up a level. Whatever you did in that period of time would then confer bonuses to you. For example, training purely with a greatsword for that level would unlock Longsword Mastery passive that, along with increasing your skill with the weapon (higher damage with longsword, lower skill cooldowns etc), it also increases certain base stats such as ATK (the reasoning behind it being you've built muscle). How feasable this is though I don't know.

Skill Acquisition: I really like what you suggested, the thematic skill acquisition thing. I've seen it implemented in a lot of games, Shadow Hearts being my favorite example. It really helps give the characters plenty of room for character development and to give a personal sense of connection between the player and the character.

 

As for Levelling, however...I tend to shy away from deviations from traditional XP-levelling. Special levelling mechanics give me a headache.

[Meinos Kaen 12]

Hmm... Well, it depends on the kind of story you're trying to make, at least IMO.

 

Example: I'm making a game with a story where the main characters, while having abilities of their own, will need to continuously craft new magical items. Each magical item will modify their stats and/or give them new skills/resistances/etc... So, most of the skills aren't 'learned', but acquired by finding/creating items and can only be used as long as the characters have those items on.