What's the best way to do equipment progression in RPGs?

[Rahdulan]

Where would Gothic's system aka having new armor be tied to major quests or story progression, fall under that? Weapons not quite.

 

[what am i doing]

I generally despise systems where a regular mundane weapon or piece of armour becomes useless as everyone levels up and higher tier magically-better items become available. Basically, no stat creep. Early game or "common" equiment should be viable for the whole game, it should never become irrelevant because it does X damage and was good against enemies with Y health and now you're finding X*100 damage weapons for enemies that have Y*100 health.

A steel longsword that's good at the start of the game should be good for the whole game.

 

[Darth Canoli]

4 doesn't exist (every piece of equipment is unique)

And it shouldn't but most good games have a mix of 2 and 4, meaning there's some unique gear and of course, you're going to hunt it down.
Might and Magic 6, 7 and 8 did it right, wizardry series has a good itemization too.

M&M X is extremely flawed and i mostly don't like what it does but its artifacts you can level up 4 times are quite interesting, i believe it's inspired by the King's Bounty reboot which has these magic artifacts, fighting their guardians level them up (once or twice), thinking of it, might be a jrpg thing (disgea was disgusting in that regard with some artifacts having 100 fights to level them up to the maximum level, a real chore), still, when done right with some restraint, it can be interesting.

 

[Raghar]

(disgea was disgusting in that regard with some artifacts having 100 fights to level them up to the maximum level, a real chore),

It also gave you bad ending for that.

 

[Darvus]

4 is of course the best system, at least from a standpoint of making equipment choices interesting. Ideally unique gear should also actually impact your playstyle in some way, rather than just having a bunch of different ideal pieces of equipment for different situations. That's boring since you're just plugging the correct 'answer' into the equipment slot to get the biggest benefit. Doing things like adding new abilities to your repertoire, new attack types, new movement options. Those are the kinds of things I like to see. A lot of rpgs have at least a little of this, but it's usually a few interesting pieces mixed in with a ton of trash gear for no real reason.

2 is what most games do, and is mostly inoffensive, but also boring and kind of pointless? You're trading equipment for basically the exact same equipment with higher values attached, while the enemies tend to get proportionally stronger as you progress (in a well balanced game anyway). So nothing is really changing. I don't like number bloat at all (either in equipment or stats). And it can be really bad when your unique items end up getting outclassed by trash gear due to better stats. D:OS2 was particularly horrible about this, as there are actually interesting pieces of equipment in that game, but there's no sense getting attached to them since the numbers grow so quickly you'll only get to use the cool stuff for a level or two before you have to switch out for a generic weapon that does exponentially more damage.

 

[Raghar]

What the fuck, Raghar? We are talking about equipment progression and what were you talking about?

I talked about equipment being tied to settings and story. In some case, "equipment progression" doesn't make much sense.

For example when you are an elite storm trooper, you don't get a simple peashooter designed for units that are tasked by civilian protection. And if you get rise to be an officer, you will lose your armor, thus your equipment progression would go backwards.

In aliens the equipment progression goes from. 1. I found a few wires and a razor blade in a drawer. 2. I found a long pipe or a wrench thus I have some chance to keep enemies at distance. 3. I broken into property of someone else, and obtained handgun with some ammo. 4. I finally found a military weapon, if I'd have it in the beginning I wouldn't have to go through hell. Now aliens multiplied and it's even worse.

In badly made RPG, there is often progression type: other RPG has some item progression, thus put in some item and enemy progression. L5 goblin would be nastier than L2 goblin we scaled stats by some algorithm, then they use similar algorithm for items, it's easier to calculate and balance. Larian games are known to have bad design systems like that.

On the other hand there are games with more unique weapon selection like this:
https://www.ign.com/wikis/dark-messiah-of-might-and-magic/Equipment

 

[Damned Registrations]

I generally despise systems where a regular mundane weapon or piece of armour becomes useless as everyone levels up and higher tier magically-better items become available. Basically, no stat creep. Early game or "common" equiment should be viable for the whole game, it should never become irrelevant because it does X damage and was good against enemies with Y health and now you're finding X*100 damage weapons for enemies that have Y*100 health.

A steel longsword that's good at the start of the game should be good for the whole game.

Then why even have equipment at all? If the only purpose of equipment is to change between stabby spear or slashy axe you might as well put that mechanic into combat style instead and just never have different equipment.

The whole point of letting the player equip different things is to give him interesting choices to make. Even simple Bronze>Iron>Steel>Mythril type progression can do that if money is tight and you need to choose between weapon or armour upgrades and it's a non-trivial decision. Better still if you have multiple characters and need to choose not only armour vs weapon, but whether to gear out one person really well or outfit the whole team evenly, or give one guy good weapons and another good armour.

Equipment that does unique things as well is always nice of course, because it adds another dimension to things, but it's not necessary to make things interesting. Equipment with multiple stats is good for the same reason. Do I want the strong weapon or the fast weapon? Thing highest average damage, or the highest minimum damage, or the highest potential damage? Does it pierce armour well? Is it more effective against certain types of enemies like undead or animals? Does it have an element that a character might have a better affinity for? Does it need rare ammo to be used? Can it be used by more types of characters?

And even if the equipment does have all those interesting types of stats, and does unique things, the system might still be boring as fuck if the choices are no brainers because the raw damage difference outweighs everything else because item variety is poor. Or if the item variety is too great, then it's boring because you're choosing between two very similar items, because you have the choice between all possible variations so you're always using the same, near optimal type of equipment, and making the wrong choice barely matters.

Ideally you want a middle ground where the best equipment type is constantly changing- at first you use a big slow axe, then you find a really fast dagger with slightly less dps but gives you more control, then a spear with good reach that is slow but the reach is helpful, then a mace that can stun enemies, then a fire sword that works well with your character's skills so the damage is so high you don't mind not having a special perk, then another mace that kills tough enemies really well but does a bit less vs weak enemies because you overkill them anyways, then an axe with a cleave property for taking out large hordes that lets you kill them faster instead of overkilling them harder. That way the gameplay is constantly changing as well but the upgrades felt like tough calls instead of just being whatever has the highest dps.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[what am i doing]

The whole point of letting the player equip different things is to give him interesting choices to make.

Which is why I don't like it when normal equipment becomes invalidated by stat bloat. You're taking away the player's choices and compelling them to use lategame magical stat-bloat gear because the basic stuff has been rendered ineffectual by comparison.

 

[HarveyBirdman]

Dark Souls

 

[anvi]

I generally despise systems where a regular mundane weapon or piece of armour becomes useless as everyone levels up and higher tier magically-better items become available. Basically, no stat creep. Early game or "common" equiment should be viable for the whole game, it should never become irrelevant because it does X damage and was good against enemies with Y health and now you're finding X*100 damage weapons for enemies that have Y*100 health.

A steel longsword that's good at the start of the game should be good for the whole game.

So why even have gear? May as well play Call of Doody.

 

[laclongquan]

I talked about equipment being tied to settings and story. In some case, "equipment progression" doesn't make much sense.

For example when you are an elite storm trooper, you don't get a simple peashooter designed for units that are tasked by civilian protection. And if you get rise to be an officer, you will lose your armor, thus your equipment progression would go backwards.

In aliens the equipment progression goes from. 1. I found a few wires and a razor blade in a drawer. 2. I found a long pipe or a wrench thus I have some chance to keep enemies at distance. 3. I broken into property of someone else, and obtained handgun with some ammo. 4. I finally found a military weapon, if I'd have it in the beginning I wouldn't have to go through hell. Now aliens multiplied and it's even worse.

In badly made RPG, there is often progression type: other RPG has some item progression, thus put in some item and enemy progression. L5 goblin would be nastier than L2 goblin we scaled stats by some algorithm, then they use similar algorithm for items, it's easier to calculate and balance. Larian games are known to have bad design systems like that.

On the other hand there are games with more unique weapon selection like this:
https://www.ign.com/wikis/dark-messiah-of-might-and-magic/Equipment

Right, let's take this example.

YOu are a civilian. You can have access to civilians weapons like old-style guns (M1917 and shits). Also, as civ you only have to deal with scattering threats like lone robber or stuffs.

When you dual class or upgrade into Police Officer or Reserved Militia Members, you can get certificates and thus can have access to (limited) military weaponry like fully-auto AR15 etc... You have certain responsibility and have to continuously deal with armed narco smuggler band...

Dual further (or more upgrade) into Militia Commander or National Guard, you can have even more certs, and in emergency have access to armored personel carrier (with SAW), rocket launcher, mil-grade explosive.... In emergency you have to control an area and suppress all the robbers, armed or not, deal with insurgency, invasion army...

 

[aweigh]

[reads thread title]

Like in Wizardry and Elminage.

 

[Robert Erick]

Monk is the most boring playstyle. Zero cool armour or weapons, just whacking people with a boring stick in your boring robe with your boring character without any real role. In a party, a monk is dead weight.

The problem with monk is that it's not as satisfying to punch someone to death in a video game as it is in real life

 

[Shadenuat]

Imo Fallout 1 is pretty much a study on the ideal equipment progression and how to make player feel rewarded and powerful when getting new stuff.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

I once had an idea. Disposable equipment. Something like your secondary weapon in Prince of Persia: Warrior Withing. Basically you can find nicer sword than your basic one, but all weapons will sooner or later be lost either due to degradation, shattering after blocking a powerful blow, stuck in monsters etc. Notice that in old adventure stories like Conan, Flash Gordon etc. they never had any uber-weapons they treasured, but simply used whatever they could get their hands on. They were great warriors not because their gear was better but because they could use a variety of tools more efficiently. So at the beginning your warrior knows how to use a sword and that's it. Then he learns how to use other weapons efficiently meaning that he can grab anything lying around and fight just as well after me loses it. Then he gets to grapple weapons from enemies. Then he learns how to use common environment items like doors, carpets, chairs table to slam foes. At the end he can get dragged naked into an arena and still slaughter a battalion of armed fighters. Won't work for all kinds of games though.

Getting back to the topic at hand. Number 2 is the currently the best as other said. Replacing your toys through the game feels good if the loot has some meaning. Going from knife to sword to Claymore to magic sword to Excalibur feels great. Going from Longsword 14-17 dmg to Dire Longsword of High Goblins 1570-1872 dmg does not. The fourth one is interesting but may lead to players simply not caring about getting equipment after they find one sword that feels good to use. I remember that in Sekiro I never bothered to use any new tools I found because firecrackers and axe felt good to use and there was no point for me in replacing a perfectly fine weapon I was comfortable using with another one. I'm affraid same thing might happen in that case. Player finds a good longsword after two hours of the game, then find some new weapons, tries them out but dislikes them, then ignore all weaponry for the next 60 hours.

 

[Desert Fish]

Monk is the most boring playstyle. Zero cool armour or weapons, just whacking people with a boring stick in your boring robe with your boring character without any real role. In a party, a monk is dead weight.

The problem with monk is that it's not as satisfying to punch someone to death in a video game as it is in real life

But cutting someone up with a sword is?

I once had an idea. Disposable equipment. Something like your secondary weapon in Prince of Persia: Warrior Withing. Basically you can find nicer sword than your basic one, but all weapons will sooner or later be lost either due to degradation, shattering after blocking a powerful blow, stuck in monsters etc. Notice that in old adventure stories like Conan, Flash Gordon etc. they never had any uber-weapons they treasured, but simply used whatever they could get their hands on. They were great warriors not because their gear was better but because they could use a variety of tools more efficiently. So at the beginning your warrior knows how to use a sword and that's it. Then he learns how to use other weapons efficiently meaning that he can grab anything lying around and fight just as well after me loses it. Then he gets to grapple weapons from enemies. Then he learns how to use common environment items like doors, carpets, chairs table to slam foes. At the end he can get dragged naked into an arena and still slaughter a battalion of armed fighters. Won't work for all kinds of games though.

I like this. I really prefer to have my characters' capabilities mostly defined through the character sheet rather than what equipment they happen to carry.

 

[Shadenuat]

I once had an idea. Disposable equipment. Something like your secondary weapon in Prince of Persia: Warrior Withing. Basically you can find nicer sword than your basic one, but all weapons will sooner or later be lost either due to degradation, shattering after blocking a powerful blow, stuck in monsters etc. Notice that in old adventure stories like Conan, Flash Gordon etc. they never had any uber-weapons they treasured, but simply used whatever they could get their hands on. They were great warriors not because their gear was better but because they could use a variety of tools more efficiently. So at the beginning your warrior knows how to use a sword and that's it. Then he learns how to use other weapons efficiently meaning that he can grab anything lying around and fight just as well after me loses it. Then he gets to grapple weapons from enemies. Then he learns how to use common environment items like doors, carpets, chairs table to slam foes. At the end he can get dragged naked into an arena and still slaughter a battalion of armed fighters. Won't work for all kinds of games though.

Sounds kinda like Rune.

 

[anvi]

There are some MUDs and MMOs that have done that too. Items that constantly degrade and eventually they are gone completely. I don't really like the idea though because it becomes too oppressive. I prefer to have the freedom to go and find some upgrades when I feel like I need them.

 

[sputtering fart balloon]

Soulsborne style. Randomly changing your weapon as you level up is dumb video game logic, IRL an English lowbowman isn't going to drop his longbow just because he found a diamond crossbow inlaid with dragon's penis bone and meets the DEX requirement. Video games need not be a realistic simulation but this is too far into territory imo. Plus, weapons-as-styles means there can be a jillion different playstyles based merely on your weapon, instead of other games where there are really only a handful of ways to play based on your class etc.

 

[anvi]

IRL an English lowbowman isn't going to drop his longbow just because he found a diamond crossbow inlaid with dragon's penis bone

Speak for yourself!

 

[sputtering fart balloon]

Speak for yourself!

Regularly handling a penis that isn't yours is for French people tho

 

[rusty_shackleford]

unique equipment purposely placed around the game world + crafting that is strictly for enhancement only.

 

[Kutulu]

Replaceable equipment with unique variants & light upgrades*.

*like coating against fire damage, light increase in armor value and similar things.


I also prefer it for equipment to not have weird level requirements.
If you happen to know that the merchant has a mithril armor and you can beat his bodyguards you should be able to wear it at a low level.

 

[Egosphere]

Crafting?

In Arcanum, say, you have 2 ways of upgrading: finding better weapons (system 2) or playing a tech character who can craft his own (some unique) weapons. You can also find hand placed unique items scattered across the game world.