Ok, I know right off that this is feature creep: but please hear me out. I've been working on a story based on THE GAMER by Sangyoung Seong, and I suddenly realized that I couldn't do two things I NEED to be able to do to do the story correctly. The second one is covered in the other thread, but the first one is this: HP: 234/234 MP: 13/432 That's it, fractions, you can't do fractional variables. Oh, sure with judiciously using a calculator you can create an approximation with hidden base variables and percentages, but it's far from Ideal! Basically I see this feature working like this: Here's the format: [NAME] [□/⊙/●] [XX/XX] Most of its the same as now: you call the variable by it's name, it displays with a part (color) and part (other color) bar indicateing the rough percentage of the fraction that you have left. When you modify the fraction you can either +, -, or =, both sides but there's always a / between them so if you want to + one side but leave the other unchanged you could put +, 4/0 : or +, 0/8. See?
I kind of feel this part of RPGs is a little silly. You leave the first town or village and fight some wolves or what not and they put up a little challenge. Later you fight the same wolves and you kill each with a single swing of your sword. In reality you could spend seven days a week going to the gym and get stronger and healthier but if you are attacked by a wolf pack you stand about as much chance as you did before the gym. Hope you didn't skip the cardo because unless you can outrun them your screwed. : )
That or you have a Tommy Gun... ^_^ Remember, typically in those situations in RPGs it's not your physical strength that makes the difference but the fact that your armor is now steel instead of leather and you're wilding a orochalcum sword... Also, just because it's silly doesn't make it any less NECESSARY to tell those kinds of stories, and let's not forget, if we were basing site decisions on REALISM we would have to START by banning the entire fantasy category, to say nothing of Non-Con and Incest.
This heavily depends on the used system. The damage of a weapon should only change slightly due to high strength or dexterousness (less than 20%). The skill of using a weapon for the very first time probably means that you can hold it just the right way and swung it a few times, probably fighting against (and defeating) a tree. The real training with moving and reacting (!) enemies does result in better skills, more likely expecting what they would do next. So the first time you fight the wolves they would probably surround you, waiting for you to stand in a bad way before one of them jumps on your neck. Next time (though you're probably dead now), you know their tactic and can avoid the bite and injure the wolf and maybe they will cancel their attack (not sure about the exact behavior of wolves in that situation). To have a system which is more realistic, health points shouldn't increase much (less than 20% in total), but the chance to get wounded should decrease because of higher experience in avoiding damage or reducing damage (next time you won't try to hold the ax with your forearm and just step back).
That brings up another thing this variable type would be very helpful for: Experience! you can set both a goal in order to level up and how close you have gotten to that goal in a single variable!
