WYRM WARRIORS! THE LEGEND MUST GO ON!

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unity
You're magical to me.
12540
Hello everyone! A while back Craze started a community project called Wyrm Warriors, and many members of the community created a cast of great characters and locations. Craze's schedule no longer leaves him time to continue the project, but he's given me his blessing to keep it going and to try to turn it into a full game ^_^

I'm creating this topic for general Wyrm Warriors work, to get people's input and to get as many ideas going as possible. Seeing as this is Craze's creation, I'd like to stay as close to his vision for the game as possible while getting it to completion.

First off, I'd like to place the cap of characters to where it is now. We already have plenty and adding any more will be biting off more than we can chew.

Second, I'm going to be going over all the locations soon and putting all the data into a single post so we can discuss what locations are keepers, what needs work, and if we need any additional non-dungeon locations.

Third, Craze has given me a copy of the project file and he's got some really cool passives going for all the characters as well as some nifty code overall. I'm pretty code-dumb so if anyone would be willing to assist with that aspect of the game, I'd be extremely grateful.

Let's see if we can take this quirky cast of fun characters and make it into a full-blown community game! Looking forward to working with anyone who wants to help!
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
Huh. Well, if we're gonna do this, I like the idea of trying to make our best imitation of a Crazegame out of it. That's a neat idea.

Several of Craze's games are built around the idea of limited resource management, and fighting optional one-time-only battles to obtain more precious experience points at the cost of possibly using up too many of your resources. Once you pass up the battle, you can't go back to it, so using your resources to try to get the rewards from it is always tempting. This is a fun idea that adds a lot of tension and planning to the game, and if possible I was hoping this game could try to do something similar.

However, the system has one big recurring flaw in all the Crazegames it's been used in: if you run out of resources, you have to pretty much start the entire game over. It's not that there's no room for error - you can actually make plenty of mistakes in those games. But once you pass that threshold of one mistake too many, and get a game over due to mismanaging your resources, reloading from the beginning of the battle isn't going to cut it. Your mistakes was probably a gradual decline in resources over the course of several hours. You probably don't have a save that far back.

We can solve this problem

I propose the following way of handling battles in dungeons:
- Battles are in set locations. They are not random, nor can they ever be repeated. Once you defeat an enemy, it's gone for good.
- There are no experience points.
- Battles grant +1 level to each character alive in the active team at the end of the battle.
- Each character can only gain 5 levels per dungeon. If a character participates in a sixth battle in a single dungeon, they will receive no reward.
- At the end of the dungeon, when you defeat the boss, everyone on your party who didn't get their full +5 levels during the dungeon gets those levels as a reward for completing the dungeon. So if everyone was level 20 at the beginning of the dungeon, they will all be level 25 after you beat the dungeon, no matter how many levels they gained from the monsters during the dungeon.
- A maximum of maybe 30 total consumable items can be carried at once, and it will be very easy to replenish these at shops after each dungeon. Consumable items will be extremely cheap compared to new equipment, so that they're basically reset after each dungeon.
- When you beat a dungeon, any unused comsumables are converted back into gold - twice the original cost of the item, as a reward for not needing it.

This kind of design will, effectively, clear the slate after each dungeon, which drastically reduces the penalty for messing up the resource management game. It will also prevent the player from feeling like they permanently missed out on a reward by skipping an enemy, so they aren't just compelled to battle every enemy in the game no matter what because what if they need that XP later. But enemies will still be very much worth fighting, since the bosses will require a significant amount of mid-battle party-swapping, and you'll want as many characters as possible to have gained the full 5 levels.
I'll help in any way I can.

This game should have A LOT of optional content, methinks. Think the second half of Final Fantasy 6.
CashmereCat
Self-proclaimed Puzzle Snob
11638
@LockeZ I suggest we have an arena where you may choose to train on monsters. As for loot, I suggest finding other alternative ways to get loot, such as a fishing/mining mechanic. You can sell the fish you catch or the ores you mine, and use it to buy whatever you need.
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
Being able to XP at will as much as you want destroys everything that makes it a crazegame! (It also destroys most other RPGs.)

Also, it sounds like all the main gameplay features are already done. As this is a community game that's already partly finished, the goal is to create content within the existing framework, not to think of minigames that someone else would have to design and code. I don't think alternate ways to get loot would make the game worse, but I don't think it's something anyone wants to do. And it seems you're just suggesting random things for no reason with no explanation, because you saw them in a game you liked once.

I'm not trying to change Craze's standard game design formula. I'm just suggesting to make the long-term-planning-based parts of it restart every couple hours, because it's designed for shorter games, and it will work less and less well the longer the game is. The end of each dungeon seems like a sensible place to clean the slate.
I like the idea of an arena but instead of XP, why not make it for something like gaining extra skills, unlocking next level items/equipment and getting gold?

Say, 5-battle fight of the current dungeon tier monsters. No healing/save in-between. If you manage to defeat the wave you get the choice of either next level items, next level equips, a gold prize or gaining 5 random scrolls of passive skills that can be used by anyone.

For passive skills I'm thinking stackable ones like Regen (say 5% HP per turn for every scroll used on a person), affinities (elemental/status resistances that build up 5% each time) and small perma-stat boosts like Strength +3 and the like (dependant on how large the numbers are for balance's sake.) Also, how about rare ones that grant one-time uses for passives like double item effectiveness and the like too?

And, of course, you can only choose one of the choices once each 'dungeon'. So if you chose the passives and beat the arena again, you can't choose passives until you finish the next dungeon. Or give them 3 turns at it total, so they have to pick which they want most - unlock new equips? Or get some passives? Maybe one item level and two passives? Or one of each, or just gold?
CashmereCat
Self-proclaimed Puzzle Snob
11638
LockeZ
Being able to XP at will as much as you want destroys everything that makes it a crazegame!

Being able to grind for XP doesn't destroy a Crazegame. Devil::ender, Craze's last game, had random encounters and that didn't ruin the progression.

I was suggesting the arena as a way to get extra XP if you got stuck without the amount of XP you need. Plus a way to get loot if you didn't have any more monsters to kill. So no, that was not irrelevant at all, I was trying to answer your dilemma, just not in the way you envisioned it.

LockeZ
twice the original cost of the item, as a reward for not needing it.

You're rewarded for not using items? I thought you were supposed to be rewarded for using them. That goes against what makes RPG battles good. What makes Crazegames good is that the items such as status heals are actually useful this time around, instead of in 99% of other RPGs where they are just loot to be collected and never used. So please, let's encourage the use of items rather than discourage it.

Clearing the slate after every level sounds to me like the resource management was for nothing.

author=Liberty
I like the idea of an arena but instead of XP, why not make it for something like gaining extra skills, unlocking next level items/equipment and getting gold?

That sounds brilliant. If in fact we can add extra stuff like that as LockeZ has discouraged. Something like Tekken's Survival Mode with Skills as reward.
Yeah I've been taking Wyrm Warriors stuff for a private game that I make just for myself to never release.
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
I think the first point of business is to list off what we have so far in the actual game file:

-30 Characters, each with a class, parameters, descriptions, and what they can equip completed. Almost half of them have their passives completed (I will start a new topic soon to discuss passives).

-As for skills, we have some light attacks, a heavy attack, and, aside from the passives, that's about it. We'll need to work on those, tho Craze included a text file with properties each element should have.

-Items are just the standard defaults so far. I'll work to give them more of an original flair to them. Weapons and armor are extremely bare-bones, but that's easy enough to work on.

-States look completed.

-Some awesome Yanfly and Craze scripts to punch up the game (Some of them are incomplete? Again, I'll need someone more knowledgeable with scripts to help me with this part at some point ^^;;)

Things that I think are essential for the game:

1) Keep it simple. This was originally going to be a 2-day game. It's grown considerably since then, but we don't want to go too much crazier than we already are.

2) Rule 1 can be broken if someone's willing to do the work for it, or to show me the way to do it. But still, let's not go too overboard.

3) Have some system that keeps the unused characters on equal footing with the ones you are using. With so many characters, I want you to be able to switch them out from time to time without having to grind them to everyone else's levels.

4) Unless there's a lot of people against it, I very much think touch-encounters are the way to go here.

Things we need to decide:

-How the narrative is delivered. With 30 characters, I don't think that its anywhere near feasible to have dialog trees for the entire cast for every event. Craze polled for a lot of quotes when the characters were made to put their personality on display, so that will serve fine to show character personality.

But then we're left with how to do the narrative. Do we do it FF1 style where the characters don't really respond in specific to events? This may be the best option, but I'd like to hear everyone's opinions.

-When characters join. Having all the characters at the start would overwhelm the player, so we should pick an amount per-dungeon that get added to team. I'm thinking six might be a good number, which would mean 5 dungeons until you have all thirty.

-What are we going to do for music? I'm inclined to just use the excellent RMN music pack and be done with it, but if anyone wants to contribute or has suggestions, I'm all ears :D

Okay, on to ideas that people have already shared :D

author=LockeZ
Huh. Well, if we're gonna do this, I like the idea of trying to make our best imitation of a Crazegame out of it. That's a neat idea.

LockeZ proposed a system that I think will work beautifully for the kind of game we're going for here. This is a community game, so I'm not just going to say "Done. LockeZ's got the right idea and we're sticking with it" without some discussion first, but I really think that this would make the game feel very Craze-like with some neat work-arounds. It solves the problem of keeping all the characters at the same level as well.

author=Arandomgamemaker
I'll help in any way I can.

This game should have A LOT of optional content, methinks. Think the second half of Final Fantasy 6.

We'll need all the help we can get! Thanks! :D

As for the optional content, while I think its a great idea, I'd like to get all the required content done first and then we can move on to the optional stuff if people are still willing to do work to get it done.

author=CashmereCat
@LockeZ I suggest we have an arena where you may choose to train on monsters. As for loot, I suggest finding other alternative ways to get loot, such as a fishing/mining mechanic. You can sell the fish you catch or the ores you mine, and use it to buy whatever you need.

Minigames are fine as long as there are volunteers willing to make them. However, the meat of the game is going to be coming from all the characters and their unique battle styles, so I'm not sure how far we want to deviate into other gameplay territories. Minigames are awesome, just as long as they work for the game we're ultimately putting forth.

I like the arena idea, but I like Liberty's take on it where the rewards would be something other than levels. Those rewards she describes would work perfectly. An arena would fall under "optional content" though so it would need to be put aside until the core game is complete.
should I add "Crazegame" to the list of genres on RMN?
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
Hahaha, maybe? :P Let me just say that while I want to keep this in the spirit of Craze's vision, I'm not saying this must play 100% like a Craze game. ...Because I don't think anyone but Craze himself can replicate that XD
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
author=CashmereCat
LockeZ
twice the original cost of the item, as a reward for not needing it.
You're rewarded for not using items? I thought you were supposed to be rewarded for using them. That goes against what makes RPG battles good.
You're rewarded for not using items in every RPG. Usually the reward is that you still have the item. That's what "resource management" is. Giving you resources, and then making you save up as many as possible for future problems.

But clearing the slate means that once the dungeon ends, still having the item isn't enough of a reward. Instead you are expected and able to go into each dungeon with a fresh set of items (instead of potentially going in with nothing but an accumulated set of irreversable mistakes you made over the course of 30 hours, which is what would happen if you didn't clear the slate). So this would basically replicate the effect of letting you keep the item, but better.

Obviously, the resource management would still be extremely meaningful, because it lets you beat the dungeon, and also gives you a bigger gold reward the better you are at resource management.

The item-clearing is probably the least important part of my plan though - just making the items really super cheap would have mostly the same effect. It would just feel sort of crappy to not get any kind of reward at the end of each dungeon for doing well at the resource management. And gold is a fungible, medium-term reward that the player can use to buy higher level stuff for the next dungeon, or save up for later.

author=Liberty
I like the idea of an arena but instead of XP, why not make it for something like gaining extra skills, unlocking next level items/equipment and getting gold?

Say, 5-battle fight of the current dungeon tier monsters. No healing/save in-between. If you manage to defeat the wave you get the choice of either next level items, next level equips, a gold prize or gaining 5 random scrolls of passive skills that can be used by anyone.

This is pretty solid. I like the extra layer of "kill things to get power" without the dragon-warrior-style "kill unlimited things to get unlimited power". It will give players some control over their destiny and their power level in a way that is much easier to account for when balancing enemies, and probably matters more to the player than levels anyway.
Gold is too generic as a reward - how about a reward system separate from the standard "more gold == more better items in the next town" paradigm. Like a unique set of equipment that can only be purchased with Rare Medals, and at the end of the dungeon reward the player with Rare Medals for doing well at resource management, then they can use those Rare Medals to buy unique gear from a special vendor. The unique gear would be roughly equivalent with the next tier of gear, but would have maybe some special properties that were unavailable from traditional gear.
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
That's a good idea. I'm guessing that the rare vendors are just like normal vendors in that they sell progressively better stuff as you get to new locations. Would the player ever be inclined not to spend the medals and try to save them up for better stuff at future locations?
Yes, probably, in-as-much as they are inclined to save gold for better stuff at future locations.

An alternative would be to make specific Rare Medal per area. So rare medals from Area X would called X Medals, and they are only good at the X Medal Vendor in Xtown. Area Y would have Y Medals and are only good at the Y Medal Vendor in Ytropolis, etc...

But that is more work.
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
Yeah, but it also eliminates the question of "should I save or should I spend" and allows the player to just enjoy their reward. ^_^
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
I like the rare medal thing a lot. Creates kind of a medium-term reward for doing well at the resource management that matters a lot in the next dungeon but doesn't permanently penalize your party for the rest of the game.

If you do that, it's probably no longer necessary to remove the player's items at the end of the dungeon. Just give them the medals on top of letting them keep the items.
I am glad I could help.
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
Thanks very much! :D We'll incorporate the medals into the game.
I am surprised LockeZ didn't think of it first, because it's from Warcraft.
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