.

Can traits have penalties as well as bonuses?

Fantastic idea. I'd like to see this, too, if it's easily implementable...

Well, I have a question: do the "administrator" type hero will gain XP when they are park in a city? What I mean is, admin type hero can be in a city and gain trait that have a link with the "admin tree"? Or the hero must gain XP through battle? What could be cool is they gain 2 types of XP: one is battle XP and the other Admin XP. Admin XP take longer to acquire, but only require the hero to stay in a city and help the citizen get more with less. Could that be possible?

.

Interesting new system, I submitted an idea too.  But it does seem that it will generate more unique champs than the old straight line stat boosts, since they generally got distributed the same way for everyone.

Bit of a request, on user interaction with this in game.  My worry is that if there are a ton of traits, and a ton of champs it might get a bit difficult to remember who has what traits from game to game or even plan an attack (assuming of course that traits can sway a battle, which I hope is the case or I have other issues with this ).  The idea to color code traits mentioned earlier in the thread is a good one.  I'd also add that perhaps sticking symbols on the unit card (like the old casting costs on Magic the Gathering cards) could give a quick visual clue - ah this guy has 2 purples and 3 greens, better look him up before I engage him.  A army overview might also be nice to quickly give the breakdown of traits existent in an army you're fighting.  I'm just thinking it would stink to have to click every unit card for every champ to get a pullup to see what they have then have to pull up again the encyclopedia for the specific trait if its new to you each time you want to go to battle to be sure that they didn't level and get who knows what trait and totally screw up your strategy.

Would also love to see some alternative to combat alone to level champs so that there was some sort of administration available.  Perhaps offset by losing some combat traits at the same time, though that might be getting outside the trait system itself and into deeper waters.

Always good to read more about features of the new expansion.  Always looking forwards to more news, and prodding WoM in the meantime.

We need a "sexy" trait that cause the champion to start the game with two other NPCs of the opposite gender, and allow them to have six children instead of four.

Don't know if this is too late or not.

But for basic units, traist i.e. 'trainings' that are weapon exclusive would really spice up the mix.

I.E. have one of the conditional fields be be weapon or armor type exclusive. Ala

Pikeman - 2x damage against mounted, -movement, -combat speed, requires 2H spear/pike category.

Phalanx - 50% less damage from missile type(arrows, bolt magic), -move/combat/attack, blocks bolts/arrows from 'passing through', require heavy shield.

Scout - +move, +attack based on range(further is better), -hp, light armor only.

Stuff like that would be killer, although it may break the AI

Agreed, if you see an enemy champ and s/he has 3 blue halos, a red diamond, and 4 purple fists, you may need to find that guy you have with the 'Spymaster' trait and scope him/her out before you get into battle with some hero with 4 levels of Archery Command, Improved water affinity 3, and Rage of the Mage :}, who is sporting 6 stacks of leveled archers and has 4 water shards backing them :}. 

On a side note: Having certain structures/tech/diplomatic/economic leanings making certain traits more common(if you have a bank in more than 6 towns, the 10% appear economic trait is now 50%) would be nice.

ooh, this is good. i'm intrigued by the random element, but it could work. balance isn't everything in rpgs, but choices need to be competetive with each other and it's better to do that by making them balanced enough that i can let my heart decide. randomising to avoid that balance just seems like a cop out. if you want to have some more powerful traits then that's fine, but you'd do better limiting them with trees, quests, buildings and achievements rather than the crude tool of randomisation. i think it will just frustrate people by arbitrarily limiting their vision for their character.

just hope that it doesn't just step on the toes of other mechanics. i don't want to have to calculate whether choosing the "improved dodge" trait is better than increasing my dexterity, for example. i'm not sure if the game even has the right mechanics for many traits. +10% fire damage is pretty useless when there are no good high level fire spells. "melee focus: +5 attack with melee weapons" is stupid because it does the same thing exactly as increasing my strength. if we have separate to hit and damage mechanics however, and strength increases damage and traits increase to hit, THEN it becomes a good idea.

as for other units getting traits, it's a little odd but i'm not complaining. so long as it's not a crutch for avoiding fundamentally better and deeper combat mechanics.

on an aside, i would really like it if children were given a free level or two on spawning. it's just too much micromanaging for me to level them up by the time the late game arrives (and they're often so weak, that it's difficult to even do that. the intelligence requirements for spells are WAY too high now, and few of my characters other than my sov can cast high level spells (ironically he has enough INT but doesn't need it). int requirements should be between about 12 and 22 and should apply for all.

yep i want too

I love this concept. Only thing I'm worried about is that 1 trait per level might be overkill. I can get heroes to around level 16 or higher  sometimes. 16 different traits might be confusing.

.

Its odd, but I both agree and disagree with this. "Limiting their vision for their character" is another way of saying that it arbitrarily limits their ability to maximize their characters. While randomization in this type of system can be a double edged sword wherein sometimes units get nothing of great merit, it forces players to make choices about their character beyond simply mapping out a best path to some unstoppable juggernaut. As has been said several times in this thread, this randomization of choice would probably benefit from a system of dynamic probabilities to minimize the chances of a questionable set of trait choices. As for your point about having quests or events give traits, this is just a good idea on top of the level mechanic. There would be no drawback to units gaining specific traits as quest rewards, while also gaining random traits as level bonuses.

I doubt any of us in the community are really in a good position to determine if the mechanics of FE are good or bad for a trait system. As to your examples however, it seems as though you are not really considering these as distinct choices. Looking at your first example about a dodge bonus v. a dexterity bonus, you might have a point that if one were given both as a choice, the dexterity bonus would most likely be the superior choice. Yet, in the case where no such dexterity bonus is actually a choice, the dodge bonus could be good choice when compared to say an accuracy bonus. In general, it is easy to take a predetermined group of traits and say that one trait should always be take over the others, yet with respect to a randomized grouping of traits, one must consider each trait in and of itself without the foreknowledge that the future traits one may or may not have to select.

  We definitely need to make sure each trait has it's merits.  I like the mix of some traits having prereqs (so players look for champions with different base skills) and some traits being open (so it doesn't become a fixed skill tree).  Although its sexy to say that we will have 400 traits in big complex trees (and I hope a modder does something like this because I think some players will love it) I don't know that I want a player mapping out one units trait progression so precisely.

  This isn't a straight RPG, we can expect that the player may have a dozen champions running around so I want them to enjoy making their selection without fear that doing so blocks them from an opportunity later on, or that they have to understand the entire skill tree to make effective choices.

  Trait selection at level-up should be a fun 10 second decision, not a deep 3 minute long consideration as it would be in an RPG.

  One of the challenges of dev journals that focus on one game mechanic is the inclination to want a ton of depth in the mechanic being discussed, since its all that is in our head at the moment, when the truth is that we want an appropriate depth for the importance of that mechanic.  There is a long dark hallway between systems that are fun to design and those that are fun to play.  And for me, so far, leveling up and getting those random traits has made me excited about each levelup and made my champions more interesting.  But there is plenty of playtesting left to do (including playtesting from you folks when we get to that stage).

  Also I wanted to highlight the way traits are implemented.  Whenever we implement a new system we really look for things we can do to make it as open to modders as possible.  Thats why you see those vsHigher, vsLower and xActions attributes.  The design doesn't call for them to be open.  It would have been easier just to put a specific tag for what that trait does (we have trait called Finesse that give +3 attack and accuracy against opponents with a lower Dexterity), but by leaving it open modders can have all sorts of fun with it.  We don't currently have a trait with limited actions that is more than 1, but by making the attribute customizable modders can make traits that stay in effect for 3 actions, 12 actions, etc (I'm ashamed to admit that I didn't have it designed like that, the implementer came back to me and asked if he could implement it in more modder friendly way).  It's a theme you will see repeated as we go through other mechanics.

Thanks for the update, Derek. From a modder perspective, I have one simple request. Is it possible to make all the base traits require some sort of meta trait as a prerequisite. For instance, all of the traits might require some trait called "Can Use Standard Traits", which unlocks all of the base traits. I can't imagine this would be a huge undertaking to add in, but would have add incredibly power to those seeking to use traits as parts of their mods. A good example of how this will add to the modability of the game would be a mod which seeks to create a custom set of traits for each NPC. By having some kind of overarching prerequisite, such a modder would simply create a new overarching prerequisite and apply it to his new custom set. Thus, his NPC would be given that prerequisite instead of the base one, thereby granting the NPC only the custom traits and excluding all base traits.

i don't mean to sound impertinent, but why? some players (not me) just love to game the system. the old neverwinter nights boards were full of impassioned debate over how to build the perfect archer. randomising traits won't stop them from doing this, it will just slow them down a little and annoy them. better just minimize their potential for abuse by keeping the possibilities fairly balanced.

the rest of us will happily choose the ones we like the idea of (and knowing that they're all fairly even will HELP make it a 10 second decision). only we'll be annoyed by the randomisation as well, because it potentially stands in the way of pursuing their character concept). say i have a red haired child, and want to specialise him in fire magic, but the randomisation stop me from doing it, for example.

i can't see how having a few randomly appearing powerful traits will help. it will still be possible to get an overpowered character (if unlikely), and it puts extra pressure on people to know their sums, out of fear of missing out on a bonus. you even risk achieving the opposite of what you seem to want, by encouraging people to take things they don't like because the unwanted option is far more effective.

have slightly overpowered traits if you like, but surely there are better ways of limitting their ubiquity than randomisation? no other game does this.

This. I remember sitting there at the level up screen in MoM for minutes some times, trying to decide upon which traits to select to produce the most ultimate bad-ass possible.

So for example we could do a trait called "Brave Sir Robin"  which when the units hitpoints were less than the 25 percentile trippled his move and reduced his attack to zero?

In AoW:SM you had three random level up traits to chose from. But they were random based on the heros class, so the traits you didn't chose for level 2 could pop up again for level 3 and so on.

I agree with Derek here, a limited amount of level up options will be more interesting than 100 options. If you have all options available, you will choose the same every time to power level your hero. And where's the fun in that. If you have a small amount of random options each game will be different and imo more interesting.

When I play RPG's I often get the feeling I chose the "wrong" level ups when I get too much to chose from. I don't have time to study forums for hours to learn the "right" way of leveling up, and I don't see the fun in doing so either.

Fruitful - You can have more than just 4 children. This is the trait for people who like to play long-term games. If both the Sovereign and his/her mate have this trait you can expect them to have a small army of powerful brats.

Infused with <Elemental> - The character is more than a simple channeler. He has tapped into the element itself, taking on properties of it. The more Shards his (or her) kingdom/empire controls, the more powerful the effect will be. The infusion also counts as a shard in terms of damage that spells of that particular school do, for the affected character only.

Earth: The Character becomes stronger and his skin becomes harder. All Earth Spells are easier for him. All Air spells are more difficult.

Fire: The character can move faster in combat (although not on the main map) and the range of his fire spells is extended. All Fire Spells are easier for him. All water spells are more difficult.

Water: The character can evade better and has an improved healing rate. All Fire spells are more difficult, all water spells are easier.

Air: The character becomes faster and can evade arrows much easier. All air spells are easier, all earth spells more difficult.

Thank you. Wanted abilities and traits from the start. FE is gonna be good.

This is exactly the debate I had in my own mind, and you sum it up well.  The reason I came down on the other side was that, unlike Neverwinter Nights, you have a lot of champions to deal with.  Over the 40 hours of gameplay in Neverwinter Nights you have a party of 6 and leveling up was the biggest reward in the game outside of that final victory.  In a game like that you should but a lot of detail and thought into the process.  Especially since the choice you make leveling up impacts the rest of gameplay (a levelup choice you make 6 hours in strongly impacts the rest of the 34 hours).

In 40 hours of playing FE you may play 8-10 games.  With a dozen champions per game thats about 100 champions.  You major victories are winning each of the games, and lower level victories come from defeating enemy players, taking cities, etc.  The levelup of an individual champion isn't as significant an event.  The levelup choice you make on one champion wont strongly impact the rest of your gameplay experience.  If we put a ton of detail into it so that the player is spending a lot of time considering the choices it becomes another case where there is a lot of depth in an area that doesn't deserve it.  In the end its about a focused game design with attention on the key game.

So instead of making a skill system that player are planning out and have long term goals.  We have a skill system that makes the moment of levelup as fun as possible.  Then it can be forgotten as the player gets back to the main game (which isn't about leveling character X, unlike a RPG).  So for us, random skills that aren't perfectly balanced are more fun.

I will say that sovereign customization is an exception to this and I do want players spending a lot of pained time trying to pick between a bunch of cool abilities, and unable to pick them all.  But that topic will be covered on another day.

.