Tbh, skills gained through level ups never bothered me, but as far as skill points are concerned, I like how FFX did it

hmmmmmmmmmmm

I'm gonna go with Diablo 2 style talent trees, as I enjoy the layers of planning where my skill choices not only give me new skills but also help unlock future skills. FF9's system is also extremely good as I enjoy the way it affects equipment choices - I feel like it makes upgrading into more of a strategic choice instead of just a thing you do as soon as possible.

It seems like the enemy reaction thing could be done well, but if the things that trigger the effects are minor things that the player will only occasionally run into, it could become very hard to communicate what's going on. It's sort of like an elemental resistance/weakness, except it's only to one specific skill, which is awkward. Probably better to have large categories of skills that trigger the same effect, I'd think.

Regarding the thief, items are just skills that cost a different resource instead of MP. You can potentially balance them like any other skill. There's no reason they can't deal damage based on the user's attack power instead of raw damage.

I like to put a lot of status effects in my games, and make almost every skill either inflict or rely on one, but there's nothing wrong with only having a few key ones. I do think it's important not to have random immunities all over the place, as that's something that makes players quickly get sick of trying the skills. If you just want strategies to vary from battle to battle, try linking each status effect to an element? If you need to make bosses immune to some of them, then that's fine, I'd say to just figure out a standard way to do it and communicate it clearly to the player (preferably not by having to use Scan on every boss).

I also personally find that I'd much rather have 100% hitrate status effects with cooldowns and very short durations, instead of 30% hitrate status effects that I can attempt to use every turn and last the rest of the battle once they hit.

I hate the sphere grid, personally. I've been replaying FFX recently, and the sphere grid is clunky, slow, and most of all, totally unnecessary. Navigating the sphere grid takes some high level of wizardry to do correctly (just go UP AND LEFT, not jump across three nodes to the right), and for the most part, you're just traversing a linear pathway. It's a chore, and you end up having to do this every 2-3 battles; or if you're like my wife, you put it off, stocking up 10 sphere levels. Then you end up spending the next 10-20 minutes leveling up your characters. When leveling your character becomes a thing you want to procrastinate because it disrupts everything so heavily, it's a bad thing. I hate that stupid thing. Just another flaw amongst a sea of flaws for FFX, though.

Re: your second bullet point Mog, I love non-traditional elements entering into a traditional battle. A monster changing its skillset based on certain actions taken by the character is a rad idea. These are things I really need to brainstorm a bit harder for my own project. I've got a custom battle system that works moderately well, and yet only one boss fight to speak of for lack of ideas T_T . These are some good thoughts though, and have definitely given me something to work with personally.

author=Feldschlacht IV

author=narc
I hate the sphere grid, personally. I've been replaying FFX recently, and the sphere grid is clunky, slow, and most of all, totally unnecessary. Navigating the sphere grid takes some high level of wizardry to do correctly (just go UP AND LEFT, not jump across three nodes to the right), and for the most part, you're just traversing a linear pathway. It's a chore, and you end up having to do this every 2-3 battles; or if you're like my wife, you put it off, stocking up 10 sphere levels. Then you end up spending the next 10-20 minutes leveling up your characters. When leveling your character becomes a thing you want to procrastinate because it disrupts everything so heavily, it's a bad thing. I hate that stupid thing. Just another flaw amongst a sea of flaws for FFX, though.

I didn't mind FFX, but I didn't like the Sphere Grid either; everyone touts the customization, but pay attention the next time you play; it's a straight up linear path until the last quarter of the game. The Lilium Orb system in Tales of Xillia was similar to the Sphere Grid, but much better considering your stats and abilities were actually choices to be made by the player and you could end up with interesting and different characters.

I'm having a some trouble finding an interesting character progression system for Chronology; I was set on having skill trees but I haven't found any good scripts for one.

Oh, I like the Lilium Orb system from Tales of Xillia, although rather random GP growth on level up irks me. A system similar to that would be awesome.

I think its important to have a skill progression that ties into your story, at least thematically. If you look at final fantasy games, all their skill progressions are directly tied to the story... Materia, Espers, GFs, even the job system is (kinda) tied to the story, as they are inherited from the crystals. The sphere grid is a bit of a stretch, in that regard... The whole game has this fixation with spheres, but doesn't really give the sphere grid a proper place in its story. But still, it thematically ties in, to a degree.

Then again, linear skill progressions, or buying magic at a shop, both those work fine too, as they provide a reasonable progression for your characters without interfering with the plot unnecessarily. Skill trees are cool too, but I feel those are better suited to games that have more "blank slate" characters. I'm not sure how your game is laid out in that regard though.

Personally, not a fan of "skill tree" type progression in RPGs. If you have too much foresight into what future skills you'll have access to, it limits the opportunity for pleasant surprise. When you finally get a high tier skill, you've already had plenty of time to come to terms with the implications of having it.I also didn't like the Sphere Grid for this reason; you can see the entire grid laid out from the beginning of the game, and it gives so much opportunity to scrutinize and obsess over the powerups that you're going to get in advance that they've lost a lot of their interest by the time you get them.
Or, on the other hand, if you don't get to see in advance what skills your choices are leading to, you have too much opportunity to screw yourself over, leaving you with reason to worry every time you make a choice with major impact on your future playstyle under limited information.

"Skills acquired through level-up" doesn't leave much leeway for customization, but is at least transparent enough that it's not so hard to avoid major pitfalls with it.

I prefer some measure of compromise between these, where the player has some ability to direct their skill learning at a given time, but doesn't have the ability to see ahead indefinitely, and their choices don't limit their future options too much. For example, the job system in Final Fantasy Tactics, or the equipment skill system in Final Fantasy IX.

fuck this conversation look at how good that screenshot is



just do the latter

author=InfectionFiles
^Why I think the sphere-grid or a skill tree are good ideas over level ups, is that the player has a lot of time to recognize the power of the skill or more importantly be prepared for them and know how they work(or atleast an idea of how they work)
this eliminates the need to explain recently acquired skills every time one that is off-beat comes up

If the skills are sufficiently well explained in advance that you get a significant edge in this manner over learning about skills as you learn them, then you've essentially eliminated all the capacity for positive surprise right from the outset.

In most games, the amount of time it takes to come to terms with the effects of a new skill is pretty minimal, and in those games where there are skills or interactions complex enough that it takes a long time, learning to employ them effectively is a significant part of the fun.

A tutorial that teaches you proficiency in every skill you're going to need throughout gameplay eliminates the downtime in training as you acquire each new skill throughout the game, but how many people actually prefer to play that way?

author=InfectionFiles
I agree with you, it's not that complicated to learn most skills in JRPGs quickly but I have to fight the surprise factor you mentioned.
Most people prefer knowing what they are getting rather than be surprised by a new skill, at least that's what I've seen and gathered just from playing newer games.
(not saying surprise isn't good, but a lot of gamers like to mentally set up what they are gonna do)

What evidence are you basing that on?

In terms of MMORPGs or other games with a major online component, I would agree that this is the case. In that situation, I'd want to too. But for me, and I think for a lot of other players, this has a lot more to do with the displeasure of falling behind the curve or being out of the loop when player/player interaction and cooperation are major game components.

For me, there's definitely a measure of pleasure in setting up what I'm going to do. But if I can make that decision with any measure of completion early on, then I'll do it, and... that's it. Most of the pleasure of directing the growth of my character is spent right at the beginning of the game, way before it actually happens.

With a game like Final Fantasy Tactics, where you have leeway to direct your characters' growth at any given point in the game, but not unlimited access to information about future growth from the beginning, and also not that much capacity to screw yourself over in terms of future balance, I think that you can get that pleasure of directedness, without losing the pleasure of surprise.

I'd add that in terms of newer games, there's a substantial part of the gaming population that feels alienated by modern design choices, and while they might be in the minority (games are, after all, still selling,) if anything I think they're likely to be disproportionately concentrated in the amateur RPG playerbase.

Characters is my game gain skills both through leveling up (because I like the classic feel of gaining new skills through leveling) and player choices (which vary from character to character) because I like having players be able to go out and find the requisite items needed to acquire those skills.

There's no reason you can't unlock new abilities by level but have those abilities also require some sort of skill points to unlock to promote customization.

Dais became level 7! Dais unlocked Smite!
Dais became level 8! Dais unlocked Crush!

Hmm, crush is 200sp and smite is 170sp and I only have 230sp, what do...