GAME DESIGN DISCUSSION OF THE WEEK: STATUS EFFECTS

Typically, confused allies are limited to physical attacks.

Honestly you can protect against the Ultima Cast in RM, simply create the Condition: Attack Allies, and limit Skills that have more that 3 or so Intelligence Influence. This way Confused allies mainly attack with Physical Techniques.

A trick I have found useful, taken from the way are Condition Degrees. Especially in games when HP is low, a Level 3 Poison taking 5 HP each turn will fuck you up quickly. I find that deadly status effects cause a Player to think about who the fight, what to buy, and what tactics to use.

@Dis: Quick question what is IE?

I though you were referring to an RPG in which such a condition would be found. Oh damn, that was a bit blond of me.

That would be a good idea for a 1 Hour game.

Status effects are very important, and are done poorly if they are not used. Without them, battles consist of deciding how you're going to deal damage; sword, spell, or item. Imagine a dungeon with no walls or doors, just a large, empty cavern with you at one end and the enemy at the other. If all dungeons in your game were like this, they'd be pretty boring (hint, button-mash battles fall into this parallel).

Status effects become your walls and your doors, forming a maze through which you must use your wits to reach the other end in one piece. Some paths take longer, some are a direct route to the end, some lead you to doom. By combining the impact of status effects with equipment and ability choices, battles become a fun and diverse gameplay element. This is important because in most of our RPG's, this gameplay provides the core experience around which the rest is built.

Think outside of the small box that is "an ailment with a cure." Who says there needs to be 5, 10, 20, or 40 status effects or fewer? Why do they all need a cure? Think about it; your characters might not necessarily try to toss out random status effects to see what works well. No, they would use a strategy that they know has worked for them in the past. If that doesn't work, then they will adapt and find a new strategy. Same goes for enemies.

Enemies shouldn't be throwing out sleeps and poisons to pester you, they should be using strategies they know will help them defeat you. Maybe some enemies will simply poison you and hope that you eventually die. Others might use status effects to give them an advantage they need to set up another attack. They don't want to keep you busy using items and spells to cure ailments. Sometimes that's what may be required, but there's so much more to status effects.

For example, you're fighting a spider boss. What comes to your mind first? Yep, you hope you have enough antidotes or the right healer, because you're getting poisoned, or webbed. Make it more interesting, give the boss a gimmick. Spider throws an egg sac on one of your characters, immobilizing them. No, it's not curable with some magical panacea. Furthermore, spider hatchlings will emerge from the egg, dealing damage to all party members while it remains. There are no healing spells or items to cure this, now all you have is strategy. Target the character with the egg sac on, and damage done will be dealt to the egg. Perhaps if you try a fire spell, the sac burns up completely and the problem is solved.

Now that you've solved the defensive puzzle, you can concentrate on building an offensive. That means it's your turn to use abilities or combinations of them that give you an advantage. The spider is an enemy that can bleed, so you use an ability that creates an open wound. Now that you're there, you can stack on more status effects, like poison which will cause double damage to enemies that have an open wound. If the boss is immune to one or both of these status effects, go back to the drawing board and use what else you have at your disposal.

I know that this may sound daunting for rm2k3, but can't you call common events with status effects? I'd think there's some way to make things interesting. The possibilities truly are endless. Every boss, or every enemy, can have their own status effects that you need to figure out to avoid. I am using an ATB system where a character's speed and the action they take determines how long of a "recoil" there will be before the next action can be performed. This way, I can avoid penalizing players for using status effects by simply making them quicker abilities to use than a direct attack ability.

Here's a tip; make your game give hints as to what status effects would work against X monster.

Make it a point to communicate to the player that for example; big monsters can usually be poisoned, mages are weak to silence, beasts can usually be blinded, that sort of thing. I recall that Breath of Fire III gave subtle hints like that all of the time and even rewarded you; Eye Goos gave more experience if you blinded them, one enemy could be frozen by ice and his Defense drastically reduced, and so on.

Status effects are prevalent not only in "typical" RPG's, but in MMO's and strategy games as well (in the form of buffs/debuffs). Utilization of these effects to defeat enemies (and counters/dispels to protect your own units) is an integral element of the game. I agree that the "typical" RPG status effects can grow tiresome/boring, but creative implementation (read: potential coding nightmare) can add tier upon tier of depth and enjoyment to gameplay. Today's "typical" gamer is more savvy than the hack and slash adventurer of yesteryear. It is the responsibility of the developer to prepare an appropriate challenge to that savvy.

I think this turned out well as a one-week discussion. And it seemed we all has just enough time to throw in our input and discuss each other's views on the topic.

Shall we choose a new topic for this week?

I find that more often than not, when looking through the options a character has to attack (spells, abilities, physical, etc) most people will try out a status effect once and then not use it again. Some of the positives get a lot of attention, especially in boss battles where their duration lasts longer and benefits are more obvious, but casting mini, berserk, etc tends to be a turn wasted for many regular encounters and a draw on mp that could be used for vital healing later.

The Final Fantasy series has made good productive use of their effects for the most part. In particular the FF6 trick of casting a high level spell on your party when shielded by reflect and seeing multiple spells hitting a boss or enemy for lots of damage. Sleep was also a particularly powerful move in FF8 where it allowed you to draw indeffinatly and not wake up the monster in question.

However in games where characters have their powers pre-assigned then it is normally the status mage that looses out. Healers normally recieve the regen and barrier casting skills and sometimes hastening and attack charging as well, meaning that some poor sod gets lumbered with all of the others. A good example of this would be FF4's Edward (the spoony bard), who few players would relish having in their party despite the likability of his character in-game. Status inducing characters are a tough thing to balance.