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Post by christi on Jan 2, 2005 21:41:36 GMT -5
Right... so, it's about time I did this.
REAWAKENING: Began production: 8/13/2004 Amount completed: Roughly 40 minutes of playtime
"Back of the box" description: A war-torn world sees a fleeting moment of peace, and the arrival of a misanthropic young warrior seeking closure to his own troubled past, only to find that he must first face it head-on.
Characters:
Name: Vi'rok Age: 19 Description: Caustic and introspective, Virk (as he prefers to be called) often uses alcohol as a vice for his problems, and has only recently begun what he believes to be the proverbial road to recovery. He has a prominent scar on one cheek, and is hesitant to talk about its origins.
Name: Gerrod Age: 24 Description: An acclaimed warrior working as a butcher during peacetime, he claims that he was "so good at cutting up people, he thought he'd try his hand at animals." Gerrod's wittiness often comes across as somewhat insulting, despite his good intentions.
Name: Amaelia Age: 17 The daughter of the local weaponsmith, Amaelia's quick temper and seemingly irrational contempt for warriors initially makes her a bit difficult to understand. She spends her days working side-by-side with her father in the weapon shop, although her general dislike of the trade sometimes leaves her feeling like a bit of a hypocrite.
General Notes: As of right now, this game has a fairly "dark" tone to it, which I imagine will continue as the game progresses. At a certain point, I believe it will turn into more of a "survival/horror" game than a standard RPG, although I plan to incorporate both aspects for the sake of continuity.
I don't intend to reveal much more of the story than the "back of the box" would, as I have all intentions of completing and releasing the game, and don't want it to be ruined for those who play. However, I'm not setting any sort of a deadline for this completion, as I find my best game-design progress has come from only working on it when I've REALLY felt like it.
As of right now, I'm using the DBS, although I do hope to modify it to some degree. I'm having the most fun writing the dialogue for my characters and, more recently, designing well-executed cutscenes. Despite this, I plan on giving equal attention to all aspects of my game, in order to make it well-rounded enough that it will appeal to everyone in some degree.
(Oh, and a side-note on Vi'rok preferring to be called Virk... when I began designing my game, I was undecided as to what to name my hero, and left it at the default name, Virk, until I could come up with something else. Well, this went on for awhile, and it got to the point that I actually couldn't think of him as anything BUT Virk, and decided to leave it as his nickname, as a bit of a nod to the RPGM2 presets.)
Well, that went on a bit longer than I intended, but... I digress. Hm... bedtime.
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Post by Doan the Nado on Jan 3, 2005 2:59:00 GMT -5
I like what I'm hearing so far. It sounds cool that the main character will be facing his past instead of trying to save the world. I like the butcher character, he seems pretty colorful and interesting, and all of the characters have some element to them that gives them realistic depth.
I also noticed the Virk reference, but I like the way you managed to use the preset. It is a pretty good name.
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Post by vespuleth on Jan 3, 2005 13:22:19 GMT -5
this sounds fairly developed. can you tell us anything about game mechanics? like what kind of battle system will it use? what sets it apart? what sort of mini games, if any, will you have? im not a fan of the very scant information provided, but you are probably smart to not reveal everything now. if you can give any other plot details, please do.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 3, 2005 21:15:03 GMT -5
It sounds good so far, and for someone who's only played FFX (or so) this is very impressive, although you did happen to stumble on one somewhat cliche thing- the scar thing- but it's different enough from your typical 'mysterious past' cliche and could be taken in different ways (I'm assuming the antagonist gave it to him). The "back of the box" description sounds pretty typical and cliche because it's a whole game summarized into a few sentences - so I'd recommend not only telling people that as far as story goes (although the characters are still good and what not). If you don't want to reveal much plot, just reveal the first 30 minutes or so of the game (intro story) instead. I'd say since summarizing always makes a game/story sound more cliche and typical than it is, so do a detailed intro story like Doan and I have both done (and probably others). I don't want to sound cocky, but our's might be good examples to look at before (if) you do yours. my site - williampaladin.tripod.comdoan's site - click on the big banner at the top of the forums
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Post by christi on Jan 4, 2005 22:13:49 GMT -5
When I first started on my game in August, I didn't have the Internet, or any sort of frequent access to it. So, I didn't know that forums like this existed, or that they were populated with people who knew the game system so well that they would be able to answer my most perplexing programming questions... often within a few hours of posting. But, before all of that, when it was just me, my PS2, the instruction booklet, and a LOT of trial and error, I made what I thought was the beginning of a pretty cool game. I remember how proud of myself I was when I created my first event... an NPC who greeted my hero. After then NPC came a few more events, my first flag, and finally, my strategy guide came in the mail, and that's when things really started to fall into place. But, at the same time, I never imagined that anyone would ever actually play what I was creating. And then I found the RPGM2 boards... namely, THIS board... and I read about the accomplishments that some of you have made with the system (custom battle and camera systems, custom music, and VFX bosses, just to name the first few to come to mind), and although I have to admit that at first, my game started to seem pretty unimpressive in comparison, but... to be honest, I think that being here, and sharing my game progress with all of you is going to really challenge my creativity in a way that it wouldn't have been otherwise... creating a cliche, uninteresting game is the last thing that I want to do. So, with that said... I like what I'm hearing so far. It sounds cool that the main character will be facing his past instead of trying to save the world. I like the butcher character, he seems pretty colorful and interesting, and all of the characters have some element to them that gives them realistic depth. Thanks... developing my characters is what I've had the most fun with so far, and actually, probably what I've spent the most time on. this sounds fairly developed. can you tell us anything about game mechanics? like what kind of battle system will it use? what sets it apart? what sort of mini games, if any, will you have? I've spent a decent amount of time developing my story, characters, towns and events, (about forty minutes worth of playtime, currently) but I'll be honest... game mechanics is an area I really need to work on. As far as the battle system goes, I haven't really spent a lot of time with it. Looking at all the scripting involved seems a bit daunting at the moment, but then again, so did flags and variables at first. So, I can't really say for certain what type of battle system my game will use... it probably depends on how much I enjoy working with the battle system, once I decide to really sit down and learn it. Currently, all of my battles occur in the DBS, although that may change. What sets my game apart? It's hard to say at this stage, especially not having had the opportunity to play anyone else's game, aside from fu-ma, which I think I played all of about twenty minutes of. (I've watched all of the demo videos available on this site, however.) As of right now, I can say that, compared to the videos I've watched, my gameplay and dialogue both flow considerably differently. Not better or worse, by any means, but I'm thinking the fact that I haven't had a lot of experience with RPGs in general might cause my game to "feel" a little bit different... hopefully, in a good sense. As far as unique game mechanics and mini games, I haven't really touched on those yet, but I do hope to incorporate both. I'm currently in the process of developing a system that monetarily rewards players for advertising the weaponsmith's services to NPCs (the hero takes a part-time job with the weaponsmith at the beginning of the game) but I'm not for certain if it'll make the final cut, as it's a bit too reminiscent of the "advertising" portions of FFX-2. (I didn't intend for it to be, but... it sort of is.) At any rate, my initial plan is to actually build the game, bare-bones, from start to finish, and then go back to add all of the "fun" stuff... the things that will make it really original. It sounds good so far, and for someone who's only played FFX (or so) this is very impressive, although you did happen to stumble on one somewhat cliche thing- the scar thing- but it's different enough from your typical 'mysterious past' cliche and could be taken in different ways (I'm assuming the antagonist gave it to him). If you don't want to reveal much plot, just reveal the first 30 minutes or so of the game (intro story) instead. A few weeks into game development, I discovered "The Grand List of Console RPG Cliches" and was actually really disappointed to find the reference to scars being cliche, as it was already a crucial part of the plot. My hero is a pretty introspective guy, and the scar affects him on several levels... the "physical disfigurement" aspect bothers him as much as the symbolism and memories it holds. I'm planning to sit down and write a more detailed description of my plot, probably within the next week or so... I've been needing to do that anyway, and now I have a good excuse. Thanks for the feedback, everyone.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 4, 2005 22:29:47 GMT -5
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Post by KingSpoom on Jan 12, 2005 2:31:51 GMT -5
Yeah... scars were always a way to say "Hey, I've been in a difficult situation in the past, but I refused to give up". They hold a certain demeaner towards the world, but that is only on the surface. As long as the scars aren't there just to make your character look cooler, they are fine. If your character reacts differently because of them... all the better. A handful of those cliche's aren't cliche on that list, some of them have only happened once (in a game anyhow...) There are always new and acceptable ways to handle situations.
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Post by christi on Jan 22, 2005 20:32:16 GMT -5
Hm... so, I made a bit of a breakthrough this morning. Here's the story... Last night, after wandering around for about an hour or so in test-play mode, not really knowing what to work on, I decided to temporarily part ways with the amount of time I've spent working on dialogue/environment development, and try my hand at editing the battle system. I had no intentions of sitting down to write a fully-fledged CBS, nor did I feel I had the experience to, but I spent some time looking at scripts, figuring out how they worked, and tweaking a few things here and there. All small steps, of course... and I made backups of all the scripts I modified, in case I messed anything up too badly. And I've decided that, for the moment at least, writing any sort of CBS isn't exactly up my alley. I'm feeling a little more comfortable with the scripts, and I'm enjoying my DBS a bit more. (I took out some of the more superflous bits, like the part that says "Snake is ready to attack! Killer Bee is ready to attack! Snake is ready to attack!" and the whole "Victory! The enemies have been defeated!" thing.) But, at any rate, editing these scripts got me started thinking about the levelling system, and that's where this story really starts. So, without further ado, I'd like to introduce the tentative beginnings of my Custom Levelling System, hereinafter referred to as the CLS. I'm pretty enthusiastic about it, as I haven't particularly noticed anyone else working on a similar project, although if you are, I'd be interested to know how yours is set up. One of my favorite aspects of FFX was the Sphere Grid... the ability to mold your characters into magicians or fighters, healers or thieves, depending on what direction you wanted to take them. I think this also helps a bit with replayability... my second FFX playthrough (I sort of rushed it the first time), I concentrated my characters in different areas than I had the first time, and it did make for quite a difference in gameplay. So, anyway... my CLS was initially inspired by the Sphere Grid, but I'm thinking it'll be pretty different by the time I'm done with it, enough not to feel cliched, I hope. I've set the "Level Up" on each of my party members to zero. Characters still receive levels for earning experience points, but their stats don't automatically increase as they do in the DLS. Instead, levels are used like money, to "buy" strength, abilities, magic, and the like. This will allow more flexibility for the player to modify their characters in the way they choose. I had a bit of a decision to make here; as I could have taken this one of two ways. My initial idea was to set up a "store" type menu, provide the player with a menu full of potentially available abilities, and let them "buy" whichever they chose. Jared, being the ever-so-intelligent guy that he is, however, had a few issues with this idea: Jared: So, what's going to stop someone from spending all of their levels on strength, and totally throwing off your balance? Me: [Disappointed.] Oh... I didn't want to do anything like the Sphere Grid at first, as I didn't even really think it was possible. But, I started thinking about it, and realized that it might just be the way to go. I've actually implemented the CLS in my game, and although it's far from completion, it works. I've run into a few bugs, and I'm sure I'll run into more, but I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. As of right now, the ability to Upgrade can only be found at Save Points. Choosing Upgrade takes you to a maze/puzzle-like dungeon adorned with various animal icons on the floor. If you step on one of these icons, and you have more than one Level, you will be presented with the option to Upgrade in one of two areas, bypass the icon entirely, or exit the dungeon and return to the game. As of right now, this is how it's set up: Snake: +Defense +Attack Bat +Max MP + Luck Shark +Max HP +Strength Hawk +Intelligence +Agility One thing that I feel makes it unique is, for example, if you step on the Shark icon, and choose to Upgrade your Max HP, the icon then becomes inactive. You can't choose both; you have to decide between the two. (Of course, you'll eventually come to another Shark icon and be able to Upgrade your Strength, if you so decide.) I haven't really decided, though, if I like making the player choose between two related attributes (Max HP and Strength, for example) or if maybe I should make them entirely different (like Max MP and Attack). Any opinions there? Well, there's my mega-post about my CLS... I've got a lot of work to do, but I'm happy to have at least a semi-unique aspect to my game. (I still need to post more of my storyline... I really will do that someday.)
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Post by Dungeon Warden on Jan 22, 2005 23:02:21 GMT -5
Your animal icon idea sounds good. It would be hard to play test every possible combination but you may need to to make sure a character can't become too powerful. If the player is force to pick between two similar abilities, this will be reduced somewhat. Of course, there is the risk that someone will make bad choices and make a useless character. You need to make sure no matter what choices people make, their character will have a chance to survive.
Good luck with your game.
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Post by Doan the Nado on Jan 23, 2005 1:41:11 GMT -5
I, too, like your "sphere grid" system. That was one of the things that I liked most about FFX, too (probably the thing I liked most), so if you can implement it well, I would love it.
I don't know which is better: related stats or different ones. By one token, different ones would allow you to customize your character the way you wanted, but it would also allow for potentially super-powerful characters. Related stats would do the opposite, but would still leave the player feeling like they have a say in the leveling process.
My only real suggestion is to test play a lot, and to try to offer a mix. Perhaps you could increase the number of different animal icons (up to something like 16, perhaps?) so that you could offer some that have similar choices and some that have different ones. You could also make some have more than 2 choices.
The more choices, the better, as long as you can ensure in test play that everything remains balanced. I wouldn't worry too much about weak characters, however, because as long as you make all stats important, it won't make too much difference. In addition, if someone does turn out to be weak, they can battle to level up again and increase in something different, right?
Anyways, I like how this is sounding, and I wish you luck in implementing it.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 23, 2005 8:46:53 GMT -5
Doan is definitely right about the stats being equally important then the characters will deal. I found that to be the case too, and completely re-did all the default battle formulas ( doansdomain.proboards27.com/index.cgi?board=Help&action=display&thread=1103522740&start=0 ). My thoughts on character stat-balancing'd be like this: Strongest Fighter = STR 2, INT 1 Strongest Mage = STR 1, INT 2 Hybrid Mage-Fighter = STR 1.6, INT 1.6 Then just take variations of each, like adding and subtracting .1 or so to each so you get a lot of in betweens. This tends to work pretty well for balancing offensive power. Others than that it gets pretty tough, but the best system I found was to start with 15 on all 5 stats than make everyone have an extra 2 points to put on (and taking 1 off allowed for 1 more extra to be put on). I think you'll need to give everyone or every group of character types their own grids to work on (like FFX did). That sounds good. Doan's right that making more tiles will help the customization/control of both you and the player. Good luck. Oh, the battle system's a bitch to fix up, but this topic may help: doansdomain.proboards27.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=Help&thread=1103522740&start=0 . Edit: Also, once you're done it'll be easy to make it a command in a custom menu or the default menu, it's just a little work before warping to the grids.
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Post by christi on Jan 23, 2005 10:09:24 GMT -5
Hey, thanks for the feedback. I'll keep that all in mind as I'm designing. Right now, the system's still pretty malleable; that's what I wanted to start getting feedback before I got too far, as it would be a lot less time-consuming to implement any major changes I might decide to make.
Having more than four animal icons is a good idea; the only problem being that the animal icons I'm using are tiles from the dungeon editor, and there are only four provided. I like the idea of the player knowing that if they're coming up on a Snake tile, for example, they'll be able to increase their Defense and Attack... and I'm afraid if I switched that around each time, it'd frustrate/confuse the player.
What I might be able to do is keep the four animal tiles the way that they are, but implement a "question mark" type tile every once in awhile, (like, every eighth tile or so... ) which would provide two random options, instead of the traditional ones. That might work to keep things balanced a little bit more.
Another change I made last night is the implementation of talismans into the system. There are four types of talismans available, Snake, Shark, Hawk, and Bat, each corresponding with a tile, which are pretty readily available throughout the game. Each tile in the maze can be activated, for the cost of one level and one corresponding talisman, or can be bypassed completely for the cost of one level. (I was just going to make each tile cost a level, but I wanted to make the "bypass" feature available, and didn't think anyone would want to spend a level to bypass a tile, when they could have it activated for the same cost, if that makes sense.)
I also really like the idea of a different board for each character that provided tiles and abilities somewhat related to their character type, and had originally planned on doing that (as of right now, there are only three party members in my game, so it wouldn't be that bad) but here's my only issue with that:
I originally had designed a custom menu activated by the square button which warped the player to the Upgrade board (I really need to come up with a good name for it.) I really liked the way it worked, but I couldn't figure out how to get the player to warp back after that. I had a flag set up where if the player was on the Upgrade board, and they pressed the square button menu, it would say "Back" instead of "Upgrade," but I couldn't figure out how to take the player back to where they came from. Because, technically, with the menu, they could warp to the Upgrade board from literally anywhere in the world, and I didn't know how set up a condition that would let them warp back to wherever it was that they came from. If it's possible, and anyone could help me with that, that would be really appreciated.
Now, the problem with multiple boards lies here: I may not be setting this up in the most optimal way, but here's how it's working. I decided that, to combat the fact that I didn't know how to return the character to an unknown warp point, I set it up to where you can only upgrade your character at save points. This works, because I can keep track of which save point the character came from with a flag, and set up a page condition for each possible save point the character could have warped from that would return them to the proper save point. Now, there are probably going to only be six save points in my game (the entire game takes place on three small islands, so that should be about right, and I plan on offering a "save game" option before bosses.) But... I also need an event for each tile, and on each tile, you're provided the option to go "back to the main game." Even if I only have forty Upgrade tiles on the Upgrade board, the way it's set up right now, I need a duplicate script of each tile for every possible save point. So, 40x6=240 scripts. If I set up a separate board for all three characters, 240x3=720. Each script, as of right now, takes up about 800 in memory... 720x800=576,000. My memory would basically be eaten... not to mention my flags!
Yeah, so writing this all out is making me realize that I'm probably going about this in a really bad way... basically, all I really need is insight into how to check where the player is coming from when he warps to the board from a menu, and how to get him to return to that point. If I did that, it would eliminate the need for six scripts per tile, save me a LOT of memory, and offer the player the ability to warp to the Upgrade board at any point, which is what I wanted from the beginning.
Now, I'm still not sure about a board for each character... one thing I sort of liked about having them all on the same board is that the exact same options were available to each of them, and it was up to the character how they upgraded them. Even in FFX, come to think of it, everyone was on the same Sphere Grid; they just started out in different parts of it. I actually might be able to do that... start the three characters out on different sections of the board, and give them the ability to go wherever they wanted after their "section" was completed. That'd still save a lot on memory and flags.
Wow... I always end up writing the most massive posts about things like this, but I guess I just want to make sure I explain everything as well as I can... hopefully, if you read all that, I was able to make my ideas clear.
As always, thanks for any help you might be able to give me! I guess my most important question is, is it possible to check where a player warps from (it could be ANYWHERE in my game if I give them the option in a menu) and then return them to that exact point upon completion of their Upgrade? That would help my project out a lot, and... to be honest, I'm going to need a pretty detailed explanation of how to do this, if it's possible, because I've never really done anything like it.
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Post by KingSpoom on Jan 23, 2005 12:41:39 GMT -5
I haven't looked at rpgm2 in a while, and I don't have the option to... but isn't there a "teleport/warp anchor" command? You would set the anchor, teleport them, and them teleport them to the anchor when they were done.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 23, 2005 15:43:38 GMT -5
All you need to do is put the Set Return (or something like 'Return', should be in the same options as Set Teleport), and put a Warp Return after. This can also be used for flying airships, as thelastbigfall first discovered a while ago. Just hit start on those commands and it should be fairly obvious what they do. Good luck.
Even though in FFX they were all on the same sphere grid, they were sectioned off into their own sections and except for Kimahri couldn't really get out of there's and into another until the very end of the game (unless the player did some HEFTY random battling).
What I'd recommend is perhaps this:
Many people make classes in games that specialize in one thing or another, whether each character is a class of their own (like FFX Lulu-black mage, Yuna-white mage, etc.), or a class system in which characters can switch between classes. What you can do is make one giant sphere grid with lots of sections basically representing various classes, where the player can switch characters between each section and create characters with different combinations of stats and moves (similar to FFX, but at numerous parts you let the player switch a character off of the 'thief' part and into the 'warrior' part, etc.). This way too, each character doesn't have to have their own grid or designated portion of the grid (like FFX), but could rather come with different combinations of stats and abilities (and locations on the grid). Of course, this is an assload of work, so good luck. Keeping track of numerous characters at once will be tough and bothersome.
Various different stat-ability class types are:
Thief/Ninja - high speed, decent otherwise Warrior/Knight - better than decent speed and strength, decent otherwise Berserker/Barbarian - high strength, decent otherwise Preist/Cleric - high magic, decent otherwise Wizard/Sorcerer - high magic, decent otherwise
basically, those are the different types you need, so at minimum you can make it with only 5 parts to the grid (I'd say).
Physical abilities pretty much only differ on weapon type and magical abilities pretty much only differ on element type. Assist moves vary more, but vary on status effects mostly.
Planning out the locations of things on the grid on paper/in your mind will help a ton to making things positioned well. Good luck.
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Post by Dungeon Warden on Jan 23, 2005 15:46:52 GMT -5
Actually, the command is called escape, and it's what Doan is using to warp players between his Custom menu screen dungeon and whereever the player pressed []. When the player presses [], have one of the first commands be Set Escape point. In your Upgrade Board, when the player chooses to leave, use the escape command to warp them back tp the place they pressed the [] button at. That should save you a lot of scripting and flags. The one problem I see with this (and Doan's is going to have this problem too) is that you can't use Escape to leave dungeons as it was designed, since pressing [] would remove the escape set point and replace it with the party's current position. If players are limited in where they can save, it is nice to have a command to get back to a save point quickly. I suppose you could use Warp to last save point - just know what this warps the party to the last place they saved not to the last save point they touched.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 23, 2005 15:59:04 GMT -5
One thing I'd like to mention about this, too, that I forgot in the post above is this:
Making it only at save points may be better. I say this because (DW's mentioned this) normally as a player goes through a dungeon, normal battles keep getting easier and easier as the player strengthens and enemies stay the same, but with this save point only thing the party members would stay static till right before the boss (the save point at the end of the dungeon), but could also return to the entrance save point if they needed to get stronger. This adds a new dimension to leveling/strengthening and stops the player from doing this after every few battles (which after a while got tedious in FFX for me, when they were set paths most of the time any ways). Having saves half-or-so way through wouldn't be a problem either, as from that point on there could be newer and harder enemies. Just something to think about. Warping to the grid and back from a save point should be handled the same way as from anywhere though.
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Post by christi on Jan 24, 2005 21:26:12 GMT -5
I've been playing with the Upgrade Board for a couple of days, and I think I have it figured out.
Set Escape/Escape was exactly what I was looking for. I'd actually attempted to use it for that purpose, but was apparently implementing it incorrectly.
As of right now, I've decided to make the Upgrade option available only at save points. Although technically, the Set Escape command would allow me to accurately return the player to wherever he decided to Upgrade from, I think William has a good point in his post above.
I may change my mind about this later; but for now, all three party members will be using the same board. They will each start out in a section containing upgrades and abilities related to their character. They will be able to choose to either complete some or all of the branches of their section, or take the more straight and narrow path to another party member's section. I think that should add a pretty good degree of customizability; I'll do my best to ensure that no matter what path a character takes, they'll get worthwhile upgrades.
The way the board is set up right now is very maze-like, the path is one tile wide with walls on either side. Each tile contains an upgrade of some sort, be it one of the animal tiles, or an ability tile. Once a player steps on a tile, he will be presented the option to upgrade (for one level and one talisman) or bypass (for one level.) Bypass would be useful if the tile related to magic, for example, and you knew for sure that you didn't want your character to become more proficient in magic. Once a tile is activated or bypassed, it becomes inactive. However, players are able to "backtrack" on inactive tiles with no level charge, and although they wouldn't be able to activate "bypassed" tiles, they could return to a branch they hadn't taken at all. Hopefully that makes sense... it'd be a lot easier to draw a picture, but... oh well.
At any rate, it's working nicely, and I'm thinking this is going to be a pretty big part of my game, so yeah... I'm psyched about it.
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Post by Doan the Nado on Jan 24, 2005 21:39:24 GMT -5
This all sounds pretty awesome, but I hope that levels are common in your game as they were in FFX, or else it will be very difficult to get very far in your upgrade maze.
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Post by vespuleth on Jan 24, 2005 21:39:48 GMT -5
two questions:
will accepting a magic skill have any detrimental affects?
are all classes necessary to the game?
i can think alot of people will head straight to a specific section (usually straight magic users, or straight tanks) if having one person of another proficiency is unnecessary. i strongly suggest you make it so that if a player does not have a certain class, they cannot proceed in the game. this can be achieved by making monsters only sensitive to magic or physical attack, having puzzles that need certain spells or strength attributes to complete, and so forth.
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Post by Doan the Nado on Jan 24, 2005 21:42:01 GMT -5
I think she was saying that if you skip over a spot, it will "waste" a level. I think that's a little too punitive (perhaps skip over 2 spots would be a little better), but it does keep the player from going directly to a certain section of the Upgrade Maze.
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Post by vespuleth on Jan 24, 2005 21:48:25 GMT -5
what i meant by the first question, is something like the materia of ff7, where equipping magic materia would lower your hp or strength by a certain percent.
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Post by Doan the Nado on Jan 24, 2005 21:50:20 GMT -5
Sorry to talk for you christi... but she was saying that this is her leveling system, so it wouldn't really make sense to lower some stats while raising others, or the character would not increase in overall skill. Although it would be possible to increase some a lot at the detriment of others. That is an idea that I kind of like, but it could also lead to very unbalanced characters.
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Post by vespuleth on Jan 24, 2005 21:53:59 GMT -5
see, i thought it would lead to very balanced characters. it would keep from munchkining, because you couldnt have a strong person that also knew every spell. youd have to choose which as more important to you.
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Post by christi on Jan 24, 2005 22:04:43 GMT -5
Doan: I do plan on making levels fairly easy to come by. Right now, "typical" enemies are worth two experience points, and it'll probably take six or eight experience points to level. So, there's a possiblity to level after one battle (if there are three or four enemies.)
Ves: Accepting a magic skill would not necessarily be detrimental, but if the party member's magic ability is weak, the player might not find it necessary to teach them the ability. Basically, I just want to give options, and not force a party member to learn magic if the player doesn't think it necessary.
Each of my three party members represents a specific class... Warrior, Healer/Mage, and Thief. Each member's abilities in these areas will be absolutely necessary in different aspects of the game. However, the Healer will be able to heal at the beginning of the game, and the Thief will be able to steal. More powerful Healing/Stealing abilities will probably become available if the player chooses to activate them, but the "default" spells will always be there. I don't think I'll have any sort of "class changing," by which I mean the Healer will always be a Healer, but if a player wants her to become a good fighter as well, they can take her over to the Warrior's side of the board.
That's how I've got it planned for now, anyway...
(Oh... and regarding the other posts that have been made since I began writing this... )
I chose to make the "bypass" option cost a level as a bit of a deterrant from bypassing at all... sort of as a preventative, as you guys have been saying, from being able to create very weak characters. It does seem a little steep, but it's also much easier to script it this way. (I don't mean to sound lazy, but I'm worried that this is going to eat up a lot of my flags/memory as it is.)
And no, I don't plan on lowering other abilities when new abilities are gained.
(Although I have already designed the system and board, I'm leaving it pretty open-ended for now, as I'm taking into consideration everyone's suggestions. I know the whole thing's a bit of an "out there" idea, but I really want it to work well, and to be something most people will like and find unique.)
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Post by vespuleth on Jan 24, 2005 22:20:55 GMT -5
my thought is this:
if it doesnt hurt them any to accept a magic , and it does hurt them not to (they lose a level, and have nothing to show for it), what stops them from accepting the magic . having a weak magic l is not a reason to skip accepting it, but more of a reason to accept it. does that make sense?
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