Status Effects, Feedback, thanks

[Deleted]

I've been having trouble figuring out what to do with the status effects in my game, Paladin.

So far I have KO, Petrify, Paralysis, Stun, Sleep, Confuse, Tame, Fear, Charm, Numb, Poison 5%-10%-15%, Blessed 5%-10%-15%, various stat-up and down effects, and I will be making various element resistant-up effects for equipment. KO is dead and incapacitated, and lasts indefinitely. Petrify is turned to stone, but still counts as alive and can be damaged and healed, and lasts indefinitely. Paralysis is a stun that comes off after a while but there's no chance of early recovery. Stun, Sleep, Confuse, Tame, Fear, and Charm are all stuns that come off after a while and have a chance of early recovery. Numb is a stun that lasts for only that one round it was applied in (cancels the action of the unit for that turn basically). Poison and Blessed are poison and regen of HP. The others are what they sound like.

My dilemma is this. I liked how in Brigandine when a unit was petrified their defense increased roughly 135% or so, which makes sense and adds a little strategy because sometimes it was better to leave a unit petrified for the rest of the battle, and even better added realism to the game and battling. It seems like (since all STR, INT, DEF, AGI, and CHA affect resistances in my game) that Paralysis, Stun, Sleep, Confuse, Tame, Fear, Charm, Numb, and perhaps Poison (and opposite for Blessed) would make the unit more vulnerable to attacks, thus I should lower the stats some while they are of that status effect. The problem is that that renders the stat-ups and stat-downs less important and useful (pretty much).

I was thinking of making petrify increase STR and DEF by a lot and lower INT, AGI, and CHA some, like maybe STR-DEF Up 50% and INT-AGI-CHA Down 30%. I was thinking that Paralysis, Stun, Sleep, Confuse, Tame, Fear, Charm, Numb should all be pretty much the same and lower all stats by 5 to 15% (probably 10%). And, I was thinking I'd leave Poison as it is since it already drains health some, but perhaps do like all down 5% (and Up 5% for Blessed) or something less significant. Of course, if I find the stat-up and down effects aren't useful enough I'll increase the percent increases and decreases to make them more useful.

So basically, I'm unsure of whether I should do those stat alterations because I already have stat-up and down status effects, but I do think it adds to the realism of the game and battling some. What do you guys think I should do, specifically for each status effect I have (Petrify, Paralysis, Stun, Sleep, Confuse, Tame, Fear, Charm, Numb, Poison 5%-10%-15%, and Blessed 5%-10%-15%)?

Thank you for taking the time to read and respond to my excessively long post.

[KingSpoom]

Ah, Status effects. I had struggled with these earlier. Status effects are one area where I would actually deviate from realism and instead go for better game mechanics.

You already thought of one defining question that players should ask themselves once infected. "Should I cure this unit now or wait until later?" In the end it does add a layer of strategy. As long as players know that paralyze will wear off in a couple rounds, they might keep that character healed and use their attacks to better advance the battle.

In the end, I decided to have 10 total status effects (counting both good and bad). It's written down somewhere around here. I wanted to refrain from having a lot of effects for a couple reasons. First off, I didn't want the player to feel the need to carry around something to cure each of them. Not only would it clog my items up, there would be spells for it too. Secondly, I wanted to make my interface simple to understand, and that required a low number of symbols on the screen. Lastly, I examined what each status effect was for, and determined that some of them overlapped with eachother.

I ended up keeping 5 good effects and 5 bad effects not counting the KO status, which is shown graphically. I also have a status effect that only one party member can obtain. I weeded everything else out because it was somewhat similar to everything else. For example charm is meant to take control out of the hands of the player, and force him to attack the party. Confusion was also meant to take control out of the hands of the player, but it is put into the hands of the computer's random number generator. Thus I didn't keep one of those. All of my status effects besides Death and the special one wear off eventually.

So, in summary, do whatever would make better battle mechanics. If you think the player would keep certain status effects on a player because it somehow benefits him, you are headed in the right direction. That said, they had better be some good benefits. Even if my defense was up from being stoned, I wouldn't allow someone to not carry their own weight in battle. Maybe something like "while slowed, you have more time to think about the situation because your body doesn't react fast... so -agi, but +int"

[vespuleth]

i would say just do away w/ the stat up effects. they are the things that seem the least realistic, or possible. but i lean the other direction from king spoom, and that is a realistic system.

[Dungeon Warden]

Ultimately, it depends on what works in your game. Don't waste time on things that have little effect on game play and play test everything to see how changes effect the rest of the game. This is a question only you can answer as it affects the overall playability of your game.

Good luck.

[Draygone]

Erm, I don't know. If status effects did stuff to your stats as well as your health/movement, that could be both good or bad. It was an interesting idea with the stone, but the rest of the bad status effects sound like they all lower stats, so that would just be more the reason to heal them (when usually for something like Poison I don't bother with it until it's either a real problem or after the battle when I have an easy opportunity).

[Deleted]

Thank you everybody for responding and showing different views and stuff!!

I definitely like the idea of INT going up with Petrify, since that makes magic also weakened aginst them.

As I was looking over some of my typed-up/un-made abilities, I noticed a lot of them had damage + INT Down 10% + 25% chance of Confuse, and realized that I've already managed to work this in some indirectly. Sorry to have missed this. I did type the abilities a long time ago.

Well, I've decided I'll leave the Petrify STR-DEF-INT Up and AGI-CHA Down, but leave the rest static at 100%'s. This way, because petrify never naturally comes off, it'll sometimes be smart to leave them like that till the end of the battle (no experience from battles so no problem there) or just sometime later, and because the various stun effects do naturally come off, it'll sometimes be smart to use a character's turn to attack/etc. and have the affected character heal naturally and thus using the turn of the other character effectively instead of somewhat wasting it healing the status effect.

I think by doing that I'll have it somewhat realistic, but also better game mechanics. Thank you everyone!!

And, do you guys think status effects should always heal after x turns or make a chance of them recovering earlier? I think I have 25% chance recovery and it's definitely way to high. Perhaps 5-10% will work better.

[Doan the Nado]

5-10% sounds better, that way antidotes are more necessary.

[Deleted]

I have a question.

The stat-changing status effects are too weak, do you think it's okay to tell the player X% but make it do twice that, or even more, like 3 or 4 times that?

[Doan the Nado]

I don't think you even have to tell the player the exact %. In real life, nothing is exact, so in my opinion, it would be better to say, "lowers STR significantly", or "lowers STR slightly" rather than giving an exact %. That would take care of having to say one thing but do another for the effect to matter.

[KingSpoom]

Yeah, unless it gets complicated (by a large, large amounts of spells) then it won't matter either way. Really, knowing the percentage doesn't help any unless we also know your battle formulas as well.