By the numbers

I know this comes as a big surprise, but I have a question. ;)

I've been looking at a role-playing system- namely Warriors Adventure- where nothing higher than a 10 is used anywhere. Seems like a great way of creating a short, stress-free game, but there's just one problem. How would it work in Ace? By which I mean, can I easily set up such a system or would the engine throw a fit with such small numbers?

This is an important question to me, as it's my dream to create games that anyone can enjoy without keeping track of too many statistics. (By anyone, I also mean mathematically-challenged me.)

Tiger

Smaller numbers are easier to work with actually. There is much less variability when small numbers are used, and are generally easier to balance.

The small numbers shouldn't be an issue as long as you take the time to do the balancing.

Thanks for replying so quickly. I'm going to be sure and study how experience is doled out in Warriors so I'll have a model to follow. In the meantime, have you any advice for creating stat curves and the like?

I'm no good with balancing. I mostly guess and check, even then it doesn't come out too well. =\ Sorry.

~ Dinhbat

No worries; it's not as if I had to make this game right now. :)

It works, but you would want to change the formula of standard attacks.

The standard is something like a.atk(4) - b.def(2). You can just make it a.atk - b.def.

Not sure about critical and skills, though.

Do you mean, change the forumla on the Skills tab?

Well, I haven't had much experience with Ace, but in VX the formula for skills and attacks are built into the default scripts. Both can be altered to provide lower numbers. I remember the physical attacks since that's requested the most for low Dragon Quest like numbers, but couldn't remember what the setup was for skills. If you alter the physical attacks like I mentioned above (for weapons and maybe physical skills) you can get lower damage output. With Ace, I think you just need to set the formula for your standard attack. Remove the multiplication from the formula and that should work.

Edit: In Ace, I believe the standard "attack" is a skill, so you could try and alter the formula there.

That is right, that's where you alter the damage formula.  However, it's not a.atk(4) - b.def(2) but a.atk * 4 - b.def * 2

If you're going to be using very low numbers, you might want to think of changing the default value of a Critical Hit.  The default is damage * 3, which could easily result in instant death.  If you want to change it, go to the default script Game_Battler and find this bit, starting at line 383:

def apply_critical(damage) damage * 3 endChange that 3 to whatever number you think appropriate ( perhaps * 2 to start off with?)

All right, remember how I said I didn't like too many stats? The game I mentioned has only three 'abilities', something I'd like to try for myself. How do stop the game from displaying the excess stats? (I'm pretty it sure it has to do with scripts and comments.)