• Add Review
  • Subscribe
  • Nominate
  • Submit Media
  • RSS

Stats, Stories, and Accessibility

  • Red_Nova
  • 04/02/2016 04:04 PM
  • 3388 views
Once again, I'd like to sincerely apologize for taking down the demo. I'm usually good about keeping it up for those that want to play it. I hope by the end of this blog, you understand a little more why I did.

First off, I'm starting to think my self-set deadline for later this month may be stretching it for two reasons: The first is that I've decided to take care of ALL the art at once, meaning I'm gonna sketch, ink, and color all the character portraits instead of doing it on an "as needed" basis to help with consistency and to prevent from having to switch thought processes too many times during development (shoutouts to Housekeeping for unintentionally teaching me that in his latest blog!). Just as a disclaimer, the art you see in the screenshots isn't the final art. Just their lines and flat colors. I had to put together the incomplete art for a presentation to my game design professor yesterday.

The second is that replaying the entire game for the first time after Strawman and the Swap Event made me realize there were a few fundamental mistakes the game made, leading to a change of heart about the approach to gameplay. So a lot of things have been/will be completely overhauled.

Like, a lot of things.

As in, this is hardly the same game anymore.

So what exactly did I have a change of heart about? Well, I think it can mostly be summed up in this one shot of the Camp Menu. Specifically, take a close look at Amalie:


Wut. What happened to Amalie? She got swole?!

Change #1: Conveyance Through Gameplay

The stats of every character have been revamped to fit more into their personalities.

Somewhere along the development process, I got so engrossed in making a game that I actually forgot why I enjoy making games in the first place: to tell a story supported by gameplay as opposed to a game with a story slapped on it. Amalie was always supposed to start out at a higher level than Aeyr and Mia, but take her into battle and she can get slaughtered just as easily as either of them. She's an experienced Paladin who is used to moving on her own, so having this situation occur was unacceptable to me.

So her initial level is now 16, as opposed to 8 in the old demo.

Amalie can now endure a lot more damage than anyone else in the party, and so her role as the party's tank will be that much more vital, as both enemies and Amalie's Drive costs have been rebalanced to accommodate her newfound strength.

This change serves two major purposes: The first one is to establish Amalie as a parallel character to give you a sense of how strong you will become later in the game after you level up some, and considering Amalie's naturally weak physical capabilities mean that once Aeyr, Mia, and the rest of the human cast hit that level, they'll be decently stronger than her.

So does this mean that the prologue is now stupidly easy and you can breeze through it? Absolutely not! Try to spam Amalie's attack despite having more Strength than any other party member will still get you killed, as the weaknesses and resistances of enemies still come into play.

And that's the second purpose the change serves: It delivers the subtle message to players that you cannot win with levels alone. You need to understand the party member's abilities and plan your strategy around them.

The challenge of the original demo is still there, however, you are given some extra leeway to make small mistakes without being nearly wiped out or use a precious First Aid Kit. This leads into what I've now come to see as PotF biggest hurdle:

Change #2: Accessibility

*sigh*

I'm sorry.

Really, I am.

You all kept telling me to do it, and I should have listened. For that, I can never apologize enough. However, I hope this next screenshot will be worth more than a thousand "I'm sorry" messages that I would have otherwise written.

Are you ready?

Brace yourselves, people. Here it is:



*Squints* Is that... wait... is that an ACTUAL TUTORIAL MESSAGE?! Nova finally learned how to make a tutorial?!!!??!?! OH MAI GAAAAAAAAAAAAAWD!!!

This is no belated April Fools joke. This is actually happening. In addition to the new stat overhaul allowing for more tolerance of mistakes, there will now be more tutorial points that flat out tell you how the damn game works.

A temporary immersion break is infinitely more acceptable than overly frustrating and confusing players, potentially leading to them giving up before the game really begins.

Prayer of the Faithless is still going to be a tough challenge. However, it's on me to make sure players know exactly what they're doing before ramping up that challenge. Despite all the complaints I've gotten about not knowing how certain mechanics work, I kept trying to skirt the problem by adding in workaround solutions to try and teach players.

I'm still gonna try to subtly teach players as many mechanics as I can, but I realize that sometimes you just need to have a big black box tell you "Hey, press this key to do this" to save yourself precious time and frustration.

Do you want me to orz? 'Cause I'll orz. I'll orz for so long that birds can build a nest on my head and raise their young. I'll orz for so long that my hands and knees will fuse with the earth, turning me into a human table. I'll orz for so long you would think I was a monk at a temple.

Change #3: Damage Types

Originally there were two basic types of damage. The first one was Physical, which is the attacker's Strength minus the target's Armor minus the target's Stamina. The second one was Magic, which was the attacker's Magic minus the target's Psyche that ignores SP.

There is now a third damage type: Technique. This is similar to the Physical formula, but it draws upon the attacker's Tech stat, which is the new name for the Magic stat as it now accounts for more than just magic, rather than Strength.

The biggest reason why this change was added was to give more use to the Magic stat for mostly non-magic characters like Mia, as well as allow more flexibility in the damage calculations and options players will have during battle.



In addition, all attack items now follow the Tech formula instead of Physical, while still ignoring enemy SP. Basic attacks and Drives still follow the Strength formula.

As an example, Mia, whose new stats turn her into a glass cannon with very high Strength and Tech but low Armor and Psyche, can switch between Physical and Technique abilities depending on the situation. In her Saboteur stance, her Burst Drives all follow the Tech formula. When she switches to Rush stance, her Burst Drives use the Physical formula. However, she can still make use of the Tech stat by chucking an item if she can finish off an enemy with one last big damage but doesn't have enough Stamina to use an ability.

So there we go. There's my thoughts on the new game's design philosophy. I would go into more about the character's new stats, but I think we've gone on long enough as it is. I hope you understand better now why the demo was taken down.

For those that have played the demo: Can you think of any mechanic that you felt wasn't explained very well due to lack of information? I'll listen this time, I promise.

orz

Posts

Pages: 1
NeverSilent
Got any Dexreth amulets?
6280
That's indeed quite a lot of changes. I imagine they might require some fine-tuning before they all work as intended, but I'm confident they will improve the overall experience.
Just to make sure I got it right, is this how the damage types work now? (I'm not using the correct terminology here for the sake of simplicity.)
Physical: Physical Attack vs. Physical Defense & Stamina
Technique: Magical Attack vs. Physical Defense & Stamina
Magical: Magical Attack vs. Magical Defense

If so, and considering that magical spells also ignore Stamina, I think you'd have to be careful not to make magic too powerful or physical attacks too weak compared to other damage types. I'm not saying it can't work, it's just going to be necessary to balance the dominance of the Magical Attack and Physical Defense stats with some other limitations.


Also, I've always respected your aversion against tutorials. And while I think it was the correct decision to compromise that view at least a little when it comes to fundamental mechanics, I'm still sure you'll manage to leave enough stuff for the player to figure out on their own.

Regarding your last question, I'd have to replay the demo again to make sure, but the only thing I always wanted more information on that comes to mind immediately is the consequences of choosing a certain armour set in the early part of the game. Since I don't think there was a way to see the stat changes those pieces of equipment cause before deciding on a set, it felt a bit too much like a gamble to me.
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
author=NeverSilent
That's indeed quite a lot of changes. I imagine they might require some fine-tuning before they all work as intended, but I'm confident they will improve the overall experience.


Thanks! I think so too. Running through the game now with the new changes has made the game a lot easier to pick up, but there's still plenty room for punishment for poor play.

Just to make sure I got it right, is this how the damage types work now? (I'm not using the correct terminology here for the sake of simplicity.)
Physical: Physical Attack vs. Physical Defense & Stamina
Technique: Magical Attack vs. Physical Defense & Stamina
Magical: Magical Attack vs. Magical Defense

If so, and considering that magical spells also ignore Stamina, I think you'd have to be careful not to make magic too powerful or physical attacks too weak compared to other damage types. I'm not saying it can't work, it's just going to be necessary to balance the dominance of the Magical Attack and Physical Defense stats with some other limitations.


You got it exactly right. And yeah, I'll do my best to make sure they're all balanced. It certainly helps that magical attacks are quite rare to begin with and can't be used more than once per turn.

Also, I've always respected your aversion against tutorials. And while I think it was the correct decision to compromise that view at least a little when it comes to fundamental mechanics, I'm still sure you'll manage to leave enough stuff for the player to figure out on their own.


I'll certainly try my best. At the very least, the most common complaint is the jump function, so I definitely had to do something about that. For combat, it was a bit easier to solve, since I just moved the statue explaining the SP mechanic to a more relevant position. So the idea is to give players a basic grasp on the game, and then leave the rest of it for the to figure out through practice.

Regarding your last question, I'd have to replay the demo again to make sure, but the only thing I always wanted more information on that comes to mind immediately is the consequences of choosing a certain armour set in the early part of the game. Since I don't think there was a way to see the stat changes those pieces of equipment cause before deciding on a set, it felt a bit too much like a gamble to me.


You mean giving a short explanation on what the armor sets do in terms of stat changes? I can do that.
The stats of every character have been revamped to fit more into their personalities.

This pleases me immensely. It always bothers me when developers don't bother to integrate gameplay and story. The mechanics should make logical sense with what we're told of the story, you know? It's always jarring when we're expected to see story and gameplay as existing in two separate worlds.

Using the magic attack stat for certain physical moves also sounds like a good idea.

I never played the demo so I don't really know what the rest of this is about, but this is convincing me I should keep tabs on the game instead of waiting to play the finished product.
Craze
why would i heal when i could equip a morningstar
15150
I like the idea of items have a kinda-their-own-stat. I've played with an "efficacy" stat in some past projects that I wanted to be item-heavy... hopefully your items are useful ;V

Glad to see you're willing to revise. That's important. The art seems pretty crisp, too.
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
author=argh
This pleases me immensely. It always bothers me when developers don't bother to integrate gameplay and story. The mechanics should make logical sense with what we're told of the story, you know? It's always jarring when we're expected to see story and gameplay as existing in two separate worlds.


Totally agree. Originally, the character's personalities were told through their Drives and passive abilities. Stats were certainly another facet, but they were tweaked so often during testing that it slowly became a case of missing the forest for the trees.

I never played the demo so I don't really know what the rest of this is about, but this is convincing me I should keep tabs on the game instead of waiting to play the finished product.


Awesome! Thanks!!

author=Craze
I like the idea of items have a kinda-their-own-stat. I've played with an "efficacy" stat in some past projects that I wanted to be item-heavy... hopefully your items are useful ;V


I like to think they are, considering that they're the only action in battles that doesn't require stamina usage. Plus, outside of one ability Aeyr gets at the end of his prologue, they're the only way for characters to heal in dungeons.

Glad to see you're willing to revise. That's important. The art seems pretty crisp, too.


Thanks! This overhaul was a long time coming.
Pages: 1