EQUIPMENT VS. LEVELING

That's not untraditional. Play more wRPGs. Diablo II is calling.

You guys just need to get out of your Tales of Animu (except Abyss which is pretty good, as is Vesperia I hear) mindset and look at what actually makes games tick. Hell, look at Tales of the Abyss. You equip what stats you earn at level-up, like in FF6. Most shops and/or areas (as in buy one variation, find another) have similar but different types of armors.

Look at FF7. Materia gains experience - that's right, you're equipping what you want to level, and Materia still works as equipment affecting stats on top of your equipment itself. Woah, Nelly!

If you want forgettable leveling and equipment, play Chrono Trigger. If you want to see how you can make your game a little cooler, look at lots and lots of other RPGs.

Coy, my old game, Legacies of Dondoran, kinda sorta uses a form of that system. http://rpgmaker.net/games/85/

It is probably different. You still level up like any normal RPG, but skills have stat-ups associated with them that do have a significant effect on the building of a character.

My problems with leveling is that is a slow and often dull way to play a game, but it's such on obvious path that many people do it anyway.

Example:
If you want to beat a boss, but you can't - let's say he's weak to Ice and you don't know that. The game creator might've failed to get his weakness across properly, or maybe the player is just dumb/lazy/can't be bothered to exploit weaknesses. So, he assumes he needs to level up to take on the boss, and he 1) spends a few boring hours grinding mobs over and over again or 2) quits playing.

It's a little pessimistic, but it's true - generally speaking, grinding is a boring process. An enjoyable battle system can lighten the load, and some people enjoy grinding, but it is never as fun as actually exploring new areas and fighting new monsters and bosses.

That being said, equipment is fun because it provides a significant boost to one stat, instead of small boosts to all stats. All of a sudden, you're doing a noticeably larger amount of damage, or you're taking a lot less damage, or you have a new spell. It's a more obvious, noticeable and fun reward - one you get for beating a huge boss or discovering a secret room, opposed to the "congratulations, you beat 20 monsters, here's a few more HP".

The ability to grind levels past where you should be is a crutch, not for the gamer, but the developer, who doesn't have to tune his battles as well because the player can just level up to meet his challenge.

This being said, Paper Mario had a great system for leveling up, where every level took 100 Star Points to reach and only buffed one stat (by a large-ish amount) that you could choose. As you reached higher levels, enemies would give less Star Points - Flying Goombas would go from 2 to 1 Star Point a kill, until they became worthless. The game also gave out badges for "cooler" bonuses to your attacks.


EDIT: Oh yea, and Coy, your system is fun because people can direct their character's growth, but like Craze said it's been used in FF6, as well as Tales of the Abyss and Tales of Symphonia.

EDITEDIT: And like Craze said, stealing ideas is fine - most RPGs use the D&D mantra "kill monsters get loot" deal, but the trick is making your take on a system unique - such as how it meshes with your storyline, other mechanics, and gameplay as a whole. If your equipment decides what stats you gain... do you explain this in-game (the weapons are forged with magic), do you match weapon types to their stats (wands give MGC, huge swords give STR, daggers give DEX), do you limit which characters can wear what weapons? These are the things that make systems unique, even if it's based off a general idea.

OKAY I AM DONE NOW

EDITEDITEDIT: NVM I LIED Craze I am borrowing a couple of general ideas from V&V hope you don't mind kthx

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slash: This thread is slowing down anyway, so spill! What're you looking at taking! I'm interesting in seeing what you think worked well.

I mean, it's not like we're remaking it and want tips on how to improve it or anything.

Well, I was interested in making a short game, and the idea of a time-limit was pretty appealing. I liked the idea that you could only take so many risks a day, fight so many battles until you had to retire - the design for my game is that you have to weigh the pros and cons of every battle, and you are limited by your HP.

Along the same time-limit lines, the game is altered by choices you make, based both on your personality and what you manage to accomplish. For example, in V&V I let Elena die (because I didn't find out how to rescue her until it was too late because I was dicking around in dungeons). In Reversal (title-under-development) you have a chance to save several people. Some you like and you might want to save, and some you might not care about. Some will help you if you do, and some might not. Again, all this is limited by who you actually have the ability to save, which depends on what risks you take (and how well you fight).

So these are pretty general ideas, but the pressure of time was one of the things I liked about V&V, and it's something I'm trying to create in Reversal as well.

P.S. On a side note, the Feats system was also pretty damn cool (and it adds to the limited-by-time factor) and I considered using it, but I'm being strict on myself on the timeline of my game and trying to squeeze it in might be awkward and time-consuming.

I'm sort of utilizing both methods. By leveling up, the main stat boosters are HP and MP, with strength and wisdom coming in a close second. Defense slowly levels up 5 levels at a time, and isn't the defining factor for your defense. Dexterity stays the same for that character and is only affected by the 'weight' of the equipment worn. So the more heavy you are, the slower you are. The real stat bonuses come from equipment. So grinding to get that extra 200 gold to buy that next piece of armor would most likely be worth the trouble!

Oh, a note about FFVI.

FFVI is all about equipment. You literally can beat the game at base levels with nothing but the right equipment with just three party members. It's been done before, many, many times. It's pretty insane; the Snow Muffler and some other stuff makes Mog immune to physical attacks, another combonation makes you untouchable by 99% of the attacks in the game, and the Gem Box/Economizer/Quick/Ultima combo just flat out destroys everything.

The only thing with this is that leveling takes a back burner in that scenario, especially when Magic is the only real stat worth raising with Espers in a normal game; the Speed stat is weirdly programmed, Vigor has a very small multiplier, and Stamina is more or less worthless. HP is pretty decent to raise admittedly, but MP is kinda pointless since most party members have way more than they need and the Economizer makes it all moot anyway.

Balance carefully and accordingly!

The most important stat in FF6 is level anyways