GAME DESIGN IDEA-A SAGA FRONTIER-ESQUE GAME THAT ISN'T SHIT.

Go for it, man! I liked what I played of that game, stylistically... but the flaws you mentioned made me abandon it. If it were done right, you could have a serious hit on your hands.

'Indepth' and 'Hidden' mechanics are two different things. Just because nobody knows what it does doesn't make it deep or indepth or good, it just means nobody knows what it does and that's more likely to annoy or get completely ignored by players than... whatever hidden mechanics are supposed to achieve. I don't think desperation attacks suddenly made FF6 any better (or eveven changed the player's strategy) than it was but it was never necessary to learn or even see them throughout the game.


Certain death scenarios are possible but should be avoided. I should not be able to reach the end of a dungeon with a late-game boss because I was exploring in an exploration based game and found a late game dungeon filled with the weakest enemies in the game. Hell due to the scaling enemies I was punished for it and I had to choose between losing progress or going through a dungeon closer to the enemy tier but without becoming stronger in order to fight them.

Analogy: I couldn't accidentally stumble into Doom, the final dungeon, in Ultima 5. I'd have to go through the Underworld which was already a bitch and a half and to get there I'd have to go through an eight floor dungeon which weren't exactly easy. You can still have a difficulty curve in a free roaming RPG beyond arbitrary assigning difficulty to whatever places and hoping the player doesn't stumble across the end of the game when dicking around in the start.

post=129469
See, I'm not so sure about this, GRS. There's nothing wrong with in depth gameplay, and by nature a free roaming game has the possibility of the player wandering into a deathtrap; hence SF's Quicksave feature.

Yeah, but it doesn't make it any less annoying. No one likes an enemy that comes out of nowhere and just rapes your entire party. When I think of a good free-roaming RPG that's gentle I think of Oblivion.

Man, me and HAUS (used to be in GW art forum) had been planning to make RS- style game for the longest. The saga series is basically one (somewhere on the top) of our favourite games. Especially the newest RS for PS2.

That being said, I also think that RS game (especially the mostly) is basically a guide-dang-it game. Sure, the mysteriousss aspect of the game (algorithms, randomness, ER etc) is interesting, but to me, it is also a rather bad idea. To fully enjoy the SAGA SERIES tm experience, I have to resort to guide (thank you gamefaqs) most of the time - and that is pretty tedious for me. I mean, there is a SYSTEM faq that is probably over 200 pages. Cool but really really heavy for new players. Thus, it's hard to get into the game (probably only people Saga fans would play and "get it") - in fact I think a lot of people complain about the story and get stuck at bosses or miss a lot of things.

Here is a run down why I think that game is lacking/weak (since we are sorta analyzing the series right?):

Summary : Very challenging (good) but too much randomness (it punish you for that too), not enough explanation/help.

====================================================
It's fun to be random, and I like it - to an extent.

1. Move Learning
Having to mash the buttons for hours just because you want to learn that ONE FINAL MOVE while you can already steamroll the game is not fun. Not fun. I just want to see the move and the game won't let me. Don't make it too random, that can be tedious!

2. Status increase: STOP GAINING WILL, I NEED STR/MP!
Sometimes the growth is just pretty messed up it's not funny. Especially when you know you are going to fight a strong boss.

3. Hidden things not explained (ER)
First time I played the game I have to restart because I just realised that more fights you do = increase in Event rank, which progress the game forward - deleting some sub-quests you haven't done them yet. Actually this is the main idea of the game so I am not even sure if this is a good thing or bad, sometimes I think it's neat, at times I think it's pretty shitty. I mean, there is this boss you have to beat to save some town (kill it before it moves out), and you have to do it early. It's all pretty doable until you realised that the enemies you have to beat to get to him is so frikkin hard during that time of the game. And yeah, as you progress forward, he moves out to the town. Now I assuming you also read the faq as I do, I am sure you also know that : you have to beat certain enemies to delay the ER further and if you skip them (you can), you are pretty screwed.

Or during those times I was wondering what good does each class do, WP reduction formula, what does WILL/CHR do, and why doesn't the game explain more about these stuff. In fact, there are a lot of things still left unknown I think.

Stuff like this is pretty annoying. But since I think that most square games are "buyy our guiddeees or you will miss out that one itemm" so I guess it is to be expected (I can sort of tolerate this since this is a commercial game, but for RPG maker game, well, I am not too fond of it).

3. Items randomness
It's a neat idea that chest respawn (it takes ages though) and that the content is dependant on the how far you are in the game (don't worry if you don't get this).

But I also think that it's pretty bad that you can't get the final weapons without a treasure map that is 1% drop from an enemy (any enemy). And that you have like uhh... I am not too sure but extremely low chance that it will be LV5 treasure map (for the best weapon) and the content is still pretty random (not too random, so this last part is easy; assuming you can get the map). Actually, by that time even if you wield a weak weapon, your arts will make up for it so this is not a big issue. But I dunno, it still piss me off though, being unable to use those weapons. This game is another completionist's nightmare.

The greatest offender is the fact that to get rarest drop from enemies, you have to be at the highest battle rank (determine how tough the enemies are) and that requires specific number on the counter to be reached. So imagine that you need to get to 30 from 25 and a battle can give you 1-7 point for example. However, when you go over 30, the counter is reduced to say... 20+ instead of 30. I think that is pretty unfair to the player so yeah.


Things I think are pretty cool
Definitely the challenge - The whole ER system is pretty challenging and each fight can essentially be a game over if you are not careful - especially in the early part of the game. That's pretty intense I guess - and requires a lot of planning (and luck luck luck). Sometimes a boss can go down in a few hit, but at times it just spam "I win" button repeatedly.

Ending path - there are 3 ways to end the game, but I still like it better in Saga Frontier, different final boss for everyone. It's just lack one thing : Completion. It would be better if there is some sort of plot tie in together after you get to finish all the scenarios, but SF is an incomplete game so what can I say.

Some characters do quests differently - obviously replay value.

Ambiguous story - most people hate this, but I like it? I dunno the idea of making the story myself as an adventurer is my kinda game. The only thing it lack is the feature to make your own hero. Why can't they do this.

Enemies/Scaling : it's pretty cool that enemies only get harder the more ER (or the farther you go into the game). I am not sure if there is a limit of how strong an enemy can get in an area so yeah. You can encounter even the strongest beast monster in an area you visit early in the game if you are progressing far enough..... I think.

====================================================

So yeah, don't go nuts with the randomness man. Otherwise you will end up with unlimited saga - cool concept but so frikkin random and tedious it's not even funny.

EDIT: I find it pretty funny that I like the game and complain a lot about it at the same time.

post=129804
it will be very hard to emulate a very horrible game.

Well, I wouldn't call it horrible, it's just.... not for everyone I guess (I know there is a phrase to say this but I forgot!)

I for one, really enjoy the series because it's full of FREEDOM tm. It is not often I can turn a weak, low tier sorcerer into an unbelieveable powerhouse at the end of the game. This is one part I really enjoy about this game. Don't like the character? Well don't use him, use the ones with the design/personality you like. Sure, no one is completely the same (some heroes have higher regen and stuff) but the point is, you can mold everyone the way you like it . Some people will be turned off by this, but I really enjoy this aspect. In the next game I heard the is a limit and specified growth, so that's pretty bad news for me I suppose (I don't have the console anyway).

Also the fact that the fights are borderline impossible at times (I still got my ass beat by a high level monster because they are just that dangerous). It gives you the feeling that every monster/fight is you know, pretty epic. And this is fine because you can skip all fights with the correct skill set (hide, lurk etc) gives you the incentive to use them in dungeons. If the fights are random encounter based/non skippable, I am pretty sure I will hate it.

@GRS
I agree. I am guilty of being a completionist myself, so I often consult guides for missable things (for any games - because I just don't want to be bothered to restart the game for that one thing). Personally I don't really enjoy this and it gives me a lot of spoiler some times.

@FELD4
Just make sure you don't punish the player when they go and explore. ER is a terrible thing with this, don't use the battle = progress increased especially if it is focused heavily on fighting. Or you know, make the game not too hard.
There is a notable quest in RS that goes from easy to holy shit hard (no time limit though, but I stumbled on it early and overwrite my save in the dungeon). The fights are easy, but when you got to the boss, it's hard. And there is three of them. It takes me a few tries to beat it (with sheer luck) AND you can't escape the dungeon till it's done. Wow, almost hit the wall there.

Feldschlacht 4
I still fervently play Star Ocean 2, for example, becuase there's a TON of side quests, missable stuff, 'one or the other' scenarios, and all that and it ups the replay value IMMENSELY. If the player doesn't care for any of that and wants to complete the game at a minimum, fine, but I don't think a game maker, professional or otherwise, has to go out of his way to make sure the player is presented with everything on a silver platter. Play, explore, discover.

I think we're at an impasse. RPGs are the fuel for my completionist OCD and I much prefer to see everything the first, and almost always the only, play through. I hate missing content because I zigged instead of zagged. I'm not big into replaying RPGs either, especially not thirty hour + ones and when I do I usually do something to change it up from the last playthrough (like applying hacks).

I'll just leave this:

s_w
Just make sure you don't punish the player when they go and explore.

Feldschlacht 4
If the player is going to ignore explicit warnings and 'go in anyway', he had better be prepared for the possibility of an ass whooping and not complain when he gets it. I don't like holding hands with gamers who should know better. I think level scaling is only appropriate in limited scenarios as well. It really takes the mysticism from working to achieve the strength needed to traverse behind 'SEALED GATE OF DOOM' if everything there is tailor made not to whoop your ass. What's next, diapers and training wheels?

Miscommunication here: I'm not saying that players should not expect to get their teeth kicked in, it's the effective use of warnings. There's two points I (didn't do such a good job of) want to convey:

1) Similar warnings for similar challenges. If the player goes into a bunch of Witches Huts with Skulls and has the same level of challenge from all of them, the 15th hut shouldn't suddenly be a challenge two tiers up. The player should be able to learn to recognize threats before they get themselves into death trap scenarios.

2) Desensitization. Having the Ash Mountains is cool but if every marginally menacing mountain was done in the same style players are going to become desensitized to any "holy fuck maybe I shouldn't go in here" atmosphere. There needs to be progression of warnings. If the warning for Tier #4 Challenges is dragon bones and ruined castles and eternal flames then Tier #7 Challenges needs to be a visible step up besides more dragon bones and more ruined castles and more eternal flames.