Was wondering how many Unity users really enjoy getting into complex RPG character/game systems and mechanics. I personally am rather obsessed with such systems and I don’t think I could go a day without working/tinkering on one.
All of my systems are made with the philosophy that all game systems should be equatable to mathematics. For example, right now I am messing around with what I call the 12 Core Vocations, which are represented on the face of a clock. I will attach an example:
All of these Core Vocations now have a number associated with them, and they have relationships with other classes. Sometimes positive, others negative.
There is much more to the system than what I am giving, including Advanced Vocations and Hybrid Vocations.
What sort of systems do you guys make? What do you think of mine?
The Core Vocations have been arranged and given numbers, but the relationships aren’t taken from simple adjacency; For example, the first relationship I will explain is the “Simple Pair Relation”, also known as “Polar Opposites”. These are classes which are opposite one another on the clock’s face. Now, if you take any of these Simple Pairs and subtract one of their numbers from the other, you see that:
12 - 6 = 6 (Knight v. Scholar)
7 - 1 = 6 (Bard v. Witch)
9 - 3 = 6 (Trickster v. Priest)
8 - 2 = 6 (Marksman v. Fencer)
11 - 5 = 6 (Axelayer v. Monk)
10 - 4 = 6 (Naturalist v. Tradesman)
…We have six Simple Pairs, each giving us the output of 6, a trait all simple pairs share.
Then, there also are more complex relationships including Quadratic Families and Triadic Families. I won’t bore you with the math that goes into those relationships, but I will include a couple of images illustrating such a thing.
And I’ll also include a teaser image of the Knight class being highlighted on the Clock. If anybody is interested, I can go into more detail. In not, thanks for reading, anyway!
I suspect you’re more worried about fancy math than about making an intuitive (NOT simple) system.
Why does it matter that the difference of any two values around a clock equals half the total value (which is nothing special)? What does that mean for your game? This seems ostentatious yet meaningless, and this from a guy who took Calc 3.
All that aside, I do enjoy some complex systems, but don’t care for needless complexity.
I would like it if you could explain why it matters, in game terms, that every pair equals 6. Or if there’s some meaning behind the pairing. Is there some special gameplay element which involves a knight and a scholar? Because all you’re talking about there is just numbers, one “vs.” the other with no game context. What is the game context behind that?
I feel like its an attempt to steal from colour theory. But the most important bit of the colour wheel is the fact that colours next to each other are very close to each other. That ends up building a very intuitive system. For example if the OP arranged the classes like this, it would make much more sense. (I had to make some guests about what the different roles actually are to make this work. Some of them, particularly the naturalist, don’t translate well across cultural boundaries.)
Note how all the melee combat characters are sitting together in one spot? As are the magic users, the academics, the religious ect. Its instantly clear to the player that the fencer plays pretty similar to the knight, but quite differently from the witch.
Now if you make this a party building game, you can sensibly apply all of the colour wheel principles and relationships. Want to build a party that can do everything? Use a triadic scheme. Want a party that specializes? Use an analogous scheme. Only got two character slots and totally unsure what is out there? Use a complementary scheme.
The general concept has a lot of merit. The ideas are pretty common in existing RP games. D&D had the classic fighter/cleric/wizard/thief combo, later versions of the game are pretty much still faithful to that underlying division of labor. MMOs tend to fall into tank/damage dealer/healer combos. Even my local LARP, which is technically classless tends to fall into sheild/range/pole combos.
TL;DR: The concept is good, but the execution needs a lot of work.
