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[RMMV] MY GAME IS TOO HARD, WHAT DO?
Posts
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
LockeZ
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Closeauthor=EDPVincentDark Souls goes way, WAY out of its way to prevent players from discovering things on their own. Any attempt to do so is punished by making the players permanently lose things that they can never get back.
One of the biggest themes of Dark Souls is precisely discovery, which is why it doesn't give everything away immediately but lets you figure it out as you go
The most obvious example of this is, of course, the loss of your crap when you die, including one-time-only rewards from bosses, and humanity points that cannot be reobtained. But a much worse example is the way the game teaches you how killing friendly NPCs works. It puts a seemingly useless guy right next to the first healing point, where the player is almost guaranteed to try out new spells and weapons, because it's the first time they can level up and a bunch of new spells are sold right around the corner. The deluge of new options coupled with the free healing point is a big sign saying "test stuff out here." And at this point the player has also just learned that enemies reset and respawn when you rest at a healing point. So let's try out a spell. Oops. That NPC apparently aggroed me. Wait. He didn't reset. He's now killed me 39 times in a row because he kills me in one hit and he's six millimeters from the respawn point. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Just run. This healing point is now unusable for the first half of the game. Later (or right away if you're clever) you figure out how to kill him by knocking him off a ledge.
If you don't attack this guy, of course, he turns into a tutorial NPC who tells you where to go any time you get lost. But most players will never experience that because he's either dead or in a berserk rage.
Let me put that in fucking bold for you guys, for emphasis.
The punishment for experimenting with the game systems and trying to discover how to play is that you are banned from accessing the tutorials.
I can't possibly come up with a better example of what not to do in a tutorial. This is literally the worst one in the history of all video games.
(Now, what this scene absolutely does perfectly, just like the boulder out of nowhere in the intro stage, is communicate very clearly what the rest of the game will be like. But that's not relevant here. In this topic I'm just talking about teaching the player how to play.)
It's a game that's designed with cheap tricks like that in order to sell strategy guides. I feel pretty sure that's the only reason it's done like that, and all the stuff about the designer's artistic vision and the player's skill level is just bullcrap they made up because they can't come out and say that they're trying to sell guides. It's like the zodiac spear and invisible weapons in FF12.
If you plan on selling strategy guides for your RPG Maker games, then feel free to emulate From Software's methodology. But be warned that the extra money you make is unlikely to make up for the money you lose from players who refuse to put up with your bullshit.
Irog
4858
Another way to teach the players about a useful skill is to use that skill against them. The player starts without the guard skill. Then, you setup a fight where the enemy uses the guard skill and retaliates strongly on the player, making this fight difficult. An enemy using an efficient skill that the player lacks makes that skill desirable. Shortly after the player gains that skill. You then make sure the player fights the same enemy and that guarding makes the fight easy.
As we test our game ourselves many many times, we become extremely efficient at beating the AI we coded. You are the most hardcore player of your own game. To make your game accessible to others, its initial difficulty should feel to you as "This is too easy".
As we test our game ourselves many many times, we become extremely efficient at beating the AI we coded. You are the most hardcore player of your own game. To make your game accessible to others, its initial difficulty should feel to you as "This is too easy".
Nana707
1003
Hello everyone! I'll reply to every post in order~
For anyone who wants to playtest the game as it is right now, please let me know and I'll send you a link!
The game is Virgo vs The Zodiac!
You can find stuff about it here: http://virgovsthezodiac.tumblr.com/
I thought of an on-demand difficulty option, accessible at any time by the menu. I don't know exactly how to do this without too much trouble other than giving the MC (there's only one playable character anyway) a passive state buff too all stats so they can win any battles by spamming attack on the first area, except for bosses.
Lots of players kept saying they died tons of times and when I asked they just sometimes didn't even equip a single new item. The first piece of equipment the player gets has an autorun event with her companion telling her that equipment adds abilities and stuff, I don't even know how to get into these people's heads anymore.
That's exactly what I was doing!
For the whole game I don't want to add 'good' or 'bad' equipment, just different pieces that can be upgraded so players can make their own builds freely. As for flavor, so far there's a Ribbon that changes the player's sprite color and weapons with completely new animations.
That's the hard part. No matter what I do, I can't unlearn the game to get into someone new's eyes. For a first-area demo I can at least calculate what possibilities they could do with X abilities/items in a linear path, but the system I'm creating kind of runs out of control as soon as the player has a tiny bit of freedom.
For example, there are 3 main stats that function as both attack/defense for the 3 main elements; an "Ambition" attack calculates it's damage comparing the user and the foe's Ambition, so the possibilities to ruin everything are far more complicated than the regular atk/def/mat/mdf. To make things worse I even added stat points being given through dialogue and interaction/choices.
It's the kind of phylosophy I've been going. I think, however, the people interested in the game so far tend to prefer a more steamlined story-focused game with simple mechanics that they can quickly get to the next story section without much hassle. The game being actually having a lot of
dialogue, interaction and interconnected story-battling sections doesn't help, I guess.
Oh, no, there are no instakills at full health! While you can't change equipment during battle, the first area doesn't require special items for special situations. All skills are being handled as 'physical attack' and the guard abilities always reduce physical damage directly.
A tutorial battle is perhaps the best way, though. I didn't want it to change the pace of the game in the beginning since the MC already knows her way in combat and the first enemy is a sentinent hostile...
Whenever I see tutorial battles the game's MC is a novice and someone else is teaching them in a harmless situation, it might become too immersion breaking otherwise.
Lol, the easiest solution so far!
Regarding information availability, players can access some tutorial images I've made through the menu or a shortcut (which is told them right on the first dialogue). I try to keep item/skill descriptions as informative as possible, HOWEVER, there's something I could never get the game to do for me.
I wanted the commands themselves (attack/guard) to show a tooltip in battle the same way a skill would. Since attacks and guards are different depending on weapon/shield, checking exactly what you have in battle isn't possible.
I made it so that through the skill menu the player can access their 'actions' skills, which aren't available in battle but are exactly their attack, guard and counter, with descriptions and stuff.
Other than that, I present tutorials constantly (1 or 2 per map. average map is around 30~40 long/wide) with short and straight to the point info on everything relevant for them to know by that point, or so I think.
I'm using a plugin for restarting battles as soon as you lose, with no penalty, btw. Perhaps adding a buff to the player that lasts for a single fight that increases every stat after X losses that gets reset on a win?
You can save the game anywhere and there's a character (the Save Dinosaur) that's placed around the world telling you to save and giving you healing items whenever a difficult battle is nearby.
And regarding my troubles with the game, whenever I play, I barely use healing items or die. It's totally a 'paying attention' issue if I do, or intentional handicaps for testing.
While I love SMT and it definitely influences me, doesn't a completely different system (no foe-recruiting, no elemental focus, no press turn) would turn people off completely? I'm not sure where to look at. About information, I don't say percentages specifically or damage numbers precisely (mainly because the interface plugins I use only allow for a single line of description on the menu, BUT IT LOOKS SO PRETTY). I may want to change some stuff to acomodate that, specifically how much damage is absorbed by the shield, though. And yes, only equipment grants spells!
Each piece tells you what it gives but I don't have space to explain the spells in the item description, which is terrible for buying items, though. Don't know how to fix that.
People who playtested it were some fans on tumblr who were interested in the game's premise/story/characters/graphics, the systems were explained in some posts there but nothing was actually saying the game was going to be terribly hard, just that battles required more thought.
This would be a good idea if the Shield wasn't always displayed on her portrait/battle sprite. The save point idea is a great consideration though! That could remind players constantly. I'll possibly change an early enemy to fit this boss' role you say, coupled with a shield of his own, loved the immune to damage but not counters!
It's named 'Shield' through the command, as in 'use your shield' kind of thing since there should be some much later shields that add abilities other than guards such as a stunning bash. Not sure if this also carries a bad feeling to the stuff, though...
Well, players do begin the game fighting a couple foes that can be beaten by spamming attack (which leaves the player with very low health, though, but they 100% drop a healing item anyway)
As for enemies, I perhaps added a foe which breaks your guard when you try to do so, preventing a counter a lot earlier than I should. By using info gathered in this thread I'll very possibly remake him so to fit a tutorial boss' purpose.
I agree wholeheartedly. Before reading your post I didn't even know NPCs can be reset! I always only killed right away if I accidentaly hit them or something. Even the stats are a burden of knowledge. Adaptability on DaS2 anyone?
This was something that sometimes pissed me off some games. Especially turn-based ones which only give you an attack option for the first few battles. I felt it wouldn't be difficult to figure out what's been given to the player right off the bat, especially since I grew up with Pokemon and you always start with a debuff skill in addition to the attack and soon learn some new skill.
I try not to give players new abilities and equipment until some maps are travelled through, but perhaps I didn't add enough practice enemies?
There's no random encounters and once beaten, enemies stay dead forever. I may want to change that to acomodate this kind of 'getting used to' for different kinds of people with different backgrounds though.
And no! No OHKO kind of thing, unless perhaps players avoid equipping new stuff and purposely avoid battles to rush to the boss, but even then, by drinking the only available healing items, they'd buff their stats enough to survive the most damaging hits while naked.
I loved the stun idea! While it doesn't actually kill the player, stuning is just annyoing and they'd want to avoid that. Any tips on how I could make these kind of skills? I know how it could be done to stun only if you're not guarding but how to retaliate that back to the foe?
I most definitely agree! And considering DaS2, I've made every tutorial info thing on Horoscope Pillars, which are bright red and always placed somewhere it seems important, but they're never obligatory to interact with. In the very first dialogue, the player companion tells her to read
them and there's one a few steps away. Considering the whole area is greyed out and these are the only bits of colour here and there, I don't feel they'd be easily missable.
I tried to make some of my systems based on that, as well. I remember reading a post about the Grim Dawn devs saying they changed the main stats so that the player wouldn't automatically assume what they did and went to read about them, so their functionality could vary from the norm.
Whenever I get to play a new game with differently called stats/elements I get totally more hooked into it and once the game's system hooks me, my incentive to keep playing despite possible flaws is drastically minimized.
One issue with trying new things is perhaps how hard-hitting the foes could get? I mean, I wouldn't want to experiment in battles that could kill me, but in the same sense I don't want to add easily killed filler enemies exclusively to serve that purpose...
After reading through the replies, that's kind of what I'm about to do. Set up an obligatory foe that will do that somehow.
The difficult part of 'This is too easy' is knowing when to stop. I think that developing games in a team, with specialized people to do their jobs and often testing the game themselves is the only thing I miss when working on the game alone. The freedom that comes from not having a team disagree with your ideas definitely harms the testing development more than any other part. I can never unlearn the game, only pretend to play wrong...
For anyone who wants to playtest the game as it is right now, please let me know and I'll send you a link!
author=Xbuster
The game is Virgo vs The Zodiac!
You can find stuff about it here: http://virgovsthezodiac.tumblr.com/
I thought of an on-demand difficulty option, accessible at any time by the menu. I don't know exactly how to do this without too much trouble other than giving the MC (there's only one playable character anyway) a passive state buff too all stats so they can win any battles by spamming attack on the first area, except for bosses.
Lots of players kept saying they died tons of times and when I asked they just sometimes didn't even equip a single new item. The first piece of equipment the player gets has an autorun event with her companion telling her that equipment adds abilities and stuff, I don't even know how to get into these people's heads anymore.
author=Jakoo56
That's exactly what I was doing!
For the whole game I don't want to add 'good' or 'bad' equipment, just different pieces that can be upgraded so players can make their own builds freely. As for flavor, so far there's a Ribbon that changes the player's sprite color and weapons with completely new animations.
author=unity
That's the hard part. No matter what I do, I can't unlearn the game to get into someone new's eyes. For a first-area demo I can at least calculate what possibilities they could do with X abilities/items in a linear path, but the system I'm creating kind of runs out of control as soon as the player has a tiny bit of freedom.
For example, there are 3 main stats that function as both attack/defense for the 3 main elements; an "Ambition" attack calculates it's damage comparing the user and the foe's Ambition, so the possibilities to ruin everything are far more complicated than the regular atk/def/mat/mdf. To make things worse I even added stat points being given through dialogue and interaction/choices.
author=Dyhalto
It's the kind of phylosophy I've been going. I think, however, the people interested in the game so far tend to prefer a more steamlined story-focused game with simple mechanics that they can quickly get to the next story section without much hassle. The game being actually having a lot of
dialogue, interaction and interconnected story-battling sections doesn't help, I guess.
author=Red_Nova
Oh, no, there are no instakills at full health! While you can't change equipment during battle, the first area doesn't require special items for special situations. All skills are being handled as 'physical attack' and the guard abilities always reduce physical damage directly.
A tutorial battle is perhaps the best way, though. I didn't want it to change the pace of the game in the beginning since the MC already knows her way in combat and the first enemy is a sentinent hostile...
Whenever I see tutorial battles the game's MC is a novice and someone else is teaching them in a harmless situation, it might become too immersion breaking otherwise.
author=Sooz
Lol, the easiest solution so far!
author=Liberty
Regarding information availability, players can access some tutorial images I've made through the menu or a shortcut (which is told them right on the first dialogue). I try to keep item/skill descriptions as informative as possible, HOWEVER, there's something I could never get the game to do for me.
I wanted the commands themselves (attack/guard) to show a tooltip in battle the same way a skill would. Since attacks and guards are different depending on weapon/shield, checking exactly what you have in battle isn't possible.
I made it so that through the skill menu the player can access their 'actions' skills, which aren't available in battle but are exactly their attack, guard and counter, with descriptions and stuff.
Other than that, I present tutorials constantly (1 or 2 per map. average map is around 30~40 long/wide) with short and straight to the point info on everything relevant for them to know by that point, or so I think.
I'm using a plugin for restarting battles as soon as you lose, with no penalty, btw. Perhaps adding a buff to the player that lasts for a single fight that increases every stat after X losses that gets reset on a win?
You can save the game anywhere and there's a character (the Save Dinosaur) that's placed around the world telling you to save and giving you healing items whenever a difficult battle is nearby.
And regarding my troubles with the game, whenever I play, I barely use healing items or die. It's totally a 'paying attention' issue if I do, or intentional handicaps for testing.
author=Kylaila
While I love SMT and it definitely influences me, doesn't a completely different system (no foe-recruiting, no elemental focus, no press turn) would turn people off completely? I'm not sure where to look at. About information, I don't say percentages specifically or damage numbers precisely (mainly because the interface plugins I use only allow for a single line of description on the menu, BUT IT LOOKS SO PRETTY). I may want to change some stuff to acomodate that, specifically how much damage is absorbed by the shield, though. And yes, only equipment grants spells!
Each piece tells you what it gives but I don't have space to explain the spells in the item description, which is terrible for buying items, though. Don't know how to fix that.
People who playtested it were some fans on tumblr who were interested in the game's premise/story/characters/graphics, the systems were explained in some posts there but nothing was actually saying the game was going to be terribly hard, just that battles required more thought.
author=Lockez
This would be a good idea if the Shield wasn't always displayed on her portrait/battle sprite. The save point idea is a great consideration though! That could remind players constantly. I'll possibly change an early enemy to fit this boss' role you say, coupled with a shield of his own, loved the immune to damage but not counters!
It's named 'Shield' through the command, as in 'use your shield' kind of thing since there should be some much later shields that add abilities other than guards such as a stunning bash. Not sure if this also carries a bad feeling to the stuff, though...
author=EDPVincent
Well, players do begin the game fighting a couple foes that can be beaten by spamming attack (which leaves the player with very low health, though, but they 100% drop a healing item anyway)
As for enemies, I perhaps added a foe which breaks your guard when you try to do so, preventing a counter a lot earlier than I should. By using info gathered in this thread I'll very possibly remake him so to fit a tutorial boss' purpose.
author=Lockez
I agree wholeheartedly. Before reading your post I didn't even know NPCs can be reset! I always only killed right away if I accidentaly hit them or something. Even the stats are a burden of knowledge. Adaptability on DaS2 anyone?
author=Liberty
This was something that sometimes pissed me off some games. Especially turn-based ones which only give you an attack option for the first few battles. I felt it wouldn't be difficult to figure out what's been given to the player right off the bat, especially since I grew up with Pokemon and you always start with a debuff skill in addition to the attack and soon learn some new skill.
I try not to give players new abilities and equipment until some maps are travelled through, but perhaps I didn't add enough practice enemies?
There's no random encounters and once beaten, enemies stay dead forever. I may want to change that to acomodate this kind of 'getting used to' for different kinds of people with different backgrounds though.
And no! No OHKO kind of thing, unless perhaps players avoid equipping new stuff and purposely avoid battles to rush to the boss, but even then, by drinking the only available healing items, they'd buff their stats enough to survive the most damaging hits while naked.
I loved the stun idea! While it doesn't actually kill the player, stuning is just annyoing and they'd want to avoid that. Any tips on how I could make these kind of skills? I know how it could be done to stun only if you're not guarding but how to retaliate that back to the foe?
author=Red_Nova
I most definitely agree! And considering DaS2, I've made every tutorial info thing on Horoscope Pillars, which are bright red and always placed somewhere it seems important, but they're never obligatory to interact with. In the very first dialogue, the player companion tells her to read
them and there's one a few steps away. Considering the whole area is greyed out and these are the only bits of colour here and there, I don't feel they'd be easily missable.
author=Kylaila
I tried to make some of my systems based on that, as well. I remember reading a post about the Grim Dawn devs saying they changed the main stats so that the player wouldn't automatically assume what they did and went to read about them, so their functionality could vary from the norm.
Whenever I get to play a new game with differently called stats/elements I get totally more hooked into it and once the game's system hooks me, my incentive to keep playing despite possible flaws is drastically minimized.
author=Liberty
One issue with trying new things is perhaps how hard-hitting the foes could get? I mean, I wouldn't want to experiment in battles that could kill me, but in the same sense I don't want to add easily killed filler enemies exclusively to serve that purpose...
author=Irog
After reading through the replies, that's kind of what I'm about to do. Set up an obligatory foe that will do that somehow.
The difficult part of 'This is too easy' is knowing when to stop. I think that developing games in a team, with specialized people to do their jobs and often testing the game themselves is the only thing I miss when working on the game alone. The freedom that comes from not having a team disagree with your ideas definitely harms the testing development more than any other part. I can never unlearn the game, only pretend to play wrong...
While I love SMT and it definitely influences me, doesn't a completely different system (no foe-recruiting, no elemental focus, no press turn) would turn people off completely? I'm not sure where to look at. About information, I don't say percentages specifically or damage numbers precisely (mainly because the interface plugins I use only allow for a single line of description on the menu, BUT IT LOOKS SO PRETTY). I may want to change some stuff to acomodate that, specifically how much damage is absorbed by the shield, though. And yes, only equipment grants spells!
Each piece tells you what it gives but I don't have space to explain the spells in the item description, which is terrible for buying items, though. Don't know how to fix that.
People who playtested it were some fans on tumblr who were interested in the game's premise/story/characters/graphics, the systems were explained in some posts there but nothing was actually saying the game was going to be terribly hard, just that battles required more thought.
Why would it turn people off? Inspirations just tell you what you may like, or what the focus is on. You are NOT suggesting a spin off or clone or copy of the system. And I wouldn't recommend advertising it as such either, naturally.
The difference it makes, and that I was suggesting, however, is targeting a different audience as well that is more interested in the battle portions of the game for comparison (rather than graphics). Or at least used to make use of all the system has to offer.
That will give you very different feedback and is likely an audience that would love your game as well. (and as I said, if battle-hardened veterans have a problem with the system it needs to change haha)
That is the big thing SMT games and such a game have in common, a stronger emphasis on battle system use, not the details of any such system (which is what you need if you don't want to die all over in the usual smt games, they are mostly dungeon crawlers, after all)
Also unique to SMT in comparison to a lot of other dungeon crawlers is a huge emphasis on story etc alongside the battles. They're easy once you are used to the system .. before that, not so much. And a lot of people can't really play them because of it.
I mean, I am a battle nut and I can tell from a glance you are as well, and not everyone's that. Haha, same as a simple first person dungeon crawler isn't everyone's cup of tea. Make sure people know they will find that as such.
(likely your game is balanced and has much to offer beyond that of course, but the standard difficulty in most rpgs is breezy-easy and that's okay - just needs to be taken into consideration)
I still believe adjusting to any audience is good, but since you are putting specific expectations out there, it'd be most curious how different audiences would deal with the system (and help find other flaws).
That one line description can be a problem though. Can you post a screen? What does it say? (like Grants Spell STH STH Burn Flare Headbutt?)
What does it say in the equipment window? Where do you get the exact stats?
Can you tell where it would be useful to use, or against which types of enemies?
Many times there are "hits stuff" "hits stuff" spells you can swap between and people will just stick to their standard ones.
Diablo 3 actually works like this, (having a number of spells that are all okay to use throughout the whole thing), and the horrid standard display even literally gives no differentiation between different attack or defensive values "this is a normal melee attack on enemies" "this is also a normal melee attack on enemies, but can also help guard you a bit". With no way to tell the use of effectiveness apart before you turn on a more detailed explanations that went into how much % damage stuff does. And even then it's head-scratching.
Why would that be the STANDARD DISPLAY?! I don't know. Well, I suppose most game the first time through you literally can use any spell and knowing nothing beyond "this does damage" "this does damage, too!" doesn't matter because it's bull easy to go through.
But this made me hate the game already lol. (yes, yes, off-topic tangents ftw). Nevermind the "ready-to-play" luring nonsense.
I recommend avoiding percentages as well, but "negates most of any and all damage" would likely translate it well. Just make sure the intensity of the effect is clearly communicated. 90% for a guard spell in ANY game is HUGE. And having such a clear percentage does make it easy to understand and clear enough in this case. I could see the 90% used without issue.
(stuff like 40% strength + 50% health + 30 flat damage .. is really impractical to read in comparison)
I tried to make some of my systems based on that, as well. I remember reading a post about the Grim Dawn devs saying they changed the main stats so that the player wouldn't automatically assume what they did and went to read about them, so their functionality could vary from the norm.
Whenever I get to play a new game with differently called stats/elements I get totally more hooked into it and once the game's system hooks me, my incentive to keep playing despite possible flaws is drastically minimized.
As someone who plays Grim Dawn .. what can I say : D Grim Dawn has thankfully explanations for everything needed visible in the stat tabs, though the sheer quantity of stuff and different percentages takes a little getting used to.
(and yes I LOVE TINKERING WITH IT).
Also note that beside the different naming, hovering over each base stat also gives an explanation of what exactly it boosts. Even then I did take a little bit to really realize how deep the stats went and that they are non-standard as well haha.
Also note that the normal/first run difficulty allows easy progression through the story without utilizing these things too much.
The others have posted a myriad of ways to improve the learning curve tho.
Make sure it's visible. And yes, guard/shield as a standard has a very bad reputation among game mechanics haha.
Bulwark or sth sounds much better and more powerful.
from Nana707
A tutorial battle is perhaps the best way, though. I didn't want it to change the pace of the game in the beginning since the MC already knows her way in combat and the first enemy is a sentinent hostile...
Whenever I see tutorial battles the game's MC is a novice and someone else is teaching them in a harmless situation, it might become too immersion breaking otherwise.
On this note, if a tutorial is needed but the character you're playing as is an experienced fighter, consider having the MC be the one doing the teaching. Suppose they encounter another explorer early on that's having a hard time, and the MC gives them battle pointers through demonstration (and therefore teaches the player as well).
Milennin
2060
It's the same of what I've seen from various people trying to play my most recent game. Some will get it and adjust their playstyle accordingly to the challenge and beat the game (or come close to), while others will stubbornly clamp onto what they're already comfortable with and ignore the tools that they're given and die in the early stages of the game (and then some will complain that it's too difficult, or imbalanced).
There's nothing really to be done about it. Some people just don't get it, or they don't want a game that challenges them to such an extent. That is fine. You'll never make a game that caters to every kind of player.
Although, if ALL of your players fail to do what you want them to do, then you've likely gone wrong somewhere. In such a case, I'm guessing your game either does a poor job of monsters telegraphing their attacks in a manner that's obvious to players, or they're simply not being taught about the usefulness of the guard ability (after all, in most RPG Maker games it tends to be rather useless), or the game is extremely punishing from the very start without giving the player the chance to learn from their mistakes and people just give up.
There's nothing really to be done about it. Some people just don't get it, or they don't want a game that challenges them to such an extent. That is fine. You'll never make a game that caters to every kind of player.
Although, if ALL of your players fail to do what you want them to do, then you've likely gone wrong somewhere. In such a case, I'm guessing your game either does a poor job of monsters telegraphing their attacks in a manner that's obvious to players, or they're simply not being taught about the usefulness of the guard ability (after all, in most RPG Maker games it tends to be rather useless), or the game is extremely punishing from the very start without giving the player the chance to learn from their mistakes and people just give up.
Crystalgate
694
I have seen from various Let's Try videos that a lot of players are surprisingly inept at handling JRPG battles that are even the slightest complex. This is probably to a large extent due to us being thought that JRPGs don't require thought in battles. Regardless of the case, you cannot expect the player to pick up on seemingly obvious clues. A lot of the players will, but a lot also won't do so.
Have you labeled your game correctly, as in are the testers forewarned that your game don't permit mindless attack and heal spamming? This could help you with attracting the right kind of audience and may even cause some players to switch gear when playing your game. I don't think it's a good idea to let the players take on your game with the mindset that they can mindlessly get trough your battles and spring the fact that this isn't the case as a surprise on them. So, I don't think you have to spell "defend right now" out, but you do have to spell out that fighting mindlessly won't work.
Do note that telling the players that your game requires strategy is not enough, this claim is usually a lie when it comes from a JRPG. You need to convey that message in a way that makes the audience believe you.
Other than that, do you have any idea what percentage of your testers are having a problem? Is it a few of them or most of them? This information is rather important.
Have you labeled your game correctly, as in are the testers forewarned that your game don't permit mindless attack and heal spamming? This could help you with attracting the right kind of audience and may even cause some players to switch gear when playing your game. I don't think it's a good idea to let the players take on your game with the mindset that they can mindlessly get trough your battles and spring the fact that this isn't the case as a surprise on them. So, I don't think you have to spell "defend right now" out, but you do have to spell out that fighting mindlessly won't work.
Do note that telling the players that your game requires strategy is not enough, this claim is usually a lie when it comes from a JRPG. You need to convey that message in a way that makes the audience believe you.
Other than that, do you have any idea what percentage of your testers are having a problem? Is it a few of them or most of them? This information is rather important.
