Castle Paradox

[Onlyoneinall]

I haven't seen too many games (in fact none I can think of) where a character you use is either intentionally sucky or linear when it comes to level ups.

For sucky characters, I mean their stats are ridiculously horrible and their abilities are as well. The only purpose of a character like this may be as a joke or perhaps to fill a needed slot or story purposes. This means intentionally sucky characters, not ones which are designed poorly.

Linear characters mean a character whose overall stats never grow. Their stats may seem pretty good at the start, but as you level up, their stats stay about the same while the rest grow stronger (I suppose a good example of this are the pre-promoted characters in Fire Emblem). However, the character will have some abilities to sustain him or make him still useful despite their barely growing stats, perhaps a ridiculously high amount of hitpoints to compensate for their low defenses, making them a fairly good punching bag for enemies.

What would you say about characters like such, and perhaps any ideas of other types, such as a character that gets weaker as time goes on? Perhaps an old man who as you put into battle more and more, their stats deteriorate for a reasonable reason.
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http://www.castleparadox.com/gamelist-display.php?game=750 Bloodlust Demo 1.00

[JSH357]

To put it simply, sucky characters aren't used much because they're stupid. Why waste your time adding a character to a game that's completely worthless? The novelty wears off.

"Linear" characters should be used more often, I agree. I've never thought of a good situation in which to use one myself, but I'm rather fond of the concept.

[Shaede]

When adding a new character in the story of an RPG, it's rough enough getting the player to use the new addition over the old characters the player has already grown fond of. I know when I play an RPG I'm more likely to pick characters that were introduced earlier in the story, as they've had more time for much needed characterization. Thus I couldn't see how adding a sucky character would help issues at all. If I played a game that gave me a terrible character to use, I'd be even more hesitant later in the story to accept any other new combatants into my party. I personally wouldn't recommend using it in a serious game.

As far as a character that doesn't grow... I'm unsure. Stat and ability building is a huge part of an RPG. To take that away from one of the characters would be about just as bad as having a sucky character. Plus, how would you balance such a party member in an RPG without severaly limiting everyone's stat growth?

[Onlyoneinall]

My game is hardly ever actually serious, and the sucky and linear characters mentioned are more for story purposes than to be actually useful. However, there are a few things to make the linear character more useful, although the sucky character is meant to be dragged along because you have no choice (I know this doesn't make much sense but I think you'll see what I mean).
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http://www.castleparadox.com/gamelist-display.php?game=750 Bloodlust Demo 1.00

[Jack]

one way to have a "linear" character, would be if they were a mercenary. eventually they're going to die off, so it seems trivial in taking time to level them up high, anyways.

compensation works too. giving them 1 really high stat to compensate for their unlevelingness.


when i think of sucky characters, pokey comes to mind. although he didn't have any stats, he still sucked, because he didn't fight and he'd use you as a shield (if i remember correctly). but there's always got to be some sort of sucky character, adds a little difficulty to the game.
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[msw188]

I'd say that there are plenty of ways to utilize a 'sucky' character, involving protecting him/her, or perhaps having him/her be the only character who can finish off the enemy, but being useless up to that point. Imagine something like Ghostbusters, where the idea is to trap the ghost into some kind of machine. What if there was only one character who knew how to operate the machine, but the other characters were the ones who could damage the ghost to the point where it is easily trappable. While they are beating the ghost into submission, they must also be focused on protecting the 'sucky' character. What I'm trying to say is that there are gameplay-oriented ways to utilize a statistically bad character, as well as story-oriented.

As for the 'unleveling' characters, who are NOT supposed to be 'sucky', I am more unsure. I agree with Shaede that character growth is a core element of RPG gameplay, and I would not like the idea of a character who is supposed to be useful, but who does not grow more powerful with time. It kind of defeats the whole feeling of gameplay progress, to me. But I can see that there could certainly be other views.

[Camdog]

It should be noted that Tellah from Final Fantasy II/IV lost stats as he leveled up, so there is some precedent for that sort of thing.

I think a 'weakening' character would be an interesting way to limit level-busting. It'd be much easier to balance a game to remain consistently fun and challenging if you could be reasonably sure that the player wouldn't spend 4 hours killing imps outside the castle before fighting the boss. Of course, some people enjoy spending mind-numbing amounts of time bringing their characters up to a godly level, but I don't understand those people, so I'm just going to go ahead and pretend they don't exist.

[LeRoy_Leo]

Why not have characters that start out good and get more difficult and have another that starts out bad and eventually surpasses the others? This way they become useful later in game, so there is an incentive to preserving them. More over, the ones they surpass can catch back up to them later. The problem at first would be that most people would see that a character is useless now and let them die, which is a mistake that they would soon learn from. Myself, I always try to save every life that I can in a game just in case they become useful later. I believe that is called altruism.

As far as stats and level busting are concerned, I agree that it should be a process which is accomplished as you travel and do other things. One should not have to be concerned with fighting just to get the next level. it should JUST HAPPEN anyway. People only enjoy that because they have to enjoy it. That's all they can do, so why not enjoy it? It's like having a crappy job.

I was planning on doing something that actually makes sense as far as leveling, and it is combining two concepts (maybe more to come). Instead of character levels there are Skill levels and Equipment levels. Skill levels, which come via practicing your skills and Equipment levels, which come from wearing or using equipment to a point where you become familiar/proficient with said equipment. The ideas are both borrowed from other sources (Skill levels from certain Online RPGs and Equipment levels from Certain tactic games), of course. Thus they have a premise.
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Planning Project Blood Summons, an MMORPG which will incinerate all of the others with it's sheer brilliance...

---msw188 ---
"Seriously James, you keep rolling out the awesome like gingerbread men on a horror-movie assembly line. "

[msw188]

I'd say that there is a feeling of satisfaction that comes along with spending some time gaining levels (in my mind, it is supposed to simulate 'practicing') to be able to survive the next boss battle. To go through an entire RPG without ever having to spend time gaining levels does not seriously appeal to me. But I'll agree that most people are a little more impatient with 'entertainment', and would rather disagree. Thus, I would agree to disagree.

[Camdog]

I hear that, but I get a lot more satisfaction from beating the big baddies with smart strategies than I do with beefy characters. Doing well after practice is satisfying because practice and bettering yourself is hard work, whereas level busting is just holding down the spacebar (a button, etc).

But yeah... We can still agree to disagree.

Woo! Second topic derailment in as many minutes!

[Skoll]

A lot of my early games had incredibley linear characters.... their stats were all maxed at level 100, and 15 at level 0. They also had no spells.

I think all characters should have different growths, so magic hungry players will have a magicically biased growth character of their own, whilst attack beat-'em-up lovers can have a different character to call their own.
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