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I got into game development in hopes of making friends and gaining some sense of self-worth.
Boy, that was the most foolish decision of my life.
I also do some written LPs of RMN games over in this topic. It's not as big as I like, but I'm busier than I like, too.
Boy, that was the most foolish decision of my life.
I also do some written LPs of RMN games over in this topic. It's not as big as I like, but I'm busier than I like, too.
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What are you thinking about right now?
author=StormCrow
What's like...the upper limit, the most naps it's acceptable to take in one day....
I'm wondering if you don't have Seasonal Affective Disorder. That's the first thing to come to mind. If you're frequently having horrible headaches in the winter months, that might be related, too.
I gave Etrian Odyssey I the old college try. I've got a love/hate relationship with it.
author=Sgt M
Other than a few QOL improvements, the games are all very samey. EO1 is pretty much the "gist" of the series and the subsequent installments are basically map packs. If you're struggling to get into now, it's not gonna get much better.
I can agree with this basic sentiment, but it's atrociously underselling how important that quality of life and balance actually is. Early series classes are extremely unbalanced, have little room for growth and personalization, and are littered with worthless 'trap' skills that do little damage or literally aren't programmed right.
While all the ideas are there from the start, I don't think it really hits its stride until EOIII or maybe EOIV. IV also doesn't want to just rip your spine out from the first second, and you can progress through floors at a much more stable clip. It's definitely a more deliberate series, but physically making that map progression and having ample options to build a party more than make up for it. Or rather, the deliberate pacing makes those more exciting. If you just blew through floor after floor, who'd care about carefully mapping everything out?
author=Gourd_Clae
You make your own maps in Etrian Odyssey? That sounds like a lot of fun. I might have to try it then!
EOIV and EOV both have demos on the 3DS eShop, as do the remakes of the originals as EO Untold and EOU2, though they're stuck with a pre-determined story party, which IMO takes out one of the biggest selling points of the series. All four let you transfer data to the respective full game if you take the bite. And they're pretty meaty demos.
Why so many devs like to make the beginning of their game as hard as possible? It just makes it hard for players to want to play your game. Save the hard parts for later, when they are actually invested in it!
I'd say this is a very real issue in proper games, too. Atlus and the Etrian Odyssey series in particular comes to mind.
I think most of it simply comes back to scaling and having very little options at the start. It's not unheard of for a character to almost have their HP double from level 1 to level 2, with other stats seeing similar growths. Once you get that initial footing, those enemies that could one-shot your would-be tank become total jokes very quickly.
Other things, like getting to buy gear for the first time, or getting party members, are also points where the player grows astronomically in strength. It's definitely not a good idea to put the player that hard on the back foot at the start with no lower floor to get to terms with things, but I can conceptually see it useful if you wanted to set up a 'NOW you're a proper adventurer, and not a worthless dirt farmer' sort of moment.
I've certainly fallen into this trap before. Multiple times. Ultimately, I fixed it by creating a whole weaker tier of encounters and giving the enemy spawning formulas extra rules before a certain point, to ensure nothing too scary or too many at one time could pop up. Also giving the player a ton more money at the start, giving extra revival and healing items, and redoing scaling on equipment pricing were all factors.
I think most of it simply comes back to scaling and having very little options at the start. It's not unheard of for a character to almost have their HP double from level 1 to level 2, with other stats seeing similar growths. Once you get that initial footing, those enemies that could one-shot your would-be tank become total jokes very quickly.
Other things, like getting to buy gear for the first time, or getting party members, are also points where the player grows astronomically in strength. It's definitely not a good idea to put the player that hard on the back foot at the start with no lower floor to get to terms with things, but I can conceptually see it useful if you wanted to set up a 'NOW you're a proper adventurer, and not a worthless dirt farmer' sort of moment.
I've certainly fallen into this trap before. Multiple times. Ultimately, I fixed it by creating a whole weaker tier of encounters and giving the enemy spawning formulas extra rules before a certain point, to ensure nothing too scary or too many at one time could pop up. Also giving the player a ton more money at the start, giving extra revival and healing items, and redoing scaling on equipment pricing were all factors.
Tutorials
I'm going to talk about my personal answer of the tutorial for Draug's Resurrection. I'm not saying whether or not it's by any means a valid or good answer, but I think I'm making the most of the situation.
Because of a bug on some (most?) machines, the engine is unstable before the player assumes control for the first time. So I tried to make the most of it. You get a couple dialogue boxes before you're dumped into a small area with the tutorial-person (Eric), and you're given control in under a minute. Nothing fancy, just straight to getting to do something.
From there, you can talk to Eric if you want, and his tutorial is split into two sections; one for the Menu system and one for the Battle system. The player isn't actually in control, but the tutorials are accompanied by pre-printscreened images of said parts of the Menu/Battle system, showing you what's being talked about. I personally think that's plenty; I don't really like when a game physically forces you to go through menus, ESPECIALLY when it makes you do dumb actions, like drink an Elixir for no reason or force you to fuse Arsene into a Slime. You also get an option to fight against Eric, to test out all the battle mechanics in a low-stress environment.
You also have the option to completely ignore him, or only do a portion of it. If you ignore Eric, the player character (Clair) will adopt a more impatient attitude towards Eric for the next half-hour or so, but this ultimately affects nothing but some dialogue. For what it's worth, the tutorial isn't actually Eric telling you stuff, but Clair telling HIM stuff, and all the dialogue is handled as in-universe talking and training. It might make it a little long-winded as a result, but I think it's less dull for it, and Eric tends to directly voice what I'd think are the most common misconceptions of how things work. DR's systems are fairly unorthodox.
What I think is the most relevant is that the tutorial is accessible within seconds of starting a new file. If you're unclear on anything, it's incredibly quick and easy to boot up a new file and re-read the sections that concern you. For better or worse, those two tutorial sections don't really hold back on going over most details and kind of front-loads things; stuff like Ailments, Tomes, and Personal Skills aren't generally going to see huge play right off the bat are mentioned. That said, a lot of little things are accessible right off the bat if you want to poke around and customize immediately. You start with extra weapons in your inventory, you can immediately swap your Personal Skill around, and buy a Tome quite quickly, so it's not like parts of the menu are fundamentally useless until later in the game.
My hope is that if someone doesn't get things, it's no big deal for them to shelf the thought for a fair while. But if they become curious, they'll remember how quick the tutorial is to reach and how much stuff it touches on, and may feel inclined to give it another quick look.
@Darken:
While most of that video is valid, I think there's one incredibly important caveat to it; she was being silently watched and judged. People tend to get a lot more skittish when others are watching, not wanting to either bore them or otherwise look inept, and feel silently rushed as a result. Which means less time for looking through menus, reading in general, and doing other 'boring' things, which just compounds on problems. I can't personally say how huge of a factor that was for her, but I think it's something to bear in mind.
Because of a bug on some (most?) machines, the engine is unstable before the player assumes control for the first time. So I tried to make the most of it. You get a couple dialogue boxes before you're dumped into a small area with the tutorial-person (Eric), and you're given control in under a minute. Nothing fancy, just straight to getting to do something.
From there, you can talk to Eric if you want, and his tutorial is split into two sections; one for the Menu system and one for the Battle system. The player isn't actually in control, but the tutorials are accompanied by pre-printscreened images of said parts of the Menu/Battle system, showing you what's being talked about. I personally think that's plenty; I don't really like when a game physically forces you to go through menus, ESPECIALLY when it makes you do dumb actions, like drink an Elixir for no reason or force you to fuse Arsene into a Slime. You also get an option to fight against Eric, to test out all the battle mechanics in a low-stress environment.
You also have the option to completely ignore him, or only do a portion of it. If you ignore Eric, the player character (Clair) will adopt a more impatient attitude towards Eric for the next half-hour or so, but this ultimately affects nothing but some dialogue. For what it's worth, the tutorial isn't actually Eric telling you stuff, but Clair telling HIM stuff, and all the dialogue is handled as in-universe talking and training. It might make it a little long-winded as a result, but I think it's less dull for it, and Eric tends to directly voice what I'd think are the most common misconceptions of how things work. DR's systems are fairly unorthodox.
What I think is the most relevant is that the tutorial is accessible within seconds of starting a new file. If you're unclear on anything, it's incredibly quick and easy to boot up a new file and re-read the sections that concern you. For better or worse, those two tutorial sections don't really hold back on going over most details and kind of front-loads things; stuff like Ailments, Tomes, and Personal Skills aren't generally going to see huge play right off the bat are mentioned. That said, a lot of little things are accessible right off the bat if you want to poke around and customize immediately. You start with extra weapons in your inventory, you can immediately swap your Personal Skill around, and buy a Tome quite quickly, so it's not like parts of the menu are fundamentally useless until later in the game.
My hope is that if someone doesn't get things, it's no big deal for them to shelf the thought for a fair while. But if they become curious, they'll remember how quick the tutorial is to reach and how much stuff it touches on, and may feel inclined to give it another quick look.
@Darken:
While most of that video is valid, I think there's one incredibly important caveat to it; she was being silently watched and judged. People tend to get a lot more skittish when others are watching, not wanting to either bore them or otherwise look inept, and feel silently rushed as a result. Which means less time for looking through menus, reading in general, and doing other 'boring' things, which just compounds on problems. I can't personally say how huge of a factor that was for her, but I think it's something to bear in mind.
Queries about AI for a turn based tactics game
I'd hesitate to make the AI change with difficulty. A smarter AI doesn't equate to a more fun experience.
When normally an AI would throw themselves fruitlessly upon a heavily armoured character, a smart AI would never attempt to touch them, thus rendering all their defense essentially useless. An AI that obsessively Silences your mages renders all their training similarly useless. It just makes things more stilted in favour of very specific playstyles. Now, I'm not saying the AI should always intentionally do stupid things, but there's a limit to how it should function. It also probably just wouldn't feel right if the AI started acting much differently, though that kind of depends on the systems in play.
I think it's better to try looking at secondary aspects to give them an edge. In Advance Wars, the AI was never smarter on hard, it just started with towns it wouldn't otherwise (or that outright didn't exist on normal), giving it extra money, or started with extra pre-deployed units. Or it was now Fog of War, and the game cheats blatantly in Fog, ignoring the sight limitations imposed on the player. If we're talking cards, they could always have things set up so they always draw syngergistic cards close together, or they just plain have innately better, illegal cards. Or take the good 'ol X-COM method and just have the AI completely fudge on the accuracy numbers.
Some of these methods are marginally less fair and fun to the player than others, but they're what's coming to mind. Pretty much all of them boil down to the AI having an unfair advantage, however.
When normally an AI would throw themselves fruitlessly upon a heavily armoured character, a smart AI would never attempt to touch them, thus rendering all their defense essentially useless. An AI that obsessively Silences your mages renders all their training similarly useless. It just makes things more stilted in favour of very specific playstyles. Now, I'm not saying the AI should always intentionally do stupid things, but there's a limit to how it should function. It also probably just wouldn't feel right if the AI started acting much differently, though that kind of depends on the systems in play.
I think it's better to try looking at secondary aspects to give them an edge. In Advance Wars, the AI was never smarter on hard, it just started with towns it wouldn't otherwise (or that outright didn't exist on normal), giving it extra money, or started with extra pre-deployed units. Or it was now Fog of War, and the game cheats blatantly in Fog, ignoring the sight limitations imposed on the player. If we're talking cards, they could always have things set up so they always draw syngergistic cards close together, or they just plain have innately better, illegal cards. Or take the good 'ol X-COM method and just have the AI completely fudge on the accuracy numbers.
Some of these methods are marginally less fair and fun to the player than others, but they're what's coming to mind. Pretty much all of them boil down to the AI having an unfair advantage, however.
What Defines Grinding
To me, it's only truly grinding when I'm explicitly walking in circles, trying to make number go up.
I'm also a lot more tolerant of grinding when it's to get to some milestone of your personal choosing, be it getting to choose your stat ups or getting points to put into buying new skills. Those immediately feel a million times more impactful than some vague 'some stats went up by some percent' and as a result, feel less a chore to get. I know that learning Spark Blade or being able to subclass in White Magic Lvl 4 is gonna change how things are going to go; having 2% more Attack is nebulous, at best. Can't say I've ever grinded for money, but I guess I just haven't played the wrong RPGs. But even at that, I'd imagine grinding for money would feel preferable to grinding for Exp; buying something is still your decision, and therefore less nebulous.
Touch encounters, at their base, are weird, because they naturally come off as 'you did something wrong' if you bumped into them, even though you're technically 'expected' to do them. The simple addition of making the player get some kind of 'first hit' in, like in Paper Mario, makes all the difference in the world in terms of mindset.
I'd lastly say it's absolutely imperative that you allow SOME form of grinding, because it's wholly possible to put a game in an 'unwinnable' state without it. Especially if, say, you can buy revives, but they're expensive and only restore minimal health. One really bad boss fight and a player could easily blow through massive amounts of their inventory and money, and without any way to replenish it, has no chance at all to make it through the gruelling final dungeon, let alone three forms of the final boss.
More realistically, though, grinding is a sort of self-fixing difficultly slider. If you're 'bad', you'll naturally go slower, get in more battles, and through that, rise above the difficulty, at least for a while. Go fast, you'll be weaker, and eventually have a harder time for it. The tricky part is people can be too stubborn, impatient, feel it's cheating, or in too much of a rush to make the review deadline to slow down and stop the snowballing they themselves started.
A lot of that is human nature, but at least a tiny amount can be controlled by design and consistency. The best example I can give are Final Fantasy I-III versus the later ones. Not having saves or ways to heal in the dungeon in I-III meant it was nigh insanity to try to do a whole dungeon in one setting. So, does it take the player two dives to complete a dungeon? Three? More? It'll depend on player and party configuration, but going multiple dives didn't feel like you were 'bad'. When FF IV+ added saves and camping in dungeons, it no longer became acceptable to do multiple dives, and thus player level was a lot more standardized. It sped things up for good or average players, but the bad ones don't get that allotted time to get the extra levels and skills they need to make it through. Not without it feeling like they're grinding and doing something wrong.
I'm also a lot more tolerant of grinding when it's to get to some milestone of your personal choosing, be it getting to choose your stat ups or getting points to put into buying new skills. Those immediately feel a million times more impactful than some vague 'some stats went up by some percent' and as a result, feel less a chore to get. I know that learning Spark Blade or being able to subclass in White Magic Lvl 4 is gonna change how things are going to go; having 2% more Attack is nebulous, at best. Can't say I've ever grinded for money, but I guess I just haven't played the wrong RPGs. But even at that, I'd imagine grinding for money would feel preferable to grinding for Exp; buying something is still your decision, and therefore less nebulous.
Touch encounters, at their base, are weird, because they naturally come off as 'you did something wrong' if you bumped into them, even though you're technically 'expected' to do them. The simple addition of making the player get some kind of 'first hit' in, like in Paper Mario, makes all the difference in the world in terms of mindset.
I'd lastly say it's absolutely imperative that you allow SOME form of grinding, because it's wholly possible to put a game in an 'unwinnable' state without it. Especially if, say, you can buy revives, but they're expensive and only restore minimal health. One really bad boss fight and a player could easily blow through massive amounts of their inventory and money, and without any way to replenish it, has no chance at all to make it through the gruelling final dungeon, let alone three forms of the final boss.
More realistically, though, grinding is a sort of self-fixing difficultly slider. If you're 'bad', you'll naturally go slower, get in more battles, and through that, rise above the difficulty, at least for a while. Go fast, you'll be weaker, and eventually have a harder time for it. The tricky part is people can be too stubborn, impatient, feel it's cheating, or in too much of a rush to make the review deadline to slow down and stop the snowballing they themselves started.
A lot of that is human nature, but at least a tiny amount can be controlled by design and consistency. The best example I can give are Final Fantasy I-III versus the later ones. Not having saves or ways to heal in the dungeon in I-III meant it was nigh insanity to try to do a whole dungeon in one setting. So, does it take the player two dives to complete a dungeon? Three? More? It'll depend on player and party configuration, but going multiple dives didn't feel like you were 'bad'. When FF IV+ added saves and camping in dungeons, it no longer became acceptable to do multiple dives, and thus player level was a lot more standardized. It sped things up for good or average players, but the bad ones don't get that allotted time to get the extra levels and skills they need to make it through. Not without it feeling like they're grinding and doing something wrong.
Galaxy.png
I'm not sure what your original intended scope was for Grimoire of Worlds, but looking at this, I think it's safe to say that your scope has gotten completely, wildly, profoundly out of control.
I think more simply, why would anyone want to visit billions and billions of planets if they're all basically the same, save for maybe slightly stronger monsters or something? I get that they're randomly generated so it's not a big deal to make 'em, but still.
I think more simply, why would anyone want to visit billions and billions of planets if they're all basically the same, save for maybe slightly stronger monsters or something? I get that they're randomly generated so it's not a big deal to make 'em, but still.
How do you make spells unique?
I've got no shortage of ways to make spells/skills stand out:
-Different ranges (Direct, Indirect, Ranged) and multi-target spells (Beams, Walls, and Field spells).
-Skills that physically move the target and/or caster.
-Stat up/downs in addition to damage.
-Appended Ailments and different affliction rates. Worth noting, Ailments/Enhancements are designed to stack, so an otherwise wimpy Poison Dart tends to inflict three times more Poison than most other sources.
-Spells that inflict Physical Fire/Water/Thunder, etc. damage and Magical Slash/Bash/Pierce damage.
-Strong base damage but poor Magic scaling and vice-versa.
-Self-harm or self-infliction of Ailments (most commonly Exhaust, doubling MP use for a while).
-Synergy or reactions with Ailments/Enhancements, like immediately shattering defensive Enhancements, or removing Poison/Binds to inflict massive damage.
-Unaimed spells, like Chain Lightning and Ricochet, that hit the chosen first target, then randomly hit several random targets.
-Multihit spells like Flourish and Rock Barrage, that can shred those with poor Defense.
-Multi-elemental spells, like Magma Boulder doing both Physical Earth and Magical Fire, while also being a Wall spell.
-Spells that use stats in nontraditional ways, like Boiling Armour inflicting more powerful burning (represented by Poison) on targets with higher Defense, or Disparity doing the difference between the target's Attack and Magic values.
Each character is locked to one element (with some special exceptions), and, generally speaking, each element has a slight favouritism throughout its spells:
-Fire is probably the most normal, generally lacking additional effects on its damage spells/skills.
-Water has plenty of multi-target spells, and a way to reduce friendly fire incidents.
-Thunder is strong, but less accurate.
-Earth is strong, but tends to have poor scaling and be slow.
-Wind is weak, but fast and tend to cost less MP (even zero, in several cases).
-Ice really likes inflicting stat downs or Bind.
-Grass has nearly twice the amount of nondamage and stat-down spells of any other element.
-Poison, the damage type, unsurprisingly, is obsessed with Poison, the Ailment.
-Different ranges (Direct, Indirect, Ranged) and multi-target spells (Beams, Walls, and Field spells).
-Skills that physically move the target and/or caster.
-Stat up/downs in addition to damage.
-Appended Ailments and different affliction rates. Worth noting, Ailments/Enhancements are designed to stack, so an otherwise wimpy Poison Dart tends to inflict three times more Poison than most other sources.
-Spells that inflict Physical Fire/Water/Thunder, etc. damage and Magical Slash/Bash/Pierce damage.
-Strong base damage but poor Magic scaling and vice-versa.
-Self-harm or self-infliction of Ailments (most commonly Exhaust, doubling MP use for a while).
-Synergy or reactions with Ailments/Enhancements, like immediately shattering defensive Enhancements, or removing Poison/Binds to inflict massive damage.
-Unaimed spells, like Chain Lightning and Ricochet, that hit the chosen first target, then randomly hit several random targets.
-Multihit spells like Flourish and Rock Barrage, that can shred those with poor Defense.
-Multi-elemental spells, like Magma Boulder doing both Physical Earth and Magical Fire, while also being a Wall spell.
-Spells that use stats in nontraditional ways, like Boiling Armour inflicting more powerful burning (represented by Poison) on targets with higher Defense, or Disparity doing the difference between the target's Attack and Magic values.
Each character is locked to one element (with some special exceptions), and, generally speaking, each element has a slight favouritism throughout its spells:
-Fire is probably the most normal, generally lacking additional effects on its damage spells/skills.
-Water has plenty of multi-target spells, and a way to reduce friendly fire incidents.
-Thunder is strong, but less accurate.
-Earth is strong, but tends to have poor scaling and be slow.
-Wind is weak, but fast and tend to cost less MP (even zero, in several cases).
-Ice really likes inflicting stat downs or Bind.
-Grass has nearly twice the amount of nondamage and stat-down spells of any other element.
-Poison, the damage type, unsurprisingly, is obsessed with Poison, the Ailment.
What are your favorite and least favorite parts of gam mak?
I'd say I'm fortunate in that I can enjoy most parts of game-making, at least for a limited period of time. Perhaps that's why I keep jumping from section to section. The most consistently enjoyable part is naturally taking ideas and figuring out the fundamentals to implement them. Actually coding that all the way through to the bitter end, less so. Similarly, things like trying to display personality through a character's moveset is another fun instance of utilizing limitations as a strength.
Worst part is definitely uploading and writing news posts and other media to get people interested in the first place. That stuff feels incredibly time-sensitive, and lacks any long-term impact that just shutting up and working has. And there's absolutely no worse feeling like watching an entire decade of work sink into the abyss without making a single ripple.
Worst part is definitely uploading and writing news posts and other media to get people interested in the first place. That stuff feels incredibly time-sensitive, and lacks any long-term impact that just shutting up and working has. And there's absolutely no worse feeling like watching an entire decade of work sink into the abyss without making a single ripple.
Games - Tester
Games - Other
