Plot and Character Feedback

I wanted to make a game about a brother and sister displaced to a city do to a near world ending event. The story will focus around the 2 of them trying to work their way out of the slums into a better life. This will take place in a city but there will be dungeons to explore. I came up with a system but i'm not sure how it will work. The game is open world "within the city". You can do quests and other tasks that get you an item that is reflective of your worth to the kingdom. The more of these items the better people think you are. The main story points will unlock in a tier system so big story point 1 will unlock at say 10, the next one at 15 etc. I'm unsure if this is the best way to go. I just wanted some input on this idea.

The general idea is nice. It kinda remember me of Legend of Mana, from Playstation One. It follows an idea of quests unlocking new quests until the end of the game. But you can finish the game without finishing all the quests.

I also am writing the game so that every NPC will have a quest or be part of one. They will have normal "this sucks" or "how are you" text until you get flagged for the quest then they will give up the goods. Also I want set things up so that the end of the game will give you more options depending on what and how many quests you do. I've been seeing a lot of open world type games, I love them myself but I don't know how other people fell about them.

I think this idea is good but depending on how it's handled can be very bad. I will explain myself:

The first game that came to my mind was Tales of Xillia 2. In this game your character gets into a huge debt and can't advance the story/unlock new areas until you reach a certain quote of money returned. Since the main story was quite linear it felt like the game was suddenly using brakes every time you had to stop to make more side quests or grind to win more money in order to advance. In my opinion, with a system of completing quests to reach a certain number of points there is no way around like easing the difficulty level of the combat, so unless the story is very engaging or the side quests have some relation with the main quest, it can be a deal-breaker for some players. While it "was" a limited open world for those areas that you had unlocked, it didn't feel free at all.

On the other hand, I think Digimon Cyber Sleuth had something similar but handled it much better (I played it a while back so it might not be 100% accurate): as I remember, you had to help a detective through the main story (also linear) and at some points you had to complete a bunch of side quests to win a certain amount of detective points. While you had maybe 5-6 optional quests, 1 or 2 were highlighted in red, and as long as you did those you could advance the story even if you didn't finish them all. Since the quests were short and some of them brought back some recurring NPC (with mini-tiny side plots), I liked to do them all even if I didn't "need" to, and as a plus side the more detective points you won, the more advantages you got.

All in all, I think a system like this can work if you reward the player that makes all of the optional side quests instead of punishing the player that wants to advance the story but can't continuously, or engaging the player with interesting side quests, while trying to find a good balance to make the player feel the progress of your characters in a tough world.

The idea is to use the side quests to world build but also change the story's main story. Sometimes you will get extra loot and money when people you've helped come into the story when they otherwise would be busy dealing with their own life.

Was this directed to my post or the previous one?

'General Discussion' is specifically not for getting feedback on individual games, but for looking at broad issues of game making in general.

I can either merge this with 'Plot and Character Feedback', or - if you think you've had enough advice - close it. Which would you like?

You can put it in the plot area.

@FAGC54 I just asked. Anyone may contribute for an answer since it is not directed to anything in particular.

@fireflyege I would start by making the assassin female (and not too skanky either). That in itself would set her apart from 95% of other assassins.
If you want the backstory to be really unique, you have to steer away from lone wolf characters (does your assassin have a best friend?), antiheroes (she isnt bothered by the ethical dilemmas of killing. Why not?); not to mention shadowy organizations manipulating history from behind the scenes.
One option is to go the paranormal route. Maybe your assassin isnt human but a vampire who kills because she's hungry, and if people want to pay her for that, why not?
You could develop an intriguing story with an assassin who has good intentions. Stephen King has a novel (cant remember which) in which the protagonist tries to assassinate the president because he is rightly convinced that the president is evil. Maybe your assassin's target is a monster or monsters who have disguised themselves as human, and only she knows the truth?
These are just ideas, and they have been done before, but more often in books than video games. Fleshing out a character sketch is a good first step to developing an interesting backstory. Hope this helps!

@Failivrin well I am actually going to the direction of vampire assassin. She seems like an elegant lady before she draws the blade or the claws, her two weapon types. She is a daughter of a vampire lord, and so she grown up in manners which she prefers to reflect with her job. She is also able to conceal her true form, disguising her skin color and making her wings smaller while maintaining her red eyes.

I am working about her being ethical as well, most of you would remember Tei'jal from Aveyond Series. She is good and well about taunting you with the fact she will eat you but she never eats people.

She is a vampire assassin that feasted on the blood of the people she killed, and she is a very infamous and expensive assassin but that was not always the case. Not too long after she stepped into daylight which weakens her, she got attacked and found by a wandering healer and after a short while the two girls lived together. The healer did not want her to be an assassin but she knew her bloodthirst should be sated. They lived in a village, the healer working as a herbalist and the vampress disguised herself as a travelling merchant until the healer got married. The guy she married was a lieutenant, and when she was pregnant he was killed in a war. The healer then got sick by a plagued patient. The baby was close to birth and both were dying. The vampress made an effort to save the healer but the healer begged her to save the baby, leaving her to the afterlife. The vampress did so with a broken heart but she promised to take care of the baby as if she never left.

You are able to visit her since vampires do not age, there has been 20 years since that event and the girl can fend for herself. She is kinda fanatical about hiding her identity though and she will most likely leave no survivors if people find out how is she making money to care for the girl and sate her thirst and that is actually how the party will meet her.

She also have a backstory with her own vampire family but I will not be giving any more spoilers.

@fireflyege Sounds like you've got a good thing going. Best of luck!

Alright, my project is gonna be more of an old-school and basic JRPG.

It's about a warrior named Esmond, a member of the King's Forces who is defeated by an orc during an invasion on his village.
He moves to the Town of Igram where, a month later, roaming the streets, someone tells him why he is there, and he replies saying how he was defeated and that he was working for the King. The villager he talks to tells him to talk to the Mage Oron, who lives in the same town about the attacks. The mage says that the attacks are in control by the Mighty Warrior, Asaroth, who stole the mage's staff and casted a force field around his island and split the staff into 8 pieces, and sent them to locations around the kingdom. Esmond heads off out of town to locate the pieces, with the help of others.

What do you guys think? Note that I'm not an RPG person, and more of an Action Man, so I don't know how to do deep plots and that stuff.

Hi. I made some info on a King of a group of Humans in my idea for a project.

King Sinoy of Neri:

does this seem like a legit character? what other aspects about his past should I maybe include?

my game is just some variant of an rpg, no idea really what category of rpg, likely not action. I love immersion, and so my idea for making a game is quite involved.

I chose the colors for this npc based off the history of the Kowa. red for their wars, white for the divine origins earlier on, and gold for their alliances. they are sort of the cultural colors of the people.

So I wanted my characters to have distinct playstyles as far as you know, here are my current ideas. Everyone has 100 MP and 100 TP by the way.

-BARD:
Bard has 5 songs, one for each stat except luck. The thing is, those buffs only last 3 turns so the Bard cannot apply all of them and sustain it if she only casts the buffs. The real candy comes from Crescendo, which extends all the buffs to their orginal duration so when the Bard casts a buff, crescendo and another buff it can start to maintain buffs but at the start of the battle she must choose which buffs are more important. For characters that build up their power over time such as the Magus will benefit from a quick defensive song rush but the Witch may enjoy the speed early because of the debuffs she can do. She excels in AoE support. Bard has the lowest health of all characters (1400 at level 99 while even Mage has 2100) but has %50 less target rate. Single target enemies make bard comfortable but those with AoE attacks counter the bard. Bard can transfer its TP to allies.

-WITCH:
Witch passively loses %15 of her current health each turn to gain 20 mana. When she spends mana, she gains TP equal to whatever mana she spends with that ability. For example 35 TP is gained from a spell that costs 35 mana. She has 2 abilities, Life Tap and Drain Essence. Life Tap ignores defense and drains health from her enemy, and Drain Essence drains less but is an AoE ability. She uses her mana to attack people or debuffs that affect every stat except luck. When she places some debuffs, she has a spell that she can use: Impending Doom. Impending Doom deals damage to an enemy, renews the debuffs and then spreads them to the enemy party. She excels in AoE impairment.

-MAGITECH:
Magitech's TP is only used for attacking and MP is used only for recovery. Magitech is also a decent tank and gains buffs based on how much TP he has. When his TP is below 50, he gains %25 more damage with his bullet-type attacks and bullet attacks grant TP. When his TP is above 50, he gains %25 more damage with laser attacks but his laser attacks consume TP. When his MP is low, he can restore his mana over time via Energize, and can draw threat with his Spotlight ability. His defining heal ability, Nanobots is an AoE HoT that is actually pitiful by itself but enhances other heals. Magitech is a jack of all trades, and rewards plays if you use the right thing at the right time. It is supposed to heal people, energize itself with a mana HoT and while mana is regenerating, shifting back to attack. Magitech also has the ability to scan enemies. Even though Magitech is a jack of all trades, its unique ability is using items %20 more effectively, and spells that uses items as a cost.

-RANGER:
Ranger has a vast variety of arrow based attacks and nature based support spells mainly involving minor HoT effects and team support. Ranger's arrow attacks are costless and they build TP, but they have considerable cooldowns. When her TP reaches 100, her attack is transformed into Super Snipe, which is a guaranteed critical nuke that deals more damage with a good attack and agility ratio based on her critical chance, and also deals more damage the weaker the enemy is. She does not deal that much damage without this, and for that reason she excels in burst damage and team support. Ranger can also scan enemies and is the only character that can give dodge buffs.

-TEMPLAR:
Templar is a good tank which can draw aggro and heal depending on the Templar's own health, but also has attacks that scale with some of the enemy's own magic. Templar's unique ability is Auras. It has one physical damage aura, 1 fire AoE aura, 1 heal aura and 1 mana aura. Shifting auras put all auras into a 3 turn cooldown, but changing auras do not consume turns. Templar can absorb attacks from allies to itself, and when its TP reaches 100, Templar can reduce the damage he takes by %30, but takes the stored damage over 3 turns. Templar's passive ability heals him over time based on his defenses.

So my question is, are they unique enough? Keep in mind that I aim for strategic decisions so it needed to be kinda complex. I even cap level with story progresss so overleveling is prevented.

Well i do like the idea of all of these classes but it would be helpful to know what your enemy's will be and combat style for example if they use any type of plugin that would give the adaptive armor or is magic used with mana and TP the same element and are enemy's resistant to fire from the Templar but weak to mana but i do love the unique classes

MP is widely used for spells.

TP is used for specials that include 3 turn trance abilities, 1 turn super attacks like Ranger's Super Snipe, Witch's life drain at will or the Magitech's case. Those who use trances do not use TP for many things while those who does not have a trance use TP frequently, typically for managing their resources like Magitech and Witch. The only person that uses TP but also has a trance is the Diviner, which is the healer. It has an instant healing spell that use TP but using TP either delays her stance or shortens the duration of it.

About the enemies they each have different things. Some of the enemies are weak to fire and that includes the Templar's Conflagrant Aura. About mana, which is the Arcane element, no one is weak nor resistant to it because or lore reasons. Due to that Arcane spells have more scaling. None of the spells have base damage in my game.

I'm looking for some feedback on this story idea I have. The game follows the player character who discovers that they have super powers. Eager to put them to good use, you decide to join Heroes Incorporated, an organization that dispatches talented Heroes across the world to fight crime and bring Justice.

However, after joining the organization, you find out the dark truth - the corporation is run by two evil villains that are cloning and controlling Heroes to amass an army. It turns out all of your favorite Heroes are actually copies of the real ones, whose Powers have been taken away.

Before they're about to turn you into one of their soldiers, a group of people break in to rescue you. It turns out that these people are the original Heroes, and together you hatch your plan to take down Heroes Inc, and truly save the world.

@GoodSelf I like that premise - the heroes being initially hoodwinked and their good intentions subverted. Maybe have at least one 'mission' they go on where they think they have done a good deed, but in fact have furthered the plans of the baddies. That will give some further motivation for their desire to get rid of the baddies. It makes it more personal.

@fireflyege I don't see much in the way of plot or character development there, which is the emphasis of this thread. It seems to be more about mechanics - in which case perhaps Features Feedback would be a better place for the discussion.

@Kes I actually made my thread somewhere else but it was put here. I also fail to see how my post belongs to this thread, it was solely about the gameplay.