Vapourware Let's laugh at DJOGamer's vapourware project

[DJOGamer PT]

Based on the idea proposed by Ninjerk on the UI thread.
In this stupid thread I'll post some of the more finished concepts I have written and you guys can go ahead and pick my brain on them.

To start things off I'll give the elevator pitch for this project and then talk about it's Skills.

Flowers of Oblivion is meant to be an ARPG set in a high fantasy setting in a sort of transicional period of the Middle Ages and Renaissance (reflected by the clash between the old and new ideologies, customs and attitudes).
The game will be open-ended (you travel the world like in Fallout 1 or Warband, but the levels are open sandboxes - their size can range from 0.05 km2 to 5 km2), taking place in a pennisula (shamelessly inpired by the Iberian one, also corner maps are much easier to make) divided into 5 states (technically 4, since the 5th one is outside the pennisula).
The main campaign revolves around the titular artifact that your PC comes upon in the begining of the game, which is the source of the protagonist's ability to save and load the game and why he can advance his skills and stats with incredible speed (if you throw the flower out of your inventory you'll have to grind 3x more exp to level up, and if you die all your savegames with that character are deleted).
Finally the campaign has a 3 year limit, each year being a chapter where various events, characters and quests come and go.

This first setting does tend to the more generic side of european fantasy for sure (although with my own dumb spin and more "grounded" approach to visuals), but if somehow I manage to actually release this and still aren't a geriatric by then, I would do an expansion that takes place in other continents (to exploit that Age of Discovery shtick) and there I would make more "alien" enviroments.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

...
Flowers of Oblivion is meant to be an ARPG set in a high fantasy setting...

In before Bethesda sues over using the word "oblivion" in the title.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

A character (both the player and npc's of playable races) has 18 Skills, 6 for each character archtype - Warrior, Thief and Mage.

As you can see it's skills trees, my reasoning behind it is because a character can only fully learn 6 trees, if you don't specialize you'll end up with a jack of all trades, master of none - which garantees failure in the late game content.

With a model like that of Skyrim or KCD of "pratice makes perfect", easily leads to situations where you lose skill points just because your mage found himself in a desperate situation and had to use a knife - therefore preventing you from learning a skill tree in full.

The level limit was originally 55 but now because I changed somethings recentely I'll have to think of another limit. Also a skill node can cost multiple skill points to unlock, and all of them have level caps (can only be unlock once you reach X level).

The reason why the system isn't like New Vegas or Warband is because IMO an ARPG where the abstraction of what you character can perform being determined by the increase/decrease of numerical values is just fucking boring.
So in this system what each one of those nodes represents is a new action that changes the way the player and his avatar performs.

What actions?

Warrior

For the warrior each node is a number of new moves he can perform in combat - Marksmanship is the exception.
The melee combat will be like the typical hack 'n' slash, you have a list of moves that can the performed by inputing a specific command (will talk more in-deph when I make a post about combat). The Skills from Polearms to Brawler unlock those moves for their respective weapons, allowing characters to string more diverse combos.

So Pole Weapons you have 2 braches, one for Quarterstaffs and the other one is for (due to a lack of better word) actual Pole Arms - spears, halberds, etc... Pole Weapons being good for crowd control and keeping enemies at distance, staffs are better employed in a defensive playstyle and pole arms the other way aroound
Blunt and Axe are both divided into 2 branches, 1 Handed and 2 Handed Blunt/Axes. Axes are the weapons that deal the greatest amount of Damage in the game and possses a unique Damage Type - Cleave. Blunt weapons are second on the Damage department but posses the higher amount of Force (relates to Poise and various other mechanics). Also Blunt Damage attacks are the only ones that can Stun enemies.
Blade has 3 branchs: the leftmost relating to 1 Handed Swords, the central one dictactes the character's skill with daggers, and the rigthmost is obviously for 2 Handed Swords. Swords possess a balanced Damage output and are the 2nd most versatile weapon choice (having the 2nd largest movesets). Daggers are very lacking in Damage, Force and are aren't as versatile but are the fastest and less stamina consuming weapons meant to wear down opponents.

While Brawler has 4 braches, 3 of those branches controls your hand-to-hand combat profiency (each one representing a different combat style), and the 4 one (the rigthmost) is meant for unorthodox weapons - this is weapons that don't fit in the other 5 skills (scythes, kusarigamas, whips, claws, katars, tonfas, etc...). The weird weapons while not having extensive movesets (the list of available combat moves), are usually versatile and their inherent wierdness can catch oponents by surprise.
Hand-to-hand combat while being the "weakest" one (in terms of damage and force) is the most versatile form of combat with the largest movesets (plus they are fun) - also their attacks do all Blunt damage, meaning they can cause Stun. The 3 distinct styles also completely change how a character figths. The styles are Grappler, Bruiser and Guardian. Bruiser is the fatest one (having equal speed to knife users), with a medium Damage+Force+Stun output, longest combos (can have up until 7 consecutive attacks) and good movement options, their purpose like the name implies is to keep pressure on opponents, never giving a moment of relief - making it the most aggressive of the 3 styles. Grappler is the slowest, has the highest Damage+Force+Stun output and shortest moves, and finally their specialty grappling/throw attacks. Therefore a Grappler playsytle should be a mix of offence and defense, more specifically not wasting any moves and punish the enemy into submission - you can release yourself from grapples before they are fully commited (but you need the first level of grappler to do so). The Guardian is obviously the defensive style, not really interesed in damage but parrying attacks and controlling the oponent's game with moves that influence positioning, applying (de)buffs, counters and even some long range attacks due to having some "energy" moves
There's a rock-paper-scissors aspect to these 3 styles: attacks stop grapples, grapples beat parries, parries cancel attacks.
You can change between these 3 styles on the fly with the press of a button (no menus, or anything else to slow you down).

Lastly Marksmanship. It's 3 branches control the character's precision+accuracy with (from left to rigth) throwing items, crossbows, bows.

The Strength Attribute does sightly increase (up to 10%) the base damage of all 2 Handed weapons, Agility does the same for 1 Handed ones.
Hand-to-Hand is a different matter. Strength has a very important play in increasing it's damage, but a certain Agility is required to perform many moves (specially for Guardian and Bruiser).
Agility has a noticable effect on how fast you can shoot arrows, and Strength diminishes the bow's strain on the arm (so less stamina consumed).

Thief

The most straigth foward of all archtypes.

Stealth determines on loud your movements are. But even maxed out you aren't totally silent (imagine Garret with sandals instead of tap dancing shoes). Also let's you creep past a certain level.
Security is obviously for lockpicking and disarming traps. Yes there is a mini-game (a mix between Skyrim's and Thief 3's system). But like Morrowind you can't even try to disarm locks above your level.
Pickpocket determines the limit of how much weight and value you can grab plus how "subtle" is your touch. The Agility Attribute increases the speed at which you can search a pocket before picking it.
Pathfinder is the skill for travelling around the world. This is the only one where I still need to define better.
Athletics. The braches with 2 nodes are Swiming (determines speed and allows you to submerge) and Climbing (last node is the one with the highest level cap in the game). The 3 central nodes are Running, Jumping and Acrobatics, and they are both needed to unlock that last node which grants Wall Running and Wall Jumping (EDIT: after writing this I've come to the realization I should merge the Jumping and Acrobatics branches together).
Social is Speech and Barter into one. Speech works like Fallout 1/2, and Haggle like Morrowind.

Mage

The magic system in general is quite different than what you see in your average RPG.
At first it was like in TES - and really the idea behind this whole game is my dream sequel to Morrowind (it has even open world at first, but I changed to open-eneded because good open world maps are very difficult to make, and I wanted a sense of scale you can't get in open world games without botching them to Daggerfall levels of blandness).

The Alchemy system is a somewhat streamlined version of Witcher 1 but much more diverse in terms of what you can do. The higher the skill level the more intense your productions effects and the more quantity of them you can do with less resources. Also the character needs to meet a certain level in alchemy before being able produce something.

Before talking about the Magic skills I'll have to quickly explain the lore and gist of the Magic System.

Each sentient being has a soul, and each soul possess 2 distinct yet equal energies - physical/vital and spiritual/metaphysical.
Physical gives substance/life and creates, spiritual (connected to the creation/astral plane) grants consciousness and meaning/shape.
A Mage is someone that can control both these 2 energies inside of him and output a spell.
Spells consume Stamina when being cast but need Concentration to be casted.
Concentration is not Mana!
To cast a spell you need to meet it's Concentration requirement.
Your Harmony Attribute (and to some extent Willpower as well) determines your Concentration limit (Harmony also determines the character's Faith if he has any).
Somethings can have a hard impact on your Concentration (meaning while that cause doesn't fade your Con will have that restriction permantely - ex.: wearing heavy equipment, bleeding, a character trait, etc...) others have a soft impact on it (meaning after a short period of time your Con will "regenerate" to it's original value - ex.: being hit by an attack, etc...). This same logic applies to Concentration increases.

Therefore the Mage's skills sould represent his expertise in the various aspects of handling Magic rather than schools of spells.

The Control skill, determines the character's profiency in channeling and manipulating their Physical Energy. So the higher it is the less Stamina a spell consumes. Also some medium and most high level spells require the character to have a certain level in Control otherwise he would die from casting said spell.
Since all magic exists beyond the earthly plane, all a mage is doing is searching and applying something that already exists to his own dimension. Transposition is therefore a skill that every single spell requires and also as a ligth effect on the Concentration required to cast anything, since this skill is about the manipulation of spiritual energy.
Dominion is the skill that allows a wizard to change the physical properties of his reality. The 5 branches with 2 nodes (I think I should increase it to 3) represent the 5 elements (fire, water, earth, lightning, air) and the 5 node branch is for non-elemental spells that also warp reality.
Authority is the sorcerer's capacity to influence another person's soul - so illusions, curses and spells like charm, fear, etc... And some Authority (and Willpower) is needed to keep summons subservient to you.
Finally Conjuring is the ability to bend both time and space - so besides teleportation and time spells it's also summons and dealing with all kinds of challenges from other dimensions.

The majority of spells are more utility based than meant to inflict damage (versatility is king not power).
More powerful spells are very resource hungry. Not to mention every single spell has a weakness that can be exploited and even countered.
So the best wizard comes down to the one that is the most creative and efficient with what he knows.

 

[JarlFrank]

If it's set in a medieval-renaissance transitional fantasy world, please don't forget to include early firearms and crossbows rather than only giving us boring bows.

Also please make the firearms work like actual muskets, with a proper reload animation:


Thanks.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

don't forget to include early firearms and crossbows

Crossbows already exist. I said as much in the previous post when I talked about the Marksmanship skill.
I did thought about firearms. But if I put them, then I'll make few of them (at most 5 different guns) and they'll be a rare and expensive item. But the bows still take the cake in power and utility.

 

[Wunderbar]

Well, that's fine and dandy, but how are you going to transform these designs into reality?

This stuff looks like a star citizen/kingdom of amalur/OG dragons dogma tier ambitious project. Can you code? Do you have a team and a $100M contract with a publisher?

 

[DJOGamer PT]

It's just good ol' me.
I try to work with Unreal during school vacations.
I've actually managed to already make systems for camera, movement, mantling, climbing and even attack inputs.
Like I've said in the UI thread I've already mentalized myself I will only have this shit somewhat ready when I am near my 40's.
Gameplay mechanics don't worry me, because I know I can make them. Quests, levels and good AI is what will give me headaches and where most of time will be wasted.

This stuff looks like a star citizen/kingdom of amalur/OG dragons dogma tier ambitious project.

Really?
It doesn't seem like a big deal to me.

Do you have a team and a $100M contract with a publisher?

I wish...

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Any ideas for the Pathfinder skill?
What I came up with so far is that the Pathfinding skill increases your speed travelling through the world map (specially at nigth, where character get a penalty), allows you to see and gather information from tracks (like in Warband), and in survivval the fatiigue increases slower and you need less food. But I still think this isn't enough, and at this state it's a bit of a dump skill.

 

[Metronome]

As you can see it's skills trees, my reasoning behind it is because a character can only fully learn 6 trees, if you don't specialize you'll end up with a jack of all trades, master of none - which garantees failure in the late game content.

I'm not a big fan of this for two reasons. I like playing generalists and finding out your build is a dud after several hours sucks. The first issue is just my personal taste but the second I think is more universally disliked. Also it seems like a warrior route would encourage you to be a generalist. For example, would there be a good reason to invest in blades and axes at the same time? I mean if you can only fill out ~6 trees, then why have them all be in the warrior's section?

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Obviously the most of the decisions for my systems stem from my idea of a RPG should be.
And IMO in an RPG thinking about a what kind of character and playstyle you wanna adopt, how to build that character and finally how you "deal" with the obstacles as a result of those choices is part of the challenge and fun.

Games with viable Generalist characters pretty much nullifies all these challenges, there's no need to ponders your choice of build and worst of all, any challenge the game could throw at you becomes trivial because there's no limitations for what your character can do (this also removes any replay value to the game). And that's why I hate them.
I know that ever since Skyrim systems that allow a "jack of all trades, master of all" character is the norm now, but that's exactely one of the main reasons we barely have any decent RPG's anymore...

Now this isn't to say my system doesn't allow hybrid character's, it does. And another thing I almost equally dislike is dump stats/skills, that's I have designed relatively few skills but tried to make sure all of them are viable. As long as the player specializes he can succeed.

would there be a good reason to invest in blades and axes at the same time? I mean if you can only fill out ~6 trees, then why have them all be in the warrior's section?

Like I explained in the second post, an axe has a different goal than a sword or any other weapon. "A tool for each job" is essentially my reasoning behind it. So while any weapon can get you through any combat encounter it will be very clear that an axe will be much more useful than a sword when dealing with X enemies.
Plus since the behavior and properties of each weapon type is different from one another, it means you'll play very differently with a halberd than you would with a 1 hand war hammer. Variety is fun!

You do raise the question of whether or not I should lower the amount of trees that's possible to learn though...

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

Why you have Guts in your concept art? Also, I am pretty sure that there is a similar looking terrace in Golden Arc.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

I just posted that image because I thougth it would look nice, that's it...

Any other questions?

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

I hoped you would tell some heartwarming story about how Berserk is an inspiration for you and how you are going to make 2 hand swordfighting awesome. Instead you went so defensively.

You are not fun.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

I was not acting defensively, I was genuinely interested if you had further questions. That's why I created this thread to see folk's reaction to the ideas behind my systems.
I am quite fond of Berserk, but you won't see paddle swords that ressemble more raw slabs of iron rather than actual weapons. Although the concept art for one of my 2 handed sword is very similiar to one of Gut's swords: