Best handling of character statistics continuity between game entries?

[rusty_shackleford]

What RPGs handle reducing the player character's power in subsequent game entries in a graceful way?
Mass effect 2 has shepard get blown up at the start of the game so there's a reason for him to suck at everything. Witcher 1 technically counts, even tho it's a first entry it's set after the books.

[Vergil]

Mass effect 2 has shepard get blown up at the start of the game so there's a reason for him to suck at everything.

Which they then fumble by giving no reason for that to happen again in ME3.

[Tweed]

The Nameless Hero in Gothic "dies" with the ore armor keeping him alive until Xardas rescues him. One nice touch is that you actually see Uriziel in the opening cinematic for Gothic 2...one last time.

Origin made the excuse that the Avatar effectively resets each time he comes to Britannia even though you could transfer stats between Ultima 4-6.

In Wizardry 3 your transfers aren't your characters but transferring of some of their power to their descendants who all happen to have the same names.

Risen 2 says that jamming the eye piece from Inquisitor Mendoza into your face messed you up and you become a strung out alcoholic coasting by on fame.

[Oyster Sauce]

Mass effect 2 has shepard get blown up at the start of the game so there's a reason for him to suck at everything.

Which they then fumble by giving no reason for that to happen again in ME3.

If you import a max level ME2 character (30) into ME3 you'll start at level 30 out of 60. You start at level 1 with no imported save.
Also, you start the game in a Canadian court of law which is arguably worse than death.

[rusty_shackleford]

Never managed to finish earlier wizardries but I'm pretty sure wiz8 changes massively if you import a save. I want to get around to doing that someday.

[Vergil]

Mass effect 2 has shepard get blown up at the start of the game so there's a reason for him to suck at everything.

Which they then fumble by giving no reason for that to happen again in ME3.

If you import a max level ME2 character (30) into ME3 you'll start at level 30 out of 60. You start at level 1 with no imported save.
Also, you start the game in a Canadian court of law which is arguably worse than death.

Don't know how I forgot this

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Why does the player need to lose anything in the first place? The Banner Saga Trilogy lets you just carry over all of your characters' stats and abilities and your entire inventory to the next game. You don't lose anything.

[Oyster Sauce]

Better, cooler questions: what's the largest gap between two games with a transferrable save file? Will the new Mass Effect that serves as a sequel to 3 allow you to import your save from a dozen years and at least two console generations ago? Will this system cease to exist in our brave new world where it takes at least 10 years to make a game?

[Vergil]

Better, cooler questions: what's the largest gap between two games with a transferrable save file? Will the new Mass Effect that serves as a sequel to 3 allow you to import your save from a dozen years and at least two console generations ago? Will this system cease to exist in our brave new world where it takes at least 10 years to make a game?

The new Mass Effect won't let you transfer old saves because it will not be released

[rusty_shackleford]

Better, cooler questions: what's the largest gap between two games with a transferrable save file? Will the new Mass Effect that serves as a sequel to 3 allow you to import your save from a dozen years and at least two console generations ago? Will this system cease to exist in our brave new world where it takes at least 10 years to make a game?

9 years for wiz7->wiz8

[Orvas Dren]

Why does the player need to lose anything in the first place? The Banner Saga Trilogy lets you just carry over all of your characters' stats and abilities and your entire inventory to the next game. You don't lose anything.

man those games were awesome

[rusty_shackleford]

Why does the player need to lose anything in the first place? The Banner Saga Trilogy lets you just carry over all of your characters' stats and abilities and your entire inventory to the next game. You don't lose anything.

banner saga was designed as a trilogy prior to the first game being released, it's not something all game series are capable of

[Acrux]

Why does the player need to lose anything in the first place? The Banner Saga Trilogy lets you just carry over all of your characters' stats and abilities and your entire inventory to the next game. You don't lose anything.

If only it didn't have that terrible turn system it would be a great series.

[rusty_shackleford]

Why does the player need to lose anything in the first place? The Banner Saga Trilogy lets you just carry over all of your characters' stats and abilities and your entire inventory to the next game. You don't lose anything.

If only it didn't have that terrible turn system it would be a great series.

It originally had final fantasy tactics combat until playtesters found it too hard to understand

[Dorateen]

Never managed to finish earlier wizardries but I'm pretty sure wiz8 changes massively if you import a save. I want to get around to doing that someday.

Wizardry 8 resets an imported character's level to 5 (a character who doesn't switch classes will finish Wizardry 7 around level 35 or so). Also, the entire attribute system was overhauled, as Crusaders had still used scores up to 18 for stats. The in game reason is implied that the long space travel chasing the Dark Savant is what cause this discrepancy.

[rusty_shackleford]

Why does the player need to lose anything in the first place? The Banner Saga Trilogy lets you just carry over all of your characters' stats and abilities and your entire inventory to the next game. You don't lose anything.

This goes hand in hand with my thread on long RPGs
viewtopic.php?t=4451-how-to-have-a-long-term-rpg

It seems the most consistent way to handle this is by just resetting your character's progress because characters tend to get too powerful. Which is reasonable, presumably otherwise if you made a new entry that just had a small gain in power people wouldn't enjoy the small amount of growth experienced?

[Tadeusz]

It seems the most consistent way to handle this is by just resetting your character's progress because characters tend to get too powerful. Which is reasonable, presumably otherwise if you made a new entry that just had a small gain in power people wouldn't enjoy the small amount of growth experienced?

Both NWN2 (OC to MotB) and ATOM RPG (OC to Trudograd) don't reset character progress, they only reset player's equipment. Both games allow for further growth. The weak point here is the encounter design mainly - how to make enemies powerful enough to provide a challenge for the player? Enemies at higher levels can have advanced tactics but I think many devs are just afraid or unwilling to make subsequent game entries more challenging so we end up with this problem.

[rusty_shackleford]

It seems the most consistent way to handle this is by just resetting your character's progress because characters tend to get too powerful. Which is reasonable, presumably otherwise if you made a new entry that just had a small gain in power people wouldn't enjoy the small amount of growth experienced?

Both NWN2 (OC to MotB) and ATOM RPG (OC to Trudograd) don't reset character progress, they only reset player's equipment. Both games allow for further growth. The weak point here is the encounter design mainly - how to make enemies powerful enough to provide a challenge for the player? Enemies at higher levels can have advanced tactics but I think many devs are just afraid or unwilling to make subsequent game entries more challenging so we end up with this problem.

It makes it very difficult for new players to pick it up and play, both of these were expansions(Trudograd a standalone one.) It's probably not a bad idea to have a very easy onramp for new players, or just players that don't have their save. Also not a good idea to expect someone to even remember how to play the game as it may have been years since he last played.

[Tadeusz]

Also not a good idea to expect someone to even remember how to play the game as it may have been years since he last played.

Character continuity is done best with the player continuity. Erasing character's progress from the previous game feels cheap no matter how it's done. Perhaps it's better to make a new character who is a successor to a previous one in some way to avoid this problem.
Some settings and game mechanics allow a better justification of erasure of progress - if the progression is tied to the equipment then a character can lose it between installments. Possibility of rebirth or inhabiting another body also helps. It's difficult to justify skill erasure in more realistic settings.

[OnTilt]

The Golden Sun Game Boy games would allow you to transfer your party from the old save with everything included, but you couldn't do this until the last chapter or so of the game.