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DAY TO DAY SYSTEM
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LiannaSays
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CloseI'm looking for opinions on a day-to-day task based system. Is it helpful and has anyone tried this?
I want my storyline to move in a linear fashion, and though there will be side-missions to complete at anytime, I want a certain number of events to be completed each day before the story can move forward (the player goes to sleep). I plan on using a to-do list to display given chores while side quests will be discovered by the player as they play.
The map space is small at times, so instead of constantly traveling, the players will spend some time in a familiar area. This means a lot more events have to be opened, closed and new events put over them in some cases. This isn't to say that new maps won't be introduced (they will) because the daily event system won't be necessary when the real adventure begins, and players are constantly moving forward (like in a regular RPG).
So what do you think?
I want my storyline to move in a linear fashion, and though there will be side-missions to complete at anytime, I want a certain number of events to be completed each day before the story can move forward (the player goes to sleep). I plan on using a to-do list to display given chores while side quests will be discovered by the player as they play.
The map space is small at times, so instead of constantly traveling, the players will spend some time in a familiar area. This means a lot more events have to be opened, closed and new events put over them in some cases. This isn't to say that new maps won't be introduced (they will) because the daily event system won't be necessary when the real adventure begins, and players are constantly moving forward (like in a regular RPG).
So what do you think?
Crystalgate
694
I don't mind the idea of less maps with (I assume) more content in them. I don't mind the idea of having tasks that have to be completed each day by itself either.
The question is however what kind of tasks we're talking about. If it's task that are normally side-quests rather than main quests then I'd advice against it. There should be a strong reason for the player (not just the character) to have to do those tasks and the tasks should ideally have something to do with the main plot.
The question is however what kind of tasks we're talking about. If it's task that are normally side-quests rather than main quests then I'd advice against it. There should be a strong reason for the player (not just the character) to have to do those tasks and the tasks should ideally have something to do with the main plot.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
Good version
Daily tasks for Tuesday:
- Visit the magitek lab and choose an upgrade for the researchers to work on
- Investigate the distress beacon at the demon summoners' base
- Defend the town from the raging minotaur
- Watch a cut scene with important foreshadowing about the empire
Bad version
Daily tasks for Tuesday
- Catch ten fish and deliver them to the grocery store
- Call your grandma
- Practice the piano by playing scales
- Kill fifteen rats in the tavern cellar
As Crystalgate said, there's nothing inherently good or bad about having new tasks pop up as you complete old ones. Nor about having more content in the same area instead of spread out. But because it's such a common problem among RPGs, I feel forced to remind you that RPGs are very much about the fantasy - you get to become someone cool and do incredible things. Don't make me do unrelated chores for the first hour of the game, thanks. It's okay to start the player off as an ordinary person and then have them grow into a hero over the course of the game - that's how RPGs work! - but please make all the stuff I'm doing actually be part of "growing into a hero," even at the beginning (especially at the beginning, in fact).
Maybe you're not doing what I dread you're doing, but it really sounds like you just want the player to do chores for a while before the real game starts. That worries me. It's not a good way to start your game. Twilight Princess and Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts 2 are all like that and it's nauseating.
Daily tasks for Tuesday:
- Visit the magitek lab and choose an upgrade for the researchers to work on
- Investigate the distress beacon at the demon summoners' base
- Defend the town from the raging minotaur
- Watch a cut scene with important foreshadowing about the empire
Bad version
Daily tasks for Tuesday
- Catch ten fish and deliver them to the grocery store
- Call your grandma
- Practice the piano by playing scales
- Kill fifteen rats in the tavern cellar
As Crystalgate said, there's nothing inherently good or bad about having new tasks pop up as you complete old ones. Nor about having more content in the same area instead of spread out. But because it's such a common problem among RPGs, I feel forced to remind you that RPGs are very much about the fantasy - you get to become someone cool and do incredible things. Don't make me do unrelated chores for the first hour of the game, thanks. It's okay to start the player off as an ordinary person and then have them grow into a hero over the course of the game - that's how RPGs work! - but please make all the stuff I'm doing actually be part of "growing into a hero," even at the beginning (especially at the beginning, in fact).
Maybe you're not doing what I dread you're doing, but it really sounds like you just want the player to do chores for a while before the real game starts. That worries me. It's not a good way to start your game. Twilight Princess and Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts 2 are all like that and it's nauseating.
Interesting. If these are the first concerns to come up, I'll have to make sure they're the least relevant to my game.
Any tasks I have planned will directly further the plot. For example, it may say "harvest crops" on the to-do list, at which point the player discovers they need to find a tool. The retrieval of the tool leads them to find that someone has been living in their cellar. The character has a false exit, then ultimately returns at a later date to drag the character out of their small town and into the world. Other tasks will involve combat to prepare the player for the greater adventure (which really begins after the player and the cellar dweller return from their adventure).
I don't know if I made any sense, but I don't plan on boring you to death in one small town. I wanted to increase the playing value of a map you may have started in, which I notice some RPGs remove completely. There are important turning points that require the player to return to their home village.
Any other concerns? I'm interested to know.
Any tasks I have planned will directly further the plot. For example, it may say "harvest crops" on the to-do list, at which point the player discovers they need to find a tool. The retrieval of the tool leads them to find that someone has been living in their cellar. The character has a false exit, then ultimately returns at a later date to drag the character out of their small town and into the world. Other tasks will involve combat to prepare the player for the greater adventure (which really begins after the player and the cellar dweller return from their adventure).
I don't know if I made any sense, but I don't plan on boring you to death in one small town. I wanted to increase the playing value of a map you may have started in, which I notice some RPGs remove completely. There are important turning points that require the player to return to their home village.
Any other concerns? I'm interested to know.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
Hmm, the typical beginning of a "hero's journey" involves leaving your old life behind when you become a hero. There's a reason for this: you have to step out of your comfort zone in order to change into something extraordinary.
That doesn't mean it can't be done other ways, though. FF8 or Dragon Age 2 are perhaps good examples. As you progress forward and undertake greater goals, your home supports you and expands and evolves and moves forward with you. If your home changes as you do, then there's still the feeling that there's no going back to the way things were. In other games like Disgaea or Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days or Legend of Mana, there's no classical hero's journey at all because the adventure is taken for granted from sixty seconds into the game, so your home just acts as a base. This works better for stories about people who are already extraordinary than for stories of people who become extraordinary.
That doesn't mean it can't be done other ways, though. FF8 or Dragon Age 2 are perhaps good examples. As you progress forward and undertake greater goals, your home supports you and expands and evolves and moves forward with you. If your home changes as you do, then there's still the feeling that there's no going back to the way things were. In other games like Disgaea or Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days or Legend of Mana, there's no classical hero's journey at all because the adventure is taken for granted from sixty seconds into the game, so your home just acts as a base. This works better for stories about people who are already extraordinary than for stories of people who become extraordinary.
With the right approach, even the bad one can be okay. With the wrong approach, even a fantastic checklist can be boring. A Home Far Away did this nicely, even with mundane tasks.
-Make an item (probably switch-based) that shows a grocery list for the day's tasks using a picture. The main reason a person might quit midway through one of these is that they've forgotten some of the tasks.
- Run the events so they can be done in any order, and add a TasksDone variable +1 for each finished task. When it's complete, advance the plot.
- That said, perhaps some events have to be done first. For example, in the second one, the piano in question might be too noisy to practice in peace at home due to screaming kids, so you have to go to the tavern. The tavern owner tells you about the rats, and this gets added to be done before getting permission to play the piano.
- Don't just make tasks. Back them up with interesting dialogue (an example would be realizing you don't have the tools to finish the task, and talking to the person who assigned it, who helps you out by giving a hint on where to go to get what you need)
- Whenever possible don't just make simple talk-to-complete tasks, but make these into puzzle/minigames. KH2 is a good example of this.
-Make an item (probably switch-based) that shows a grocery list for the day's tasks using a picture. The main reason a person might quit midway through one of these is that they've forgotten some of the tasks.
- Run the events so they can be done in any order, and add a TasksDone variable +1 for each finished task. When it's complete, advance the plot.
- That said, perhaps some events have to be done first. For example, in the second one, the piano in question might be too noisy to practice in peace at home due to screaming kids, so you have to go to the tavern. The tavern owner tells you about the rats, and this gets added to be done before getting permission to play the piano.
- Don't just make tasks. Back them up with interesting dialogue (an example would be realizing you don't have the tools to finish the task, and talking to the person who assigned it, who helps you out by giving a hint on where to go to get what you need)
- Whenever possible don't just make simple talk-to-complete tasks, but make these into puzzle/minigames. KH2 is a good example of this.
author=LockeZ
Hmm, the typical beginning of a "hero's journey" involves leaving your old life behind when you become a hero. There's a reason for this: you have to step out of your comfort zone in order to change into something extraordinary.
Good point, I've definitely taken this into consideration in my storyline. I mentioned before that the game is organized into episodes; the character won't leave behind their old life until the third episode. The first two episodes are more like a prologue, showing the series of strange events that lead to their final, big adventure.
Also, thanks for the great suggestions, bulma. A lot of the tasks will probably be tied in together like you suggested.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
See. That's exactly the thing I was warning about before. I don't want to play the part that isn't the adventure. Start it at episode 3. Just delete the first two.
I was being vague, my bad. There is an adventure in each episode, so it wouldn't make sense starting from episode three. This is the plot, bare bones:
#1) Episode one is where Player is taken out of her small village by a friend on a quest to lift a curse he brought into her village. They need an enchantment on a tool to dig out a cursed skeleton he buried there to hide.
#2) Episode two reveals the back story of the re-animated skeleton and how her friend came to discover it, revealing the antagonists.
#3) Episode three is where the skeleton offers a reward in exchange for Player 1 and 2's help in finding his family and ----, all whilst being pursued (which I won't delve into).
The daily tasks system will be used at the start of episode one to lead the Player to the necessary turning points. There won't be any playing piano scales, I'll definitely heed your words about dull tasks. These ones will be essential to moving the plot forward.
But back to OT: I guess the daily part isn't all that necessary. I could just pile up tasks that lead to one another and let the player sleep whenever they need to heal. Would it be harder to implement a daily quota of tasks as opposed to using one complete to-do list?
#1) Episode one is where Player is taken out of her small village by a friend on a quest to lift a curse he brought into her village. They need an enchantment on a tool to dig out a cursed skeleton he buried there to hide.
#2) Episode two reveals the back story of the re-animated skeleton and how her friend came to discover it, revealing the antagonists.
#3) Episode three is where the skeleton offers a reward in exchange for Player 1 and 2's help in finding his family and ----, all whilst being pursued (which I won't delve into).
The daily tasks system will be used at the start of episode one to lead the Player to the necessary turning points. There won't be any playing piano scales, I'll definitely heed your words about dull tasks. These ones will be essential to moving the plot forward.
But back to OT: I guess the daily part isn't all that necessary. I could just pile up tasks that lead to one another and let the player sleep whenever they need to heal. Would it be harder to implement a daily quota of tasks as opposed to using one complete to-do list?
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
Nah, having three or four conditional branches at your house that the bed event checks before letting you sleep is not hard at all. It's maybe 60 seconds of work.
It does sound interesting, now that you describe what you're actually doing.
It does sound interesting, now that you describe what you're actually doing.
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