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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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The blessings of the 108 are upon this game.
I can understand the merit in rewarding a player who discovers crafty little holes in the game's systems. But these aren't that. Party XP hyperfocusing and using magic at all are extremely simple concepts. Mina could basically wipe encounters with a single cast of her 2 MP spell (which is, uh, 7 MP on the lesser Water Rune?), something she could do, I dunno, about 20 times when you first get her?
I get Mina's a pretty big outlier, but with how easy it is to swap party members and fall back to heal (or just grind with Oharu's enemies, which, I now realize, are never fought elsewhere), MP is not particularly valuable in this game. Especially with a lack of bosses where endurance is something you need to keep in mind. One character losing a whole second turn is a much bigger penalty than them losing a quarter of their MP pool. I think, conceptually, your balances for Weapon Skills / Unities / Spells are fine enough, but the current numbers just don't align at all.
As for party XP softcap change, well, yes, changing the cap would require a complete re-balance of later enemies and likely shift the recommended endgame level way down. But that's only like a dozen enemies, so I don't think it's honestly that bad. Skirmish battles are also completely unaffected by level (as far as I could tell), so it wouldn't alter them.
I'm just gonna throw this out there, but do the physical runes have to be limited to a single action? Why not give them a second skill that takes MP, and perhaps have different properties? The staff's Pixie Rune is particularly worthless right now. As things sit, all physical characters are completely worthless by the time of Wal Pinnacle. On a similiar token, do all Unities (or at least all I saw) have to be physical offensive skills? Maybe some combos (like, uh, Mina/Ash or Mina/Olivia, I think it was), could just free-cast a pre-existing spell, or something.
Lastly, something came to mind re-reading your last post. While I'm not convinced it's a good idea, you could limit level 3/4 Rune spells to require TWO slots be filled with the same Rune to get access to them. That is, both the left and right hands need to have a Wind Rune equipped to get access to, um, whatever the level 3/4 Wind spells were. Sacrifice versatility for more power, y'know?
Stuff to think about
While I've not played either, I've seen both the RPG Screenshot play of Matsumori Days and Nessiah's Try of this (haven't heard the podcast, though), and between the two, I think I can tell you what your greatest problem is; there's no real sense of direction or purpose. Or at least not early on. There's no reason to care about the characters or the 'story', whatever it even is.
Both have pretty much the exact same setting and scenario of 'piss around high school for half the time, spend the other half in some poorly explained dreamworld'. I suspect the Persona series heavily influenced this. While it's not a trope I'm fond of, I think your execution of it is particularly poor. It flip-flops between the two much too quickly. You're not really given a reason to care about the otherworld. It's just 'bam, you're an elf now and fighting random monsters'. The school portion amounts to wandering around a couple of 'pointless' boards filled with NPCs that don't really contribute to anything.
The characters had quirks, but didn't seem particularly memorable at all. I think a part of that is the names, and another part is them looking a bit too similar, but probably the most central problem is that they're not introduced very well. It probably has a lot to do with them all being introduced at the same time and being reduced to two or three lines. On the other hand, several (probably all, given enough time) of them were with you for otherworld sections, so that gave you a little more time to get acquainted with them. Except they turned into monsters and stuff. So, yeah, great, that just made keeping them straight even harder.
Basically, yeah, a slower and more deliberate pace would probably improve clarity. Make the school segments better introduce the characters (also possibly don't limit it to just the school). Make each of the otherworld segments longer and have some clearly defined reason, purpose, and make them clearly linked. From what I saw, they seemed like completely random sections with no connection to each other besides 'I'm an elf now'. Again, I only saw a couple of videos that only covered the first part, so I might be jumping the gun with some of these generalizations. But the first impression counts, no?
As for what you actually wrote in this blog; Ruri is kind of annoying and nosy, and it's exacerbated by the fact everyone else is kind of a jerk. Boards are boards. As long as they serve a purpose and don't look absolutely horrid, I wouldn't worry too much. As for the opening and introducing everyone, some of the problem was that the opening was really awkwardly written, and there wasn't too much about anyone. Perhaps, I dunno, start out with Ruri meeting someone before school starts. That at least gets one person a little more defined. Possibly make them somewhat grouped, too. I find it's easier to remember people as groups and their relations to each other. I guess that was sort of going on with 'mean guy' and 'some girl I can't even remember anything about'. Characters were clearly supposed to be the strong-point here; if they aren't clearly established and distinct, you pretty much have nothing at all.
Both have pretty much the exact same setting and scenario of 'piss around high school for half the time, spend the other half in some poorly explained dreamworld'. I suspect the Persona series heavily influenced this. While it's not a trope I'm fond of, I think your execution of it is particularly poor. It flip-flops between the two much too quickly. You're not really given a reason to care about the otherworld. It's just 'bam, you're an elf now and fighting random monsters'. The school portion amounts to wandering around a couple of 'pointless' boards filled with NPCs that don't really contribute to anything.
The characters had quirks, but didn't seem particularly memorable at all. I think a part of that is the names, and another part is them looking a bit too similar, but probably the most central problem is that they're not introduced very well. It probably has a lot to do with them all being introduced at the same time and being reduced to two or three lines. On the other hand, several (probably all, given enough time) of them were with you for otherworld sections, so that gave you a little more time to get acquainted with them. Except they turned into monsters and stuff. So, yeah, great, that just made keeping them straight even harder.
Basically, yeah, a slower and more deliberate pace would probably improve clarity. Make the school segments better introduce the characters (also possibly don't limit it to just the school). Make each of the otherworld segments longer and have some clearly defined reason, purpose, and make them clearly linked. From what I saw, they seemed like completely random sections with no connection to each other besides 'I'm an elf now'. Again, I only saw a couple of videos that only covered the first part, so I might be jumping the gun with some of these generalizations. But the first impression counts, no?
As for what you actually wrote in this blog; Ruri is kind of annoying and nosy, and it's exacerbated by the fact everyone else is kind of a jerk. Boards are boards. As long as they serve a purpose and don't look absolutely horrid, I wouldn't worry too much. As for the opening and introducing everyone, some of the problem was that the opening was really awkwardly written, and there wasn't too much about anyone. Perhaps, I dunno, start out with Ruri meeting someone before school starts. That at least gets one person a little more defined. Possibly make them somewhat grouped, too. I find it's easier to remember people as groups and their relations to each other. I guess that was sort of going on with 'mean guy' and 'some girl I can't even remember anything about'. Characters were clearly supposed to be the strong-point here; if they aren't clearly established and distinct, you pretty much have nothing at all.
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