Leveling and skillpoints & statpoints

A widely used feature in games is leveling and skillpoints/statpoints. They are used to simulate that a game characters abilities have been improved from their experiences.

The amount of levels, skillpoints and statpoints can vary both in how many there are and how they are granted.

Statpoints are generally about physical or mental statistics such as intelligence which might make your spells more powerful or strength which might make you do more damage with melee weapons. Skills points can be either general such as skill with for example swords or specific where they let you learn a specific skill (such as a special attack with your weapon or a spell).

Levels when used are a determining factor and can grant skillpoints and statpoints and distribute them in one of several ways:

• Let the player distribute them as he or she wishes

• distribute them in a fixed way

• distribute them according to the players playstyle

• some combination of the above.

An example of the first category can be found in Planescape torment. The player might start the character out as a melee fighter but use statpoints he gained from fighting melee to increase the stat intelligence. The only thing keeping the player on a set path is the increasing diffulty of the enemies as he or she moves into new areas but moving into new areas can in some places be avoided which eliminates the issue. The game does not use skillpoints as such, the character can learn all skills/spells.

I have not encountered any game that distribute the skillpoints entirely fixedly, but as above there are games that do not use them. World of Warcraft does not for the first 10 levels, after which the character gets one at every other level untill 80 and then 1 per level till maximum at 85. The statpoints (intelligence, strength, etc) are however fixed according to class. The difference between two characters of the same class is thus determined by which skills they have chosen to have, which if the player is aiming for the highest damage per second, is minimal.

The, in my opinion, best game I have encountered that increases characters stats and skills according to the players playstyle is Dungeon Siege 1. There was 3 tiers to it. If a character was using a fireball spell, it would get better at the stats associated with magic, with fire spells in general and with that spell in particular. This is an interesting ability system that works well in a singleplayer setting but not in a multiplayer setting. The multiplayer setting has varying challenges that almost require that a character be able to fill multiple roles, something that goes against specialization. This brings about a need for respeccing which i will explore in a later post.

Finally the fourth caategory. As i mentioned above World of Warcraft distributes statpoints in a fixed way but lets the player distribute skillpoints. This makes the game a good example of the fourth category, hybrids.

Tomorrow i will write about another of the concepts.