作者：Josh Bycer

今天我将侧重于RPG游戏中角色发展的一个重要内容，即升级机制。多年来，提升角色等级一直是游戏发展中所坚持的特定模式。很多设计师都在效仿《暗黑破坏神2》中的模式，但是实际上这并不总是最佳方式。（请点击阅读动作RPG之战利品设计）

升级机制所面临的一大挑战便是它应该如何影响游戏玩法。大多数关于升级的动作类RPG都允许玩家完善自己的角色属性并解琐更多游戏技能。尽管角色属性不影响游戏玩法，但是却能够影响玩家所选择的装备。而技能非常重要，因为它将影响玩家所拥有的实用道具。

暗黑破坏神2(from pcgamesway.com)

在技能设计中应该考虑到等比例提升的问题——玩家何时会遇到更强大的敌人，以致他们必须多次挑战游戏？如果角色的破坏性技能一成不变，如“20-30火力伤害”的技能，那么当他们反复玩游戏时，这些技能的威力就会显得越来越弱。在《暗黑破坏神2》中，敌人难度的提升也会让玩家这种固定的破坏技能逐渐变得毫无用处。

克服这一问题的最佳方法便是逐渐引入技能。很多动作类RPG都有“X%的武器DPS（DPS代表每秒伤害值）”之类的技能设置。逐渐提升的设置可保持技能的可行性，并让玩家获得更好的回报（如果玩家获得了更好的装备，那就等于他拥有更强大的技能）。

《恶魔之魂》和《黑暗灵魂》都使用了等比例提升的机制，但执行方式并不相同。在这两款游戏中，各种不同的武器都拥有可逐渐提升的属性（游戏邦注：例如，魔法棒代表智慧，弓代表敏捷）。而各自的属性也将根据F至S不同规模等级进行划分。等级越高，该武器所具有的破坏性就越大，并且能够为玩家争取到更棒的奖励。同时我们还必须注意，在这两款游戏中，到达50个点数左右，等比例提升机制就会失去效力。这可能是游戏想以此阻止玩家想通过升级而增强威力的欲望吧。

现在我们来关注一下某些动作RPG中使用的升级模式。从最受欢迎的《暗黑破坏神2》说起。在这款游戏中，每一种职业的角色都拥有3个完全不同的线性技能树，而每棵树上根据从上至下或者从下至上的排列方式罗列不同技能。最后的技能将出现在第30级别，而玩家在完成了这个级别后仍然能够继续挑战接下来的级别。每次升级能够让玩家获得5个属性点以及1个技能点。并且玩家可以通过各种方式多次完善自己的技能。

《暗黑破坏神2》的游戏进程中需要解决的一大问题便是如何解琐各种技能。除了要求玩家达到一定级别之外，每个技能都要求玩家必须获得之前游戏中的某种特殊技能。如此设置就导致游戏中很多技能都只是玩家为获得更好技能的踏板。例如，巫师拥有两个能够迷惑敌人的技能。第一个技能是诱导敌人攻打其他敌人，而另一个则是陷害一个敌人成为附近所有敌人的攻击目标。如果从可用性来看，后者的优势明显大于前者，但是为了获得这一技能，玩家就必须先获得第一种技能。

而可产生破坏性的技能在这一点上的问题更为严重。为什么当玩家进入骨精灵（第30级）时仍然还要使用骨牙技能（即死灵法师在第1级别中的攻击法术）？暴雪尝试在游戏后来的更新内容中添加协同奖励去解决这一问题。一般来说，如果玩家能够使用一些技能去争取更多奖励并获得更强大的技能，他们就会更愿意使用厉害的技能吧。尽管这么做具有一定的功效，但是这一问题却仍然是《暗黑破坏神2》所面临的少数问题之一。

我曾经谈到的《火炬之光》在游戏进程这一方面做得很好。与《暗黑破坏神2》一样，这款游戏中的每个角色也拥有3个技能树，并在升级时能够给获得属性点和技能点。然而与《暗黑破坏神2》不同的是，玩家在此并不需要任何必备技能，玩家等级才是最关键的要素。这就意味着玩家不需要为了不断前进而去争取一些自己不想要的技能。

《火炬之光》中还有一些比低级别技能更棒的技能，并且比起《暗黑破坏神2》，它反而为玩家提供了更多可用性的内容。除此之外，游戏中大多数技能都可以逐渐提升。唯一让我不满的是，《火炬之光》中有一些三种职业共享的技能，这削弱了游戏内容的多样性。

我个人最喜欢的进程系统来自《丁神的诅咒》。这款游戏的开始与其它ARPG在角色发展方面有所不同。一开始，玩家可以选择一个预先设定好的角色类型或者自己创造一个混合式角色。而不同之处就在于，预先设定好的角色拥有3棵技能树，而混合式角色却只能选择任何2种技能。如果你想要成为一名弓箭手巫师，这款游戏便是你的最佳选择。

每个技能树都带有2个不同类型的技能。第一种是精通，即决定你的角色能够套上何种装备并获得何种特殊奖励。另外一种是你能够在游戏进程中掌握的真实技能。与之前的ARPG游戏一样，这款游戏中的技能也是从上至下按照便宜到昂贵而排列。并且它与其它游戏的最大不同点在于，技能对于玩家等级没有特定要求，玩家可通过升级获得金钱和技能点。

取消了等级要求的游戏赋予玩家绝对的自由来定义自己的角色。让玩家能够从选择廉价技能开始玩游戏，或者为了获得更昂贵的技能节省开支。这种不强迫玩家获取技能的设置让设计师能够创造出更多可用性的技能，从而赋予游戏角色更多个性。有些玩家甚至不会选择技能树上那些最昂贵的技能，反而更喜欢不断完善每棵树上的技能。

任何一款优秀ARPG都必须能够在升级过程中为玩家提供一些有意义的选择。

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

The Devil Is in the Details of Action RPGs – Part Two: Leveling Up

by Josh Bycer on

In the last part, I talked about the importance of loot as a motivator and game mechanic in action rpgs. The other half of the equation when it comes to character progression is leveling up. Improving characters through leveling has not changed all that much over the years. Probably because many designers copied Diablo 2′s style, but that doesn’t mean that it’s the de facto best way.

The challenge with the leveling up mechanic is how much should it affect the gameplay? Most action rpgs on level up, allow the player to improve their character’s attributes and unlock/improve a skill. The attributes won’t affect the gameplay but have an effect on what equipment is available. Skills are a big deal, as they affect the utility the player has.

One of the issues with designing skills is with the issue of scaling: where players will run through the game multiple times with stronger enemies. If a character has skills that do flat damage such as: “20-30 fire damage,” those skills become noticeably weaker on repeat plays. In Diablo 2, each higher difficulty boosts the stats of all enemies which made set damage skills a waste.

To combat this, the most popular way is to implement skills that scale. Many action RPGs have skills that do: “X % of weapon DPS,” where DPS stands for damage per second. Scaling allows skills to keep their viability and feeds back into loot as a motivator as now better equipment also equals more powerful skills.

Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls also had scaling but it was done differently. In both titles, various weapons had an attribute that it would scale to. For example: magic wands with intelligence, or bows with dexterity. The respective attribute would also be graded on a scale of F to S if I remember right. The better the grade the more of a bonus that attribute would apply to damage. It’s important to note that in both titles, there is a dropping off point of around 50 where the scaling will stop being as useful. This was probably done to prevent players from just power leveling through the game.

With that said, we can turn our attention to a few of the leveling formats used in action RPGs. Starting off with the most well known which is Diablo 2. Here, each character class has 3 completely unique linear skill trees. Each tree has the skills in order from top to bottom, or from lowest level to highest. While the final skill unlocks at level 30, players can continue leveling much further than that. Leveling up gives players 5 attribute points to distribute and one skill point. Skills can be improved multiple times with different boosts based on the skill.

The problem with Diablo 2′s progression comes at how the skills are unlocked. Besides having a level requirement, each skill requires a point in a previous skill on the specific tree to use. Because of that, it led to a lot of skills that are more or less a stepping stone for a better skill. For example, the Necromancer class has two skills relating to confusing enemies. The first one will cause one enemy to attack other enemies. The second one makes one enemy the target of all nearby enemies. Now in terms of utility, the latter is miles above the former, but you still need to waste a point in the former to get it.

This issue is even worse for the damage causing skills. Why would anyone use the bone teeth skill (level one necro attack spell) once they get access to bone spirit (level 30)? Interesting enough, Blizzard tried to fix this issue with a later patch that added synergy bonuses. Basically, some skills would provide bonuses to more powerful skills giving the player a reason to pump them up. While it helps, this issue is still one of the few problems with Diablo 2.

Torchlight, which was talked about in part one, fared better in terms of progression. Like Diablo 2, each character had 3 skill trees and received attribute and skill points on level up. However unlike Diablo 2, there were no prerequisite skills, instead only the player’s level was the factor. This meant that as a player, you would not need to take any skills that you didn’t want to in order to progress through the game.

There were still some skills that were better than lower level skills, but there was more utility offered compared to Diablo 2. What also helped was that many skills were built around scaling with fewer exceptions. The only real knock I have with Torchlight’s progression is that several skills are shared between the three classes, which do cut into some of the diversity.

Our last example for this post and my personal favorite progression system comes from Din’s Curse. The game begins differently in terms of character development compared to other ARPGs. At the start you can choose from either a predefined class or create a hybrid one. The difference is that a pre-made class comes with 3 skill trees, while the hybrid lets you choose any two that you want. So if you ever wanted to be an archer necromancer, this was your chance.

Each skill tree had two different types of skills. The first are proficiencies, which determine what equipment your character can wear, along with any special bonuses. Second are the actual skills you can learn over the course of your game. Like previous ARPGs the skills are arranged in order from top to bottom going from least expensive to most. The big difference is that there are no level requirements for skills, only money and skill points which are earned at level up.

Without any level requirements, it gave the player complete freedom in defining their character. Allowing them to either get several cheap skills starting out, or save up for an expensive skill. By not having to set strict limits on acquiring skills, gave the designers the option of creating more utility skills to make characters personalized. Some players may not even get the most expensive skill on their tree and instead favor improving skills from each skill tree.

Providing meaningful choices in leveling up is an important part of any good ARPG. For the next part I’ll be examining downtime in ARPGs and money sinks.(source:GAMASUTRA)