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[UristMcScholar]

Hello. I have ran out of ideas, so I would like to ask a question:

- Can someone give ideas for a predictable and complex mechanism to decide the strengh of a PC?

I have though this out for a long time, but haven't been able to find suitable for the task. I want something that would be predictable, so as to not be frustating, if you think about it, but complex enough that, while they may exist, configurations that allow uber-powerful PCs would be difficult to figure out. I want, more or less, a system like mathematics, where we have simple things, like Arithmetics, and difficult ones, like "Ultimate L". Maybe less expansive, but still very complex. So, can anyone give ideas?

[Hitty40]

Embarking on a 16x16(If I'm correct) square will definately test your CPU.

[UristMcScholar]

Uh? I don't see any correlation to the topic we are discussing...

[woose1]

Well... the strength of a PC is dependent on alot of things. The CPU, GPU, RAM, the operating system it's running on, the type of program you're using to determine relative strength... You'd need to test each one individually in controlled conditions and assemble an arbitrary point score system to determine the overall strength of the PC. Doesn't windows have an index for that?

EDIT: Out of curiosity, why do you need to do this for a game?

[alexwazer]

I think by PC, he means the players in his game... as opposed to NPC. Nothing to do with personal computers

I can't help with that however.

[woose1]

Yeah. I figured he had forgot to type the 'N' or something. Well, what sort of variables are involved? Attack damage, health, etc.?

[UristMcScholar]

...

Let me elaborate:

I am developing a game. It's going to be a 2D (maybe 3D) Action game. I wanted to have a way for the player to create a character, instead of simply choosing one from a list. To do so, I've added a number of different editors. The one that matters in this topic is the "power" one. This editor allows the player to do something to make his character as powerful as possible. Now, this "something" is what I want to discuss.

As described above, I wanted to do something that would allow the player to have extremely powerful characters, as long they think a bit about what they gonna do in the power editor. Thus I wanted to ask you, people of this board, to come up with ideas, suggestions, or even an entire mechanism, adapt to such task. Please read above on how this system/mechanism/feature should be.

This is why I didn't understand the first reply. I wasn't speaking about DF, but about completely different. I hope I made clear the reason I made this topic now (mind, I'm not angry, and I'm sorry if I appear to be). I didn't think I was so bad at English that people wouldn't understand any of what I said...

[qwertyuiopas]

PC: Player Character
NPC: Non-Player Character.

PC: Personal Computer.


Context says first is correct.


Also, the general system of number_of_attacks * (damage - opponent_defense), where both number_of_attacks, damage, and even your own defense are upgraded from the same limited resource pool would at least provide options, where the ideal stat balance is different depending on the opponent. It is, however, extremely simple, and doubtless uses entirely different stats, and would fall apart when the first person gets a sufficiently large spreadsheet and figures out the perfect balance to do very well (though not perfect) against most opponents.

[kilakan]

Hum well if it's an action game... power is damn hard to describe simply because there is so many variables involved.  Now what you could do is make the player select how they normally fight (high-powered but unaccuarate, extremely accurate but slow, extremely fast but weak, just to name a few ideals) and then have their character to date fight something that is specifically geared towards destroying what they chose.  Then have the game rate their power on how long they lived/how much damage they did and how many times they missed.

For instance in action games I tend towards death-of-a-thousand cuts type characters, and thus need to be extremely quick to dodge incoming things while being able to keep up a fast rate of fire.

[Darkmere]

There's no way for anyone to provide meaningful information without context. Power in an action game can be so many things that we're all basically guessing over it. Off the top of my head, "more powerful" could mean:

punches with more force/for more damage/with shorter opening for counterattacks
increased magazine size/rate of fire/weapon deterioration for ballistic weapons
higher explosive damage/more environment damage/bigger explosive radius for a rocket launcher
better mana efficiency for spells/more damage done per spellcast/access to top tier spells
expanded crafting menu for engineer characters/better construction stats
etc. etc.

All of those could define power, but I don't know which (if any) even apply to your game...

[woose1]

This is why I didn't understand the first reply. I wasn't speaking about DF, but about completely different. I hope I made clear the reason I made this topic now (mind, I'm not angry, and I'm sorry if I appear to be). I didn't think I was so bad at English that people wouldn't understand any of what I said...

No, don't worry. It's just another one of those weird things in English nobody tells you. (I'm assuming you're not a native speaker, then.) 'PC' usually doesn't refer to Player Character, but it's a completely viable acronym. Something about the way you said 'uber powerful PC' told me you were talking about computers, but no harm done.

Now, when you talk about 'power' in RPG's, usually you refer to how high the character's stats are, which usually entails base stats (Strength, Dexterity, Endurance etc.) and the amount of damage the character gets from those stats. In alot of games, the player usually picks from a pool of stat points to add to his base stats, and this in turn raises his/her strength with a weapon, spell damage, or speed, or ability to lockpick... etc.

It would really be helpful to get more information on the genre of game you're going to make, not just a '2D or 3D action game'. That's about as vague as you can get.
EDIT: Read the above post ^^^

[UristMcScholar]

Well. The idea's to make a mix between MMBN 4.5 and Diablo 2, set in the MMBN universe. The "power" would be composed of:

• Strength
• Constitution
• Speed
• Reflex
• Custom
• Manipulation

And maybe other stats. I wanted to have a mechanism more complex than the simple "pool". Ideally, it should be like fortress mode: limit-less. I have many ideas, but most aren't fun, or easy to understand. So I thought that I could find a good source of ideas here...

[Matz05]

Battle Network isometric? Cool!

Maybe something like Navicust where you have to "fit" abilities together to make the most of the capacity you have?

[Rakonas]

This is why I didn't understand the first reply. I wasn't speaking about DF, but about completely different. I hope I made clear the reason I made this topic now (mind, I'm not angry, and I'm sorry if I appear to be). I didn't think I was so bad at English that people wouldn't understand any of what I said...

No, don't worry. It's just another one of those weird things in English nobody tells you. (I'm assuming you're not a native speaker, then.) 'PC' usually doesn't refer to Player Character, but it's a completely viable acronym. Something about the way you said 'uber powerful PC' told me you were talking about computers, but no harm done.

He gave the context perfectly well. Player Character is just as common as Personal Computer when you're talking about game design. I'm not even sure what you could interpret 'figuring out uber powerful personal computers' as anyway. I was actually baffled by the first reply too.
OP's english is above average if you disregard the overabundance of commas, really, though the OP was a bit vague.
I don't really have any high quality ideas, but I'll be hoping to see the completed game at some point. It sounds promising.

[Gatleos]

Well. The idea's to make a mix between MMBN 4.5 and Diablo 2, set in the MMBN universe. The "power" would be composed of:

• Strength
• Constitution
• Speed
• Reflex
• Custom
• Manipulation

• When you say "power", what do you mean? Attack power against enemies?
• How does the game play out? You shouldn't ever need this many attributes just to calculate something as simple as power, and I can't imagine how most of these attributes could relate to power in any way.
• What do those last three attributes represent? How do they play into the game?

Answer those three questions, then we can get on our way to helping you.