Complexity and game breaking

So I have been diving into some old JRPGs Like Golden Sun and Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars.

I've noticed a few great ideas for game mechanics in these titles. Timed hits, weapons with random special attack animations, interesting summon mechanics etc.

I'm rife with new ideas for an RPG, and stricly speaking outside of the limitations of the RPG maker, do you think that too many features destroys the balance of game play? I guess I'm afraid that if I add too many mechanics, the game may become too easy to break, or too hard to get interested in playing.

Having no experience in making games, I thought the forums would be a great place to ask this question before getting my layout started.

Complexity and game breaking options are two different things - primarily they have nothing to do with each other.


However, if a game is complex and has many options, then it becomes more difficult for the game developer to balance the game. And with a lot of options, a game breaking option is easier to overlook when working on the game.


The important part is to combine all options and features into an integrated whole, where none of the options are distracting the player. If you can get that with a large list of features, then it's good for you.


But in most cases there is the sentence I used in my starting point (see signature):


A titanic list of features is the best way to go titanic (= to the bottom of the ocean) with your game.

It depends how many you think you can juice the most gameplay out of, how efficiently you can teach the player their most basic function, and whether you can build upon them naturally over time. For example, timed hits in Mario RPG felt pretty good, but that's all they really added; they changed very little of the actual game. Timed hits really hit their stride in Paper Mario, and even then they seem somewhat unflexible (do minigame to do the most damage being the limit of their depth). However, something like Area attacking in Chrono trigger or logical monster behavior in Paper Mario (spiked enemies doing damage from jump attacks) definitely seem more juice-able, with several different ways to design them and giving the player a lot of agency in decision making.


If you can't juice a mechanic several different ways, evolving and remaining interesting over the course of the game, then it might not be wise to pursue it.

How many is too many game mechanics? People who love to micromanage want as many mechanics as you an dish out. People Who don't like juggling 5+ things get turned off. Finding that perfect balance is the tough part. 

I personally believe you can have at least 3-5 mechanics that the player HAS to use correctly in order to pass through the game. Adding more than that should enhance gameplay much less dramatically and are there just for the min maxers out there.

Example:

A timed button attack should still do good enough damage even if you miss the the timed action.

Succeeding the time action should just add a small bonus like doing extra damage or getting a small buff. To end the battle faster as a reward.

having it so if you miss the timed action results in dealing little to no damage only punishes the player who doesn't like timed attacks and most likely will result in them losing the battle or making it drag on way to long and causing frustration to the player.

This can also be used to have combo interactions between the allies to do extra effects but not required in order to win.

Example: X

Character A Casts a water spell on a foe that deals damage and leaves them with a status effect of "Wet" that lasts for like a turn.

Character B uses Thunder Strike on the same foe that does 2x damage to "Wet" targets

And

Example: Y

Character A Casts Fire cause it does the most damage of the elements they have.

Character B uses Heavy Slash cause it does the most damage by itself.

Both achieve the same end goal of killing all the monsters but Example X does it faster for it does the most damage when combing with other characters.

As far as breaking the game? If the process of breaking the game is complex and required a ton of effort to pull it off then I say let them break the game. They earned it and feel awesome for doing it. In online games this should be avoided because when your preventing other people from enjoying the game then it makes people rage quit. But on single player games like most RPG maker games...the player is only rewarded not punished.

The more abilities you add, the harder it gets to balance all of them against the various opponents the players will face off against.    This can add significantly to your testing time.  Having a "Kill Everything That Moves" spell probably isn't the best spell to give the players, in most cases, unless a lot of opponents are well nigh immune to the spell or whatnot.

I would say add the abilities that make good sense in your game universe and plot.  Good abilities can add strategic elements to battles --- certain opponents are ONLY vulnerable to specific types of attacks is a common one.  Or, abilities which are powerful but which weaken the user for some period of time afterwards.    Having variety in your combat is great, so players aren't just like "OK, Attack, Attack, Attack.  Win gold and XP.  Again."

My current game has one ability which is great for defending the party --- but the user cannot do ANYTHING else for several rounds...since the party member is the all-but-designated tank, it makes sense.

But, don't add an ability just because you think it's cool.  If the ability does not really add something to gameplay, or the ability does not make sense in your game universe, or with the character(s) who will wield it, don't add it.  Having an anti-villain character who can call forth Holy attacks probably doesn't make sense.  Unless the main characters are, say, neutral vampires going against a corrupt evil church...

Having a detailed crafting system might take away from the main game, unless the crafting IS the main purpose, such as "Players are apprentice wizards.  Magic comes from carved runes, which must be researched, their parts collected, etc."

It's far better to invest your time in making your game a coherent, interesting whole, adding a variety of enemies, equipment, etc, within an engaging world and story, than to add features just to say they're in there.  Trust me, making a decent length game is a LOT of work.  And I wouldn't try anything too fancy until you're comfortable with all of the basics.

Was like this with my first game : oh let's make a huge roster of characters, let's make faction reputation, let's add this, let's add that,let's make it last 30 hours with several side quests added to it blablabla.

In the end : 7 hours of gameplay achieved, reputation cancelled, half of the roster out and an unfinished game (And thank heaven for this because it was a godawful mess of a rpg hehehe). 

Everyone's been giving good advice (that I would parrot) about making sure your mechanics actually add something to the gameplay experience - there are a lot of games that use a "stamina bar" for dashing, for instance, but dashing provides no benefit besides saving the player's time.  In a case like this, get rid of the stamina mechanic and just let the player dash any time they want.

But I think the original idea of the topic - How Complex Is Too Complex? - is an even better question to discuss.  I don't really have a good answer to this, and I hope someone who's been in this kind of gray area before with game making can enlighten me here!

I can easily think of some superb games that still missed the mark on this tricky aspect, with some mechanics I was never able to understand or remember:

• Dark Cloud 2 - Fishing, most of the weapon/ridepod/synthesis upgrade systems.  There were simply too many different (thankfully optional) mechanics for even the most patient gamers to keep straight (and they're mostly introduced in the first 20% of the game).  And only a few of these mechanics were necessary to use more than once.  So some of the others, like managing your fish tank, could just fall by the wayside.
• Tales of Graces f - Accel Mode and some of the other obscure battle mechanics.  This was a combination of "a system was too detailed" and "not enough instruction" - literally dozens of different details were in this action battle system and, at best, you'd get a text blurb at the end of battle sometimes that halfway explained how the mechanic worked.
• Recettear - Customer attraction and loyalty.  These are obscura that are never explained within the game.  I think they did this intentionally, to try to let the player figure it out themselves without burdening them with mounds of tutorial text.  Smart decision, but badly implemented - the graphical and verbal hints given don't do nearly enough to allow the player to figure out how these mechanics work.
• Final Fantasy IX - Tetra Master.  Like Recettear, they deliberately hid mechanics - the mechanics behind the outcomes of card battling.  Unlike Recettear, doing it here was a very dumb decision.  When you have something set up where the player expects an extremely defined rule, explain the damn rule!  If it's too complicated to explain, the rule needs to be simplified.

So I can say that you can increase the number of different mechanics that feel comfortable to the player if you (a) introduce them at a gentle pace throughout the game, (b ) either give clear, concise explanations or extremely clear and well-designed contextual hints about how the mechanic works, and © don't make the mechanics themselves any more complicated than they need to be to enhance gameplay.

There's probably a lot more than that, though, that goes into reducing player confusion and mental overload.  Someone help me out here.  What else do you need to do?

You know, this could be a good video for you to watch.