There are 2 class/character system archetypes, with so many different sub categories that it's impossible to define them all in any reasonable length of time. With these 2 styles in mind, I would like to go over them and how they impact a games play style with regards to player interaction and customization, along with how they immerse you in the world you are about to invest time in.
The Controlled Class System
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| Final Fantasy 4 is a fantastic example of a controlled system |
The negatives of such a style can be quite large. Unless there are severe story elements, you garner little connection to the characters, because you were never personally involved in their statistical development. As such, when a character is an ass-kicking beast, there is no feeling of accomplishment, as you were not the one making the decisions on his skills or attributes: He/she was a concoction of the developers design. By the same token, when a severely weak character comes along, there is absolutely nothing you can do to alter its pathetic stats, and utterly useless abilities.
This doesn't mean that a controlled system is terrible, however. If the story is strong, then a controlled development style places the story front and center. You don't need to focus on min-maxing all of your characters, and battles become less experimental so as to speed the process along so the next cinematic sequence can occur. It also helps if the combat system itself is streamlined and simplistic, so beyond finding new equipment, the characters are in much less need of tedious micromanagement to be fully effective.
A game that implemented a controlled environment poorly was Dragon Warrior 1. The story was rather sparse, with no true sequences involved to spur on the tale. A silent protagonist made it worse, as you never had a reason to become attached to the main character. To make matters worse, there was only 1 controlled character in battle, and only ever 1 monster to fight. This made combat tedious, and turned random encounters into the hated thing it is today. I myself actually enjoy random encounter RPGs, if the combat system is solid and engaging, but DW1 was slow in terms of combat. However, to give credit where credit is due, DW1 was before the time of the Active Battle Systems (ABS) that were popularized by the FF series after the fourth iteration. They were a thing of the future then, and I find it hard to blame a game on the lack of worldly development.
Final Fantasy 4 (Can you tell its one of my favorites yet?) took the controlled system and turned it into a master piece. The story itself was the true driving point of the game, even going so far as to make cinematic battles. While there was next to no direct interaction with the characters development, this was offset by the need to find out what happens next, and what the next boss fight would entail.
The ABS was also a huge factor in making the controlled system work. Combat was fast paced, and if you were too slow to make a decision, you could find yourself with a dead group of adventurers, and a title screen. While customization of the characters could do nothing but strengthen the involvement, it is easy to overlook its lack purely because the combat was still fun, and the story was one you will remember for a very, very long time.
The Custom System
After awhile, the controlled style began to phase itself out. While there are still a few, select games that use such a style, it is easy to say it is much less popular, and for good reason. A custom system allows direct control over what skills and abilities your character(s) obtain, allowing for specialization catering to your own style of combat. Giving an RPG replayability was also great, as unless you are the type of person to read a book twice, you had little reason to play the same game again if it never, ever changed.
There are also so many different ways you could possibly implement a customization system, that it becomes mind boggling. You could do it how FF5 did it, for example. There are tons of pre-set classes (Or in FFs case, "Jobs") that you can swap in and out of, and as you master them you can use their abilities on other classes. Or you could pull an Elder Scrolls, giving you a giant set of possible skills, and allowing you to craft your own class within those bounds.
The custom system is definitely the most profound and modern choice, giving the most amount of benefits. However, there are a small handful of negatives to it as well. There is, what I like to call, the "power gaming complex", and I think it is by far the worst thing in RPGs.
The power gaming complex is based on the idea that power gaming is such a meta mindset, that it draws you out of the game to the point where you are no longer playing the game, but instead working it. You lose interest in the story and layers of possibilities, and instead focus your attention on making sure your character(s) are the best at everything, at all times.
The problem is not necessarily the game, its the player. And, honestly, it isn't the players fault, but rather the games. See why it becomes a complex? Lets put it into perspective from a true example, the worst offenders to this problem: Morrowind, and the people who play it.
With the way the character advancement system works in Morrowind (And TES overall) is that you gain skill points by performing those skills in game. You get better via repetition and practice, a rather intuitive system that was intended to mirror realism as much as possible. However, there was one major flaw in the plan: It was way too easy to abuse. It was so easy, in fact, that it was almost necessary. The enemies in the game became progressively more difficult as you went on, and many class archetypes weaknesses weren't offset by their strengths.
To open a lock, thieves could pick it, mages could cast a spell on it, and warriors were screwed. They would have to work on their lockpicking skills. Now, normally this wouldn't be bad at all. So you learn how to lockpick, where is the negative in that?
Well, the other part of Morrowinds skill advancement was how it affect statistics. Lets say you were to level lockpicking, as mentioned. In Morrowind, lockpicking (Formally known as the Security skill) is an Intelligence based skill. This means that whenever Security levels up, you gain a modifier to the Intelligence gain you can receive upon your character actually leveling. While this sounds just as intuitive as the "learn-by-doing" system, it once again brings in a major debacle.
Since it is impossible (Outside of going to jail to deteriorate your skill levels, which has a huge negative impact on NPC interaction) to undo skill levels without cheating, you need to plan out meticulously what skills you want to level, and within what character level to gain those skill levels. Going back to the lockpicking example, if you neglected lockpicking for too long, the locks in the game would end up extremely difficult to open up as time went on: They have scaled to your character level. I'm level 30, but my security is only level 25, so I can't open the doors or chests with all the good stuff inside without the true key, and I can't level my lockpicking because I can't open any doors or chests!
Or, by the same token, say you did level lockpicking early on, knowing you needed to open these doors and chests. As a warrior, intelligence is typically an ignored stat, and is reserved for mages and many times thieves/rogues as well. Warriors smash first, and often forget to ask questions later. So if you are leveling Security, you are gaining Intelligence modifiers. You don't have to level intelligence when you level up, but with such a high modifier, it looks too juicy to ignore. But then you won't be as buff, and Fargoth may ask if you even lift...
But lets say you do ignore leveling up intellect in favor of brute force. That's great, you're living up to what a warrior actually should be. Though, there is one aspect of the game mechanics that gets in the way, and is completely unavoidable, and that is how enchanted equipment works. To enchant a weapon or piece of armor, you need to know a version of the spell with the effect you wish to enchant said gear with. Sounds intuitive, but the fundamental flaw is as such: Without the intelligence or willpower (The other magey stat), the enchantment drains from the weapon faster, depending on the spells derived statistic. The only way to recharge the weapon is with a filled soul gem. Aside from buying the soul gem pre-souled (Which is quite rare), you have to capture them on your own. This requires the spell Soul Trap, which is a rather heavy spell to cast. You may not have the Magicka (Mana pool) to cast it, which means you need to level up your intelligence to get the mana to cast the spell. But then you lose a bit of points in your warrior stats, and you feel like a puss-n-iron-boots.
Due to this circular development the game places on you, it became nearly impossible to fully enjoy the game without a decent amount of power-leveling. There are many other facets to the way the mechanics worked that also encouraged this style of play, though I could go on and on about it even more so than I already have.
In another, more easily explained example of this complex, take a look at World of Warcraft, and other cloned MMOs. While there is this aspect of customization in the talent trees (A set of skills and passive abilities for each class), there was a clear good and bad way to build your character determined by the game mechanics. Only a select few variations actually worked, and any attempt at innovation or personalizing your set of talent points was null and void: It just didn't work.
Another flaw to the custom system is being an altoholic, or someone that continuously starts new characters and never finishes because they are given so many options that they feel the need to try them all before making a decision, and/or they never find the "perfect" mix for their play style. While being an altoholic is all a mind over matter problem, many people are inflicted with it, myself included.
Addendum
With all that being said, I am really leaning towards a custom style. Not only is it a personal biased, but being that I have little in ways of the story set just yet, the only way I could make a controlled system work before anything else is set in stone is with a great battle system: And I can almost guarantee that the battle system can become enhanced with a custom system anyway.
The question is, how in-depth should said system be? Final Fantasy 5 level of depth? Sure it was a custom system, but it wasn't layered so deeply that someone unfamiliar with RPGs could make use of it. Or how about a supreme level of depth seen in TES series? The major problem with depth is complexity, and the kind of loop holes described above.
I wish to avoid the power-gaming complex as much as possible. I want people to have fun, not math problems! To reach that goal, of having a good level of depth and yet still be simplistic in nature, is a difficult one indeed. To be fair, there will always be min-maxers in the RPG world. Just remember, a min-maxer is different from someone within the complex: A min-maxer has fun min-maxing, someone trapped in the complex is forced to do so because of the games mechanics.
What are some of your favorite implementations of class systems? Do you prefer one style of system over the other? Maybe you're such an avid fan of the controlled system that you wish to see a new game made with it: Convince me!
Comments help the game grow to your wildest dreams, my friends!
Game On, Spoony Bards!
~BurnAsEmbers~
Embarressed to put your name on the internet? Don't wish to make an account on Google/Blogger just to comment? Email me at burnasembers@gmail.com, or follow me on Twitter @BurnAsEmbers!
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| Lookin' at you, you spoony bard. |
A game that implemented a controlled environment poorly was Dragon Warrior 1. The story was rather sparse, with no true sequences involved to spur on the tale. A silent protagonist made it worse, as you never had a reason to become attached to the main character. To make matters worse, there was only 1 controlled character in battle, and only ever 1 monster to fight. This made combat tedious, and turned random encounters into the hated thing it is today. I myself actually enjoy random encounter RPGs, if the combat system is solid and engaging, but DW1 was slow in terms of combat. However, to give credit where credit is due, DW1 was before the time of the Active Battle Systems (ABS) that were popularized by the FF series after the fourth iteration. They were a thing of the future then, and I find it hard to blame a game on the lack of worldly development.
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| Oh golly! Another slime! How could this get any better?! |
Final Fantasy 4 (Can you tell its one of my favorites yet?) took the controlled system and turned it into a master piece. The story itself was the true driving point of the game, even going so far as to make cinematic battles. While there was next to no direct interaction with the characters development, this was offset by the need to find out what happens next, and what the next boss fight would entail.
The ABS was also a huge factor in making the controlled system work. Combat was fast paced, and if you were too slow to make a decision, you could find yourself with a dead group of adventurers, and a title screen. While customization of the characters could do nothing but strengthen the involvement, it is easy to overlook its lack purely because the combat was still fun, and the story was one you will remember for a very, very long time.
The Custom System
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| With a slew of options for customizing your characters combat style, an RPG fan would be hard to turn off from your game |
There are also so many different ways you could possibly implement a customization system, that it becomes mind boggling. You could do it how FF5 did it, for example. There are tons of pre-set classes (Or in FFs case, "Jobs") that you can swap in and out of, and as you master them you can use their abilities on other classes. Or you could pull an Elder Scrolls, giving you a giant set of possible skills, and allowing you to craft your own class within those bounds.
The custom system is definitely the most profound and modern choice, giving the most amount of benefits. However, there are a small handful of negatives to it as well. There is, what I like to call, the "power gaming complex", and I think it is by far the worst thing in RPGs.
The power gaming complex is based on the idea that power gaming is such a meta mindset, that it draws you out of the game to the point where you are no longer playing the game, but instead working it. You lose interest in the story and layers of possibilities, and instead focus your attention on making sure your character(s) are the best at everything, at all times.
The problem is not necessarily the game, its the player. And, honestly, it isn't the players fault, but rather the games. See why it becomes a complex? Lets put it into perspective from a true example, the worst offenders to this problem: Morrowind, and the people who play it.
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| I wanna be a warrior type. Better select mage and thief skills! |
To open a lock, thieves could pick it, mages could cast a spell on it, and warriors were screwed. They would have to work on their lockpicking skills. Now, normally this wouldn't be bad at all. So you learn how to lockpick, where is the negative in that?
Well, the other part of Morrowinds skill advancement was how it affect statistics. Lets say you were to level lockpicking, as mentioned. In Morrowind, lockpicking (Formally known as the Security skill) is an Intelligence based skill. This means that whenever Security levels up, you gain a modifier to the Intelligence gain you can receive upon your character actually leveling. While this sounds just as intuitive as the "learn-by-doing" system, it once again brings in a major debacle.
Since it is impossible (Outside of going to jail to deteriorate your skill levels, which has a huge negative impact on NPC interaction) to undo skill levels without cheating, you need to plan out meticulously what skills you want to level, and within what character level to gain those skill levels. Going back to the lockpicking example, if you neglected lockpicking for too long, the locks in the game would end up extremely difficult to open up as time went on: They have scaled to your character level. I'm level 30, but my security is only level 25, so I can't open the doors or chests with all the good stuff inside without the true key, and I can't level my lockpicking because I can't open any doors or chests!
Or, by the same token, say you did level lockpicking early on, knowing you needed to open these doors and chests. As a warrior, intelligence is typically an ignored stat, and is reserved for mages and many times thieves/rogues as well. Warriors smash first, and often forget to ask questions later. So if you are leveling Security, you are gaining Intelligence modifiers. You don't have to level intelligence when you level up, but with such a high modifier, it looks too juicy to ignore. But then you won't be as buff, and Fargoth may ask if you even lift...
But lets say you do ignore leveling up intellect in favor of brute force. That's great, you're living up to what a warrior actually should be. Though, there is one aspect of the game mechanics that gets in the way, and is completely unavoidable, and that is how enchanted equipment works. To enchant a weapon or piece of armor, you need to know a version of the spell with the effect you wish to enchant said gear with. Sounds intuitive, but the fundamental flaw is as such: Without the intelligence or willpower (The other magey stat), the enchantment drains from the weapon faster, depending on the spells derived statistic. The only way to recharge the weapon is with a filled soul gem. Aside from buying the soul gem pre-souled (Which is quite rare), you have to capture them on your own. This requires the spell Soul Trap, which is a rather heavy spell to cast. You may not have the Magicka (Mana pool) to cast it, which means you need to level up your intelligence to get the mana to cast the spell. But then you lose a bit of points in your warrior stats, and you feel like a puss-n-iron-boots.
Due to this circular development the game places on you, it became nearly impossible to fully enjoy the game without a decent amount of power-leveling. There are many other facets to the way the mechanics worked that also encouraged this style of play, though I could go on and on about it even more so than I already have.
In another, more easily explained example of this complex, take a look at World of Warcraft, and other cloned MMOs. While there is this aspect of customization in the talent trees (A set of skills and passive abilities for each class), there was a clear good and bad way to build your character determined by the game mechanics. Only a select few variations actually worked, and any attempt at innovation or personalizing your set of talent points was null and void: It just didn't work.
Another flaw to the custom system is being an altoholic, or someone that continuously starts new characters and never finishes because they are given so many options that they feel the need to try them all before making a decision, and/or they never find the "perfect" mix for their play style. While being an altoholic is all a mind over matter problem, many people are inflicted with it, myself included.
Addendum
With all that being said, I am really leaning towards a custom style. Not only is it a personal biased, but being that I have little in ways of the story set just yet, the only way I could make a controlled system work before anything else is set in stone is with a great battle system: And I can almost guarantee that the battle system can become enhanced with a custom system anyway.
I wish to avoid the power-gaming complex as much as possible. I want people to have fun, not math problems! To reach that goal, of having a good level of depth and yet still be simplistic in nature, is a difficult one indeed. To be fair, there will always be min-maxers in the RPG world. Just remember, a min-maxer is different from someone within the complex: A min-maxer has fun min-maxing, someone trapped in the complex is forced to do so because of the games mechanics.
What are some of your favorite implementations of class systems? Do you prefer one style of system over the other? Maybe you're such an avid fan of the controlled system that you wish to see a new game made with it: Convince me!
Comments help the game grow to your wildest dreams, my friends!
Game On, Spoony Bards!
~BurnAsEmbers~
Embarressed to put your name on the internet? Don't wish to make an account on Google/Blogger just to comment? Email me at burnasembers@gmail.com, or follow me on Twitter @BurnAsEmbers!
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