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THOUGHTS ON THE NUMBER OF SKILLS/SPELLS PER CHARACTER.
Posts
CociCookie
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CloseAs the topic title says, just looking for your thoughts on this subject. It all stems from me designing the skill sets for characters in an RPG I'm thinking of making sometime in the future. As I've been doing it, I've totalled the number of skills to be 18, 1 of which is their Transformation (Which works sorta like summoning) and 2 are Normal and Heavy Attacks, making a total of 15 per character. Add this to the 5 skills their transformation has, then you have a total of 20 per character. The way I'm thinking of setting up the game though, it comes down to 8 skills in the Normal form, as the skills are tiered (Each tier of skill can be used tough, I'm not THAT cruel that I'd force players to use the highest tier skills.)
Thinking along to an RPG I'm actually in process with on RM2k3, I've found that 20 Spells seems to be my amount for the two main spell casters in the group. Tiering them it'll probably work out roughly the same as above. It may be mere coincidence (Probably is) but I'm sure I've originally had another game where it has been roughly this number too.
From games I've played it seems to be a fairly standard amount of skills, with the amount of skills varying between characters and games (I'm sure I've played some FF games with more than that).
Really though, I'm curious as to what you guys think mostly, whether you have an amount you generally aim to have or if you just give each character a random amount and be done with it.IF it's the first is it usually loads and loads so that the player has to hold down for about 5 minutes (Okay slight exagerration there) to get to 'Apocalypse' orr is it very few so you can practically just tap down twice and all manner of hellish forces are unleashed on the foes.
Thinking along to an RPG I'm actually in process with on RM2k3, I've found that 20 Spells seems to be my amount for the two main spell casters in the group. Tiering them it'll probably work out roughly the same as above. It may be mere coincidence (Probably is) but I'm sure I've originally had another game where it has been roughly this number too.
From games I've played it seems to be a fairly standard amount of skills, with the amount of skills varying between characters and games (I'm sure I've played some FF games with more than that).
Really though, I'm curious as to what you guys think mostly, whether you have an amount you generally aim to have or if you just give each character a random amount and be done with it.IF it's the first is it usually loads and loads so that the player has to hold down for about 5 minutes (Okay slight exagerration there) to get to 'Apocalypse' orr is it very few so you can practically just tap down twice and all manner of hellish forces are unleashed on the foes.
I am okay with almost any number of skills as long as the skills are all useful. Accumulating 40+ skills only to find that exactly 3 of them are useful is not fun.
As Solitayre said, any number of skills is fine as long as I don't use them once and never again.
Stuff like Fire 1/2/3 is also bad unless they are replaced (see: SMT/Persona).
Basically, make sure the skillset is useful in its entirety. A skill can have a specific function if it does that thing well, but give the player circumstances to use it!
Stuff like Fire 1/2/3 is also bad unless they are replaced (see: SMT/Persona).
Basically, make sure the skillset is useful in its entirety. A skill can have a specific function if it does that thing well, but give the player circumstances to use it!
post=122418
Stuff like Fire 1/2/3 is also bad unless they are replaced (see: SMT/Persona).
I'm glad you brought this up as it's something I think about every now and then for my own project. While it does sound efficient to replace and 'upgrade' spells as you go along to keep everything usable, at the same time, I don't always want only the best option available to me at the time. Sure, Fire 3 is the most powerful Fire spell that I have, but what if I don't want to spend all of that MP on a random Goblin that happens to be weak against fire? Or what if, for strategic reasons, I just want to weaken the enemy and not outright immolate him?
I'm not sure what to do about this, but I'm thinking of something like having four tiers of elemental magic, and only having two at a time. Fire 1 upgrades into Fire 2, for example, but once Fire 3 is available, Fire 1 vanishes, and so on.
MOG, I think that'd be fine.
I am a huge fan of very unique skills, but not many per character (see: Diablocide, Visions & Voices). Imagine my surprise when I had to pop out over a hundred very unique skills for Arian Wild... in any case, I agree with Karsuman on not overloading with FIRE 1/2/3/4/5/6/7.
As for number? Keep it down, or overwrite like Pokemon or SMT.
I am a huge fan of very unique skills, but not many per character (see: Diablocide, Visions & Voices). Imagine my surprise when I had to pop out over a hundred very unique skills for Arian Wild... in any case, I agree with Karsuman on not overloading with FIRE 1/2/3/4/5/6/7.
As for number? Keep it down, or overwrite like Pokemon or SMT.
First, I agree strong spells don't have to replace weaker ones. Weaker ones cost less MP.
As for the main question of this topic, one thing I'd worry about is not having different characters use similar sets of skills. For example, in FFVI you learned spells from Espers, and everyone could equip any Esper... so each character could learn every spell. That made characters to similar to each other. I'd avoid that.
If you have, let's say, 8 characters, each with 20 skills, with a total of 160 skills, and you can manage to invent 160 different useful skills in RM2K3... you go for it.
As for the main question of this topic, one thing I'd worry about is not having different characters use similar sets of skills. For example, in FFVI you learned spells from Espers, and everyone could equip any Esper... so each character could learn every spell. That made characters to similar to each other. I'd avoid that.
If you have, let's say, 8 characters, each with 20 skills, with a total of 160 skills, and you can manage to invent 160 different useful skills in RM2K3... you go for it.
calunio, in a game like an Shin Megami Tensei game or a Final Fantasy game, do you ever use anything less than your best spell? Once you learn Firaga, you don't look back. So why clutter up your spell menu with the old spells?
Another way to get around that is to have a limit on the amount of skills you can use in battle, like in Xenosaga I.
Another way to get around that is to have a limit on the amount of skills you can use in battle, like in Xenosaga I.
EnderX
562
I have no clue where I sit on this one, to be honest.
My own current body of works are largely along the lines of what calunio was just saying don't do - Very few characters have truly individual skills. (Current max is 8 - dropping to 2 if you remove alt-elemental duplicates and go only with the base set - and that's highly unusual). However, I'm planning a much larger variety of skills that are basically designed to be learned elsewhere. Find a mentor/instructor (can be someone else in the party), train in your spare time (earned EXP is burned to purchase these), etc. The exp. cost should help to prevent 'uber-sameness' except for particularly determined grinders, I hope.
Each character does start off with a 'specialty' of sorts; the one their base skills are from, but there's no reason that they couldn't develop along other lines if the player so desired.
And with the replace/tier argument - what would opinions be of a system where the cost of a skill could be bought down? That is, after obtaining Fire, have a branched set of options for the next skill that contained both Fire 2 and a half-MP version of Fire?
My own current body of works are largely along the lines of what calunio was just saying don't do - Very few characters have truly individual skills. (Current max is 8 - dropping to 2 if you remove alt-elemental duplicates and go only with the base set - and that's highly unusual). However, I'm planning a much larger variety of skills that are basically designed to be learned elsewhere. Find a mentor/instructor (can be someone else in the party), train in your spare time (earned EXP is burned to purchase these), etc. The exp. cost should help to prevent 'uber-sameness' except for particularly determined grinders, I hope.
Each character does start off with a 'specialty' of sorts; the one their base skills are from, but there's no reason that they couldn't develop along other lines if the player so desired.
And with the replace/tier argument - what would opinions be of a system where the cost of a skill could be bought down? That is, after obtaining Fire, have a branched set of options for the next skill that contained both Fire 2 and a half-MP version of Fire?
Well in the game mentioned in the OP, the skills will have varying effects between tiers. For example the main character who uses Energy (Well, more Force like moves but meh) and his basic special ability is a three-tier skill that goes Energy Bolt -> Energy Burst -> Energy Blast.
Bolt is your standard, Energy element attack which costs 2 ACT.
Burst fires multiple projectiles, with a chance that the attack will disperse and hit multiple targets, costs 4 ACT
Blast is an upgraded Bolt, with a chance to inflict Knockdown, which doubles the crit chance against it until it's next turn, costs 6 ACT.
Another skill, Energy Slam, only has one tier, but costs 3 ACT and knocks the enemy into the air. This is best used at the start of a combo, as being airborne is the same as Knockdown, but only until the end of the Main Character's turn.
So each skill will have it's own use within the battle system, and with many none-weapon skills being elemental, elemental weaknesses will fall into play as well.
And this is waaay too hard to program in RM2K3, and possibly a bit too hard for XP or VX too. I'm planning on saving it for when I get better at coding this sort of thing professionally, till then I'll just make sure to design everything and remember where all my ideas and stuff is kept (Hopefully on my Laptop, One Note is so damn useful).
EDIT: That branched idea seems like it'd be a pretty good idea, either you could spam spells like crazy or go straight for power, however to make it work Fira would have to be more powerful than two Fires, the same with Firaga in relation to Fira.
Bolt is your standard, Energy element attack which costs 2 ACT.
Burst fires multiple projectiles, with a chance that the attack will disperse and hit multiple targets, costs 4 ACT
Blast is an upgraded Bolt, with a chance to inflict Knockdown, which doubles the crit chance against it until it's next turn, costs 6 ACT.
Another skill, Energy Slam, only has one tier, but costs 3 ACT and knocks the enemy into the air. This is best used at the start of a combo, as being airborne is the same as Knockdown, but only until the end of the Main Character's turn.
So each skill will have it's own use within the battle system, and with many none-weapon skills being elemental, elemental weaknesses will fall into play as well.
And this is waaay too hard to program in RM2K3, and possibly a bit too hard for XP or VX too. I'm planning on saving it for when I get better at coding this sort of thing professionally, till then I'll just make sure to design everything and remember where all my ideas and stuff is kept (Hopefully on my Laptop, One Note is so damn useful).
EDIT: That branched idea seems like it'd be a pretty good idea, either you could spam spells like crazy or go straight for power, however to make it work Fira would have to be more powerful than two Fires, the same with Firaga in relation to Fira.
Darken
3952
post=122443
Another way to get around that is to have a limit on the amount of skills you can use in battle, like in Xenosaga I.
Reminds me of Guild Wars. I know its an MORPG (or.. whatever subsub genre it is) but bear with me for a second. Basically you can purchase/own every single skill in the game (provided it is of your class/subclass and you have enough currency) but you can only use 8 skills at at time, with 1 of them being an elite skill (a skill much stronger than normal ones).
It's confusing picking which skills to use in battle (YF's little RTP game showed me that) but I think it can work in a single player RPG provided the pacing of the skills gained is regulated.
Skill pacing is super-important, perhaps even more important than the amount of skills you get. There also is not really a rule to it at all, so it's really hard to quantify. So... get it right? Karsuman and I have been discussing this for ages (like, seriously, months).
facesforce
442
How about two skills outside of the attack option? One skill that is for outside effects and one for battle that you can increase the power of during the game. This would create balance and diversify your pcs.
Drakonais
2787
One way I used in a canceled project of mine was to assign a "skill size" to each ability and have them equipable in a custom menu that popped out on the Shift key. The player had a fixed amount of space on a skill bar and larger skills would take up more space.
So you could have a really awesome, super powerful skill, but it maxed out your bar so you couldn't equip anything else. Or maybe you couldn't even equip the best spell yet because you need to level up and get more available space.
If you're interested in this method, I could dig up the code (and its Rm2k3 so of course I mean series of commands) for this.
So you could have a really awesome, super powerful skill, but it maxed out your bar so you couldn't equip anything else. Or maybe you couldn't even equip the best spell yet because you need to level up and get more available space.
If you're interested in this method, I could dig up the code (and its Rm2k3 so of course I mean series of commands) for this.
post=122443
calunio, in a game like an Shin Megami Tensei game or a Final Fantasy game, do you ever use anything less than your best spell?
Well, yeah. If the game has any semblance of challenge to it, I usually can't, or shouldn't, churn out Firagras battle after battle after battle, especially given limited MP and resources. And there are a variety of hypothetical strategic situations where I might now want to.
kayzorkross
25
This topic is so relevant for me right now since I'm reworking the skills of all my characters (since I've added three party members things need to be rebalanced). My skill system lets the characters learn a wide pool of abilities but only lets a certain number be active at any one time.
Personally I've tried to stray away from the "Fire 1, 2 ,3" concept entirely. There is an option to upgrade Fireball to a more powerful version, but otherwise you only get the one spell. My reason for this is that I'm gauging that the spell damage would increase as the caster's Int/Wis/Mag stat increases.
Personally I've tried to stray away from the "Fire 1, 2 ,3" concept entirely. There is an option to upgrade Fireball to a more powerful version, but otherwise you only get the one spell. My reason for this is that I'm gauging that the spell damage would increase as the caster's Int/Wis/Mag stat increases.
Currently in my game Each character has an array of skills which evolve and get stronger. Some of the skills evolve to replace older skills, while some simply add another skill to the list.
Most characters have a 'buff up' skill or two, and some have a healing skill (which tends to heal about as much as an item would, but for less mana cost than an actual healing spell would). The majority of the skills are direct damaging attacks, which get successively stronger as you get them, but cost significantly more mana as well. Some of them may also be elementally charged, which gives them a lot of utility, even once their base power has been overtaken by a new skill.
Magic on the other hand, is handled the same for every character. For each element there are four single target spells, and four multi-target spells. there are 8 elements. (64 total) there are 4 single target healing spells, and 4 multi target healing spells, and 3 ressurrection spells (single, multi and full heal style) That gives me 75 spells so far. There are also a nonspecific amount of status/stat lowering spells (which I have yet to implement). Each character has the ability to learn all of these, or none of them at the player's discretion.
The skills are what makes the characters unique in my game, not the magic spells, in most games there isn't much of a distinction made, between those two, however.
Most characters have a 'buff up' skill or two, and some have a healing skill (which tends to heal about as much as an item would, but for less mana cost than an actual healing spell would). The majority of the skills are direct damaging attacks, which get successively stronger as you get them, but cost significantly more mana as well. Some of them may also be elementally charged, which gives them a lot of utility, even once their base power has been overtaken by a new skill.
Magic on the other hand, is handled the same for every character. For each element there are four single target spells, and four multi-target spells. there are 8 elements. (64 total) there are 4 single target healing spells, and 4 multi target healing spells, and 3 ressurrection spells (single, multi and full heal style) That gives me 75 spells so far. There are also a nonspecific amount of status/stat lowering spells (which I have yet to implement). Each character has the ability to learn all of these, or none of them at the player's discretion.
The skills are what makes the characters unique in my game, not the magic spells, in most games there isn't much of a distinction made, between those two, however.
My thoughts summarized:
1. Upgrades are fine/good. But make sure your MP is balanced too. In my project, EN recovers after battle - but the battles are rather unforgiving.
2. I like if you can choose which skill to learn. That being said, allowing every PC to learn ANY skill in the game is definitely interesting for me. However, since that's pretty damn tedious to code, I can settle with the basics (i.e. everyone can learn to heal or use fire/ice/elec). If that's still too much, I only ask that at least you can do that with the main character (Primary PC).
Note: Branching falls into this category too.
3. Special skills for different character is nice for diversification.
4. Allow us to unequip skills. In my project, you can only choose very few skills to be brought in battle (Pokemon). Reason : Having 20 skills makes you hard to find the one you need. Personally I think more than 6 or 9 (i.e. have to scroll down a page in DBS skill list) is pretty tedious since probably few of them are really useful.
5. Good skills I really care about in game :
a. Strongest move (for each elemental/attribute). So if you have 30 attributes (iron, wood, glass, flesh, dirt, etc etc) I would expect they have at least one skill/arts from that category that is useful. Same thing goes with healing spells, but hey, we have items.
b. Same as above, but this time HITS ALL
c. Bad status effect. Especially that gives more than 1 status (I am more of damage damage person though.. unless the boss is only weak against status effect)
d. Game breaking skills (doubles your attack/attribute, or SPEEEEED, reduce enemies stats by half (or stops them completely) or stops anything in the field. Yeah, I have that one skill).
By this logic, I'd say around 20+ skills is pretty correct (assuming you only have 4-5 elements and the skills overwrite one another (fira-Firaa-FIRAAA).
PS. I don't really mind if a skill has the same effect (with slight modification), but with different name to fit that person if that's one of your worries.
1. Upgrades are fine/good. But make sure your MP is balanced too. In my project, EN recovers after battle - but the battles are rather unforgiving.
2. I like if you can choose which skill to learn. That being said, allowing every PC to learn ANY skill in the game is definitely interesting for me. However, since that's pretty damn tedious to code, I can settle with the basics (i.e. everyone can learn to heal or use fire/ice/elec). If that's still too much, I only ask that at least you can do that with the main character (Primary PC).
Note: Branching falls into this category too.
3. Special skills for different character is nice for diversification.
4. Allow us to unequip skills. In my project, you can only choose very few skills to be brought in battle (Pokemon). Reason : Having 20 skills makes you hard to find the one you need. Personally I think more than 6 or 9 (i.e. have to scroll down a page in DBS skill list) is pretty tedious since probably few of them are really useful.
5. Good skills I really care about in game :
a. Strongest move (for each elemental/attribute). So if you have 30 attributes (iron, wood, glass, flesh, dirt, etc etc) I would expect they have at least one skill/arts from that category that is useful. Same thing goes with healing spells, but hey, we have items.
b. Same as above, but this time HITS ALL
d. Game breaking skills (doubles your attack/attribute, or SPEEEEED, reduce enemies stats by half (or stops them completely) or stops anything in the field. Yeah, I have that one skill).
By this logic, I'd say around 20+ skills is pretty correct (assuming you only have 4-5 elements and the skills overwrite one another (fira-Firaa-FIRAAA).
PS. I don't really mind if a skill has the same effect (with slight modification), but with different name to fit that person if that's one of your worries.
Clest
0
hehe funny how I disagree entirely with w_w:
I am fairly against building the whole skill set, I think skills are tied to the character personality and background, if you have then all open to choose it makes your character kinda disconnected from their background.
Not to mention it takes speciality away, think F7 where no matter who you had in your party, just which materiais they had equiped.
Similarly, unequipping skills doesn t make sense, you don´t forget skill you learn, so it makes no sense. And gameplay wise: if a skill is not useful, it souldn´t exist in the first place.
As for progression: I only mind strategic diversity, so having several versions of a one target only fire damaging spell is silly, but having a single target, a hit all and a status inducing fire spells would be actually great.
I am fairly against building the whole skill set, I think skills are tied to the character personality and background, if you have then all open to choose it makes your character kinda disconnected from their background.
Not to mention it takes speciality away, think F7 where no matter who you had in your party, just which materiais they had equiped.
Similarly, unequipping skills doesn t make sense, you don´t forget skill you learn, so it makes no sense. And gameplay wise: if a skill is not useful, it souldn´t exist in the first place.
As for progression: I only mind strategic diversity, so having several versions of a one target only fire damaging spell is silly, but having a single target, a hit all and a status inducing fire spells would be actually great.
post=122702
Similarly, unequipping skills doesn t make sense, you don´t forget skill you learn, so it makes no sense.
This can be worked around, for example if say, you have a stone that allows the holder to summon a spirit, or whatever.
Clest
0
Yep, but it shouldn´t work for simple stuff like steal, unless you go like all skills are only accessed by tapping on to the spirits inside the stone, but then it would make characters feel rather dumb as if they can´t learn anything for thenselves (like those games where without equipment you can only attack and use itens, in fact, for FF8 you couldn´t even drink potions without having the junction stuff set).
Of course I rather extremist when I discuss.
Of course I rather extremist when I discuss.
