FUNDAMENTAL RPGOLOGY THREAD

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Also five games in, I should be done by the end of the week-end!
PS: If you're wondering where we judges are, we're keeping out of the discussion a bit to avoid being influenced until we're finished ;)
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
@Karin: I swear that I read "no 'best attack'" in the ruleset. Perhaps it was merely in the comments, though. I certainly recall somebody talking about building up to a super-move, and Hasvers was like, "Uuuuuh, sorta, but, no."
NeverSilent
Got any Dexreth amulets?
6280
I think this was the general rule about "best attacks" or stronger skills:
For more points, every skill should bring something new to the table. No skill should be "the same but stronger". Each skill should provide a different way of manipulating the repartition of damage over time, that cannot be produced by using other skills.

Which I believe essentially means that having a skill that is more powerful than another but has no additional effects or downsides (thus making the weaker version practically obsolete) is a bad idea. Also, all skills are supposed to are more or less unique. So a skills that deals fire damage and unlocks a skill that deals more fire damage would not be optimal as well.

So as far as I know having stronger skills is not necessarily a mistake, karins_soulkeeper. As long as they fulfill their role of being just one of many options to manage damage per round, and not objectively a better choice than other skills, you should be fine.
Well, it needs a warmup of ~8 rounds to be available, is quite op (instakilling a single enemy for example, when there are 1-2 enemies per fight, there was one with 3, but you just "had" to kill one) and does play a huge role for your battle tactics (except agile, agile just spams the fire attack). Which means surviving until you can use it.
All in all, it was rather imbalanced, although the general idea wasn't bad. That passive bonus-stats/effects needed to be changed, was a nice touch as well.
Still, it had too few slots, the buffs/debuffs did practically nothing and yeah.
author=Kylaila
All in all, it was rather imbalanced

Yeeahh, about that...

carelessness >.<

I really wish that both of my computers had not died in the midst of this, or that I was able to join from the beginning...

But, I shall at least enjoy looking over what everyone came up with q_q
Ok! I just managed to play a few more entries!

Just my oppinions here about the systems.

Mace Blue Arena, was a very psyco-retro trip. One battle would have been enough to show the system. The need to charge before attacking was an interesting feature.

Queen of the ring was nice. It looked like it was somehow still under development. I couldn't tell how to disable a slime arms and head since they have none... The concept was very good but I couldn't manage to see most of it in action.

The Campaing was a very different entry. I found it intuitive and a very different concept about unique abilities in front and back row. Even having some unbalanced characters (like some very usefull and some very useless) I enjoyed a lot this entry. I couldn't tell exactly the consequences of my attacks, but as it's still under development it's fine. I'm looking forward the complete entry very soon!
NeverSilent
Got any Dexreth amulets?
6280
Hey, thanks for trying out my entry, Treason89. Glad to hear you enjoyed it. I tried to explain all abilities and effects in the tutorial documents, but I understand nobody likes to read and memorize all that. The complete version should have a real in-game tutorial, though.
Could you maybe tell me which characters you felt were more or less useful and why? I'm aware the current balancing isn't perfect, so any help and feedback on that is greatly appreciated.
Cap_H
DIGITAL IDENTITY CRISIS
6625
I did my entry without skills at all. It partly was 'coz I couldn't think of any at given time.
And I am not experienced user at all. Everything I know about coding was washed out of my head over the time, so I had to use script of the others for pretty basic stuff.
Right now, I am improving the system with teamplay and skills (one character can ressurect, another can use charge to defend his buddy) for my next game.
In case my game is too hard, here is a possible solution.
8,7,9,2,9,9,4,
9,9,9,2,5,9,5,
9,9,9,9,6,9,6,
9,9,9,2,5,9,5,
9,9,9,9,6,9,6,
9,9,9,2,5,9,6,
9,9,9,9,6,9,6,
9,9,9,2,5,9,4,
7,4,7,8,7,7


or if you just want a hint.
Find a repeatable two-round sequence that lets you do more than 7 dmg/round to the Titan.
Well, pretty much finished. I just couldn't get Essence Enforcer to start, even with the graphic pack included. I love the party and strategy creation system there in theory, though.
It's "complicated", as in there are plenty of components, but they work well on one core system and sound easy enough. I would love to play it.

However, as a general line for this thread I'd suggest we discuss the games, the novelty presented there and look for possible expansions/cuts and then we'll move on to how we can spice up the usual systems we know.

How we can get elemental systems to work better and so on. Novelty is nice and a great thing, but we should also present some ways to make the usual system a little bit interesting without changing the whole mechanics. We all know some battle systems which exploit one feature better than the other, if you think about elemental weaknesses alone you'll know some games that made it more interesting than others - why it works and why not.

Of course, that's just a suggestion. We'll ultimately go where the discussions leads us to


As a sidenote, Neversilent, I found the tank character to be the most useful, as you can deal much damage with three bulwarks but can go there with practically taking no damage at all (guarding guarding.. yeah)
But I'd need to dig deeper into that to get a precise view.
Yellow Magic
Could I BE any more Chandler Bing from Friends (TM)?
3154
While I'm downloading Essence Enforcer (265 MB seriously Lou???), I might as well add some thoughts about The Campaign here (I couldn't finish it because close to the end of the first battle I hit some sort of bug which caused RGSS Player to Stop Responding - in hindsight it might have just been a Win 8 issue, though):


- Nice and intuitive for the most part. Like others have commented, I liked how the front and back rows lead to different skills - something I didn't realise until I switched a front row fighter with a back row healer. Welp

- Like Shinan, I got a bit lazy and didn't read the tutorial (sorry!), but I personally didn't feel I was under any sort of pressure during the battle I played in. As in, I could simply pick damage dealing skills as I saw fit and the monsters would go down eventually (the two on the left and right were dead when I experienced the crash). I guess this suggests that the balance could use some work, but please don't take my word as gospel (NeverSilent of all people should know that I'm not perfect LOL)

- The healing conditions were really nifty (such as both the healer and the one to be healed having to be in the back row, from what I could tell) so +100 cool poitns for that.

- Even though it probably wasn't the focus of the game, I felt the monsters had too much HP. There is only so long you can play a fairly complicated battle system until it gets tedious after you've figured everything out.


I'll try and play the rest over the next couple of days!
NeverSilent
Got any Dexreth amulets?
6280
Awesome, thanks a lot to you both, Yellow Magic and Kylaila!

@Kylaila:
That's a good and legitimate way to use Akinna. It does mean you can't use her other skills and need a lot of time before doing any damage, but if the strategy worked for you, then all the better. Others used her only to protect allies and build up Bulwark that way, or simply had her use a normal attack every round. I think it's great to see how many different play styles people have already come up with.
However, guarding all the time will get less useful as enemies deal more magical damage or fight smarter. When I tested it myself some time ago, Akinna got completely crushed in the second battle, despite guarding a lot.

@Yellow Magic:
I'm glad you found the system intuitive enough even without the tutorial files. I really tried to make sure every character could be useful both on front row and as supporter (though I might have to tweak Beorn and Pius a bit).
The first battle is supposed to be relatively easy so the player can get a feeling for how the system works. You're absolutely right that enemies have too much Health, though. I'm going to rebalance the damage and HP distribution a lot as soon as possible..
About Beorn's healing abilities: Yes, I thought it would be more realistic and a more interesting restriction if you can't just treat the wounds of someone who is busy fighting. However, Beorn's second support skill "Healing Hands" is not only more powerful than the other, it can target any character. But since it's only available every third turn, you can't rely solely on that.
Argh! That stupid RGSS issue again! I encountered that one too, but haven't found out what causes it yet. I'll try to get it fixed quickly. Sorry for the inconvenience. If you want, though, I could send you a save file for the second battle, so you can at least try that out, too.

Again, thanks so much for your feedback, it really helps a lot.


I also tried out Three Treason Theories a bit. Here's what I thought:

It had a lot of good ideas, though I struggled to understand the rationale behind some of them, and others felt just a bit too... well, theoretical to me. Most of all, the mathematical approach in the dragon battles was an interesting insight into possible combat mechanics. But since its actual implementation just involved finding the right skill to use on an enemy and then using it until he dies, I'm not sure how much a battle system would benefit from this mechanic.
In short, the ideas were fascinating, but also quite limited, I'm afraid.
I played a bit of "the Campaign" and I liked what I saw, then it crashed on me for no discernible reason. XD

It really feels like you need to swap positions a lot to get stuff done, though, since so many attacks only hit right in front of you.

Overall, I liked what I saw, but after using VXACE for so long, the way RMXP handles things really does grate on me a little bit.

Yeah, had the crash problem as well.

Some more thoughts.


It felt the opposite for me. I really didn't need to swap at all. Some skills are very situational, like the supportive trap of your hunter. If the enemies won't move, then obviously hindering them from doing that won't change a thing!

Not sure what resolve did and yeah, the backline can be quite useless. It felt way too easy overall and too long. Strategic battles tend to take far too much time, but speeding up animations and auto-turn-end after everyone already moved or just less HP in general would be neat.
As your characters have quite a lot as well, you really are in no dire need to protect them. They won't ever run the risk of getting blown away, so supportive abilities don't seem very useful.
I just had my tribe warrior and tank blow them away, while the medic applied some dots. I just had them chosen at the time, and there was no reason for me to change the formation ever.
Been meaning to try some more.

As it is, there is no strategy required. At least for me.
It feels like 3 small fights going on instead of one big with these as parts.
More interactivity would be really cool, but not sure yet how to approach this exactly.

And on a sidenote, I only started mass-guarding after the small ones were dead, since I wouldn't take any damage that way against the troll. I supported, but it really didn't seem to do much.

I see good potential, but I'm afraid it really needs more work.


Oh, and azalathemad, did you already consider to add something more to your system? I find it does an incredibly good job of it and could easily be expanded.
Yellow Magic
Could I BE any more Chandler Bing from Friends (TM)?
3154
author=NeverSilent
If you want, though, I could send you a save file for the second battle, so you can at least try that out, too.

Cheers, that'd be appreciated!
NeverSilent
Got any Dexreth amulets?
6280
I'm really sorry about that crash issue, guys. I just posted a Help Me topic about it and I will try to clean up the current version a bit and see if that solves anything.

Aegix_Drakan, I'm glad you still liked it. The idea of only being able to fight the enemy a character is facing directly was one central aspect of the game, so if that gave you trouble, I'll look into making it work better.

Kylaila, if you want, I could send you a save file for the second battle, too. It's generally a lot more difficult than the first one.

Addressing your other points:
Yes, Lea's "Rope Trap" being entirely useless was a nasty side-effect of not finishing all battles in time. In later fights, enemies were supposed to swap positions as part of their strategy, and there would also be enemies on the back rows using support abilities as well.

Resolve temporarily increases Magical Resistance. It's in the States document, but of course I can't expect you to know that all by heart.
As I said before, you're absolutely right about the battles being too long. I will address this issue by reducing all enemies' HP and rebalancing some skills soon. Of course, that is not helpful to you right now, but know that I take your feedback seriously.
Oh, and having an auto-turn-end feature is a great idea! I'm definitely going to implement that.

Ouch! Hearing that the battles require no strategy hurts, of course. I hope maybe the fact that the first fight was supposed to introduce the player and the second one is much more challanging will change your mind. But if you feel that way, I must try to think of ways to prevent similar experiences for players in the future. (Then again, perhaps strategic battles are just not your thing? At least your comment about them taking too long in general sounded like that. No offense though. I will still consider what you say.)
The idea of every character practically fighting 1 vs 1 in a larger battle was the starting premise of the battle system, so it's unlikely I will fundamentally change that. I will try to make it feel more connected, though.

I will definitely work on it more, and try to iron out all the flaws you pointed out. Thank you.


I'd love that.


Haha, yeah, it's hard to memorize it all. I thought more about the skills since some system do not have descriptions of them.

And I'm glad you take feedback seriously, I don't mean any harm by it.
And no, I don't hate strategic battles. That was formulated rather harshly, I'm sorry.
It may not be my forte, but I did fall in love with a couple of them. It is just a very common flaw. Not a big deal, but still a flaw.
I do tend to find difficulty in RPGs easier than most folks (I'm used to SMT as not hard and all)

And yes, I realize this premise and find it a good idea, but it would greatly improve the dynamic since you have your support cast for every one of them. It feels odd for them to reach the entire backline, but for you to barely be able to block your side (more than affecting the ally next to you would be bull, of course.
But that's just my opinion ;)
author=Kylaila
Oh, and azalathemad, did you already consider to add something more to your system? I find it does an incredibly good job of it and could easily be expanded.

A full-featured game would have:
- Party construction. More than 6 characters, each with their own oddball traits, but you pick them in a party prior to the battle.
- Items that change value based on the bearer. Like if it's a book, only the literate can benefit from it.
- Different types of battle constraints. Instead of outdamaging the regen, a boss that deals tons of damage and negative buffs so you have to set up one or two characters before hitting it and clean up afterward. Or a global end-of-round damage or something that forces you to kill the boss in X turns.
- If there are multiple battles, the swap behavior on death becomes important. Instead of hitting the 1 HP Item Fairy who has Excalibur, you'd probably have to hit one of your own guys until you reached Tank or Priestess with either a bad or no item, swap, and kill it.
- More buffs, more bizarre interactions (did you try healing Vampire or Lich?)
- A points system tracking how many turns you took to beat the game and a global leaderboard. This helps replayability a lot, people have something to shoot for.
Thank you Never Silent. You too Kylaila and Yellow Magic. As I said in the game page, I'm afraid I just focused on the raw idea and not in a good implementation. Your feedback is always welcome as I can improve and maybe with those upgrades I can do a real good game!

Thank you all! By the way, just talking about the ideas in these games and implementation. Which ideas do you think would make it into a game? For example, Aegix idea is really nice, but I don't know how easy would it be to do all that AI's for each enemy (or groups of enemies that interact).

The Campaing system would also do a pretty fun game. As I see, Azalathemad is also thinking about it. I haven't played that entry but I'll go for it soon!