CRAZE'S PROFILE

i was expecting guinea pigs or something and now i'm disappointed

stop earning makerscore you fools

SgtMettool
However, I do have a "lead-in" system with one of my characters in Crescent Eve. He's a sort of Red Mage/Elementalist who can cast elemental spells and then change his normal attacks to that element. For example, using Fire Shot will change his normal attacks to Fire (and also provide a small Attack buff) and therefore you only need to continue using regular attacks to deal Fire damage thereafter.

assuming resource conservation is important enough and battles are long enough for this to be worthwhile, this sounds useful and nifty.

SgtMettool
Honestly I like the approach of taking the usually mundane function of Attack/Guard and having systems in place to alter or make them more useful. But I don't think I'd take them out on principle alone.

which is fine, especially for the sorts of games you make. as long as people have actually thought about what their systems are meant to be and convey, which i know you do, i don't have a big issue with it

Ramshackin
There are guard-like skills and attack-like skills when it makes sense for the character. Maybe it's the genericness of the shared attack/guard command that drives me away.

yeah, it's just boxing yourself in. not even a cool cereal box with a maze on it

LockeZ
Well, yeah, but he specifically didn't want to talk about replacing it.

i know but don't care

Red_Nova
Maybe their attacks don't do direct HP damage, but instead inflict an ailment that increases damage from the next attack, allowing for a team combo of sorts?

how is this not just removing the fucking option lmao

LockeZ
Occasionally you still encounter a game like Crypt of the Necrodancer, where the player gets one or two skills per dungeon and everything else is normal attacks. Generally, like in Crypt of the Necrodancer, this is done to simplify the choices in combat, because there's some other overwhelmingly cool gimmick that the combat revolves around, and that by itself is enough to carry the game and make attacking interesting.

this is a weird-ass take for this topic

edit: might as well add something. here's a character who just spams various guard and kill the enemy for doing so. https://i.imgur.com/v6In2Yk.png here's aother character who likes their defense command, but doesn't even have a basic attack of any kind. https://i.imgur.com/ACc9APt.png

the problem is assuming they should be there in the first place. design how you want your system to feel and what it should communicate first, then develop it.

glad you all came up with the 2k3 idea of "guard restores mp" though ;V what if you want a resource attrition game?
doesn't really work then :<

sawworm
Example: A Staff using Mage's basic attacks (with mastery) calculated with his/her Magic power instead of ATK.

how many slots do you have, or do you master them all? if the latter, just making mat == atk make me wonder why the stats are differentiated. if it's a limited choice though, sounds fine.

LockeZ
I don't particularly like it as a concept, but it's a necessity in games where MP actually matters - it's a backup skill that you use when you run out of other options.

meh, can replace it with whatever fits the character if you do indeed need a turn-filler in a mp/cd-based game.