Y'know what? I like RPGs (Role-Playing Games, to the uninitiated). A lot.
But I like to own my character -- assigning points, building my version of a fighter (brawler/heavy/tank), rogue (thief/ninja), mage (wizard/warlock/enchantress), ranger (Legolas-want-to-be), etc.
And auto points assignment? Puh-lease. I've suffered that when playing in a party with noobs, or in game designs that freeze the game any time any person in the party stops to assign -- or even look at -- their own stats.
Assigning RPG points drives me mad, because I want the benefits and customization of explicit skills assignment, but it interrupts the game. And, yeah, it's worse when I'm in a multiplayer game, and we're all of the same mindset.
How do we assign stat points without disrupting the flow of combat, action, or story in RPGs?
My solution? Allow retroactive assignment of RPG points.
Simply put, you wouldn't be required to assign points until you get to a break point, but once you do (and once you assign the points), you get the benefits of those skills assignments retroactively to the point(s) when you earned them. Sure, you won't get things like "Attack + 10" as far as doing damage to baddies, but maybe you will get multipliers, etc.
Think about it, you're tooling through the dungeons of Azeroth (or Dr. Doom's Latverian castle, or the Morlock Tunnels), going from battle to battle, and you don't have to stop. You don't interrupt the story, you don't get caught in the "Battle. Grind. Stats management. Battle. Grind." loop. You don't tee off your party members by interrupting their game.
Not to say this isn't potentially wicked hard to implement. Maintaining the count of unassigned points isn't bad, but holding onto which permutations of level ups for previously completed scenarios would take bit of work. But it's certainly doable, with the caveat that the scope of which past events are or aren't allowed retro skills assignment is communicated and intuitive to the player. (Under the hood, there's probably a difference between how you handle checkpoint (snapshot) versus save (write-to-disc) data.)
Game designers could even couch any trade-offs in a "late skills assignment tax" (but, y'know, renamed to something trope-appropriate).
This also creates opportunities for some cool design gimmicks.
Think about caching up your points, and then blowing things up in a single skills assignment binge fest, jumping 2, 3 or (madness!) 5 levels at once. And maybe there's a genre-appropriate "instant replay" mechanic, that will go back and play splashes of "big moments" that benefit from the skills assignment (that barmaid you chatted up in the King and Queen Tavern? You just got some more information, because of your +10 charisma allocation. (I betcha the All-Seeing Eye of Agamotto could pull off this orcs and elves version of the "play-of -the-day".)
Heck, designers could create special features in hubs that make the leveling up that much more integrated to the mechanics of the game, and that much more meaningful and memorable.
Oh, and hey, I'm not saying you only do retro assignments to solve my frustration with points assignment. You still need to fix the bad, in-the-moment stats management problems, too. Don't freeze out other players while I'm checking my stats (even if I'm hosting).
Even if it's in the heat of battle, don't freeze me out from assigning my stats. Give me a "pay now or pay later" choice. Much like the jerk who takes all the loot from his party, if I choose to duck out of battle, let that impact the rest of my team when they need my help, so they can get on my case later. Give me an "Edifying Cloak of Invisibility" as I duck off into a cowardly corner to selfishly level myself up. Or, add a positive gimmick, like a "Cocoon of Character Enhancement" (can you tell I'm not a high-fantasy writer?) that protects me as I level my character, but attracts enemies who will attack my shell, weakening it, until it shatters, and they can kill me more quickly in my vulnerable state. This would add an urgency to the stats assignment, and a tactical element for team play -- I could attract a bunch of baddies (as long as I have skills points to assign), taking the heat off of my party, and they could launch an AoE attack on them (one that doesn't have friendly fire impacts, por favor; or maybe it does; Hmm ...).
So, who agrees this might solve some of this stats management headaches and game-flow interruption?
Or am I the only one who things about these things?
(By the way, the font I used to make the top graphic is "BADABOOM", from those ridiculously top-knotch Blambot.com guys.)
