author=Marrend
1) Does it make sense for that character for her gadgets to backfire that often? If so, you can probably toss them. Nobody's going to risk relying on that ability. Otherwise, I'd say revise them to work more like Edgar from FF6. His Tools always affect the enemy, but require certain items to be held in the inventory to work. However, that sounds like a lot of CONDITIONAL BRANCH work. An alternative would be to have items that teach the Gadget skills.

I can see people actually using "Threaten" as-is. The assumption with that kind of ability is that it would only really be effective on enemies that are significantly weaker than the party. Kind of like the "Let Go" option of the Suikoden series.

2) 30 sounds about right, regardless of how Blue Magic is learned. I don't know how Blue Magic is learned in this game, but my favorites were FF8 (Item drops that teach skills) and FF10 (using an ability on a creature that has a learn-able ability).

3) If you want that character to have a MP Regen ability, it seems to me that you could make it easier on yourself by making it regenerate, say, 5% of her max mp over a period of, say, 10 steps. Having a decreased number of steps as the character levels seems to indicate that there would be multiple entries on the "Status" database. Let's avoid that complication, shall we?

4) "No encounters", or "reduced encounters" is usually a favorite of this kind of RPG. I can totally see these as a parallel process that has a timer attached to it.

1) Yeah, I kinda went with the Gadgeteer skillset because of how I have her character perceived. She is a scientist after all, and I do expect some of her own stuff to backfire on her. Though that's why I also didn't implement them (nobody uses Gadgeteers in FFTA/FFTA2 anyways)...then again, it's also her only static set of skills since her MAIN skills vary depending on her levels and what weapon she has equipped. The only NON-Gadgeteer ability I gave her was Lucky 7, and that's completely based on the FFIX incarnation. Originally, she just had a random Gamble command that had a random chance to do something.

Originally Nitori was going to be like Edgar, but I thought that to be well...pretty cheap since Edgar was ridiculously cheap (and I can't really scale damage via the character's levels so I'd have to do it like I am right now with making multiple levels for the skills, and that just gets all sorts of crazy there). Hence why Nitori herself now is an Alchemist type character.

That's pretty much how I thought of Threaten to work, though trying it on stronger monsters never hurt (of course, all Notorious Monsters have a 0% chance of being actually Threatened, as well as boss-type enemies). It's just deciding on HOW it'll work is the issue at hand (and whether or not I can give EXP and money directly in battle and not have to wait until directly after battle. Probably have to do it after battle...).


2) Blue Magic in here is pretty much how it is in Genius of Sapphieros (or FFVI), in that Koishi has a % chance to learn a skill when it's used. For instance, she has like a 80% chance to learn Heal, but a 5% chance to learn Ultima.


3) Nah, it'd just be me tinkering with the common event associated with it (that's how it works after all is through a common event). And this is for the entire party at that so...

4) Well, there IS an accessory that gives you No Encounter (gotten halfway through the game), and there IS an item that halves random encounter rates (which you can actually buy at the item shop). That's actually how I have it set up is with a parallel process (it's one of the earlier common events in the database, or one of the ones directly after all of the skillbook common events). I have yet to see if they actually WORK as they're supposed to...

Oh yes, and there's a rare armor that can be gotten on Youkai Mountain for both Aya and Momiji that has Half Encounter on it, but gives no stats. Again, I haven't tested these to make sure they WORK as intended though...they should! Most areas have an encounter rate of 80 in this game, so half of that is 160. There's also an item to DOUBLE encounter rate (as if you really need that eh?)...


Of note, originally Aya was going to have Sakuya's Overworld Speed Boost passive and Sakuya was going to have a passive that increased favorable battle formations (Initiative, Side Attack, etc.) and decreased unfavorable battle formations (Pincer Attack, Back Attack). Though that would require me to make duplicates of every map in the game...I might still do that later with someone...just not sure WHO yet...

That's the problem with most Gambler-type characters in general (and probably why I never use any of them...). I'd LIKE to emulate a Gambler character, but again, there's that issue of nobody will want to use said character (hence why it would be her secondary command). The character's gimmick is basically this right now: Her skills can ONLY be used while she's equipped with a weapon, and her skills vary depending on her skills and weapon equipped. For instance, if Yumemi has the Flame Visit equipped and is still her initial level, she'll start with only Foie. But level her up 5 more levels or whatever, and she'll have access to Gifoie. Change her weapon to say, Crystal Ray, and she loses Foie and Gifoie and would instead get Barta and Rabarta. Yes, she's a Phantasy Star reference character. The Gadgeteer command (called Tinker in here) was going to be her secondary skillset that could ALWAYS be used, but be more riskier. That's the gist behind that.


Threaten pretty much is like that. It's a way to balance it out I guess since well...I don't know, I figured it'd be too much for it to give all EXP/Gold with increased item drop on the spot. Tried to make it a bit more unique. Making it usable once per battle might get a bit rough though since it's a Command Skill (using the Attack archetype, but with custom coding).


Well, again with Koishi's Blue Magic, unlike everyone else's, they never get any stronger. So that Heal spell you can learn that heals the party for 100 HP and costs 8 MP, will always do that for the entire game regardless. That's why there was so many (and yeah, several are misseable due to the fact that they can only be learned FROM specific Touhou bosses at that). There are roughly 28 fully playable characters (this includes the optionals I believe), so there's that too.


Yeah, that's one of the banes for me in this game is to make things fun and effective at the same time. That's why I haven't done many overworld field abilities at all (and maybe why some people really love Sakuya because who doesn't love double overworld walking speed?). Hell, for the most part the Attack, Defense, and Magic stats mean jack all (of course they do, it's 2K3) and most of your power doesn't even COME from the levels, it comes directly from how well you've leveled up your skills and the equipment and items you've got, as well as who you're using at what times.