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Making game overs engaging
I once saw (though did not play) a side-scrolling shooter where, every time you die, time rewinds a little and you get to choose a new character to play until the next death. The fun part is that the previous character would still appear and do the exact movements you did while playing him, so you could take that into account and let your previous you deal with whatever you dealt with at the moment and focus on the stuff that killed .
Undertale, as part of its story, has characters, the protagonist and the game itself remember deaths, so dying or reloading a game to make a different choice usually gets some extra comments and can even unlock completely new scenes.
One of my favourite games that does something interesting with death is Transistor. The combat and character building of the game is based around Functions: basically, skills that can be equipped as either active, passive or upgrade to other skills. The thing is, when you run out of health in battle, instead of immediately dying, you lose one of your equipped skills and your health goes back to full. That skill cannot be reequipped again for some time, but the twist is that there are very few skills and skill slots, so losing even one in battle means that you have to completely change your playstyle and try new combinations of skills. This changes death from a setback to a new interesting challengue for the current battle and a new experience for the next one.
Undertale, as part of its story, has characters, the protagonist and the game itself remember deaths, so dying or reloading a game to make a different choice usually gets some extra comments and can even unlock completely new scenes.
One of my favourite games that does something interesting with death is Transistor. The combat and character building of the game is based around Functions: basically, skills that can be equipped as either active, passive or upgrade to other skills. The thing is, when you run out of health in battle, instead of immediately dying, you lose one of your equipped skills and your health goes back to full. That skill cannot be reequipped again for some time, but the twist is that there are very few skills and skill slots, so losing even one in battle means that you have to completely change your playstyle and try new combinations of skills. This changes death from a setback to a new interesting challengue for the current battle and a new experience for the next one.
[RMMV] Enemy moods: what else could I do with this mechanic?
That actually sounds like it could be an interesting mechanic. Shin Megami Tensei games had a similar mechanic you could look into for inspiration, in which you could negotiate with enemies and even recruit them. Besides that, it sounds like it would have a big impact on the combat system, so if you're going to use it make sure there are enough options to make it meaningful and not ignored in favour of basic damage skills and the like.
Drawback mechanics in single player games
author=Shinan
I think that, even though RNG can be useful sometimes, making it work against the player is the absolutely worst thing you can do. For example, having a chance to miss every attack, even if you did everything right to make sure that attack would be successful, is like the game saying "lol no" and screwing you because it can. If you did everything right, you should have a guaranteed hit instead of having a more likely hit.
I vastly prefer games where the RNG is working for the player, that is, the player can get lucky (for example, with a random critical hit or status effect) but can't get unlucky (with the enemy randomly criting you, for example). If done right, the DPS curve will be the same than in the other case, but instead of the player randomly getting screwed the player will randomly get rewarded.
It is, of course, possible to make games where the mechanic is about risk management, but the problem with that is how much a single unlucky streak can hurt you and how much you can game the dice. For example, in XCOM 2, absolutely everything is dice based, and cover or flanking don't give nearly enough bonuses to offset luck. More than once have I had my entire team in full cover and yet have had hit 2 or 3 times in a row where one soldier can usually take 2 - 3 attacks before dying, and getting hit makes him unavailable for the next 2-3 missions. Or flank an enemy, miss two shots in a row and proceed to get a soldier killed by that same enemy.
[RMMV] My game is too hard, what do?
author=LockeZ
Man, there are things that Dark Souls games do well, but teaching the player how to play is definitely not one of them. All it teaches you is a subset of the basic controls. It doesn't teach you what anything does, or how it works, or why to use it. It's the poster child for not explaining incredibly vital shit. The whole game is about forcing people to look up very basic things online just to understand how to play.
Here are some trivia questions for you. When does Dark Souls teach you:
1) That you're immune to damage while rolling?
2) How equipment weight works?
3) What your humanity stat does?
4) What kindling a bonfire does?
5) That friendly NPCs can be reset if they're aggro?
6) What the poise stat is?
7) That hidden walls exist?
8) What covenants are?
The answer to all of these questions is never. The only way to discover these things is to buy a player's guide, look them up on the wiki, or spend hours testing each one. However, the game is practically unbeatable without learning them. Never mind the dozens of smaller things with effects that are completely undiscernable, like the smoke bomb that you can throw at mimics to make them give you an item without attacking, or the shopkeeper who asks where you got a new spell and then kills himself if you answer him, or the fucking invisible crow oh my god. And if you get these things wrong, you often permanently lose stuff in your save file that you can never get again, and have to start the entire game over.
Dark Souls level design is mostly incredibly good. The enemy difficulty is mostly incredibly good. But the way it teaches you stuff... it's some of the worst in all of video games.
I disagree with everything you said and stand for in life
For example, the whole humanity business is clearly explained in every online item description (and can be safely ignored if you don't even want multiplayer), while rolling invencibility and equipment weight is pretty direct - if your armor is bigger than you, of course you won't be rolling as fast. I beat the game without looking at guides and yet I figured out everything you just pointed out without any major difficulties. Hell, if the game told you that some characters would die if you did something or other, wouldn't that completely ruin the surprise and shock when they did? Just my opinion.
[RMMV] My game is too hard, what do?
Another thing you should definitely consider is the difficulty curve. It is very tempting to make the game too hard right off the bat because you are the one making it and so when you playtest it you find it easy. Since you mention it, Dark Souls is a master class in difficulty curve: The very few concepts you need to win (guard, stamina management, enemy kiting...) are taught in the very first map of the game, and the rest of it is just introducing new situations and slightly increasing the depth of those mechanics.
To make sure nobody can leave unprepared, the tutorial is fine-tuned to perfection so you can't win it before you assimilate those concepts. For example, there is an ambush where you get killed very quickly if you charge recklessly, a section where you are forced to guard and dodge, and a boss that makes sure you know how to manage your stamina.
To make sure nobody can leave the tutorial without knowing what is necessary to progress later, you can do as LockeZ above says: make a couple of stupidly easy and guided battles that force players to learn what you want them to. Also make sure those concepts are not forgotten immediately: Do not put enemies that don't require guarding, for example, until later in the game where players will understand that is an exception and not a rule. If you want players to switch equipment often, rain drastically better loot on them early so they associate new = good. And, if all else fails, unless the high difficulty is crucial to the story and/or gameplay of the game, don't feel above putting a difficulty slider.
To make sure nobody can leave unprepared, the tutorial is fine-tuned to perfection so you can't win it before you assimilate those concepts. For example, there is an ambush where you get killed very quickly if you charge recklessly, a section where you are forced to guard and dodge, and a boss that makes sure you know how to manage your stamina.
To make sure nobody can leave the tutorial without knowing what is necessary to progress later, you can do as LockeZ above says: make a couple of stupidly easy and guided battles that force players to learn what you want them to. Also make sure those concepts are not forgotten immediately: Do not put enemies that don't require guarding, for example, until later in the game where players will understand that is an exception and not a rule. If you want players to switch equipment often, rain drastically better loot on them early so they associate new = good. And, if all else fails, unless the high difficulty is crucial to the story and/or gameplay of the game, don't feel above putting a difficulty slider.
Drawback mechanics in single player games
Personally, I really like drawback mechanics in singleplayer games because, when they are well done, they reward skill or strategy but create tension because mistakes are way more expensive. For example, in Dragon's Dogma there are a couple of weapons that give you massive damage multipliers for damaging enemies. However, getting hit once would reset the multiplier and set your energy to zero, which leaves you unable to move for a couple seconds and completely vulnerable. Since carry weight is limited and severely reduces your mobility, you can't just carry a lot of energy items or you would be hit even more in the first place.
In a game I was working on some time ago, I had an specific status effect called "Rage" which massively increased damage but set your Defense to zero. I liked that status effect because enemies already dealt loads of damage and were very tanky, so it was perfectly valid to cast it on you or your enemies based on the situation, but a single mistake could often kill of one or two of your party members in a party of only three people.
In a game I was working on some time ago, I had an specific status effect called "Rage" which massively increased damage but set your Defense to zero. I liked that status effect because enemies already dealt loads of damage and were very tanky, so it was perfectly valid to cast it on you or your enemies based on the situation, but a single mistake could often kill of one or two of your party members in a party of only three people.
[RMMV] Element Evasion?
Yanfly has a certain plugin that allows you to customise hit/evade chance formulas. It's a little limited, but what you want to do could be done by making the evade/hit chance be tied to the elemental rate of the attack in question, or making your quick/heavy/balanced attacks be tied to physical/magical/certain attacks and use custom formulas for each type of attack instead.
[RMMV] Problem with Passive Equip Skills (Using Yanfly's AutoPassiveStates)
The equipment is staying on for me. It seems that the problem is in the ATB plugin from what you're saying. I'm assuming you're talking about the ones made by Yanfly, which are unfortunately no longer supported by him. You'll have to give up either the combat system or that skill, try to find another workaround, or if you know how to, go into the plugin code itself and try to find and fix the bug by yourself. Good luck trying that last one though, because Yanfly's code is not commented at all and he doesn't have any documentation.
[RMMV] Problem with Passive Equip Skills (Using Yanfly's AutoPassiveStates)
I too use Yanfly's Auto Passive States, and was able to do what you just said. Just make a state with the trait "Equip X" and make whichever skill you want bestow that state with "<Passive State: x>".
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