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Progress Report
March 2014, Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Make the Game
Rast
I recently read an interview with Hironobu Sakaguchi, the godfather of the Final Fantasy series. On the subject of one of his latest games(The Last Story for the Wii) he expressed how he wanted to focus on creating a smaller more detailed area for the game to take place in, rather than the sprawling world most RPGs share. He had the entire game take place on a very detailed island, with a few events taking place outside of it. This appealed to me in a way, and I've adopted that idea.
On that note, I've adopted that idea and scaled the world down quite a bit. I'd love to make an RPG with a huge world and an epic 4-disc long story, but quite frankly that's more work than I can handle and would severely reduce the quality of the game. A smaller world will result in a much more vibrant and memorable experience. I want players to be familiar with every town they visit and not disregard it because the next town has shiny new equipment.
Character creation has been tweaked and after getting a bit of feedback I've toned down the saturation a bit. Here's a look at the new creation menu:
As you may have noticed from the above screenshot, there are only three races now. I'd originally planned to have a fourth(Robots) in the style of FFL's World of Ruins robots, but I've decided they just don't fit in. I have far too much work to do with balancing the current races as it is, so it'll be for the best. On that note, combat has been rebalanced again, because logic. Magic has been tweaked so it does a proper amount of damage for the cost. If you choose to level up a mutant, they'll improve the power of their spells, and some spells may gain new traits or the ability to target more than one enemy. Mutants can now regain a small amount of stamina(essentially mana for all races) per turn(or over time when out of battle), while other races need to rest to restore their stamina. Mutant and Monster attack and defense changed considerably. Equipment costs and stats have been adjusted as well. Mutants and Monsters steamrolled the early game with high attack and defense, while Humans needed a lot of equipment to keep up. I've also adjusted each race's HP to better balance them.
Additionally, Monsters have finally received a much needed update. Monsters now have the ability to use three Absorb skills: Absorb HP, Absorb SP and Absorb Soul. Absorbing HP does a small amount of damage, but heals the character. Absorbing SP restores stamina, allowing the monster to use more skills. Absorbing an enemy's soul(or part of it) does significantly more damage, but provides no immediate benefit to the monster. Using any of the above skills has a (high) chance of allowing the monster to absorb said enemy's soul after the battle ends, assuming the enemy is killed quickly. If you take too long the opportunity will be lost and you'll have to try again. Instead of the original equip system I had going, Monsters will immediately equip a soul upon absorbing it. Souls provide various stat boosts. The previously mentioned "Land, air and sea" classes for monsters have been scrapped in favor of this new system.
To compliment this new system, I'm planning on adding a new NPC that deals with souls. This NPC will be able to take a monster's absorbed soul and use it to provide them with more permanent boosts. The soul will be permanently destroyed, but the monster may receive permanent stat boosts, new skills or even various mutations. I have other possible plans - I've been considering putting monsters on a separate leveling system that requires absorbing a certain amount of souls, but that's still heavily in progress.
One last system has been implemented: Party wipes. Should your entire party fall in battle, all party members except the leader will perish. At this time you'll keep any equipment they had, but will have to recruit 3 new party members. The idea behind this is to give death an actual meaning instead of a simple game over, but I didn't want to be as harsh about it as FFL was(when a character died they were gone for good, with the exception of your first character). This is still undergoing some testing and feedback, though, so it's subject to change at a moment's notice.
That's all for now, but I'll have more updates at a later date as well as some new screenshots.
On that note, I've adopted that idea and scaled the world down quite a bit. I'd love to make an RPG with a huge world and an epic 4-disc long story, but quite frankly that's more work than I can handle and would severely reduce the quality of the game. A smaller world will result in a much more vibrant and memorable experience. I want players to be familiar with every town they visit and not disregard it because the next town has shiny new equipment.
Character creation has been tweaked and after getting a bit of feedback I've toned down the saturation a bit. Here's a look at the new creation menu:
As you may have noticed from the above screenshot, there are only three races now. I'd originally planned to have a fourth(Robots) in the style of FFL's World of Ruins robots, but I've decided they just don't fit in. I have far too much work to do with balancing the current races as it is, so it'll be for the best. On that note, combat has been rebalanced again, because logic. Magic has been tweaked so it does a proper amount of damage for the cost. If you choose to level up a mutant, they'll improve the power of their spells, and some spells may gain new traits or the ability to target more than one enemy. Mutants can now regain a small amount of stamina(essentially mana for all races) per turn(or over time when out of battle), while other races need to rest to restore their stamina. Mutant and Monster attack and defense changed considerably. Equipment costs and stats have been adjusted as well. Mutants and Monsters steamrolled the early game with high attack and defense, while Humans needed a lot of equipment to keep up. I've also adjusted each race's HP to better balance them.
Additionally, Monsters have finally received a much needed update. Monsters now have the ability to use three Absorb skills: Absorb HP, Absorb SP and Absorb Soul. Absorbing HP does a small amount of damage, but heals the character. Absorbing SP restores stamina, allowing the monster to use more skills. Absorbing an enemy's soul(or part of it) does significantly more damage, but provides no immediate benefit to the monster. Using any of the above skills has a (high) chance of allowing the monster to absorb said enemy's soul after the battle ends, assuming the enemy is killed quickly. If you take too long the opportunity will be lost and you'll have to try again. Instead of the original equip system I had going, Monsters will immediately equip a soul upon absorbing it. Souls provide various stat boosts. The previously mentioned "Land, air and sea" classes for monsters have been scrapped in favor of this new system.
To compliment this new system, I'm planning on adding a new NPC that deals with souls. This NPC will be able to take a monster's absorbed soul and use it to provide them with more permanent boosts. The soul will be permanently destroyed, but the monster may receive permanent stat boosts, new skills or even various mutations. I have other possible plans - I've been considering putting monsters on a separate leveling system that requires absorbing a certain amount of souls, but that's still heavily in progress.
One last system has been implemented: Party wipes. Should your entire party fall in battle, all party members except the leader will perish. At this time you'll keep any equipment they had, but will have to recruit 3 new party members. The idea behind this is to give death an actual meaning instead of a simple game over, but I didn't want to be as harsh about it as FFL was(when a character died they were gone for good, with the exception of your first character). This is still undergoing some testing and feedback, though, so it's subject to change at a moment's notice.
That's all for now, but I'll have more updates at a later date as well as some new screenshots.
Progress Report
Pages:
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