CYBERDAGGER'S PROFILE

I'm getting game ideas right now!

What are you talking about?

author=Craze
As for HP totals, I follow a basic rule of "eight hits does it."

That is actually a pretty good rule of thumb. Thanks! And I hate the FF skillset just as much as you. I remember making an epic rant about it not too long ago.

author=LockeZ
Normal battle length is mostly a factor of how many normal battles you plan to have.
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On the flip side, making fewer, longer normal battles, maybe taking as much as 5-8 rounds of attacks to win, will make your entire game's combat more tactical, and will give you more chances to have enemies act like miniature training versions of the upcoming bosses, which I think is a nice way to prepare the player.

This, dude. I want every battle (maybe with the exception of the "tutorials") have a tactical aspect, so I may be going with that route. Smaller dungeons, less encounters, everything is a threat.

author=LockeZ
The two biggest factors that I think affect how much your stats grow by are the amount of character customization you want the player to have, and the effectiveness you want grinding to have.
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And so I reach the conclusion that I want weak level ups and strong equipment. And I'll certainly make sure that I read the post you linked. There's few things more interesting than a wall of text about damage formulas.

author=LockeZ
In general, I actually like the stats game, as a player. I like minmaxing my rogue to give him 37 attacks before the enemy gets a turn (in a row!?) and boosting my mage's matk until he can deal a billion area damage exactly once and then immediately die. So if I can't switch specializations at will, then I dislike it when my stats' effects are suddenly totally nullified in certain battles.

You said it! I also love doing completely crazy stuff. I'm always looking for ways to completely break the game and do something awesome, and I think my game design style will entertain other Johnnies. For example, there's a spear I have planned in my game that when equipped on the party's cleric and combined with a certain accessory allows you to set up a two turn party wide condition wipe, and when equipped on the warrior and combined with a certain piece of armor lets him boost his attack to ludicrous levels, but by itself it's certainly good stat wise, but the ability it grants is poor by itself.

And thanks for the input. I may not have adressed all your points, but I have read them all and right now I'm getting pumped for design. Thanks a lot!

I've started work on my first project, and I'm having some trouble with a design stage. And it's really bothering me because I for some unknown reason simply refuse to start mapping and eventing until I have some starting points done on the database.

I am, understandably, utterly confused by how I should balance the numbers in my game.

First of all, I have the overall stat spreads of my characters figured out, but I'd like to have numbers considerably lower than those on te default spreads. All stats will be lowered, but HP more than all the others. I just don't really like having HP in the hundreds at level one. My two problems in this area are:

• How should I adjust the damage formulas to take into account the lower relative HP? Slapping a division on the previous formulas doesn't seem elegant.And speaking of that, how do I even know if a formula is good?

• How much variance can I have in stats? For example, if I want to make a glass cannon character, how I can I make his attack and how low can I make his defense? I understand that this varies from game to game, but I'd like to have some concept of safe zones.

Then, there's equipment. I'm still trying to figure out how much it should influence stats. It doesn't seem to matter as much as the rest and I feel like I have some leeway. But is something like equipment influencing about 20% of the final stats a good number? It varies with the ammount of customization you want, of course... I've actually been toying with the idea of a game where all the characters have the same base stats, or different but with very little variance, and their final stat spreads are almost entirely determined by equipment with large and varied bonuses, but this shall not be that game.

Lastly, there's the matter of enemies. This, to me, seems like the hardest part. The default database does come with some examples of (bland) enemies, but I have no indication of what level they are intended to be fought at, so I can't derive any balance rules from them. How strong should the enemies be relative to a party of average level for the area? How should the stats scale down with the increase number of enemies in a battle? Should some stats decrease more harshly that others? (I think defensive stats should scale less harshly than offensive ones, and speed shouldn't even be considered in the equation, but I might be wrong.) How much should, on average, the difference in stats between a single enemy random encounter and a boss be?

I understand that most of this is trial and error. I understand I'm going to spend countless hours coing through the same content over and over again making small changes to the numbers every time until I get it right. But I'd like to have some guideline I can follow so I start on the right path.

I should have it done by the end of the day. Are they supposed to keep their normal skin tone or change to bluish colors as well?