WHAT ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT? (GAME DEVELOPMENT EDITION)

Only one class to properly block out in terms of skills and ideas, and they're the one of the other two temporary classes that don't level up, so they only need one skillset. Which is fantastic! The characters each have their own default classes and abilities, which are set, but they can equip sub-classes that have additional abilities. There's about 14 different sub-classes in addition to the unique classes the characters have.
It would normally result in ability overload, but at end game the maximum skills you can equip is 10 (I'm thinking of starting the play out with 4 at the beginning, but it'll probably end up at 6) as well as two passive abilities (some accessories can increase this).

Oh, and did I mention the SUMMON class sets, which have completely seperate skills and passives to the normal classes, and there's about twenty of those. More or less, I like the idea of giving the player massive customization while still having structure and regimentation. I love the idea of one player showing up to the final boss with a totally different set of characters and skills to another. That makes me all tingly! It's the same reason I want to put SEVEN DIFFERENT TYPES of default "potion" into Blood Rose, because I want Alchemy and Mix to be the decisive factor in what items you have. You find a personal preference and stick to it, which would make for massively varied player inventories by end game!

I guess in essence this game is more of a traditional RPG, especially since although the story itself is relatively linear, the way you complete it is not. You can pick and choose when you want to tackle a certain dungeon, it all depends on whether you feel you're ready for the challenge!
it may help that I've made the decision to do them Persona 3/4 style where you can exit a dungeon and return to a checkpoint rather than redo the whole thing

i am excite

....that's how Persona 4 does it.

noob

i'm really pleased with how my Shapeshifter enemy turned out. not only was it entirely too complicated, but it actually came out working!

In my game that has Wild Arms/Zelda style tools, I'm trying to decide what the second character's first tool should be. He's a detective, and the dungeon is a naval base. There's, like, no overlap at all between the ones that make sense thematically and the ones that I actually think are good ideas this early in the game.

Maybe a radio? I wonder what I could actualy do with a radio as a tool in puzzles. I know Metal Gear Solid has used it as one, but I don't remember using it for anything except story dialogue, saving the game, and possibly learning passwords for locked doors. I can come up with a few puzzles that require listening to enemies, I'm just not sure it's a tool that makes sense for you to be able to use at any time. I might have to write in random radio chatter for each map. I could make the radio messages show up automatically instead of having to listen to the radio, but then it's not really a meaningful tool because you're not really figuring anything out. Ugh, a radio is just kind of a stupid tool, maybe I'll just use a more normal one. A lighter or a taser or something.

Five out of your six suggestions are tools that help you detect things in your surroundings. You'd think those would be perfect since he's a detective, but as tools to solve puzzles, they're actually going to end up working like the lens of truth in Ocarina of Time - turn it on and see stuff, turn it off and don't. Even if you don't hate the lens of truth, it's super dumb to get it in the second dungeon. It's not going to reveal things you couldn't see without it, because you'd be getting it so early in the game that there's basically no such thing as "without it".

I could do it if I could make the process of searching actually fun and interactive instead of being just a toggle switch, but I'm not good enough / willing to work hard enough to pull that off.

Pepper spray is a funny idea. I could probably get the flashlight to work if it had other purposes besides just seeing. Like... scaring off ghosts? Startling the witch? Haha, I'll think about it, maybe I can come up with uses for it.

Turning things you find in for rewards is interesting, but since the detective in question is currently an enemy of the state, I'm not sure who you'd turn the evidence in to. ;) You'd have to get missions from clients first, I guess. As a sidequest chain, it's actually not a bad idea.

Anyway, I'll just use a lighter. It's a good first tool. One of my friends suggested that a magnifying glass, instead of being used to analyze objects, could be used on beams of light in the environment to create fires from a distance. I'll give the detective that as his second or third tool later in the game. I like the idea of having two tools that do similar things in different ways; it makes it more challenging for the player to figure out what tool you're supposed to use.

An example of how to do it less stupidly would be fire tools in ocarina of time. Fire arrows, deku sticks and din's fire can all be used to light torches, but arrows are long range and slow to aim, sticks are short range but are much quicker, and din's fire is short range wide area but you can only use it three times before you run out of magic power. All three will light any torch in the game, but not necessarily in a way that lets you solve the puzzle. You have to use din's fire to get through the entrance to the shadow temple, with a circle of 25 torches that go out after less than a second. But you have to use deku sticks to light all eight torches in zora's domain, which are spread out across three winding floors of caves and go out after thirty seconds.

Metroid's weapons aren't usually used to solve puzzles, they're just used to get past obvious obstacles that block off specific areas. There are puzzles here and there, but generally exploration in metroid is about remembering which rooms were sealed off by blocks with the speed dash emblem on them, and finding those rooms again. Nothing wrong with that but it's not the model I'm going for

Some other obvious suggestions for dual offensive/defensive skills:

- Drain attacks
- Attacks that grant the caster a defensive buff
- Attacks that inflict an offensive debuff on the target
- Healing spells that grant an offensive buff to either the caster or the target
- Defend or taunt skill that counterattacks if you're attacked while defending/taunting
- MP recovery, either by itself or attached to some other skill
- Speed buffs

I am thinking about a way to give a skill to any actor in battle if all members have an "elemental stone" equipped.

At first I was like "haha I know exactly who does that on RMN"

and then I was like "fuck wait I'm using a pixellated novelty font in my game"