Shipping newbie friendly 'preset characters' with a release

[youtoo]

is it possible to have a small set of starter characters for newbies shipped with the release. can set them up as ‘easy’ so they have more points to ‘normal’ with standard 6 points. we will probably get more newbies to stick around if we help them get started. then they get piddle around in the game to figure out what they like.

[EkarusRyndren]

The question is how does one go about creating them? I like the sound of it though.

[kevin.granade]

I kind of want to overhaul the whole points system thing, and just have it rate the effectiveness of your selected character instead of issuing you a number of points to spend.

So a totally average character would be pretty hard, as you add stats/skills/positive traits, the rating shifts to easier and easier descriptions (ideally they’d be fun, not just hard, medium, easy, etc…), and as you reduce stats/skills and add negative traits it shifts to be harder and harder.

[system]

Huh, overhaul…
I have an idea!
You should add some traits for the high-difficulty characters which will add themselves discreetly and player will get to know about them only when he actually starts playing.

And the final difficulty must be named “!!FUN!!”. And the trait must spawn some carps and elephants.

[EkarusRyndren]

[quote=“Kevin Granade, post:3, topic:3688”]I kind of want to overhaul the whole points system thing, and just have it rate the effectiveness of your selected character instead of issuing you a number of points to spend.

So a totally average character would be pretty hard, as you add stats/skills/positive traits, the rating shifts to easier and easier descriptions (ideally they’d be fun, not just hard, medium, easy, etc…), and as you reduce stats/skills and add negative traits it shifts to be harder and harder.[/quote]

I like the sound of that but at the same time I can’t help but feel the points system is kinda needed as a balance factor. Though if you end up going through with that it might be worth establishing some kind of “This is average” baseline and a “This is sub-human” and “this is super-human”

[kevin.granade]

The points would still be there in the background, it’s just not how it’s presented to the player.

The fundamental change is that you’d just pick stats and stuff to make the character you want, and the game would give you feedback on how challenging it is to play, instead of giving you a quota of points to “spend”.

[GlyphGryph]

And the psychological feedback of knowing “You have elected to play in EASY mode” is more than enough to make players grumble and go back and remove stuff from their character.

I think it is important to give the player information on what’s going into this system, though, and to have several categories. Just like in competitive sports, part of the fun is figuring out the best possible way to accomplish your goals while staying within your desired “weight class”, and building a character is a game in it’s own right - the rules should be obvious to players who enjoy that game.

[kevin.granade]

I misspoke, stuff would still have points associated with it and visible, points just wouldn’t be a bottom-line any more. I was terribly unclear about that.

[Klomvp]

At the least, changing the max points should be accessible from the character creation screen. Digging back through options and restarting the process to bump yourself a point is a PITA.

Actually now I’m picturing a direct “difficulty select” on the character creation page (The “Easy”, “Hard”, etc) that then raises or lowers the starting free points, kinda like what Granade mentioned.

If so, on the death screen it shows the character’s “Difficulty” you selected for creation.

A perfectly fluid character creation (X points spent -> “87% difficulty”) is a little harder to judge between characters then set “weight” classes of like 2 point cap increments.

[Rivet]

[quote=“Kevin Granade, post:3, topic:3688”]I kind of want to overhaul the whole points system thing, and just have it rate the effectiveness of your selected character instead of issuing you a number of points to spend.

So a totally average character would be pretty hard, as you add stats/skills/positive traits, the rating shifts to easier and easier descriptions (ideally they’d be fun, not just hard, medium, easy, etc…), and as you reduce stats/skills and add negative traits it shifts to be harder and harder.[/quote]

THIS.

This would be awesome.

[KA101]

[quote=“Rivet, post:10, topic:3688”][quote=“Kevin Granade, post:3, topic:3688”]I kind of want to overhaul the whole points system thing, and just have it rate the effectiveness of your selected character instead of issuing you a number of points to spend.

So a totally average character would be pretty hard, as you add stats/skills/positive traits, the rating shifts to easier and easier descriptions (ideally they’d be fun, not just hard, medium, easy, etc…), and as you reduce stats/skills and add negative traits it shifts to be harder and harder.[/quote]

THIS.

This would be awesome.[/quote]

Further supporting the difficulty meter.

(That said, it’d be nice to do some case studies, etc.)

[vultures]

How about it took a spin on the player in-game, too? If you pushed a heap of points from the very start, you’re known as “John Smith, a wannabe peon” even if you two-finger-death-punch throngs of Zs?
I dunno, it may be fun if the game called you The Cleaver for your preference in butchering corpses… an idea.

[Inadequate]

[quote=“vultures, post:12, topic:3688”]How about it took a spin on the player in-game, too? If you pushed a heap of points from the very start, you’re known as “John Smith, a wannabe peon” even if you two-finger-death-punch throngs of Zs?
I dunno, it may be fun if the game called you The Cleaver for your preference in butchering corpses… an idea. :-)[/quote]

It kind of gets silly if you look at it from the other end, though. “John Smith, the asthmatic, illiterate, schizophrenic, jittery, alcoholic Hobo God-Emperor of the post-apocalypse”

[infectedmochi]

A character creation process with difficulty rating sounds awesome, though IMO it has the potential to be complex and hard to code due to the interactions between different traits such as Fast Learner and Savant must be taken into account. Or Hardcore stacks with Glass Jaw to create a truly hard game.

[youtoo]

even if we add an overhaul to rate characters, i think it would be helpful to new players to have a few preset characters. Then describe how to play them. This way new players can just grab 1 and go. Id only include a few them so they dont have to spend alot of time looking at it. when your new its best to just grab something and run with it. then die and learn from that. I think it will help us get people to stick around.

the community here is alot of fun. so the more people we add to it the better.

[infectedmochi]

This is something I would love to see along with an updated, better tutorial.

[Zireael]

Both rating characters and presets are good ideas.

[kevin.granade]

Oh, don’t get me wrong, I think the presets are a good idea too, just got a bit derailed <_<

[Mr_Lolz]

I really dislike these ideas. I like the feeling that this is a competetive game and that you are forced to make hard decisions in character design. I like the idea that a player character is a being of fixed power so we can compare playthroughs on an even footing. once you make character design like this everyone will play with uber characters - see DF adventure mode and practically veryone playing demigod characters. The character design system is probably one of my favorite aspects of cata - prebuilt classes are a great idea, but please dont water it down in the name of easing difficulty for nabs

[Weyrling]

I really dislike these ideas. I like the feeling that this is a competetive game and that you are forced to make hard decisions in character design. I like the idea that a player character is a being of fixed power so we can compare playthroughs on an even footing. once you make character design like this everyone will play with uber characters - see DF adventure mode and practically veryone playing demigod characters. The character design system is probably one of my favorite aspects of cata - prebuilt classes are a great idea, but please dont water it down in the name of easing difficulty for nabs

You can already change starting points and maximum trait points enough to make your character very powerful, not even counting the myriad powers of the debug menu or creating your own mods for the game.

When it comes to character designs, some people (like myself) deliberately take negative traits and/or stats to see how long the character can survive.
For example, if you take 4Str+GlassJaw+Hardcore, you can cripple yourself trying to climb through a broken window (You cut your eyes on the glass!), I managed to survive for a week and a half, using my parkour skills to pick up water in the city, I got killed instantly when a shocker shocked me and then hit me in the face for 14 damage, but that’s because I forgot to peek(X) around the corner like I usually do.

On topic: Having a few example templates sounds so great I’d almost expect it to have been an intended feature all along.