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ABILITY IDEA - SPEAK WITH THE DEAD
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LDanarkos
430
LDanarkos
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CloseSome of y'all might remember that, in Final Fantasy 5, there was an ability to avoid traps and detect secrets. So if you had these abilities active, you could see hidden treasure chests or be immune to trap damage.
What I'm proposing is a Speak With The Dead / Commune With The Dead spell. Whenever you cast it, or when active (your choice how you want to implement it), you will be able to see transparent ghosts on certain screens, and you will be able to speak to them. They might say things that give you extra hints, add extra flavor to the game, they might say who killed them, etc.
What I'm proposing is a Speak With The Dead / Commune With The Dead spell. Whenever you cast it, or when active (your choice how you want to implement it), you will be able to see transparent ghosts on certain screens, and you will be able to speak to them. They might say things that give you extra hints, add extra flavor to the game, they might say who killed them, etc.
KoopaKush
3024
I feel like this is a cool idea to implement if it's kinda centered around the main game or story itself as a mechanic. Almost like a spiritual detective kinda thing!
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 can't really imagine a game where it's reasonable for this to be an optional thing you would trade attack power for, rather than just a core ability of the main character that you can do all the time
I understand LockeZ's POV but I can definitely see this running all the scale to a cute throwaway item that you MAY want to equip when visiting a town's graveyard just to read funny dialogue. I mean, Symphony Of The Night has shoes which make you 1 pixel taller. That's their purpose. It's cute.
However, to make it useful and meaningful without being a built-in ability might be a tricky thing to balance. May be easier in games with equipment hotswaps.
However, to make it useful and meaningful without being a built-in ability might be a tricky thing to balance. May be easier in games with equipment hotswaps.
LDanarkos
430
author=JosephSeraph
I mean, Symphony Of The Night has shoes which make you 1 pixel taller. That's their purpose. It's cute.
LOL
Btw, another way of having this skill be a trade-off is if you have a game where you switch characters in your party, and you have to decide between a character who can speak with the dead + 5 other skills, or choose a different character that has 6 skills. And then you wouldn't be able to just cheese it by trading out your gear every time you enter a new screen. Or, instead of a passive skill, it could be a cast skill with an MP cost, so then you ask "Do I really want to blow some MP to try to detect ghosts on this screen? I dunno. Maybe if they can point me to the shortest path to clear the dungeon." There could be clues that a ghost might be present if there's like a headstone, skeletal remains on the ground, or you see something haunted happening like a book falling off a book shelf.
With FF5, the ability to see secret passages was a passive ability that the Thief class learns, and could be equipped in liu of commands, or active abilities, such as "Black", "White", "Gil Toss", and the like. This functionality extended to dash, as it was also a passive ability for the Thief class. I dunno if it's useful to sacrifice a command ability for the ability to see secret paths, but, sacrificing a command ability for the ability to dash seems kinda dumb? I absolutely did it, though, because screw the default movement speed.
However, FF5 also allowed the Freelancer (and Mimic?) class to automatically inherit the passive abilities of the other classes that a character learned. This is a functionality that doesn't exist in any other game that uses a class-switching system (that I'm aware of), and it's something I appreciate.
*Edit: The ability to speak with the dead as a field action that costs MP can make a certain amount of sense. I'd personally make it a cheap ability, though, I guess how much it costs would likely be related to how often you expect players to use it. Like, if you're doing a paranormal investigations game, I would expect the ability to be able to trigger quite often, and probably have no cost associated with it. If it's more like, "Crap, I really need help with this puzzle. I can maybe get a clue from this skeleton, if I'm willing to pay X MP.", or what-have-you, I would probably have X be 5, maybe 10 tops.
However, FF5 also allowed the Freelancer (and Mimic?) class to automatically inherit the passive abilities of the other classes that a character learned. This is a functionality that doesn't exist in any other game that uses a class-switching system (that I'm aware of), and it's something I appreciate.
*Edit: The ability to speak with the dead as a field action that costs MP can make a certain amount of sense. I'd personally make it a cheap ability, though, I guess how much it costs would likely be related to how often you expect players to use it. Like, if you're doing a paranormal investigations game, I would expect the ability to be able to trigger quite often, and probably have no cost associated with it. If it's more like, "Crap, I really need help with this puzzle. I can maybe get a clue from this skeleton, if I'm willing to pay X MP.", or what-have-you, I would probably have X be 5, maybe 10 tops.
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
FF5's See Passages ability definitely doesn't seem like something you would ever want to emulate, or use as an example of good design.
Twilight Princess lets the main character transform between two modes, and you can basically speak with the dead in one of them. That's not exactly what the ability is, but it's close enough for our purposes.
What makes it interesting in Twilight Princess is that you don't get the ability to freely switch between the two modes at will until about halfway through the game. So for the first half of the game, you get to go through an area once as a spirit wolf and talk to the dead, then go through a second time as a human and talk to the living. Because your two forms also have different styles of movement and different combat capabilities, and you have to go through the entire area as one or the other, it makes it actually feel interesting to go through each area twice, once in each form. This is a pretty clever way to add more content to the game by reusing existing maps and assets.
Once you do gain the ability to swap between human mode and spirit wolf mode at will, the two forms having different non-combat abilities becomes pointless and annoying. You just press C-down and swap any time you want to do something the other form can do. It's basically a Lens of Truth that takes five extra seconds to turn on or off, and the Lens of Truth itself is already an incredibly stupid and annoying game feature to begin with. Gross.
Twilight Princess lets the main character transform between two modes, and you can basically speak with the dead in one of them. That's not exactly what the ability is, but it's close enough for our purposes.
What makes it interesting in Twilight Princess is that you don't get the ability to freely switch between the two modes at will until about halfway through the game. So for the first half of the game, you get to go through an area once as a spirit wolf and talk to the dead, then go through a second time as a human and talk to the living. Because your two forms also have different styles of movement and different combat capabilities, and you have to go through the entire area as one or the other, it makes it actually feel interesting to go through each area twice, once in each form. This is a pretty clever way to add more content to the game by reusing existing maps and assets.
Once you do gain the ability to swap between human mode and spirit wolf mode at will, the two forms having different non-combat abilities becomes pointless and annoying. You just press C-down and swap any time you want to do something the other form can do. It's basically a Lens of Truth that takes five extra seconds to turn on or off, and the Lens of Truth itself is already an incredibly stupid and annoying game feature to begin with. Gross.
thedarkdreamer
1198
Perhaps the Speak To the Dead skill can be used in battle too. It could be a field use and a battle use skill. Maybe speaking to the dead could be a multi attack in battle where 'spirits' could come out of nowhere and cause a 6X combo attack or something like that, kinda like when enemies in Dragon Quest would call for help and suddenly you're attacked by enemies you can't see. That could be useful. I think using the skill via the field would mean that it could trigger events in the story of the game. It isn't quite like necromancy. Just ideas though.
Sounds interesting, but I personally think it's better as a story thing. I could see it maybe working for a spiritual being speaking to you telepathically.
In my game, the ability to see hidden passages is possible through equipping a specific item (Pathfinder) in a slot reserved for field-only abilities. Things like disarming traps, watching out for pitfalls, nullifying damage from harmful tiles, better treasure chest items, having access to better or rare items at shops, and so on will all be factors. In a party of four, this might seem like it's too easy, but moments when you only have one or two characters in your party when navigating through a dungeon will make things very interesting.
In my game, the ability to see hidden passages is possible through equipping a specific item (Pathfinder) in a slot reserved for field-only abilities. Things like disarming traps, watching out for pitfalls, nullifying damage from harmful tiles, better treasure chest items, having access to better or rare items at shops, and so on will all be factors. In a party of four, this might seem like it's too easy, but moments when you only have one or two characters in your party when navigating through a dungeon will make things very interesting.
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