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对照《Avernum》新旧版本阐述游戏系统设计方法

发布时间:2011-08-26 18:06:26 Tags:,,,

作者:Jeff Vogel

当我开始以编制玄幻类角色扮演游戏为生起,我做过许多愚蠢的事情。自那时起,寻找较为睿智的方法就是个令人痛苦的缓慢过程。每次我开启新的游戏时,都会出现以下状况:等等,我为什么不用这种新方法来做这件事情?事实上,为何我先前不先想到这个方法?

我新近费劲艰辛得到的设计规则与角色训练有关。因为现在每款游戏几乎都有升级和状态提升的设计,我认为这个规则会随着时间推移逐渐得到加深,这个规则就是:

你构建角色的决定应该与你玩游戏的时间成正比。你玩的时间越多,你的决定也越多。

或者采用另一种方式:

在游戏之初,无论何时你做出有关角色的决定,你都在回答一个之前未曾被提到的问题。

Avernum-Escape-from-the-Pit(from geardiary.com)

Avernum-Escape-from-the-Pit(from geardiary.com)

下文将以我的游戏《Avernum》为例进行说明,这款游戏在1999年发布。我将其与重新制作版本《Avernum: Escape From the Pit》进行对比,新版本游戏发布于今年年末(游戏邦注:对于那些关注这款游戏的人,也可以先通过这篇文章了解些许新游戏的内容)。

之前使用的不良方法

《Avernum》是款老式角色扮演游戏。其中有大量技能可供你训练,使你的角色更加强大。游戏中有基础属性(游戏邦注:包括力量、智力、敏捷和耐力)和常规技能(游戏邦注:如剑术、咒语和专业知识等)。你开始可以获得些许技能点,然后每次升级都可以获得更多的技能点。你应该使用这些技能点来提升技能。

game system(from jeff-vogel)

game system(from jeff-vogel)

游戏刚开始便有许多技能点,所以你可以自定义角色特点。你可以使用技能点来增加基础属性或常规技能,基础属性会耗费更多技能点。但是,如果玩家将大量技能点放在某些技能上,会打破整个系统。为限制这种状况,技能越高,所花费的技能点也就越多。到后期,你可能需要积攒两或三个等级的技能点来将主要技能提升1点。

看看以上这种设置。在这个系统中,你玩的时间越多,在游戏中对挑战的认知越多,你对角色的自定义反倒越少。角色的大部分转变发生于低等级状态,因为技能提升所耗点数较少。更糟糕的是,你需要提升基础属性(游戏邦注:尤其是耐力,耐力可以提升角色的生命值)才能在游戏中生存下去,但是它们是如此的昂贵,所以需要详细的计划。正因为这个问题,许多玩家在游戏中期面临无法继续进行下去的问题。这些玩家当然就对我的做法感到很愤怒。

游戏中还有个特征系统。特征是影响角色的特殊品质,有些是积极的,有些是消极的。它们可能让你更精通咒语,但对疾病的抗性降低。好的特征会使玩家获得的经验值降低。坏的特征会提供经验值奖励。你最多只能拥有两个特征。

游戏中还令人反感的部分。你只能在游戏开始时选择这些特征,而且随后就无法改变。这个主要决定会影响你玩整款游戏的方式,但是你却不得不在与怪物碰面之前就做决定。这是极为硬核的做法。我的意思是,这种设计方法是自私的,而且会给玩家带来不必要的惩罚。

现在使用的较好方法

游戏中仍然有基础属性(与原版游戏相同)、技能(大多数没有改变)和特征(全新的设计,而且很多)。

当你在创建角色时,你可以增加5项技能并从长长的列表中选择一个特征。相对比《Avernum》而言,开始阶段的自定义化有所减少。正因为此,许多玩家可能会认为我完全简化了整个系统,随后愤怒地离开游戏。

Avernum Inventory(from gamebanshee.com)

Avernum Inventory(from gamebanshee.com)

但是当你进入游戏中,升级后某个基础属性就会增加1点。每次升级提升的基本属性都不同,所以每4次升级所有基础属性都会增加1点。而且,每次升级你还可以自行选择将某个基础属性升级1点。这种设计既保证了所有技能都能够逐步提升,这样你就不会完全忽略某个属性,而且还允许用户自定义角色的发展方向。

每次升级,你也可以分别将两个不同的技能提升1点。因而,你还是可以像以前一样自行塑造自己的角色。随着你对自己面对的挑战有更深的了解,你可以将角色塑造成可以在游戏中发展下去的样子。

最后,每升两级可以从列表中选择1个特征。可选项数量刚开始较少(游戏邦注:这样不会让新玩家感到不知所措),随着你在游戏中的进展不断增加。最终,你可以拥有大量的特征。有些特征增加咒语或攻击的伤害,有些特征(游戏邦注:如Backstab或Swordmage)会影响角色的玩法。

我认为游戏会受到玩家的欢迎,因为尽管我在游戏早期设计了较少的选项,但是相对比旧系统而言,你可以在新系统中做更多个性化角色的决定,而且方法也变得更多。这种改变意味着玩家的决定大部分发生于游戏过程中,而不是在游戏开始。

没有获胜的方法

我经常发现人们讨厌改变。我尝试过制作更友好的系统,提供更过的自定义内容,但是许多人对旧系统的丧失表示很愤怒(游戏邦注:因为旧系统已经存在了很长时间)。我完全能够理解这种状况,但是我仍然需要努力让游戏变得更好。

而且,虽然旧系统很可能让玩家无法进行下去,但是某些玩家喜欢这种感觉。对他们来说,避免出现此等状况的挑战是游戏的一部分,失败的威胁使得游戏更让人感到兴奋。对于这部分玩家,我建议他们去挑战Torment难度。这个模式中会出现令人恐惧的失败。

但是,我对新系统非常满意。我觉得玩家会更加适应。现在,游戏已经开始进入测试和新系统平衡阶段。当然,麻烦的事情这才真正开始。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

Don’t Ask Questions Until the Player Can Answer

Jeff Vogel

When I started writing fantasy role-playing games for a living, I did a lot of dumb things. Since then, it’s been a painfully slow process figuring out how to be less dumb. Every time I start a new game, there is a point where I go, “Wait. Why don’t I do this thing this new way? In fact, why haven’t I always done it that way?” And then I slap my forehead. Hopefully, it hurts.

One of my new, hard-earned rules of design has to do with training your characters. And, since it seems like every game and its cousin has some sort of level-gaining and stat-building these days, I think the rule is getting more relevant every day:

The number of decisions you have to make to build your character should be proportional to the amount of time you’ve spent playing the game. The more you play, the more you should decide.

Or, to put it another way…

Whenever you make a decision about your character at the very beginning of the game, you are answering a question that hasn’t even been asked yet.

So design wonks, get ready. Here is an example from my game Avernum, released in 1999. I will compare it to the rewritten version, Avernum: Escape From the Pit, out later this year. (And this will also double as a little taste of a preview of the new game, for those who care.)

The Bad Way I Did It Before

Avernum is an old school role-playing game. There are a lot of skills you can train to make your character stronger. There are the base attributes (Strength, Intelligence, Dexterity, Endurance) and regular skills (Swords, Spells, Lore, etc). You start out with a bunch of skill points, and you get more with each level. You should spend these on skills.

You start out with a ton of skill points, so that you can majorly customize your character from the beginning. You can use skill points to increase base attributes or regular skills, but the base attributes are expensive. However, it could break the system if a player put a huge amount of skill points in certain skills. To limit this, I made increasing a skill cost more skill points the higher you trained it. At high levels, you might have to save up for two or three levels to get enough skill points to raise a major skill one point.

Think about this. It’s a system where the more you play and learn about the challenges facing you, the less you can do to customize your characters. You have to make most of the big changes at low level, when skills are cheap. Worse, it was necessary to increase the base attributes to survive (especially Endurance, which increases health), but they were so expensive that doing so required careful planning. As a result of this mess, many players had problems with getting halfway through the game and finding that they were not strong enough to proceed. These players got angry at me, and justifiably so.

There was also a traits system. Traits are special character qualities, some positive, some negative, that affected your characters. They could make you better at spells, more vulnerable to disease, and so on. Good traits came with a penalty to experience earned. Bad traits gave you a bonus. You could have at most two traits.

And here’s the awesome part. You could only pick these traits at the beginning of the game, and you couldn’t change them. Major decisions that affect how you play the entire game, and you make them before you’ve even fought one monster. It’s very hardcore and old school. By which I mean that it’s mean-spirited and unnecessarily punitive.

The Better Way I Do It Now

There are still base attributes (unchanged), skills (mostly unchanged), and traits (an all-new, very long list).

When you make your characters, you can increase five skills and pick one trait from the long list. This is far, FAR less customization at the beginning than was allowed in Avernum. Because of this, many gamers will try to make a party, think I have completely dumbed down the system, and ragequit. Price of doing business.

But then, when you gain a level, a base attribute goes up by one point. It’s different each level, so every four levels each attribute has gone up by one. In addition, each level you can choose one attribute to increase by one. This allows a lot of character customization while making sure all skills go up gradually so that you won’t be hamstrung by completely neglecting an attribute.

Each level, you can also increase two different skills by one point. Thus, you never stop being able to shape your characters. As you get a better idea of the challenges you are facing, you can mold your characters to enable them to proceed.

Finally, every other level, you can pick one trait from the long list. The number of available choices starts out small (to keep from confusing new players) and grows dramatically as you proceed. You will eventually have a lot of traits. Some of them give simple bonuses to your spells or attacks, while others (like Backstab or Swordmage) will affect how you actually play your character.

I plan to take a lot of heat because I allow fewer choices early on, but overall you make more decisions to mold your character in the new system than in the old system, and there are more ways to customize a character. The change means that you make a larger percentage of the decisions later on. As it should be.

Of Course, There Is No Way To Win

I have often observed that people hate change. I have tried to make a more friendly system that provides more customization, but a lot of people will be angry about the loss of the old system (which has been in place for a very long time). I can totally understand this, but I still need to always strive to make things better.

Also, while the old system made it very possible to build a party that would find itself stuck and unable to proceed. Some players actually like that. To them, the challenge of avoiding that fate is part of the game, and the threat of a failed party adds excitement to the game. For them, I can only suggest playing on Torment difficulty. It will provide ample possibility of horrible failure.

But I’m very happy with the new system. I think it allows players to answer the questions the game poses when they understand what those questions truly are. And now I enter beta testing and the actual balancing of the new system. And that, of course, is when the suffering truly begins. (Source: THE BOTTOM FEEDER)


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