Soviet Reversal or how the reward should be different from the challenge

[aramis erak]

I disagree with the premise on its face, because it's a disconnect from realism, and because the extreme end of that process is to reject experience being spent to increase used abilities.

Most of the RPGs I've run, the defeat of Boss 1 should be predicate to being able to handle boss 2. Or to handle Boss 1 after he levels up, too.

The only game types where it really doesn't work are those where advancement of ability over time is not present - the reward in most for fighting any big bad usually includes increased competence (either directly, or via experience and/or useful treasures).

In the real world, the more one does a thing, usually, the better one becomes at it. This idea is at the heart of advancement systems in most games. Even Sentinel Comics has a (very slight) increase in ability over time. (the power gain is VERY slow - 1 reroll per session per "collection"... roughly 6-12 sessions in a collection.)

Likewise, if a game says "Earn 1 XP for each fight, but spend it only on skills not used that session," probably 95% of gamers would flip the bird at the designer and/or walk away, and probably 50% of GMs would run it anyway, but never inform the players of that experience restriction at all and house rule it away.

 

[Tony Vargas]

"Soviet reversal" or more commonly "Russian reversal" is the term for a type of joke popularized by Ukrainian comedian Yakov Smirnoff, constrasting life in the west and east. Things like "Here in the West, you watch TV, but in Soviet Russia TV watches you."

In D&D, you defeat the monster and claim the treasure, in Soviet Russia, TREASURE CLAIM YOU!

OK, seriously, tho, it may not make a lot of sense that doing something doesn't make you better at doing that thing, but at doing something else.

But, it does make sense that doing the same thing overandoverandoveragain delivers diminishing returns. IDK how it'd work in a vidyagame, but in a point-buy RPG the costs of upping say, your 'violence' ability could increase the higher you took that ability, and the points yielded from using that ability could decrease as you got better at it.

That'd seem reasonable, and deliver a similar effect of stymieing overspecialization and rewarding more diverse activities.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

If you beat a tough boss and get a cool new shiny sword that deals over9000 damage, the question is, what's the point? You've already proven that you know how to read animations, dodge, parry, manage your stamina and whatnot. You evidently don't need any help at combat, because if you did, you wouldn't be able to defeat this boss anyway. Instead, the sick loot drop should include Brazilian double jump boots, while cool shiny sword should be hidden behind tough platforming, so the reward A) is meaningful, B) pushes you towards developing a new skill and experiencing something new: you sucked at platforming before, that's why you mostly avoided it, but with these new double jump boots, how can you pass on an opportunity to test them out?

I've played videogames which took this approach, and here's the problem - it's often not fun for the player for you to take that approach.

It often sucks incredible ass to have to an extremely annoying and elaborate platforming section to get a better sword for fighting, when what you enjoy in the game is fighting, not platforming. Or fight an amazing boss, and you get platforming boots. Feels like absolute trash. Like you're being condemned to do more of what you don't want to do.

Now lest I go too far - it's okay if it's occasionally - sometimes it can be helpful - if some of the rewards are like this, maybe you are finding combat too tough, so you can get a leg up. But that's only really relevant to games which are really challenging. And even then, it's a big risk, because you can trivialize the game by making it that way - if you put all your combat boosts behind platforming, then guess what? You just trivialized the game for anyone good at platforming - and vice-versa. Rather than requiring you to be good at the game to trivialize that section of it further.

It should've been obvious, but it made me wonder why so many RPGs do the exact opposite.

RPGs and videogames don't usually do this because it often feels crap if rewards are segregated out in the absolutist way you describe - i.e. "never" not "sometimes". Whereas if you occasionally drop in something that can be obtained by a different skillset, that can feel pretty good.

 

[aramis erak]

OK, seriously, tho, it may not make a lot of sense that doing something doesn't make you better at doing that thing, but at doing something else.

But, it does make sense that doing the same thing overandoverandoveragain delivers diminishing returns. IDK how it'd work in a vidyagame, but in a point-buy RPG the costs of upping say, your 'violence' ability could increase the higher you took that ability, and the points yielded from using that ability could decrease as you got better at it.

That'd seem reasonable, and deliver a similar effect of stymieing overspecialization and rewarding more diverse activities.

Which is how many skill based games approach it...
In Wrath & Glory, the it's 2/4/6/8/10/12/14
In FFG Star Wars, it's 5*X to buy level X when you have level (X - 1).
In Car Wars, it's 10 points per level for levels 0, 1, 2, and 3, 20 per level for levels 4, 5, 6, and (should the campaign run that long) 30 each for 7 to 9.
GURPS does, too, but it's more work to dig out than I care.
Prime Directive 1E, D6 system...

Rolemaster does so to a point as well in several ways - not only does the XP per level go up every several levels (but not the D&D doubling until 100k), but the cost of buying 1 rank of skill in a given level is often far less than buying two ranks; if you want skills A and B at 2 ranks by level 3, you can spend say, 2/5 (which means 2 for one rank +5 for second, = 7 for 2 ranks) on one and 3/5 the next level on the other, both now being 2 ranks, but having totaled 15, or one buys one rank of A and B each for total 5 dev points each level - at level 3, those two both have gained 2 ranks... But further, buying ranks decreases in gain... the first 10 ranks add 5 to the skill mod each; the next 10 add 2 each, then the 3rd 10 add 1 each, and the fourth ten add 1/2 each.

 

[Emberashh]

This is something I like about percentile skill based systems. (Or d20 systems that work the same in 5% steps like Dragonbane.)
The chance to improve a skill is the reverse of the chance to succeed at the skill.

In Dragonbane, any time you use any skill, there is a 10% chance to mark the skill for advancement (when you roll a 1 or a 20). At the end of the adventure, you roll all the marked skills, and if you fail the roll the skill rank goes up by one. You also get free marks to assign to any skill that didn't get marked during the adventure as rewards. If you use these marks on skills that are very low, they most likely improve. If you use them on your highest skills, they most likely get wasted.

Nice system that incentivizes using skills that are low, and using your advancement marks to improve your weaknesses rather than your strengths.

Not to go off topic but I dont think this warrants a separate topic - how fast does leveling skills tend to occur in this system, at a base level?

Ie, without any of the extras, which I assume push leveling to be a bit faster, how long is it expected to take from the start of the game towards whatever the limit is. Or is there even a limit?

 

[James Gasik]

In "Metroidvania" games, this is exactly how they play out. Exploration power ups are usually gated behind bosses, and those abilities allow one to secure powerful weapons to help you fight bosses. Not always, of course, but it's a fairly common occurence.

 

[Emberashh]

In "Metroidvania" games, this is exactly how they play out. Exploration power ups are usually gated behind bosses, and those abilities allow one to secure powerful weapons to help you fight bosses. Not always, of course, but it's a fairly common occurence.

Its also classically how Zelda games were structured.

 

[Staffan]

GURPS does, too, but it's more work to dig out than I care.

Skill costs in GURPS level off pretty quickly. For an Average skill, 1 point gets you stat-1, 2 points gets you stat+0, and 4 points gets you stat +1. After that every 4 points is an additional +1. Easy skills are one point higher (so 1 point for stat+0), Hard one point lower, and Very Hard two points lower.
There's an additional dimension of diminishing returns in that GURPS is based on 3d6, so going from 11 to 12 is a much bigger jump than going from 15 to 16. Higher skill levels are more about absorbing the penalties GURPS thinks is fun to throw at you for everything even remotely complicated.

 

[Staffan]

In "Metroidvania" games, this is exactly how they play out. Exploration power ups are usually gated behind bosses, and those abilities allow one to secure powerful weapons to help you fight bosses. Not always, of course, but it's a fairly common occurence.

In many ways, this is just a level-based structure with extra steps.

In a pure level-based structure, you beat the level 1 boss which then allows you to move to level 2. When dealing with exploration powerups, you instead beat the first boss which gives you the lasso which you can use to swing across pits, which lets you get to the next dungeon.

 

[loverdrive]

How does this then dovetail with your - I want to repeat the same challenge over and over theory?

They are not mutually exclusive, really.

First, if character becomes noticeably stronger at their old thing, then the same challenge isn't the same anymore, because now they have new ways of approaching it, thus basically destroying all my enjoyment derived from perfecting it. (and if they don't get noticeably stronger, then what's even the point?)

Second, perfection through repetition can have a bit wider scope. Like, in ULTRAKILL I enjoy grinding the same level over and over again, shaving seconds each time, but in something like Symphony of the Night I prefer to have full start-to-finish runs.

Third, it's more about having an option. Having a game that is designed to be restarted and a sea of other continuous games is better than only having continuous games.

I disagree with the premise on its face, because it's a disconnect from realism, and because the extreme end of that process is to reject experience being spent to increase used abilities.

Yes, in the real world, you get better at something by practicing it, but, well, games are not reality.

Real-world artist gets better by studying art and painting for days. Fictional artist gets better at art by finding love or taking a life-changing trip to Tibet.