what exactly is GCD / nGCD?

Here is a post I made today about the issue. Don't be harsh as I am hardly an RPG gamer. Although I have an idea. :lightbulb: It is written Morrowind's system in mind. (Where every little points counts.)

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1. GOD-ISM
In time, you became a god. And the game breaks. This is the leveling and stat skill system.

1.a We should use caps.

An orc character has a 30 strength bonus. But then again, it maxed at 100. ??? It should work like a fortify effect. Also for MAX an orc can have 150 strength only. Numbers are imaginary, but we can find this caps properly for each race.

(We can argue if these caps should apply to intelligence, since magic is unlimited power. We can discuss this separately. We can also exclude magical effects.)

Skills are the same. Skill bonuses also must have a fortify effect. But I don't wanna put a cap. Because:

1.b LEVELING AND SKILL PROGRESSION
Everyone is maxing their skills eventually. People invest time to do this. (Sometimes, putting their character in front of a rat and checking next day!) This is their right to have have these skills, and this is nothing we can solve by putting caps or slowing down. Because skills are for everyone to develop, it can come from a birth mark or it can be having a gift for the skill but working hard must also count too. So the problem when I think like this, is like a neon light on a Christmas tree.

Now this gameplay mechanic does actually exist in the game.

When you got arrested and serve prison time a magical thing occurs. Some of your skills decrease and some increase. WHY? Because it appears the skills you didn't/couldn't care simply decrease. Now why on earth this doesn't apply to all game?!

Yes, you can max skills, only those you continuously practice. While others decrease to their default values. No one can practice all skills to max, off course maybe some, if they can.

So no, your skills won't decrease, only the ones you work out and abandon later. It is possible to only focus on some so you won't notice any skills decreasing. I suspect that will be major skills. Minors will see the decreasing effects if they increased and abandoned. Miscs will stay that way. Now, you can fully practice your skills as much as you want, trying to get higher misc skills while trading of some of the practice time for your major skills. You won't become a omnigod anymore but now you can become anyone, a mage, a warrior, a priest...

Leveling will see the decreasing effects. Now you have 3 points, 8 attributes, 5 major, 5 minor skills and miscs.

I will add more multipliers:

Normal classic x5 multipliers. They work as before. Nothing interesting.
No increase or simply canceling effect because skills only decreased. x0
Minus multipliers. So the abandoned skills will effect the governing attribute the same way normals do. Minus 5 speed attribute. Your speed will decrease from 50 to 45.(I highly doubt something like that would happen but who knows, chaos!!!) Now the player can use the point as +1 on that. I imagine the matter will look like this:

Strength + 5 x point
Intelligence - 3 + point
Endurance + 0 x point. (No point in giving, but you can. : See Edit1)
Agility + 0 x point
Speed + 4 x point
Luck + point

I would try strength, speed and luck. A reason to use luck finally. Or it could be that I can try to save my intelligence from dropping at least 1 point.

Strength + 0 x point
Intelligence + 0 x point
Endurance + 0 x point
Agility + 0 x point
Speed + 0 x point
Luck + point

This is also possible. But it means nothing. No need to wait for leveling. It will be a surprise every time.
Edit:I think I should give a meaning to this one. Let's say, giving a point to a 0xp will prevent that attribute from decreasing next level.

It appears to me as chaos value, it will be really random. It is possible that one wouldn't experience any side effects from this system for long at least and go on their gameplay as before. But eventually they will face this down to earth system but hopefully not in disastrous scales but in increasing game play length. One can cycle every quest out there with the same character this way.

Edit2:

Perks

When you increase your skill to a 50<, 75<, 90<(or only maxing); you gain *gameplay* perks, as in Oblivion's skill abilities and Fallout's perk system. When you forget the skill, you won't lose these perks. So a veteran character might become low in his/her skill, but since he/she won't lose gained perks, basically a "STILL GOT THE MOVES" situation.

A large variety of perks(Really large) to compensate the need to work these skills. So you simply work out a misc skill for its perk. Very simple encouraging and add to gameplay value, merging 3 games without going far from Morrowind philosophy.


Edit3:

Level scaling is now Level Timeline Cycle

Level number will continue to increase as normal. Level scaling is for creating new dynamic content and adding time sense to the game, not for creating uber enemies. We can call it level-timing instead. Modders can bind their quests to level increase thus creating a timeline.

This timeline can be viewed as a cycle. Player can choose his level/time when starting the game,
if they start from 0, they simply be a starter and experience the game that way.
if they decide to start from level 30, it will be random calculated stats based on the major's and minors. Somewhat a developed character. For those who want the action right away.
If they start from 400, nobody can guess how the character can turn out after that amount of time/leveling. Middle values will be randomized and as the world and quests.
Cycling back can skip the first 30 level's quests at a second time. (tutorial levels) Or not.
There could be a main quest over the timeline(maybe bound to actual leveling).
Where some quests can be placed at random moving positions of a 0-100 range independently, on a 1-1000 leveling, there can be consequent quests which can be assigned on 1-100,100-200,200-300 as well as big independent quests 0-500,500-1000.

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PS. You can even transport your character to Oblivion or Tes V given if they have similar system. Transportation can be imprisonment base, losing your gear, forgetting spells or you can simply leave your house and gear behind and start over.



Now I am a jerk. I just skipped your post and posted mine. I read it now and it has the same notions. But I was posting my other post here:
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1097772-suggestions-for-changing-morrowind-for-good/

It is only 10 minutes that separates us.

I think all of these suggestions would make for a very interesting game, while still being within the spirit of Elder Scrolls. Unstepped leveling and multi-attribute bindings have become, thanks to mods like nGCD and Realistic Leveling, almost necessities for me nowadays. I've become particularly fond of multi-attribute bindings. It makes much more sense to me than Bethesda's default one-on-one skill/attribute associations.

Skill groups reminds me a bit of AD+D, where one could not only put points into, say, greatsword but also two-handed fighting. I think this adds another level of interesting complexity to character creation.

I really like your idea of perks being available at the outset but being ineffective until experience has been gained. I would love to see that implemented in TESV.

These are great ideas. Great, because they add just a little more complexity to an existing system (which I love). They add choice, which is good. Choice is what separates roleplaying games from first-person shooters.




My favorite character leveling mod for Morrowind, http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=2699 did this. I thought it was a great mechanic and was sorry that Balor did not incorporate it into his Oblivion leveling mod as well.

:tops: I feel good I'm not the only one who thought this. Almost the same wording in the readme... I only disagree with 1 point bonus to default skill when x5 exp gained. This will again make it a one way trip, eventually.

This won't be a overly complicated mod to make, half of it already implemented, thanks to Balor. I like Morrowind's system, it only needs another level to it, down level. I wonder with recent innovations, if we can overcome the issue, that setlevel not accepting vars.

Actually, I misunderstood that. Level number will continue to increase as normal. I don't plan level scaling in this system as in huge amounts. Level scaling is for creating new dynamic content and adding time sense to the game, not for creating uber enemies. We can call it level-timing instead. Modders can bind their quests to level increase thus creating a timeline.

Edit3: This timeline can be viewed as a cycle. Player can choose his level/time when starting the game,
if they start from 0, they simply be a starter and experience the game that way.
if they decide to start from level 30, it will be random calculated stats based on the major's and minors. Somewhat a developed character. For those who want the action right away.
If they start from 400, nobody can guess how the character can turn out after that amount of time/leveling. Middle values will be randomized and as the world and quests.
Cycling back can skip the first 30 level's quests at a second time. (tutorial levels) Or not.
There could be a main quest over the timeline(maybe bound to actual leveling).
Where some quests can be placed at random moving positions of a 0-100 range independently, on a 1-1000 leveling, there can be consequent quests which can be assigned on 1-100,100-200,200-300 as well as big independent quests 0-500,500-1000.

I hope I could explained the timeline cycle leveling above.

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I think about adding perks to the dual way stat system I suggested above.

When you increase your skill to a 50<, 75<, 90<(or only maxing); you gain *gameplay* perks, as in Oblivion's skill abilities and Fallout's perk system. When you forget the skill, you won't lose these perks. So a veteran character might become low in his/her skill, but since he/she won't lose gained perks, basically a "STILL GOT THE MOVES" situation.

I am thinking a large variety of perks(Really large) to compensate the need to work these skills. So you simply work out a misc skill for its perk. Very simple encouraging and add to gameplay value, merging 3 games without going far from Morrowind philosophy.

I don't know if it is just me but it seems to me so balancing.
edit: it appears it is not just me. Read post #50 :thumbsup: