Features Feedback

I'm not going to judge the system, instead I'll just tell you good luck creating it. :)

Woops, yup was meant to go to features feedback.

Heya, folks. Recently I got the system I've ordered last year, which enables me to reproduce similar battle system like I've made in Eremidia back when. Previously, I've posted some of my planned game features here, so check it out before proceeding to what I'm about to ask to you guys.


http://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?/topic/36-features-feedback/&page=12#comment-674439


Anyway, here's brief description of the mechanics I'm about to make:


Background: In this game, player will take role as a marksman walking around the post-magic apocalyptia (imagine ruined Victorian era like WWI aftermath with magic did the destruction instead of man-made weapons, and magic here is considered like nuclear thingy IRL), seeking for his true identity. He'll will stumble upon characters who'll help them in the journey, each with their specialty and unique abilities, but most of decisions, actions and consequences will depend on the player's wit.


Mechanics: Out of battle, player will follow somewhat linear storyline, stumbling upon places on foot which segmented into several 'rooms'. Except settlements and Old City, player will find some 'anomalies' inside the rooms which should be avoided at all costs as well as 'artifacts' that holds value and salable—in fact, artifacts are easy cash if one's able to get over the anomalies where they usually reside. This'll be achieved by utilizing terrain tag and some scripts that still in progress, including random generation of loots and artifact spawns. References? S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games.


Shops and transactions will be dealt with different currencies. More like barter, though: player can trade coins, water, or bullets for something they want like medicine, food or other goods, in right price of course. Bullet trading is one of what I got from Metro 2033, which brings currency usable into the next level.


Battle initiated when player makes contact with in-map enemies, akin to my previous Eremidia project (or Mario & Luigi series if you've played one). Battle scene is similar to Eremidia as well; battlers are able to move freely around 'board', but with a twist that either party members and enemies are able to do multiple actions in one turn, depending on their Action Point (AP) and costs taken per action performed. Reference of this AP feature is Fallout series, which different actions have their own AP cost.


Also, there's difference between ranged and melee attacks; while melee attacks will only target enemies in an arc in front of them, ranged attacks will only target enemies in straight line. There's range limit in ranged attacks, and the further the target is, the more chance their attacks will miss. Firearms are powerful and used for ranged attacks, but strictly limited by ammo and considered that in post-apocalyptic world bullets are scarce...


Unless for specific characters, magic is absent in this setting. In fact, magic is lethal and most of the time will kill any living characters because of 'ether poisoning'. Cogger races—half-man half-machine folks, like the main character—however, have higher resistance to this poisoning effect.


If one of party member knocked out in battle, there's chance that they'll die and removed permanently from party. For the main character and heroine, if they're knocked out and died shortly after, the story won't continue; game's over.


Any feedback would be appreciated. As for now, I'm meddling with the battle system, refining the mechanics for the prototype I'll release in a couple of month later... hopefully.

@richter_h: Apologies for the wall of text. I'm still not completely used to formatting my posts with the new forum software. >.>'

1. I like the 'risk versus reward' aspect of anomalies doing harmful things to the player yet also spawning valuable artifacts. Are the anomalies easy to spot and to avoid, though, and is it possible for the player to avoid the anomalies and still obtain the artifacts? I could imagine that a system like this would be most interesting if it's relatively safe to get an artifact or two but then make the odds stack against the player so that there's no easy and safe way to get rich but no one ends up skipping artifacts completely either.
2. Your battle system sounds very neat. I like the idea that both melee and ranged attacks have target restrictions, and it sounds quite logical that ranged attacks have a higher chance to miss against enemies who are far away - as long as it doesn't lead to a situation where ranged weapons are useless against enemies who are almost next to you. Out of curiosity, do you intend to make differences between different kinds of melee weapons, such as spears or whips having slightly longer reach or something along those lines? I don't know what kind of melee weapons you will include in your game, though, so hopefully this question wasn't too silly.
3. The combination of bullets being a currency and firearms being a weapon class made me wonder one thing. If firearms are powerful, are bullets valuable enough to justify anyone using them as a currency? If they are valuable, would anyone want to use them for attacks? Or are they supposed to be more of a backup currency in case the player is in desperate need of e.g. potions yet has nothing else to trade? It will probably require careful balancing and lots of playtesting, but the idea does sound very intriguing and might bring a lot of incentive for planning.
4. This might be more related to the story than the mechanics, but if cogger races are more resistant to ether poisoning (which the anomalies emit, if I've understood correctly), is it possible to have several party member suffer from serious drawbacks from an anomaly while the main character pretty much shrugs it off? Or is ether poisoning mostly seen in combat as a debuff of sorts?
5. You said that there's a chance that a character will be permanently removed from the party if they get knocked out in battle. Does that mean that there is indeed a random chance for a KO'd character to "die", or does it only happen in specific circumstances, such as a KO'd character getting hit by one or more attacks? The idea itself isn't bad, but I don't think that it's a good idea to have RNG play a part in something like that.

I'm going to make my long post even longer and ask for feedback about one character's spellcasting style in my own project. The said character is a sorcerer who uses elemental magic and has two different styles of spells: channelled spells and single-round spells.

• Channelled spells take three rounds and automatically make the character cast a spell each round (i.e. the character gets a Channelling state during which he can't be controlled). If the character manages to finish channelling, he will end it with a powerful finisher spell, but taking damage has a low (10%) chance to interrupt channelling.
• Single-round spells behave like typical spells in a JRPG, meaning that the character casts them during his turn and then gets to select a new command on the following turn.

Here are a few details and possible issues about the system:

• If the character chooses to channel a spell, he spends his first turn doing nothing else than selecting a target. I was originally going to use an ATB system have channelling make the character's ATB bar fill faster to compensate for this, but now that I've scrapped ATB, I've been wondering if I should make him cast something on the first turn as well so it isn't "wasted". The first spell might be relatively weak to emphasize the idea that he is building up power as he channels.
• In order to make both spell styles viable (yet keep channelling as the character's signature style), channelled spells deal more damage but can be used on a single target only, whereas single-round spells can be used for both a single target and multiple targets.
  
• Since all the spells deal elemental damage, I'd like to keep all the spells viable options in combat throughout the whole game. One idea which I got is that all spells of the same style would use the same damage formula but that elemental resistances would play a notable role in the game. For instance, Channel Lightning (starter spell) would do more damage against water-based monsters than Channel Fire (learned later on). Of course, the correct choice of elements would have to be relatively obvious so that the player doesn't have to start each battle by scanning each enemy's resistances or learn the correct strategy with trial and error.
• If I end up making the spells use the same damage formula, logically they should have the same cost as well. Does it feel odd to learn a spell which costs 10 MP at level 30 (when you might have 500 MP), though? Another thing which I'm not completely sure about is that I've made single-cast spells cost less MP than channelled spells but also require TP (e.g. if channelled spells cost 10 MP, single-cast spells would cost maybe 8 MP and 5 TP).

@Punamaagi : Don't worry, I'm still getting used with new forum interface, too. Anyway,

1. Anomalies, some are easy to spot (strange glowing patches on floor, sparks out of nowhere, etc) and some are harder to detect without decent detectors. Only few of them can be triggered by throwing stuffs onto it, which temporarily neturalize the anomaly thus make safe way for travelers to pass through it. This is the safest way to retrieve spawned artifacts inside anomaly, but to retrieve artifacts, one must wear proper protection suit to safely traverse said anomalies.
2. Melee weapons are unlimited in ammo but really limited in range and power, while ranged weapons are limited in ammo and rather unreliable but usually have decent power. Melee weapons are varied; knives, daggers, clubs, even wrenches, but they serve only as backup weapon because most of enemies will make use of ranged weapons more than melee weapons. Who wants to bring only knife into a gunfight, anyway?
3. This one is something I learned when playing Metro 2033 and want to implement it into the project. There are some kind of ammo that so scarce it would be valued more than makeshift or even surplus bullets ever found across the land. They pack more punch than usual bullets, often may causing additional effects like burn, shock, or even ether-based corrosion. And yes, there is another currency that serves more like usual money, but for travelers who prefer to pack lightly, special bullets may be bartered with something more useful like food, medicine, or services from traveling merchants. This is second phase development stuff, though, so I'll be back on this concept once the basic systems are done.
4. Initially, the heroine (the girl that I use her picture as profile picture as I write this reply) is prone even to the weakest form of anomaly but her held artifacts has improved her resistance against anomalies and ether poisoning. Some other characters are also prone to ether poisoning and anomalies as well. This kind of negative ailment is more like debuff that affects one's overall performance (story-wise, ether poisoning has various effects including internal bleeding, brain damage, psychological disorder, neural system failure, death, and halitosis) and applies both in field and in battle. That's why there are some protective suits as well as gears that countermeasure the effects and benevolent artifacts.
5. The chance is not RNG-based, though; as long as he/she is nearby party members, the moment of knock-out is quite recent and the killing blow is not lethal (i.e. the blow is critical, or said character was able to partially avoid the rate of killing blow's lethality), the likeliness of said character to survive will high. Otherwise, the tale will be a little bit different in the end, and if the death comes to one of main characters, the game and the story are over and you need to go back to latest save point.

----
And about your concepts,

1. Channeling spells are interesting, but instead of giving interruption chance in each of incoming attacks, it would be good to give some abilities 'interrupts channeling spell' property or give the channeling spells damage counter. It'll diminish the randomness of the game, though, so take this my advice with consideration if you're willing to give RNG for the system.
2. Activate the spell immediately after channeling spell is initiated, unless the primary effect like damage and spell properties (buff/debuff, interruption, disable) is on after the spell is fully channeled.
3. Just my two cents: While non-channeled spells have somewhat fixed effects and may be targeted to single enemy or multiple enemies, you can play with channeled spells' effects. Imagine when channeling spell initiated it only targets single enemy, and once the channeling is finished, the spell extends into multiple targets.
4. You're good with the choice of setting the formula for similar spells. I'd like to know more about how to make the elements obvious against certain enemies aside from enemies' physical appearances, just curious. :D
5. Better you write down the total manacost of the channeling spell when fully channeled, but keep the mana consumption per turn. That way, you don't need to worry about the seemingly low-cost high-tier spell.

@richter_h: I did think that you didn't probably mean RNG when you said that there's a chance for a character to die permanently, but I just wanted to be sure. The point about bringing a knife to a gunfight is a good one, and all in all, it shows that you've spent time thinking your system (and lore) through. :)

As for your suggestions, damage counter sounds like a good idea. Diminishing randomness of the interruption would be nice because that would make the interruptions more predictable and thus hopefully less annoying without taking away the risk completely (as lore-wise channelled magic is supposed to require a lot of concentration and is seen as very dangerous). Having the channel extend to multiple targets could be interesting, too, although there's a risk that it could accidentally spread to enemies which the player hadn't wanted to target.

Most of the elemental resistances in the game could probably be deduced from their appearance or simply with logic. Flying creatures are vulnerable to air spells because they can't avoid getting thrown around by the wind, zombies burn but don't care a lot about getting zapped with lightning and so forth. As a more obscure example, the characters will find themselves at odds with a cult of a god with the moniker 'the frigid hand of death', and I've been toying with the idea of making all the cultists resistant to ice. Things like that might be a nice way to tie lore and mechanics together.

I think that I will stick with my original system where only starting to channel a spell costs MP, though. It would be awkward if the character ran out of MP in the middle of channelling... but then again, it shouldn't be too difficult to have him stop casting if there is not enough MP, and it would even make sense story-wise because MP is actually called Energy in my game. Ah, too many options! >.>

Thanks for the feedback and the clarifications, in any case! It's always nice to get others' help in honing mechanics to perfection, heh.

@richter_h

@Punamaagi

The entire magic system in my game is based on story progression and not leveling up. (well leveling up has a little to do with it) The main characters go to a school where they have to learn magic, so as they level up instead of learning magic instantly they have to learn it through studying spell books back at school. There are also some hidden books around the world that can teach them. Especially in dungeons where there are often books to learn spells that help them solve puzzles in the dungeon a la Legend of Zelda.

The 4 main characters represent the 4 main elements, (fire, water, earth, and air) but there are actually 11 different elements. But the only way for them to learn the other 7 elements is character interaction. Through out the game the player choices in conversations will increase or decrease the relationships between the 4 girls. As they grow closer together it unlocks spells in the other elements. (so if the air and fire girl become close they both gain access to lightning magic) Allowing for minor customization of the characters by the player. (and also encouraging the player to explore the relations between the characters)

The elements reflect in battle because it runs on a very tight CTB system where if you are hit by the element you are weak to it knocks you back in the turn order, essentially risking a continuous knock back that prevents you from attacking. Also as it's important in battle to control the CTB bar different elements align to different parts of battle. Such as air being healing, and flora being debuffs, etc, so if you fully want to control when and where everyone goes in battle it's important to gain access to many different elements and spells.

deleted

RNG is still used in some part of the game, but I prefer controlled randomness in many occasions. Relying on luck too much may turn against players and myself, though, so for some critical cases like permadeath chance and rate of artifact spawns inside anomalies I have to make a workaround of it.
Looks like you have some plans ahead about element properties. Spell extension may spread onto unwanted targets, true, but in some cases it may help the party a bit about them after the collateral damage inflicted. In my previous project, this kind of effect is controlled much better by selecting spell position (since it made use of grid battle system), thus the spell spread can be directed to as many or as less as possible.

Anyway, I've worked on current project for more than a year, which three-four of the time spent on lore and settings. Unlike the previous project where magic is prominent, the current one makes use of magic in infamous way. Something like dawn of firearms and industrial revolution era in post-apocalyptic magical land. :p


More or less, the world set in era where magic is lost and machinery prevails, and the world had seen the better days.
Initially and planned in the game design notes that players may finish the game even with only two main characters and no others. However, there are several recruitables throughout the story that will support the main characters' causes. Side characters will have their place in the story and make significant impact at the near-ending, also they won't hard to miss because they exist to help the main characters in several chapters.

Also, I have to tell that in the project, money worth less than water; "Those who control the water, control the Kythera." Of course, money is still valid for transactions but in most cases the transactions will be dealt by bartering goods. Besides, in post-apocalyptic world, multipurpose currency is more viable than bank notes or coins; what's the point of taking lots of cash around if, in worst case, you need foods to survive the days in the wasteland or additional, ready-to-use bullets that may save you when bandits launched an ambush?

----

Also, my thoughts about @LxCharon 's concept:
Reminds me of Magicka in this fashion, but with the girls instead of hazy faceless wizard guys. Maybe the level has purpose of giving one permissions to use certain spells. There should be multiple degree of spells (ranging to basic to most advanced one that only Arch-mages could cast them). Also, it would be nice to place the hidden books in corresponding places; Blizzard spellbook in a hut nearby glaciers, Thunderstorm spellbook in a cavern somewhere in stormy prairie, and so on.

Implying the relationship interactions are done by talking directly to each other, it makes me wonder whether player controls only one of the four or simultaneously controls all of them. If the interactions are done by certain events, this would make more sense and there should be some places or items to trigger the interaction. This will fun to look at particular stuffs and unexpectedly trigger the events that in the end extend some of the party members' spell capabilities. ;)

The elements reflect in battle because it runs on a very tight CTB system where if you are hit by the element you are weak to it knocks you back in the turn order, essentially risking a continuous knock back that prevents you from attacking. Also as it's important in battle to control the CTB bar different elements align to different parts of battle. Such as air being healing, and flora being debuffs, etc, so if you fully want to control when and where everyone goes in battle it's important to gain access to many different elements and spells.

There will be some adjustments and balance tests in the CTB system. Unless the targeting system relies heavily on RNG, this will make particular character snuffed out in few turns thanks to their strengths and weaknesses. I find this quirk will give some strategical measures in combat, especially the combat control once you figured out the elements and patterns to use.

@Nerdboy This forum is specifically not for feedback on individual projects, which should be done either in your game thread or in Features Feedback.

Normally I would at this stage be telling you that I was merging this thread with Features Feedback, but I can't find the Mod tool for that on this new software, so I shall have to make enquiries first. So expect merging to happen later today.

[mod]Merging[/mod]

I'm currently thinking about making a game that incorporates an "automated" combat system (a la the GBA Fire Emblem's "Link Arena" mode) along with the set-designing/minmaxing/teambuilding aspect of Pokemon Showdown (a site which allows one to create a team of 'mons and duke it out with others online, with a variety of different builds and strategies at one's disposal). How would/should I go about doing this, if at all?

I hope this was the right place to put this..

I need some feedback, a good title that fits with the word Happy(or a different title to fit the story if Happy is no good), and some ideas for story and gameplay.. The engine I'll be using will be vx ace if it's any use.

It has a mix of Rune Factory, Harvest Moon, and Animal Crossing in it. It is a sim game.

The features are:

change clothes/clothing store
cook
farm
fight monsters and recruit them (get food from them) can equip a pet to journey with you
groom animals you recruited
quests from people
date chars.
marry chars.
heart system (there will be 5 hearts for ea. candidate)
choose male/female
name your char.
buy or trade items in flea market
buy/sell in reg. stores
style your home interior and exterior

What else would you want added?

@Tdotakichan As I don't play sim games, I can't comment directly on your list. However, what raises alarm bells for me is your final sentence.

Things should not be added just because people want them. They should only be added because they make sense in the game, add to the experience (sometimes 'more' just means 'overwhelming' or 'loss of focus') and you can implement it smoothly.

You already have quite a bit of variety there. Before adding anything else, ask yourself (being as precise and detailed as possible):

• What is the experience you want to give to your player? (Just saying 'fun' is not enough. What would be the measure of whether it is fun or not? What would success look like? What are the satisfaction points?)
  
• Who is your intended audience?
• How exactly does feature X support and enhance the experience you want to give? How exactly does it support other features you want to include? Could it possibly make another feature more difficult to implement?

For example, in my current project I want to give the player a number of ways that they can customize the game to suit their play style. One way I have done this is to give stat allocation points which the player can distribute as they wish. I give 4 difficulty settings (Easy, Normal, Hard, Legendary) which means that I had to find a way of giving different numbers of allocation points depending on the difficulty level chosen. Already balancing is looking very tricky. On top of that there is the question of choosing classes. There is no way that balancing could be anything other than very approximate if I had allowed that feature as well. I would have lost all possible knowledge of what the characters might be like at any particular level. A great feature, but no - except I have (for extremely good story reasons) allowed the player to choose the class of two characters, and only given them a choice between Class A and Class B for one and Class C and Class D for the other. That way this feature does not detract from other features by making balancing impossible. It also supports the story, which for me is a very important aspect of the game. I know some players will say that they wanted to be able to choose classes for all characters, but tough, they are not going to get it because it would, in my opinion, detract from the overall quality of the game.

Those are the sorts of decisions you have to make as a developer. Including something just because people want it is no guarantee that the final game is fun to play, or that you will be able to bring the, by now hugely complex, project to completion.

As for your title - just go with a working title until you are well into the game and see what emerges from your experience of the actual game.

Heya, just wanting some feedback on a feature I thought would be a only a minuscule difference from the norm.
Instead of armor increasing your defensive power and making you take less damage armor now counts as bonus health.
Think similar to how armor functions in Hearthstone. So if Harold has an iron armor chest piece equipped instead of taking 5 less damage he now instead has 50 bonus health.
This would reset every new encounter.
Thoughts?

Oh okay.

Hey everyone.

I've been trying to think about how battles and encounters will work in my game. Currently, the basic flow is:
search > random chance for a battle > (possible battle) > go to next area
What i'm having trouble is when the player returns to an already searched area. The way I see it I have two options:
1. make them search again to proceed again
2. have search as an option but let the player proceed to the next area if they've done it already

I'm thinking of option 2 for normal areas and option 1 for secret/extra areas, but i'm not too sure; any input on this would be great, thank you!

*searching can find other things like items, hidden areas, etc. not just battles if that wasnt like obvious

It would mean any health re/degeneration or non-percentage based healing is going to have its effects diminished, the more HP a character is able to stack through this system.

What is search, and how does it work?

@Milennin When the player first enters a map/screen for the first time, choices are:
[Search
Talk
Go back/Leave]
Talk is to talk to your party. Go back/leave is either return to the previous screen or leave the area. Search lets the player search for items, areas, and battles. Whether a battle happens or not, the player can find new areas to explore; since the area is new you don't know the layout so you wouldn't know where to proceed, so searching/looking around would be necessary. What can be found can change throughout the story, so it's also beneficial to search areas multiple times, even at the risk of a battle.

Um, if you need more information or clarification please let me know.

I plan on level cap starting small and it ramping up with the story. For example when you defeat an important storyline boss level cap increases. That way I plan to remove the option of overlevelling and also that would make me able to reduce the exp curves and remove the need of extensive farming that is just unneeded gameplay.

That would also give me the option to make battles harder and more challenging. So the player will not have to worry about 15 encounters to level up, instead they will worry about 5 but they will care more with winning with managing their resources. If they lose a lot of resources that means they are either underleveled or fought poorly and it is a bittersweet win because I plan to make items not so easy to have and will limit them. I do not want people to stock 99x Elixirs to roflstomp the boss right.

I also thinking of adding stackable out of combat recovery items. I do not like automatically refilled health each battle because it makes the player use its strongest attack all the time and kills the need of making decisions in dungeons.

What do you guys thing about the system?