Sword Art Online - Theoretical Redesign

[Cayden 0]

Sword Art Online - Theoretical Redesign

Inspired by reading the More In Depth Character Builds thread posted by Daeron, I wanted to chime in with my own views on what could be done to improve the overall mechanics of the SAO-RPG. I do understand that I am a VERY new player to the game and I don't want to step on any toes regarding any of this so let me be clear:

This IS my attempt to showcase alternative rules systems that could be implemented to improve upon an already well designed game. Pretty much every suggested improvement I have has at its base existing rules.

This is NOT my attempt to berate the very fine work done by the people who set this up. A lot of you have talents such as your graphic design team that I couldn't hope to match. Take everything I say as an attempt only to suggest improvements and provide constructive criticism.

This is also NOT meant to be an all or nothing document. While some of the suggestions I will make are exclusionary by nature, a lot of my feedback here can be adopted in part or in whole.

So with that out of the way I'm going to go into the specifics.

SAO V2 Design Goals

One thing that I find incredibly helpful anytime you are developing or revising an existing game is to determine exactly what you think should be the primary focus of your work is going to be. To that and I've come up with four specific goals that I hope a 'Version 2.0' would focus on. They are as follows:

Scalability

Compatibility

Transparency

One Roll System

Clearly the four of them need a little bit more information that that, so before we go any further I'll talk briefly on each.

Scalability - Because of the nature of SAO, any attempt at revising the rules has to take into account issues of scale. That is to say, this roleplay is going to be VERY long running, but with a theoretical end date in sight.

Aincrad has One Hundred floors, players are currently near the edge of level 11 after several months of play, yet at the same time many of them are already pushing up against the limits of the game mechanics that surround them. 'Perfect' weapons have to be supplanted by a new classification, and that classification is itself going to be supplanted by something else.

Daeron suggested a number of fixes in a second thread and all of them are worth considering. My suggestion however is a rebuild that assumes from the very outset that players will be scaling all the way to floor 100 and attempts to bake that progression in instead of trying to keep up with it via 'patches' or the like.

Compatibility - Despite being the second major design goal, compatibility is arguably as important, or more important than Scalability. Simply put, any changes that I or others suggest, even changes that involve drastic overhauls to the current system by their very nature MUST be compatible or convertible with the existing rules.

A good example of this would be items. Currently there are quite a few players who have invested time and effort into obtaining unique and powerful items for themselves. To make any changes, either minor or major to items will require that a system be in place to convert those old items to be both usable and useful under the new system. From experience as a gamer I can say there are few things that annoy me more than having a top tier item be turned into vendor trash because of an update.

Accessibility and Transparency - A big focus of my proposed rework, and perhaps the one I think is most vital to adopt even if many of the ideas are discarded is that of Accessibility and Transparency.

The primary aspect of this design goal would be to standardize and centralize all information in one simple, and easy to locate guidebook (possibly a PDF?) to allow players both new and old to look up rules on a specific topic without difficulty. I will give two examples of what I consider to be problems with this:

- The RPG has undergone a couple of different versions of the loot rules, particularly where it comes to Col. The most current version has the drop rate dependant on the loot roll and the HP of the monster.

At the same time however, someone looking up the crafting rules would find a post that is mostly correct, stating the right amount of Col given per page of play, but where the amount of Col given for defeating a monster is determined solely by multiplying the loot roll by five.

- The description of Equipment qualities (which can be found in the skills section) lists the skill types as Bad, Good, Uncommon, Rare and perfect.

Reading through the loot system there seems to be no way to obtain 'bad' gear though it could be assumed from its description in the skill section that 'bad' gear would be the starting basic weapon and cloth clothing.

Good gear can be obtained from various quests, but the only purpose served by good or bad quality gear is that you probably can't use a weapon or armor skill without the appropriate gear. There is no difference between good and bad quality gear, and there is no way to obtain bad quality leather or metal armor, or to obtain bad quality accessories.

My point is that there is a needless distinction between good and bad gear, and even good gear serves almost no purpose apart from simply existing. Which of course begs the reason for its existence in the first place.

Again, none of this is to be intended as a slight or a jibe against the existing rules. People worked hard on them and my sole goal here was to point out that a single, easily accessed source of all rules would be preferable.

One Roll System - The one roll battle dice system used by SAO-RPG is what I consider to be its biggest strength. Its largely intuitive, and keeps things moving at a brisk pace compared to similar style play by post games that I have come across. Keeping the system simple and intuitive is a major design goal, even as I have some suggestions upcoming to perhaps improve upon it.

With the generalizations out of the way I'm going to get down to brass tacks with a series of concrete suggestions. Because of the intersecting nature of many of the design goals some of these topics will be addressed under multiple topics, but I'll try to keep the repetition to a minimum.

That said, while these are concrete suggestions they are nowhere near finalized. While I would be more than happy to do all of the writing myself if I were asked I am not so foolish as to think I could do everything without input. I am going to suggest general fixes or concepts to begin with, and focus on each individual aspect more at a later date if I am not laughed completely out of thread.

Though this section is referred to as 'Major Changes' some of my proposed changes here can be adopted without rocking the boat. Even if you think I'm stupid I urge you to read through just to consider some of the minor fixes.

The Level System

A good starting point for discussion would be what brought me into discussing any of this at all, the idea of expanding the Level system to account for more than just a character's HP total.

At the moment I cannot speak to the specifics of the current Level System in regards to scalability since I do not have access to the number of posts required to reach each level threshold past 60. I will say that any alterations I suggest will have to keep in mind that there is a very real possibility that adding abilities beyond HP/Level to the level system may affect scalability in the long run for outlying players who post substantially more than others.

A possible fix to this would be some sort of hard cap based off of floor level, though I'm not sure if that is workable with the current forum software. This would basically exist to represent the idea that a player can only level up so many times off low level enemies.

If the software does not accommodate capping players, a compromise solution could be a soft cap where players with a visible level higher than the highest unlocked floor would only be able to access a character level up to a certain point.

Anyways, despite small worries on scalability a stat point based leveling system is one of the single biggest boons that could be used to affect both scalability and just as an overall improvement to the existent system.

My suggested system would be as follows:

Strength - Increases Damage Dealt

Agility - Slightly increases chance to hit/dodge

Vitality - Reduces Damage Taken

But Cayden you might say, that's only three stats! I'd actually point out that those three stats are more than SAO originally had had. In the Light Novel the game only had Strength and Agility. I've added a third only for balance reasons

But Cayden you enormous moron you could hurtfully say! There were seven stats suggested by Daeron in his opening post, why would you slim it down to just three?

The reason is that if we are being perfectly fair with one another, only a handful of people are ever going to put points into abilities that do not directly raise their combat potential. It is the nature of a game with a combat focus.

So what is the design ideology behind the Tri Stat System? The goal is to still allow players to specialize themselves from one another without making 'obvious choice' or 'Ability tax' systems.

A player who wants to play a quick and speedy evasion type would use Agility as their sole primary stat. A person who wants to focus entirely on damage would go full Strength while one wanting to play a tank might focus on Vitality, or perhaps even an Agi/Vit mixture.

What we don't want is for there to be options for crafting or other improvements that go completely ignored because they would detract from combat effectiveness. The game is Sword Art Online, not Smithy: The Gathering.

Lastly, one focus of this system is to make each level count. There are no dead levels, no holding of attribute points. When a character levels they gain and apply their points immediately and would see an immediate (though not overwhelming) effect against monsters they had just been fighting. There will however, be diminishing returns on investment at higher levels for balance reasons.

The Skill System

I like the general concept of the skill system as it has been presented thus far. I think it does a solid job of conveying a difficult concept, and the progression range from 1-6 in terms of completed topics is pretty decent. Kudos to Saix.

Now the but...

My first change would be to scale skills to a max of 100 levels to give things more room to grow through play and prevent people from hitting a hard cap that leaves them with nowhere to grow. In addition players would receive a set amount of skill points at level up, and would continue to gain skills as quest, boss and roleplay rewards.

My second would be a change to combat skills that make them an important choice for players, but not always the best one. My suggested solution would be to link combat skills as a pre-requisite for higher level equipment. This would mean that there would be little point in upping your primary sword skill to 75 or 100 if all your gear was in the level 10-20 range. This prevents a rush to 100 at which time there is suddenly no combat benefit to level ups.

Clearly this suggestion would require a pretty vast revamp of the skill system as it is proposed. But what are the advantages of it and why do I suggest it?

First and foremost, more variety. Currently, most players are focusing on capping their specific sword style, followed by their armor. These are the most combat advantageous skills and while not everyone will b-line for these abilities, we'd be fooling ourselves if we pretended that a large majority haven't been focused in that direction. Altering the effect of combat skills makes them a smart choice but not always a necessary one.

Progression. By tying skill points to player level (with outside bonuses), we allow the feeling of progression to continue throughout the whole of Aincrad. Already I've seen a couple of players with threes, or fours in their primary weapon skill. They'll hit the cap shortly and then what? Either the cap will be lifted and they'll rush to it immediately again (if they aren't already sitting on the points) or it won't be and these players will have mastered their sword skill in the first 10 floors of Aincrad and NEVER improve.

A Col sink. Inflation is a very real problem in MMO's, and due to the player driven nature of the economy in this game in particular, there is not a lot that the GM's can do to take money out of the economy. If Col inflation is becoming a significant problem one option is to add skill trainers that give a small number of skill points at a significant cost.

If the suggested skill system were to be adopted it'd be almost a total rewrite, akin to a total rebalance patch in an MMO. All existing skills would be wiped and players would be given an equivalent number of skill points to their level along with bonuses for completed RP's.

The Equipment System

The Item system is one of the issues of sustainability I referred to both in Daeron's thread and I believe above. In simple terms, I think that whether or not my ideas are accepted here, the Item system will need a heavy revamp in the near future.

High level player's are currently on the 9th floor, and have a decent number of 'perfect' items that are supposedly equivalent to endgame items obtained in the original storyline, such as the Elucidator which was a boss drop from level 50. This has forced the rumor that there will be a step above 'perfect' called excellent.

But what goes past excellent? Currently most top tier items add up to +2 to a d10 roll, +3 damage or some other effects. Excellent will likely be +4. Sublime (or what have you) would be +5... which might be as soon as floor 16-20. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious equipment will be found with +10 to accuracy somewhere around floor 30-40, and at that point the dice is rather less important than the bonus, especially when the enemy does not get harder to hit

As with my proposed Stat and Skill changes, my ideal change to this system would be part of a total overhaul of the game mechanics we currently have. If that doesn't pan out then I do still have some ideas for fixing it in the short term, but I'll focus on being positive thinking for the time being.

My idea for the equipment system is four tiered.

Standardization of Items

Item level and quality

Inherent effects

Revamped crafting and loot

So lets examine them shall we?

Standardization of Items - This would involve creating an easily browseable list of pre-generated items. Many of the lower ranked or leveled versions of these could be sold at NPC shops, while others would exist solely to show what is and is not appropriate for gear of a specific level or quality.

This would not necessarily replace the Item Evaluation Topic, but it would drastically reduce the workload that Saix or others have to deal with going forward, since that thread would only exist to rate completely new items. Players could of course revamp an existing item with a new name and/or description so long as the stats remained identical.

Item Level and Quality - In addition to the existing set up of Good, Uncommon, Rare, Perfect, items would be further separated by level. As with the discussion on stats and skills, the specifics regarding this would be in flux, but a general version would be something along these lines.

A player kills a mob, (or crafts or whatever) and the loot roll indicates that an item drops. Under the current system the item is either good, uncommon or rare. Under my suggested system the item could run the gamut between good and perfect, but would be limited in its Item Level based on the mob that dropped it.

The item level would determine the overall range of an item's stats, while the quality would determine the specific stats that the item has. As an example:

A Player murders a boar. For some reason the boar has a sword amongst it's loot. The player rolled reasonably lucky, and got an uncommon sword. At this level the sword might have 50 Damage, +1 Strength and/or some other stuff, the specifics don't matter. Had that same sword dropped merely as good it might only have 50 Damage and nothing else, while if it dropped as perfect it could have as high as 60 damage, and +2 or more strength!

By contrast, a player killing a mob several levels higher might receive a 'good' sword of his level, but that sword might start at 100 to damage or more solely because it is higher level. HP levels would clearly be higher in this example mind you.

This is in keeping with a typical MMO loot system, and while the loot tables might be a pain to initially produce, if they were written with the intent of scalability they would never need to be adjusted.

Inherent Effects - Under the current item system equipment does not in and of itself have any effects at all, instead it is the enhancements of equipment that give it their bonuses. Thus you can have two 'good' that are identical to one another, or a good one handed sword with the same effects (none) as a good two handed sword.

My proposed changes would put a bit more focus on equipment overall, as well as increasing the number of items a player can equip from three to between five and 10 depending on how complicated we want to make things. Despite the expansion of equipment slots, equipment would still be divided into three categories: Weapons, Armor and Accessories.

The total list of available Equipment slots would be as follows:

Head - Armor or Accessory

Weapon(s) - Weapon

Body - Armor

Back/Cloak - Armor

Arms/Gloves - Accessory

Waist - Armor or Accessory

Legs - Armor

Ring x 2 - Accessory

Each of the three categories would be craftable by the appropriate skill, and each would govern certain stats as follows:

Weapons: Damage Dealt and Accuracy

Armor: HP, Evasion and Damage Reduction

Accessories: Bonus Stats. Miscellaneous effects

In addition gear above the 'good' grade will have bonus effects such as improved parameters for its level (Bonus damage, HP etc), Bonuses to player stats, ability to inflict status effects and so forth.

Revamped Crafting and Loot

I sort of went over this in the previous sections, but the loot and crafting systems would need a somewhat serious overhaul to function properly with the new loot rules. Certainly not an insurmountable obstacle, just one to be aware of.

My proposed system would be to revamp crafting from its own system into simply one more facet of the skill system. Players would be capable of learning as many or as few crafting skills as they are capable of, though the limited availability of skill points would likely make specialization a priority.

Because of changes to the loot system, crafting materials would now be similar to items in that they would have both a level and an item quality when obtained. The level of the component would be equal to the mob that dropped it, while the quality would depend on the crafting roll at time of drop.

When it comes time to craft items the quality and level of the item would depend on the type of Materials used. I've yet to actually finalize anything in this field, but the short version would probably to have the level of the gear be an average of the material levels used in it, with the same being true of quality.

Finally, the option to 'reinforce' gear would be included as part of the crafting system. In essence this system would allow players to 'boost' the level of existing gear at the cost of materials along with a chance of failure and perhaps a small chance of damaging the equipment. Thus a player who finds a 'perfect' sword at level 10 might be able to continue to reinforce it and use it for dozens of levels before replacing it. This allows players to keep 'iconic' gear for their characters rather than replacing it too often.

Other

The following are a few other systems that I propose changes to that can't fall into other categories easily:

Dice Size

Monster Mechanics

Sword Skills

I'm going to be spending a decent amount of time on each of these topics, so hang in there. We're almost done!

Dice Size - I'll be the first to admit I know NOTHING about how the forum software used for this game works. I know there can be dice involved, I know that it is a forum.

That said, I know game mechanics, and to a lesser extent I know statistics. Simply speaking a D10 does not scale well. With only ten possible outcomes there is very little flexibility for making modifications to the roll. As I mentioned earlier in my discussion on weapons, eventually the mod on the dice roll is going to overtake the actual dice roll.

The good news is that I know that the Dice system currently in use is soon being replaced as part of the forum changes. Even if it isn't a switch to something that allows for d20, or preferably d100 rolls is not out of the question.

Monster Mechanics - One of the flaws in scalability that I've mentioned a couple of times was that player damage/damage mitigation/accuracy/evasion could quickly outstrip standard mobs, rendering them utterly toothless. While it is important not to make the monsters too powerful, particularly in a game like this where death has very real consequences, making the monsters so weak as to be pointless drains any possible threat from the combat mechanics unless players willfully avoid taking combat abilities.

On the flipside however, players who avoid combat abilities will be utterly stomped if faced with a GM controlled mob that is actually scary.

As an example of this, let's take Cayden at level 1 and his current level of 5, and a theoretical level of 10.

At level 1, fighting a boar Cayden still has the advantage. He has 5 HP to its 3, and because I took a weapon skill to start with (the only sensible choice) he deal two damage per hit, to the boar's one.

Statistically Cayden will win this fight in no less than two attacks and no more than three. The boar by contrast needs a minimum of two critical hits and a maximum of five total hits.

At level 5, fighting a bigger boar, Cayden is doing much better. He now has 13 HP to its 7, +2 to damage (skill/weapon) and +1 to accuracy. He deals three damage per hit, to the boar's one.

Statistically Cayden will win this fight in no less than two attacks and no more than three. The boar by contrast needs a minimum of five hits (four critical) and a maximum of thirteen total hits.

At level 10, fighting the biggest of boars, Cayden basically can't lose. He now has 23 HP to its 12, along with a minimum +3 to damage (skill/skill/weapon) and +1 to accuacy. He deals three damage per hit, to the boar's one. I am not including possible DR because that's just unfair.

Statistically Cayden will win this fight in no less than three attacks and no more than four. The boar by contrast needs a minimum of eight critical hits and a maximum of twenty three total hits. The chance of Cayden losing this fight are so low that I need to use heavy scientific notation to express them.

My suggestion to fix this comes in two varieties that not even I have quite puzzled out, and I'll list them here (sub-section inception!):

Pre-Made Mobs: Create a catalog of Pre-made monsters for players to challenge on each floor. These would not be the same as GM monsters, but would fill somewhat of the same goal, creating opponents for players that are more than just 17/17 hp sponges with 1-3 damage per hit. Players would still be able to choose the monsters that they fight on each level so that they don't end up fighting something too powerful, and since GM's control the pace at which players advance they would have ample time and warning to prep and balance each floor's mobs.

Even with my suggested combat system (you're almost there) each Mob would consist of, at most, an attack value, a evasion value, a damage value, an armor value, an HP value and any special skills. Making 5-10 Mobs per level would be trivial.

Static Bonuses: Each floor, or certain number of floors would have a static effect on the overall stats of the mobs contained therein. Currently this is reflected as Floor level x 2 minimum HP, but it fails to take into account advances such as the skill system which leave regular mobs utterly worthless against players.

I will mention that I may have missed a rule that the mobs get stronger as they go, but I have yet to see anything of the sort.

I prefer the Pre-Made option, but I can understand if the extra work is a strain on overworked staff.

Sword Skills - I've caught hints and pieces throughout my look through the board that there were, Sword Skills in the game that parallel the show, such as Starburst Stream. I would suggest reintroducing them as part of the overall combat rebalancing. Sword skills are an integral and important part of combat in the system, and giving players activatable abilities engenders a feeling of control and choice beyond simply praying that the dice don't screw with you.

Of all of the ideas I've put forward this is the one I'm still sort of tossing the ball around without numbers to back it up. My preferential way to handle it would be either a cooldown of some sort, or a penalty/bonus system but neither jump off the page to me. This would probably be one of the last things to be implemented in the suggested changes.

The Combat system

So here we are, the big Cahuna as it were. Combat. Most players are going to be involved in it, everyone has an opinion on it and most of my proposed changes have some effect on it.

The good news is that the proposed combat system I have largely hasn't changed all that much outside of rebalanced numbers. The system will still be a One Roll setup like we have now, you post and the system rolls a dice to determine success or failure, though in this case it would be a d100.

And... that's really it. Critical hits would need to be revised in how they work(and I have ideas on this as well), and damage now comes from the equipped weapon or the monster's statistics, but at its heart the rolls are still the same. Roll 1d100, and attempt to get 51 or higher on the roll after applying bonuses or penalties for accuracy and evasion. If you hit, simply deal the damage of your weapon, minus any Armor of the target monster and voila!

It may get a little more complicated when applying Sword Skills, but at the moment PVE (Player vs Environment) combat is largely no more complicated than before, which was of course the goal all along.

Conclusion

What's that? After going through that giant wall of text you're still interested enough in what I have to say to read my conclusion? Well that or you've skipped ahead to get the TL;DR version. That's fine too, I guess.

The short version is that I'm sort of OCD. I enjoy the rules of SAO-RPG now and I think the GM and development team have done a stellar job. However, because I'm OCD, especially when I'm out of the country and bored in hotel rooms, I've been making a wishlist of what I'd change if I could and how I'd change for most of the month of August and September. The pile of notes has gotten large enough that I figured I might as well share it and see what you guys think.

As I've mentioned throughout the course of this, a LOT of these changes would need to be part of a substantial overhaul of the existing system. My ideas for the equipment, for example, would only really work if monsters received a boost and so forth.

Many of these ideas, such as the attribute and much of the new skill system are already in various state of completion from my holiday trip, but before I devote more time to working on them than I do to playing in the game, I might as well see what people, and especially the GM's think of the proposed changes.

So... what do you think?

[Cayden 0]

That really didn't look nearly that big in the preview. :(

Anyways. On a particular note to the site staff and GM's. If this... rant? Manifesto? Whatever. If this thread doesn't get me laughed off the site and you're actually interested at all in some of my suggestions I've got a couple dozen pages of notes, a demonstration document for skills and attributes, and a couple excel sheets that cover floors 1-100 in terms of HP, Damage etc and how its scales.

None of it is final work, and if you're curious I can definitely send it out by the end of the week provided you give me enough time to edit it so that it looks... well.. decent.

[Gyrindaul 0]

I really like the ideas you've put behind this. I personally would like to see the notes, documents, and whatever else you have to get a better idea of what you mean and what your mind has invisioned as a possibility.

[Cayden 0]

Happy to oblige where I can.

As I mentioned earlier, most of what I have is in a variety of half finished states, with the rules on attributes at 100%, skills at roughly 75% and so forth. Unfortunately since much of it is in a note that makes sense to me and few others I'm going to take a bit of time to edit into a humanly legible format before I start posting it up.

That said, I had a relatively uneventful day, so I had some time to scrawl up and format a bunch of the Crafting rules as well as finish the attribute rules to a solid beta version, so I'm going to append these specifics to the thread. I'll probably do info dumps like this every couple of days to see if I gather more interest or until I'm told to stop.

So without further adieu, the V2 attribute rules. You might also see crafting rules tonight but it is rather late.

[Cayden 0]

Attributes

This section contains an explanation on the three main attributes in SAO, their effects and their usage in Attribute Tests

Attributes

Each character in Sword Art Online has three Attributes that represent the system's view of their combat prowess and ability. While a player might have quick reflexes or overwhelming strength in real-life, within the virtual world of SAO they are only as strong, as quick or as resilient as their attribute points tell the system that they are.

Each character begins the game with three attribute points to distribute as they desire. They gain an additional point every level. In addition gear and expendable items can modify a character's attributes.

No attribute can ever be raised higher than 100 by any source. If an attribute would go over 100 for any reason it simply does not.

The attributes are as follows:

Strength - Strength is the measure of a character's physical power. Points added to strength modify the amount of damage dealt in combat. Strength is used in attribute tests that involve lifting, carrying, pushing and so forth.

Agility - Agility is the measure of a character's speed and accuracy. Points added to Agility modify the chance to hit in combat and the chance to be hit in combat. Agility is used in attribute tests that involve dexterity, speed and so forth.

Vitality - Vitality is the measure of a character's resilience and resistance to damage. Points added to Vitality modify the amount of damage received in combat. Vitality is used in attribute test that involve resisting effects, withstanding exertion and so forth.

Each attribute has a direct mechanical effect in combat as detailed above with the specifics described in Table: Attribute Bonuses

((Note: Said table is not included in this document. Its an excel spreadsheet and would be a pain to import. Suffice to say the bonus per point is 1% bonus to Damage/Damage Resistence for Strength or Vit and .5% bonus to Hit and Evade for Agility. These bonuses are subject to diminishing returns at level 50, where they effectively get halved.))

Attribute Tests

During the course of play you may occasionally be required to roll an attribute test. Sometimes these test can be dangerous, such as an Vitality test to hold your breath while swimming, or a agility test to avoid falling rocks, while other times they can be something as simple as a strength test try and win a tug of war.

Whatever the reason there are two different types of Attribute tests, Opposed and Unopposed.

Opposed - Opposed attribute tests are tests where the action being undertaken is directly opposed by another player or NPC, such as an arm wrestling competition.

Unopposed - Unopposed attribute tests are tests where the action being undertaken does not involve any conscious opposition such as holding your breath, juggling and so forth.

In both cases the tests are resolved by rolling 1d100 and adding the attribute appropriate to the test. For opposed rolls the person with the highest modified roll wins. For unopposed tests the player is successful if his modified roll is higher than the Difficulty Number (DN) of the test.

Attribute tests only come into play where the rules demand it or the players choose. Players are never required to use Attribute Tests to resolve a roleplay dispute, though they may do so at the agreement of both parties.

Difficulty Number

All Unopposed attribute tests have a Difficulty Number which is the number that a player's must exceed for him to be successful in his attribute test.

In most cases, such as with monsters or quests this number is included in the stats provided to the player. In other instances, such as GM run special events this number is provided to the player when they attempt the test.

The Difficulty Number of a test will always state what attribute (or attributes) can be used to make the attempt. Some tests can be completed using different attributes, but may have higher difficulties for using one attribute instead of another.

Players should always be able to know the Difficulty Number and any consequences of a test before they attempt it.

Skills

In addition to the dice roll and the attribute modifier, Attribute Tests can sometimes be modified by a character's skill ranks. Any skills indicated in the Test's description add a bonus to the dice roll equal to the points invested in said skill.

Some tests may state that a skill may only be applied if a specific attribute is selected. If a different attribute is chosen for the roll then the skill may not be applied in these circumstances.

Consequences

Nearly all attribute tests have some sort of consequence for success or failure. These consequences can range from damage applied to a player or monster, to obtaining additional crafting materials, to opening up the weak point on a boss monster.

Whatever the consequences for success or failure, they will always be explicitly stated before the roll is attempted.

Degrees of Success or Failure

While most attribute tests are simple pass/fail rolls, a small number of tests have additional effects depending on the amount that the modified roll passes or fails the test. In such instances the test will include an explanation on the effects and thresholds for each new degree of success or failure involved.

Extended Tests

Occasionally tests may require multiple successes over a longer length of time to accomplish. These are referred to as Extended Tests.

Extended Tests function exactly like standard opposed or unopposed tests, with the exception that a single success is not enough to complete the test. Instead each Extended Test will stipulate a number of successes that must be reached to fully complete the test. A single failure does not necessarily result in failure of the entire test.

Some Extended Tests will also include a maximum number of attempts. Failure to get the required number of successes in the maximum number of attempts will result in failure of the test.

Finally, some Extended Tests will remove a success for each failure during the Extended Test. If this is the case it will be mentioned in the Consequences section of the test.

Example Attribute Test Blocks:

Swim Through The Underwater Passage

Traverse a long Underwater Passage in an attempt to surprise the boss, but beware for the swim carries its own dangers!

Difficulty Number - Vitality (55) or Agility (65)

Skill - Swim and Breath Holding

Success - Boss loses its first action in combat

Failure - Take 50 damage per Degree of Failure (10)

Siren's Song

The gorgeous song of the siren digs into your mind in an attempt to weaken your resolve and render you docile.

Difficulty Number - Vitality (60)

Skill - Iron Will

Failure - Lose your next action.

Special - Test repeats each round until three successes have been achieved.

Final Thoughts

At the risk of flooding my own thread I'm going to included the occasional post such as this one mostly to voice why I did certain things, the concerns that i have about what I've suggested and so forth. I'll try and keep these brief as possible but I do have a tendency to ramble as evidenced by... well.. this post.

The attribute system was one of the very first things I started work on, which was quite some time ago after reading Daeron's thread on the matter. The overall goal when I started work was to devise an attribute system that would scale from 1-100 without breaking down somewhere along the way. This was actually much harder than it looks.

What we have in thread is the current final version. Originally the system was meant to have a total of four attributes, STR, AGI, VIT and Expertise, and each of the attributes was to have a Primary and Secondary bonus, Str for example would add to damage and to hit. This got scrapped after every variant on the numbers turned out massively in favor of tanks at high level. The second run had things stripped down to one each, with Agility applying only to hit, and Expertise applying to evade.

Ultimately I combined expertise into AGI for two reasons. The first was that expertise didn't really fit with the 'fluff' when it came to skill checks, as it was simply too difficult to describe what the difference was between an Agility test and an Expertise test. Moreover Expertise in and of itself doesn't make sense as a system tracked attribute. The second reason it was scrapped was to try and balance out the remaining attributes.

As it stands the attributes balance out one another remarkably well. All other things being equal, a pure AGI fighter would lose to a Vit one, a Vitality fighter loses to a strength one and a Dex fighter loses to strength. Because of this there is no glaringly 'right' build for players to pick which was one of the major things to avoid. The goal with attributes was to provide a way for people to customize their characters, something that more difficult if there is a mathematically best option.

In addition I'm rather proud of the Attribute Test system that I've devised. It actually wasn't even on my original outline, but more or less came to me while I was in the process of writing up the specifics regarding attributes. It is heavily inspired by a similar 'skill test' system from a tabletop Board Game called runebound, and I like to think that it very much fits the mechanics of a play by post.

In a perfect world attributes tests will see a decent amount of tests. Much of my proposed crafting and gathering system is based around attribute tests, and I'd like to think that many of the higher difficulty monsters would use them as well. As a bonus it also allows for 'trap' encounters that can put players at risk without simply being a surprise combat.

And... yeah, I think thats all. I could go on for days about this stuff, but I'll start overflowing more into the combat, monster or crafting sections than I already have, and out of context that doesn't really help.

[Cayden 0]

I'm Cross-Posting this from the separate thread I made for it. Since its almost 1:00 am where I am I'm going to leave it as is for the moment and edit in fixes to it in the morning since the levels, skills and equipment it discusses are not in line with the proposed redesign. For those of you who are actually interested in my rambling, you can expect an update to it for the proposed rules sometime tomorrow.

And if you're interested but haven't put an answer in the poll, put one up there or post in the thread. Beginning to think I 'AM' talking to myself.

Companion System

Not every player in Sword Art Online has a story all their own to tell. For every player who seeks to carve their own place in the world there are perhaps ten who lack that singular spark. Yet no hero or villain exists in a vacuum, especially in an MMORPG, and many of the best and brightest inevitably find their lives intertwined with those around them, their companions.

Companions

The Companion System in Sword Art Online exists to allow players to bring background characters from their roleplay into the foreground as full-fledged party members, with the goal of expanding the options for play and introducing new opportunities for roleplay.

Acquiring Companions

Players may declare any created character with whom they have formed a party at least once as part of a roleplay as a companion, so long as the character meets these conditions:

- The character selected is a 'player' of SAO, not an NPC of the virtual game.

- The character selected is one you have created yourself, or one you have been granted full, permanent control over, either by a GM, or by its creator.

If the conditions are met then the companion can be included in the player's journal and can be used in the current or subsequent roleplays.

Usage

Players begin the game able to partner with up to one companion at a time. This number can increase as additional floors are unlocked through play.

To 'use' a companion, the player must indicate, both in and out of character that the companion is partied with the player. If the player wishes to end the party during the course of a topic for whatever reason, they must likewise indicate both in and out of character that the companion is no longer partied with them.

Players may only break party while out of combat.

If used in a Party or Open thread, all players involved in the thread must agree to allow the use of the companion. If this agreement is not made, then the companion may still be involved in roleplay but has no mechanical effect on gameplay.

Once partied with the player, the companion acts exactly like a player character with the appropriate stats. They are allowed to attack and deal damage in combat, and likewise can generate threat and receive damage in turn. They can even die.

Companion Drawbacks

Despite being controlled entirely by a player, companions are still their own people within the fictional world of SAO. They have their own goals and desires, and they don't ever work for free.

Companions will always receive one 'share' of loot received while partied with the player. This means, for example, that an 'in use' companion will take 50% of the Col, Materials and items received if they are partied with their player. If an additional player is involved the companion will take 33% and so forth. If multiple companions are in use, each companion receives one share.

Loot can typically be divided upon reaching the end of the topic. If a player decides to break party for some reason then loot must be distributed as soon as the party is broken.

Col and Materials should always be split as equally as possible. In the event of a remainder, the player should receive the extra material or Col.

If there are enough items of a similar quality level for each player/companion, divide the items equally as you see fit. If there are an unequal amount of items, or if the quality of the items differ then do the following:

- Allow the companion to 'roll' for the highest quality item. If the roll is equal to or less than the companion's share(50, 33 etc), the companion receives that item. If they failed to receive an item, roll for the item of the next highest quality. Repeat until an item is received or there are no more items.

- If there are multiple Companions involved, repeat the above process until all companions have either received an item or failed on all items.

- Players may select any item of their choosing from the items that remain.

- If the Players have more items than the companion, the companion selects the highest quality item from those that remain.

- If any items remain, repeat these steps.

Companions will under no circumstances return gear, materials or Col, whether these items are given to them or won as part of a loot roll. Companions will allow players to craft using their materials, but only for the purposes of making new gear for the companion to use.

A companion that is reduced to zero HP is dead. Its gear is destroyed and any wealth or items it had along with it. This can have serious implications for ongoing storylines if it is unexpected, so it is recommended never to use a companion you cannot afford to lose.

Companion Level and Skills

All companions have a level determined by their player at creation. This level must always be at least five lower than the player, though it can be lower. The player can level up his companions at will, but no companion can be leveled down after being leveled up.

Players lower level than seven may have companions, but the companions must remain at level one until the player has reached at least level seven.

Companions have a weapon and armor skill of the player's choice equal to one less than the skill of their player, to a minimum of zero. As with level this can be increased as soon as the player's weapon or armor skill is increased, but it is not required. Once the skill is increased it may not be decreased.

Companions may have one additional non-combat (weapon or armor) skill of the player's choice. This skill must be chosen at creation and may not be changed. Ranks in the skill may be equal to the highest non-combat (weapon or armor) skill of the player minus one, though the player need not have the same skill. As with level, this skill does not have to be at its maximum, but any improvements to it are permanent

Ex. A player's highest non-combat skill is hiding at rank five. All of his companions may have up to rank four in any one skill of their choice. If hiding is later increased to rank six, the companions may level their skill to five, but may not later reduce it back to four.

Companion Equipment

Companions begin the game with good quality weapons and armor of the player's choice.

Players may gift additional equipment to their companions, or companions may acquire it as part of their loot through combat. Players may purchase items as their companions provided that the companion has enough Col to make the purchase. They may also agree to have equipment crafted with Materials belonging to the Companion.

Under no circumstance will the companion give away equipment, money or items. The sole exception to this rule is that companions can use healing items to save the lives of players or other companions.

Players may choose what equipment a companion equips from the gear available to the companion. Players may not lend or borrow equipment to or from a companion.

Each companion has their own separate inventory.

Final Thoughts

Unsurprisingly, I really like this system.

The intent behind it is to allow players like myself who add NPC 'partners' to their play to have those partners play an active role in the mechanics rather than hand waving it away and trying to explain away the fact that combat takes the same amount of time with three people involved as it does with two.

Companions are markedly weaker than a second player, and because of the 'everyone must agree' rule are unlikely to be seen when floor bosses or other group combats arise. Coupled with the fact that they take 1/2 of all the loot in an encounter, starting with the best loot, they are far from overpowering. Frankly I do wonder if I made them a little too weak considering that NPC monsters generally can't do much damage as of the moment, but better weak and patched up than OP and nerf batted.

Currently I have the limit set on partners to one as part of the 'beta' for the idea. Frankly I don't see much reason you couldn't set it at 3-4 and allow people who want to to have their own personal parties kicking ass out there, but who knows what I might have missed.

Likewise there is no cap on Companions 'owned' because there doesn't seem to be a need. If you can only equip one companion at a time, having the ability to swap in 100 different faces doesn't make much difference apart from each having their own unique skill which is hardly game breaking.

Lastly, I've left out any sort of 'level up' system for the companions apart from tying it to PC progress. I have ideas for that sort of a system, but I don't think it much works with the xp gained from posting system that seems to be preferred.

[Life 0]

Scalability yes and obviously compatibility to go with it, good ideas. Accessibility and transparency is not needed as those who are used to the forums and how it works will be the ones who have to get used to any new changes. Im fairly new to this site and i got accustomed to it fairly easily. Stats are a good system, i would assume that would also fit in with scalability and compatibility. Im not too sure what you mean by "extended tests"they just seem like an un-needed complication. I've stated my opinion about companions on your other post. Don't worry about dice size, the current dice system works well enough and the size doesn't matter too much. Standardisation of items, item level and quality and inherent effects are all great ideas which i've been wanting myself as well as a better crafting and loot system. Sword skills are also something i've been thinking about and i support 100%

 

Overall i agree with most of your ideas but some are just a bit outlandish and redundant.

[Cayden 0]

Well accessibility and transparency is actually designed with new players in mind as much as old ones, since conflicting information for new players can be confusing as all hell and end up driving away people who would otherwise contributed.

 

Extended tests exist as a method of handling something that isn't success or failure in one go, but which requires competency over a longer period of time.  Forging weapons, holding a door open for a long period and so forth.

 

Dice size is pretty much crucial, because a d10 simply can't scale properly over time.  As I pointed out, a +1 for a d100 or even a d20 is a small bonus that can be scaled over time.  A +1 to a d10 roll is a 10% shift in the odds of the roll.  a +5 to a d100 is a 5%  increase, a +5 to a d10 is statistically nearly a 100% increase for your average roll.

 

Thanks for the feedback however, been so lonely here. Heh.