BSM Rank and Class System

[Kyle]

Consider your new class added...

Yay! I'm quite happy about this!


"Skirmisher" is a much more succinct, and great way of summarizing my too-long Class Name. I'm definitely in favor of it!

Reaction
Stamina (endurance)
Snapshot
Strength
Shooting

The above list looks "right on" to me in regards to what I was trying to get at. I'm honestly surprised that 7.62 didn't supply such an "obvious" class-type before.

No one's perfect, but now that I'm here...



About alternating attributes/skills that are available when leveling up with Even and Odd numberings...

My initial reaction, and I'll be very up front about this, is deeply related from my prior experiences of going from playing Dungeons & Dragons to GURPS: I strongly feel this "alternate-leveling" should be avoided.

In D&D, such Even's/Odd's "availability" leveling up's were commonplace, and if that's all that one ever knows, then it's highly likely that there will be no questioning of such a design scheme, but after playing GURPS...

I strongly feel that one doesn't even have to play GURPS to quickly and deeply appreciate the utter soundness of its logic, and easy-to-grasp "relay-ability" of WHY the game's mechanics are setup the way they are, because they model one's real life experiences extremely closely. They also maximize a player's ability to chose exactly what they want his/her character to be, without causing Game Masters a ton of frustration designing a mission/dungeon for a gaming environment that is so seemingly "player friendly."

I strongly feel that a good deal of D&D's design problems are from how it was designed too much around the "supposed" needs of the Dungeon Master in order to get a "good" role playing experience, but that's a whole thread in and of itself...

One would also be mistaken to assume that a game design system such as GURPS would make it more challenging to enjoy and become immersed in fantasy-based environments, but one would be very wrong in making such an assumption, but that's a whole different thread as well...

Anyway, back on target: alternating "when" an attribute/skill can be raised seems too arbitrary to me. Now, the way BE5 and 7.62 automatically elevates certain skills is also arbitrary to me, but that's due to there frequently being no clear connection between an event that just occurred and the elevating of an attribute/skill that may not be related to said event. It may not be as arbitrary as it appears, but until we can see the guts of its mechanics, we can only judge what we actually experience.

It also reduces player options, and having put GURPS through the grinder many a time, I can say that with all confidence that putting that power in the player's hands can work, and does not "have to" lead to headaches and "failure."

If I was a player, I'd prefer to always have full access to my character's attributes/skills, and have growth be managed by...
(1) ...the cost of raising attributes/skills, with some being clearly and reasonably more challenging to raise than others, and...
(2) ...the number of points that I get to spend.

So, in this game-based-economy, my options are kept wide open in regards to what I could invest in, but my resources are limited so I have to chose what is most valuable to me at a given time. As circumstances change, so will my decision making, and like any real life flesh and blood human being would do, I'll alter my choices as necessary.


Before I go, a link to all things GURPS. Take a quick look at the write ups for the products, and be prepared to drool. Illuminati is a BLAST to play as well. AWESOME game. Bye for now!
http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/

[R@S]

OK then, I'll start coding the bugger this weekend. I will have to see if I can find a way to implement some of the suggested things, but I'll try. I'll release it through Flügenweb or a$$ möde

[R@S]

I had some spare time at work today and managed to write about 500 lines of code for this new project. I've made some minor changes to simplify matters and I hope it won't piss you off too much

I made it so that ALL skills in the selected class only costs 1 point, think of it as you already had your basic training and you only need some minor adjustments to improve the skill. But for the skills outside your class I made the following cost and divided them into 2 groups, Parameters and Skills:

Parameters:
Health = 4
Energy = 4
Eyesight = 4
Hearing = 4
Strength = 2
Stamina = 2
Dexterity = 2
Agility = 2
Reaction = 2
Intelligence = 4

Skills:
Shooting = 2
Sniping = 4
Gunfighting = 2
HeavyWeapon = 4
Throwing = 2
HandToHand = 4
Camo = 2
Sapper = 4
Medic = 4
Stealth = 4

Maybe we should change it so that the attributes costing 4 costs 3 instead?

Since I haven't touched a role-playing board game in more that 25 years, you need to explain things to me as you would a total n00b Otherwise you'll never get your ideas through, yes, I'm that daft

EDIT: I forgot to say, when implementing this into the mod, it will cause some problems with the outsourcedINI mod and i might be forced to remove it. But it needs some testing to make sure and it might only affect a small part of it, time will tell.

[Kyle]

and I hope it won't piss you off too much

R@S, don't worry about upsetting me. I've survived one on one critiques with some pretty brutal professors in the past.

It's late. I'm tired. So this will be kept short, but sweet...

Parameters:
Health = 4 Yup!
Energy = 4 I'd make this cost 3 points. In my experience, increasing one's energy is pretty easy; go out and do some light exercise. Of course, I think what "Energy" here means is something a bit more profound, like physical energy WITH emotional vigor (sort of like morale), so I'd raise the cost a little more for that.
Eyesight = 4 Yup!
Hearing = 4 Yup!
Strength = 2 Yup!
Stamina = 2 Yup!
Dexterity = 2 Yup!
Agility = 2 Yup!
Reaction = 2 Yup!
Intelligence = 4 Yup!

Skills:
Shooting = 2 Yup!
Sniping = 4 Perhaps drop this to 3 points. Out of all of the skills that I rank by difficulty, none can be more challenging in scope, mental pressure and physical acuity than Medic. As challenging as being a sniper is, I think being a Medic is harder still.
Gunfighting = 2 Yup!
HeavyWeapon = 4 Perhaps set to 3, and for the same reasons given for "Sniping" above.
Throwing = 2 Yup!
HandToHand = 4 Yup!
Camo = 2 Yup!
Sapper = 4 I'd lower this cost to 3. While there's no question that being a sapper is very difficult, I think it's somewhat safe to say that it's not as challenging as putting back together a broken body. Ironic that.
Medic = 4 Yup!
Stealth = 4 Yup!

A good list. Let's see how it works!

By the way, what is the "outsourcedINI" mod that you referred to?

Good night!
Snore!
Kyle
June 30, 2010

[R@S]

I stayed up too long last night and coded some more, the leveling up system is now complete. Now comes the next stage, deciding when the leveling up should happen. I though locking it to the CGL would be the easiest way to go, but have changed my mind. I think it would be best to tie it to the killcounter which is independant from things that might cause problems. Here's my preliminary thoughts:
lvl 1 Kills 20 (+20)
lvl 2 Kills 50 (+30)
lvl 3 Kills 90 (+40)
lvl 4 Kills 150 (+50)
lvl 5 Kills 210 (+60)
lvl 6 Kills 280 (+70)
lvl 7 Kills 360 (+80)
lvl 8 Kills 450 (+90)
lvl 9 Kills 550 (+100) //Maybe all the next level ups should be at a 100 kills?
lvl 10 Kills 660 (+110)
lvl 11 Kills 780 (+120)
lvl 12 Kills 910 (+130)
lvl 13 Kills 1050 (+140)
lvl 14 Kills 1150 (+150)
lvl 15 Kills 1310 (+160)
lvl 16 Kills 1480 (+170)
and so forth.
This can go on until all attributes has reached their limit, the player can keep leveling up as long as he keeps killing.

Now I need to check where the attribute cap for the skills are, I know that the hearing cap is at 200, but where the rest of them are I have no idea.

As it is now, the player will get 5 points to spend at every leveling up, and he can save point for the next event. I had a though that I could also add a point if the player completes a specific mission, or place a few easter eggs that will give a point. I also thought of giving the player a chance to get another point by having a small bonus mission on the level up screen, but I'm to busy for that and it would take too lang to make all those new missions.

outsourcedINI is a mod guineapig made, check your 7.62\ini\ folder for a outsourcedconfig.ini file for more info. It makes a few hard coded setting open to adjustments

EDIT: I did some quick testing and it seems that the cap is much higher than I first thought. Check this out:

But since the stats are too high, it does some weird things to the game. The amount of time it takes to raise and shoot is acually a negative number, like -2.14 seconds. Look what happens when I select single shot "shoot until dead":

Since shooting is now a negative number, it fires 100 shots in less than a second. Talk about a hail of bullets

[R@S]

Here's the first test version of the new Class System. If you don't wanna ruin your current game, copy the whole game folder to another folder and run it from there(I dunno if this works with the Steam version).

Then copy these files to your \7.62\Quests\mods\RAS\ folder and start a new game.

Enter your Kill Book and choose a class.

Once you've killed your first 20 enemies, enter the Kill Book again and select "Level Up"

I haven't put a cap on the skills yet, you can raise it as high as you wan't. Try to keep an eye on where the game engine starts to have problems with the high skill level. As of now I'm thinking of capping it at 200, but if some skills can be raised without problems I might increase the cap for those skills.

Class System v1 beta

Have fun

R@S

Oh, and one more thing, I've added a cheat to make the testing easier. Just open the console and write throw cheatlvl and you'll be given 5 points to spend. Keep in mind that you can do this as many time you like, but don't spend them all at once, there's a limit to how long a dialog can get, and if it's too long it'll CTD.

[Kyle]

Wow!

You're fast!

Me likes you FAST!

Don't kill me when I say this, but during the day as I was working I was wondering if there should be a combat skill other than sniping that should also be more challenging than 2 points per level, and I came to the conclusion that Reaction time should cost 3 points per level, instead of 2.

My reasoning is that combat is an extremely stressful experience, and if one's doing something like clearing rooms, and it's dark, dusty, etc., etc., reading the situation wrong can lead to all kinds of misery, like killing someone who shouldn't be dead.

Now, I don't think it's possible to mistake a target for someone else in the game, but these kinds of situations are a REAL life concern, so...

If you agree, perhaps in your next version raise it to 3?

Alright, got to download, backup my old files, and start a new game.

Can't wait!

And that "bug" with single fire! Perhaps it should be changed to "Apocalypse Fire" when the character reaches the right level?

I can't imagine how thick the tracer rounds would be if you were firing at full auto!