Features Feedback

It sounds like a lot but remember every one of these maps is only 17x13 tiles - a single screen. It's the equivalent of two 100x100 maps. Of course there has to be a reason for the player to explore these maps if he want to, i'm currently thinking about a couple of side-quests and side-dungeons that can occupy most of the non-relevant areas.

Some sort of overview-map for the player to see where he is and where his quest-objectives are is also planned, but i'm not sure this is really required. The overall-area will be not so big after all.

Thank you for your input but i will not ditch the tile-idea. It might be a bad idea (i don't think so), if it is i will have learned something from the game.

I thought a bit more about my problem and decided to go with option 3, that is making the village occupy more tiles on the world-map to have the same scale everywhere. The reason i didn't want to do that at first was because i was still thinking in the general-world-map scale where one village=1 tile, and not in the smaller scale of my system. This requires a whole redoing of the world-map and i will take note to also plan side-dungeons ahed, so no area is really non-relevant to the game.

I had a quick question revolving around the use of a random based gameplay element.

Through YanFly's Item Core and Item Upgrade plugin he included a section for Upgrade Items to increase/decrease stats on an item by a random amount. I decided to make two upgrade types. Stable (which will always increase a Stat the same amount) and Volatile (can increase or decrease stats in a random fashion). Now is there anyway that can be thought of to prevent the player from trying to game the system by savescumming their way to getting a really good roll with a Volatile upgrade item?

So last night I went to bed with a note pad and did a brainstorm on what features I'd like to see in my "magnum opus" RPG Maker game. Obviously, those aren't my priorities right now - my priority at the moment is to learn RPG Maker MV as much as I can without needing to chew into programming. Currently, I'm an illustrator, so I don't really have the time nor the patience to learn programming in JavaScript. I'm better off making character portraits, maps, tilesets, etc.

Anyway, here's the featurelist that I'd like to see in the future when I get experienced enough with RPG Maker MV:

• Multiple parallax background layers for a side-scroller, achieving a visual effect similar to Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria (PS2).
• Side-scroller movement system (left/right/jump/crouch/walk through a doorway).
• A combat system expansion that includes normal, critical hits, and massive critical hits. (White, Yellow, Red, respectively).
• A way to show illustrations (full-screen illustrations) during a battle, where a character scores a massive critical hit, and it displays the character in combat dealing that critical hit.

I've always thought that RPG Maker MV had the potential to be more creative, but I've been noticing of late that some features that you would take for granted in a game engine toolset (such as Aurora Engine) are missing, such as selection-box copy/paste capability for tilesets.

I want to hear your thoughts on these features that I've thought about, and whether or not they are feasible in the future.

Thank you for reading. :)

all of what are you talking about you probably need to hire someone to create those plugins for you and that will def cost you some money.

That's what I'm anticipating. Sadly, I am barely surviving on Disability Insurance (SSDI), and unemployed. I've been trying to find a way to generate an income, with very little luck. :(

Still, I'll try to make something happen when the time's right.

@Grimoire LD

One save slot or autosave only in fixed points. Though personally I don't like your idea. Why are you going to torture players with unfair random?

Not all of those ideas will require difficult plug ins, and you may well find that some of them are produced by community members for free.

However, General Discussion is for precisely that - general discussion of principles/ideas which apply across many games, not for discussion of one particular game.  I am, therefore, merging this with Features Feedback.

I didn't realize that there was a way to force an auto-save. I'll have to experiment with that, thanks! 

Ah, it's purely for people who want to "test their luck" so to speak. They can go to town and for a small fee have them turned into Stable variants which provide a set amount of stats, just a lower amount of course than they could receive with the Volatile variant.

This is something I've been thinking about for a while, and I'm still undecided. I'm making a short game in which the player randomly gets a class assigned at the start of the game and that'll be their main character. Should I give the player the option to let them choose or re-roll their class, or simply keep it completely random?

I kind of like keeping it random because it gets the player straight to the gameplay, but on the other hand it could be annoying for a player if they get stuck playing a class they might not like. Opinions?

I think if it fits the game (as in the game is based in randomness) then it fits perfectly. However if the rest of the game is fairly set without much random deviation then it might be a bit off-putting to the player.

Milennin, I think as long as you have "outs" to a bad roll, like multiple save slots, perhaps a class-change option in the game, and/or a re-roll at the beginning, you should be fine. If all your classes are fun to play it's less of a big deal. Also, it'll help if you can recruit the other classes later, so you don't feel bummed about "missing" your favorite class or whatever on a play through.

Here's my question(s):

I'm working on a mage character who has really strong spells, but requires some setup to get rolling. Right now the mechanic is that she can start chanting (add state: chant), and while chanting her other spells unlock, and WOW they are bombs. However, if she takes a hit or gets addled in some way (sleep, etc) the chant is broken and she can't cast them until she's able to get her chant going again.

I intend to provide several ways to protect her, so that your team composition would be sort of a "Save the Queen" or "Voltron" scenario for when her skills are the right tool for the job. How many of those protection mechanisms do I need? How many is too many? What's a fun balance between the class' risk and reward? Should I ditch the chanting state and use a different kind of setup for her spells? Should I stop asking quadruple-barreled questions?

I honestly don't see any benefit to doing so. It really shouldn't take the player too long to decide on a class anyway if you've done a good job in describing them. Plus, if someone replays the game, it might give them a class they've already played as.

How Final Fantasy Tactics handles this might give some food for thought. When a unit is charging to use an ability, it is given a "Charging" status. Being hit while charging doesn't stop the ability, but a "Charging" unit takes more damage from physical attacks and their evasion against physical attacks is reduced to zero. If a character's turn comes up before the charging ability executes, if you choose to have them use or start a different ability, the ability that was charging is cancelled.

You could implement it as something like that. You could also have it so that being damaged has a chance of disrupting the chant rather than always breaking the state (and if you get into scripting, you could probably have it so that the interrupt chance is based on how much damage a hit deals or how low the character's HP gets).

I have thought about using a less-than-100% interrupt trigger, but i would rather build in ways to protect the combo than make it less of a combo and more of a gamble.
Can you suggest any good ways to protect an ally other than the "Substitute" flag?

EDIT: I may have found something a little less all-or-nothing here. I've been working on creating clear identities for each class, and found that using toggle-able beneficial states gives me the ability to create branching "class trees" of sorts.

For example, in my chanting mage's case, my current plan is for one of her chants to be interruptible via damage but provide a big boost to magic power while it's on. The other chant would instead give her bonuses that scale with the amount of damage she's taken—so you can choose between a "perfect clear" mage for situations where you can protect her, or a "danger Mario" mage for situations where she's either wounded or going to be wounded. I think her having the ability to switch between these two modes helps her feel like less of a one-off gimmick.

I would still love to hear some ideas on how to temporarily protect allies from harm, though.

Be descriptive. 
So, I want to implement a feature that is very similar to Harvest Moon style games. My game will have RPG turn based combat, a very involved crafting system, fishing system, Vegetable planting/harvest system (Got this implemented and working, so excited!) and a "Friend" system.

I want the Friend system to feel dynamic but without adding the immense amount of depth the harvest moon games have.
- Describe how you're planning to implement the feature.
To implement this I'm planning on having a few variables that track everyone's chatter.
 

The first variable is \V[NPC-NAME-HERE daily] Which would check whether or not you have already spoken to said NPC that day (I should mention "days" only pass inbetween quests, so I can manage how many days the player can utilize without them just growing tons of crops and ignoring quests in favor of lots of money).  If you haven't spoken to that NPC the variable would be at 1, once you speak to them you recieve daily/current event speech text from them ("Oh, \N[5]! We all heard that loud roaring after you left for the Forest yesterday... Did you see the Toad monster? I'm so glad you're all right!") And then the variable for that particular npc would be set to 1.


If you have spoken to them then you would instead get the "Character Building" text, which gives you insight into that character's personality, life, and story. This also increases that NPC's Friendliness variable by one.  

After those two conversations the NPC will cycle between a few flavor text chatboxes depending on your friend level.

And of course at certain friend levels you will be able to see events with each character giving you more insight into their lives and story. (I have 2 "Events" written for each character, 11 characters in all. I don't want more than this because the writing is already done and I'd prefer to not add more Events to maps, to ensure they can all roam freely without colliding with unplanned event locations)
- Note your inspiration(s) or offer an example.
Essentially this would work like Harvest Moon or Rune Factory, except without the marriage aspect (That's a huge amount of work, and I'd rather keep it simple enough to be interesting but also simple enough to keep the focus on the main story, farming, fishing, and battles)

I and rpgmaker20021 is working on a world map Harry Potter but we have also think about making a 4-6 gbc Harry Potter because 1-3 was absolutely awesome! If you have to make a choice, which whould you want to play of this two games? Any good ideas to anyone of the games? Open for all questions about this!

Here's a question.  What the heck are you talking about?

Have you played Harry Potter 1-3 on gbc?

This is not about the design of game mechanics as such.  As the pinned rules for this sub-forum say

I am, therefore, merging this with Features Feedback.

riotpopper, you might also take some inspiration from Animal Crossing, which has dynamic-ish friendships without all the baggage of romance and plot.

As for my next feature-feedback request, another class I'm working on in a fantasy setting is a Magical Girl. She's one of the game's optional/secret characters, which is where I've moved most of my silly ideas for the game. There's a lot of fluff and transformation sequences and "BIG WISHES!" involved but essentially she powers up while in "Mahou Henkan Go!" mode, at the cost of a portion of her Health each turn.

I'm using a combo of Common Event + State Change to handle transforming and un-transforming, but my problem is that I'm unsure of the best way to ensure that she stays in "normal" mode outside of combat. This is important because it's implied that she is essentially possessed during transformation, and it takes a toll on her body, so it would be weird if she were just walking around transformed all the time. I can get the state to fade after combat no problem, but she also undergoes a face image/sprite change...

...So, my question is, what are some ways to handle a character image change that should only be happening during battle? I've heard you can set basic troop events or whatever they're called, and I could probably do something along those lines. Is there a more elegant way I'm unaware of?

Engine: RPGMaker MV

First, and foremost, I want to apologize in advance for any missing details from my description. The fact is... I have a grasp of what I want to accomplish, but I'm struggling with articulating it.

First, some details:

• The character will be gaining extremely minimal stat growth while leveling up. (Ideally, I'll be able to put in a system with stat point allocations so the player can develop the character on their own).
• This game will emphasize switching out classes and leveling as them (Job Point system)
• Abilities can be purchased/unlocked from the class they are leveling that provide massive stat bonuses (This will be the main way the character powers up outside of equipment)

I am almost positive I'll need a plugin for the first 2 items. Since I am using Yanfly's scripts, I intend to see what her upcoming release will cover (Class Core and Job Points). I'm open to existing solutions / suggestions though. Especially if it can be evented / handled within the game itself.

The third item is where I am not confident on it being solved by the plugins created by Yanfly and on her radar to complete soon. Is there a way for me to have a passive skill, once learned/unlocked/granted causes a one time stat bump? Does the solution you have in mind hold true if the character changes classes (I would like to avoid that kind of gimmick bug)

I also would like to know whether or not this concept sounds interesting or not?

I can try to elaborate further if it is needed.

Edit: Bleh, I was right to apologize.... I wanted this topic to mostly focus on the concept of how a character would develop based on the classes the player preferred and the stats they allocated. Would getting super minimal return on investment from raw exp deter players?