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THOUGHTS ON THE NUMBER OF SKILLS/SPELLS PER CHARACTER.
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Feldschlacht IV
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Clest
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heheh Equip "drive" materia to become a bus driver :)
Anyway, regarding number of skills, I like Chrono Trigger 8 skills for each character, they have everything you need there and the battles are mostly fun and interesting.
Also, regarding unique skills, I ike it when several playable characters and enemies use the same skills, implying those are fairly common things in the world. I am no fan of comic heroes or shounen anime where characters are supers with unique powers, I am more for the regular guys using regular weapons to fight other regular guys (just that I like it when over tech and magic are regular stuff in the game settings :P)
Anyway, regarding number of skills, I like Chrono Trigger 8 skills for each character, they have everything you need there and the battles are mostly fun and interesting.
Also, regarding unique skills, I ike it when several playable characters and enemies use the same skills, implying those are fairly common things in the world. I am no fan of comic heroes or shounen anime where characters are supers with unique powers, I am more for the regular guys using regular weapons to fight other regular guys (just that I like it when over tech and magic are regular stuff in the game settings :P)
Darken
3952
Similarly, unequipping skills doesn t make sense, you don´t forget skill you learn, so it makes no sense.
Realism in a video game?
Clest
0
Not really realism as realism apply to reality and this would relate to even fantasy or science fiction, it is more like making everything match between story, setting and gameplay, unless of course there little to know story (think fighting games here).
But for rpgs, I at least like everything to make sense and it is not hard neither breaks the game anyway.
But for rpgs, I at least like everything to make sense and it is not hard neither breaks the game anyway.
Well, let's go back to the roots (D&D, son). Are you going to bring all of the components to your spells?
post=122723
Well, let's go back to the roots (D&D, son). Are you going to bring all of the components to your spells?
If I ever played a Wizard in D&D, then yes. But that'd be because I'd be only scribing spells I'd want to use. However I can't say which spells those would be because I only really play Fighters (Tip: Halfling Fighters suck).
On the whole 'Doesn't make sense' thing, drawing from D&D again, the wizards have to memorize a number of spells from their list before they can use them, and every time they wish to switch spells they had to rest in order to be able to cast them again.
Sorcerer's are sort of the same except that they have a set number of uses per rest, and can only change spells at a level up, as they don't walk round carrying a spell book.
Clest
0
But then again, the whole component stuff goes for magic in D&D settings, and depending on how a D&D based game was made, this coud be interesting, including the whole memorizing of spells.
Then again in my setting you just have your inner ether and the raw ether which fills the universe.
When you cast a spell your inner Ether touches the raw ether and changes it to the desired effect, kinda like a spark touching gas that fills a chamber and starts a fire.
Guess same goes for a lot of settings in games out there.
Then again in my setting you just have your inner ether and the raw ether which fills the universe.
When you cast a spell your inner Ether touches the raw ether and changes it to the desired effect, kinda like a spark touching gas that fills a chamber and starts a fire.
Guess same goes for a lot of settings in games out there.
facesforce
442
My last word on these spells is quite simple: Pacing. If you don't put a decent limit on usage, the PC can continue to spam all powerful spells, ala' de Slayers style. If your MC can use ultima or a end all nuke spell calling raw damage from the elemental plains in a non stop fashion, your game will become a cake walk. The amount of spells can be all the way up to 999999, but make sure the ones that actually have a lot of kick run out of juice before the ones like clairvoyance and the sort.
post=122702
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.
Yeah, it's personal preference really. I just like full customization when playing a game. Sorta the guy who likes to make his own hero rather than play as the hero of the game (like uh, if you played disgaea series or makai kingdom I guess you'd know what I mean - I didn't really use the "hero" of the game). Or DDS, since that one has 80+ skills and you can learn them all if you so wish. Protip : It's HARD and Time Consuming.
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.
?? Forget? I didn't remember saying anything about forgetting the skill.
What I meant was to restrict the amount of skill one can carry in battle. One is to make it more organized (don't have to scroll through 40 skills to find that one spell) and two, for strategy (maybeee).
That's what I meant by equipping/unequipping skill. You don't forget them.
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 think it more of "use it more, get better at it" Cause I don't want to make the player confused with sheer number of skills. I'd rather have it upgradeable to save space.
But yeah, I agree. I did use the higher level = added status effect/strengthen the status effect of that skill - forgot to mention that one.
Clest
0
Well yeah, it comes down to peference XD In fact, I like to create my own hero, but only in pen and paper RPGs or board rpgs when the creation will be complete and it ill reflect more. In most games where I saw character creation, the character looked really empty, or looked like a total outsider with no one who truly knows then and no motivation besides "getting money", "doing good' or "doing bad' (depending on alignment :P)
Only time I enjoyed it was exactly in a RM game, Mage Duel bu Max Mcgee, maybe cause I the motivation (survive) got me hooked.
But yeah, most of the time I don´t like the main hero on japanese games (or anime in general) but there are always those older and or more collected badass guys in the corner who I like :)
As for equipping skills, the thing is that forgetting, even for a time, is the only explanation I see to limit how skls can be used. I always complained about it in FFT. But sure that, depending on setting you can make it feel ok, somethong like skills related to weapon you are holding (if you equip a sword, can only use sword skills)
But still, I prefere it when everything you has is useful and yet not too many skills, again, see Chrono Trigger.
Well usuaaly progressing in skill (fire1 2, 3...) is there to make the player feel they got more powerful, same as oving from the wooden sword to the ultimate doombringer one. But while I do understand this, I it can be done differently, so stats, area etc
Only time I enjoyed it was exactly in a RM game, Mage Duel bu Max Mcgee, maybe cause I the motivation (survive) got me hooked.
But yeah, most of the time I don´t like the main hero on japanese games (or anime in general) but there are always those older and or more collected badass guys in the corner who I like :)
As for equipping skills, the thing is that forgetting, even for a time, is the only explanation I see to limit how skls can be used. I always complained about it in FFT. But sure that, depending on setting you can make it feel ok, somethong like skills related to weapon you are holding (if you equip a sword, can only use sword skills)
But still, I prefere it when everything you has is useful and yet not too many skills, again, see Chrono Trigger.
Well usuaaly progressing in skill (fire1 2, 3...) is there to make the player feel they got more powerful, same as oving from the wooden sword to the ultimate doombringer one. But while I do understand this, I it can be done differently, so stats, area etc
meavor
0
post=122776
My last word on these spells is quite simple: Pacing. If you don't put a decent limit on usage, the PC can continue to spam all powerful spells, ala' de Slayers style. If your MC can use ultima or a end all nuke spell calling raw damage from the elemental plains in a non stop fashion, your game will become a cake walk. The amount of spells can be all the way up to 999999, but make sure the ones that actually have a lot of kick run out of juice before the ones like clairvoyance and the sort.
Then you have never met the lovely miss Rita Mordio
That's exactly what he was saying was bad, dude. I don't think I saw her even -spending- SP for those skills.
Skills are a huge part of what make a character unique, and can make or break a player's love for a character as much as the plot will. No one would've liked Magus without Dark Bomb. The best example i can think of is FFVII and FFX. FFVII had 9 characters that were great in the plot, but almost exactly the same in a battle situation. FFX based it's battle gameplay around switching characters to utilize enemy weaknesses.
For my project right now, I'm using a normal level-up-gain-a-new-skill system, where each character has unique skills, with the added twist that you can upgrade these skills throughout the games using items. Once a skill is upgraded (and it can be upgraded in 4-7 different flavors) you can switch b/t any skill you've unlocked outside of battle.
This means you can equip your normal "attack-all" skill to do fire damage, ice damage, inflict poison, break armor, or something completely new. Upgrading the skill becomes necessary to exploit enemy weaknesses to elements or statuses, and also improves the skill's base damage.
I think this makes all of the characters unique (each one has their own skills) but allows them to all remain useful (you don't have to rely on the one character who happens to have a Fire spell).
For my project right now, I'm using a normal level-up-gain-a-new-skill system, where each character has unique skills, with the added twist that you can upgrade these skills throughout the games using items. Once a skill is upgraded (and it can be upgraded in 4-7 different flavors) you can switch b/t any skill you've unlocked outside of battle.
This means you can equip your normal "attack-all" skill to do fire damage, ice damage, inflict poison, break armor, or something completely new. Upgrading the skill becomes necessary to exploit enemy weaknesses to elements or statuses, and also improves the skill's base damage.
I think this makes all of the characters unique (each one has their own skills) but allows them to all remain useful (you don't have to rely on the one character who happens to have a Fire spell).
post=122415
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.
My RPG projects once tended heavily toward having many skills, although a few (Vermicide and EtG) where I tried to scale it back were accused of having too few.
I am occasionally mystified as to why and how some people found many skills in some of my projects to be "useless". This is a complaint that came up in both Iron Gaia games - it wasn't entirely untrue in IG1, but I playtested IGV with every conceivable skillset and was successful with many, many different combos of abilities. Of course, as much as I obsess over having accurate and helpful skill descriptions- and I do- ultimately the innate knowledge a game's creator has puts them at a disadvantage as a playtester.
I think the number of skills I had planned for Mage Duel seemed to be working best, but ultimately...the "correct" answer really, really, really depends on the specifics of your game.
P.S. OMG IT'S CLEST.
I like few skills. This is how it works in Arian Wild (unless you do lots of optional stuff to purposefully earn new skill picks, or go a jack-of-all-trades route). During the average run-through, each character will get ~seven-nine active skills slowly and steadily, and some of them don't even cost anything (since normal attacks are replaced with no-cost basic skills). They will also get passives, stat boosts and feats (think V&V), but I'm only talking about BATTLE here.
Notice how in Diablocide it worked really well when everybody only had two unique actions, Charge, Defend, and Item? Granted, you could have gotten the third (out of five) if you had a favorite character who was always in the party raking in the XP, but still. It works.
If you have a LOT of skills, I'd say you should probably try a skill-equipping system (like Xenosaga 1 or Ill Will), or at least have a way to split them up (having multiple Personas to summon). Having a three-page-long skill list to go through in battle is intimidating and unnecessary.
EXAMPLE OF AN ANNOYING SKILL LIST IN MANY MORE WAYS THAN ONE:
Fire Fira
Firaga Blizzard
Blizzara Blizzaga
Thunder Thundara
Thundaga Water
Watera Wateraga
Osmose Syphon
Bio Death
Meteor Stop
Alternatively (I am not putting these in hide tags for a reason), try FFXII instead:
Fire
Fira
Firaga
Blizzard
Blizzara
Blizzaga
Thunder
Thundara
Thundaga
Water
Watera
Wateraga
Osmose
Syphon
Holy
Holya
Holyfuckface
Dark
Darkna
Darknagawarcraft3
Spellaja50
Aero
Aeroagag
AERRRRRROOOOOOOGGGAAAAAAwhale
Death
Meteor
Notice how in Diablocide it worked really well when everybody only had two unique actions, Charge, Defend, and Item? Granted, you could have gotten the third (out of five) if you had a favorite character who was always in the party raking in the XP, but still. It works.
If you have a LOT of skills, I'd say you should probably try a skill-equipping system (like Xenosaga 1 or Ill Will), or at least have a way to split them up (having multiple Personas to summon). Having a three-page-long skill list to go through in battle is intimidating and unnecessary.
EXAMPLE OF AN ANNOYING SKILL LIST IN MANY MORE WAYS THAN ONE:
Fire Fira
Firaga Blizzard
Blizzara Blizzaga
Thunder Thundara
Thundaga Water
Watera Wateraga
Osmose Syphon
Bio Death
Meteor Stop
Alternatively (I am not putting these in hide tags for a reason), try FFXII instead:
Fire
Fira
Firaga
Blizzard
Blizzara
Blizzaga
Thunder
Thundara
Thundaga
Water
Watera
Wateraga
Osmose
Syphon
Holy
Holya
Holyfuckface
Dark
Darkna
Darknagawarcraft3
Spellaja50
Aero
Aeroagag
AERRRRRROOOOOOOGGGAAAAAAwhale
Death
Meteor
post=122706I smell Final Fantasy XDpost=122702This can be worked around, for example if say, you have a stone that allows the holder to summon a spirit, or whatever.
Similarly, unequipping skills doesn t make sense, you don´t forget skill you learn, so it makes no sense.
My one line opinion on Number of skills?
Enough, but not too much, or else you get lost in the list... (and if possible, relate one skill to the other, like, water and ice)
Hell Blizzaga !
Best materia of Crisis Core!
post=124148
AERRRRRROOOOOOOGGGAAAAAAwhale
I can imagine a whale spinning round in a tornado now O.o
Kinda wish I could change the title to "Thoughts on Skills" as it seems to have generalized now.
For the organization thing, I've been doing that with the ones in my RM2K3 rpg. I have Single and Multi target skills in their own separate columns. For the Alchemist his Fire/Ice/Electric skills grouped by level too. Makes it so you don't have to scroll past Fire and Ice skills to get to the Electric ones at the bottom.
