ESCHALT'S PROFILE

Never seen those before. I like the pine trees on the world map. Thanks!

Sorry I haven't replied in a bit, guys. I had a few days off last week, explains what I was able to contribute before. The first post you (Kentona) made a couple days ago led me to believe that we would have skill-sets and stats for each individual pc, yet only the lead character would be able to use the skill-set at all at any given time. This makes me wonder if you would need to constantly switch the lead character all the time to get the "best" outcome for a given situation. If I am misunderstanding, please correct me. (My main concern here, everything else is very well-thought out and the skills are sound)

There sure is a lot to go over, and I am hopefully getting a much better idea of the fundamentals here. Mewd, if we go with 4 pcs, that would mean we can choose our 4 pc's classes. So we could have a party of 4 fighters or a party of 2 mages and 2 thieves. With just 3, we can have one of each (without option) and leave the 4th spot over for other cool things like monster allies, etc. The game will be easiset to balance this way imo. Also, we can realize my dream of having a giant cat (preferably yellow colored) on the team at some point. Possibly, many different types of monsters could be captured or summoned or whatev and even stored away to be to be switched later.

Forgive me if this has been mentioned, but what about the World Map and general size/form of sub-maps? I think the basis of the world map should be decided upon before we discuss monster encounters. If we go with Kentona's good choice on a 4 or 5 base world, is a Hero's Realm type map (huge/open-ended) really necessary? I am not ruling this out at all btw! - - We will have towns, but what about dungeons? Other locations? What size will they be? (Sorry, more questions lol) Back to world map, and please throw in other options if you think of them. . .it can be a baldur's gate (includes encounters), or even simpler, super mario world map where all locations are absolute. Or no world map at all, except maybe one to look at when fast-traveling. These are being pulled out of my ass, can you tell?

I weird notion popped into my head about spell acquisition. In the magic candle, wizards could learn spells only when coming under ownership of tomes that were scattered throughout the world, usually at very high cost. There were like 5 different tomes of magic, each with its own list of spells that could be memorized (by studying through the passage of actual time). It wouldn't be a direct translation, but what if we have tomes that have certain spells in a particular school of magic, and only when a wizard is in possession of said tome can they cast those spells. - - Assuming that we have 1 wizard in the party at all times, of course, this would make spells a bit more interesting than just having the wizard learn them at any given time upon level up. This would need a great deal of tweaking obviously. Perhaps combining this sort of crap with a skill tree that deals in schools of magic only (you can apply points to a particular school with points gained by leveling, increasing the effect or power of spells cast in that school) Plus, your lore skill ultimately determines what spells you can cast, even if you have access to said tome. Scrolls could still be used, of course (one time use). I will try to think about this a little harder, my thoughts on the matter are sort of convoluted.

I have an idea on conversation options that you might wish to consider. If we'll be including an alignment system, every conversation could potentially allow the player to select dialog options that fall somewhere between good and evil in intention. Since rm2k doesn't exactly allow for verbose respones from the player for multiple dialog-paths (unless you want to use pictures, or more precisely walls of text, that fill the entire screen) we'll need a compromise. The simplest I can think of is to have 3 options in every critical situation, one that has a negative attribute, one neutral, and one positive. Typically, each option can be used to enhance quests or other portions of the story. for example, a shady thief guy asks your party if you'd be willing to relinquish a particular item from someone's home. you can - a. turn him down right away (++) b. ask why he would need it (o) c. agree to steal the item (-). The dialog can be further expanded to a. you'll steal it only because the item is a powerful healing potion he needs for his dying mother (+) b. you'll steal it to hone your own skills (o) or c. You'll steal it because you like to steal/for the reward (--). - - We could include an option menu to have the hero always choose a specific alignment. These options could simply be - 1. Evil, 2. Neutral, 3. Good. That way, having to always choose (+) (-) or (o) at every turn of the conversation could be avoided. The player could change his chosen alignment direction at any point. Let it be known that I would actually prefer the "wall of text" apporach over this one.

Walking speed - I like being able to change your walking speed during the game ever since I played morrowind and got the boots of blinding speed coupled with a permanant dispell spell. I could run across the entire island in like 5 minutes. However, I don't see how it would be needed. A run/walk option with an "always run" choice would suffice, though I am not against the former. (it could be cool, would have to see it in effect I guess)

On coming across items randomly on a world map (survival skill, specifically of the forage skillset). Very interesting idea. Not much to say about it except that it's a good way to associate an actual skill with the chance of obtaining an herb, without having to actually bother the player to go about foraging (just by walking. . .very good indeed).

Kentona, I am very impressed with your abilities, btw. It really seems to cover every corner of gameplay that I can currently imagine. All other unmentioned skills I can think of that could be used in some way during the game would fit into each category. Nice! Also, expect more input from me this weekend.

I'm sorry but the options you give make the scientist more like a Biologist than a Chemist! xD

Lol. He is actually just a farmer trying to get his plants to grow better. I shouldn't say JUST a farmer as obviously he has something of a scientific etiquette. I don't know why I stuck chemist in there, just a mistake I guess.

Eschalt, that is ridiculously small text. My eyes have exploded trying to read it.

Though I am sort of afraid to, I really need to switch to XP. It's easier to read in full screen but I can imagine on certain monitors it would be nearly impossible.

I really like those screens Arion, especially the second one. That demon guy seems out of place though. And the last screen the fort is too close to the mountain imo and also on the roof the tile sort of cuts off.

If we DO go for full on custom battle systems, RMXP may be a better realm to dive into.

I considered this as well. I've never really used rmxp before, but I guess it's not all that different than 2k3 so I would be open to it. Graphics would not be so much an issue, so long as we have a few dedicated graphics artists/compilers on the team. it'd probably be best to use dw rips or retro graphics at first, whichever maker we use. That way we don't waste any time on graphics until we actually have something playable. Afterwards we can start to insert our own custom works (that's something I would be interested in at least) yeah, I agree. If we do a cbs rmxp should be it.

What comes across (And pardon me if I am still failing to understand you) is that you suggest skills that level up as you use them. That just gives me bad flashbacks of Final Fantasy 2 (Jp) Which outright did not work well. Most games that use that kind of system are exploitable. Not to say it CAN'T work, but I prefer point spending. It seems more clean cut.

Yeah I mentioned before that my project has 4 pcs each with 2 unique non-battle skills that increase through use. I decided to do that instead of a whole bunch of skills because I thought it would be much easier. Don't get me wrong though I would much rather have a large list of skills and give the player the choice of which skills to increase upon leveling/through xp, like you. What I mentioned before was me having to choose to sacrifice player choice in pc development in order to speed up production. We could still give the pcs random increases to skills through use while allowing player point-based allocation from leveling as well, but random increases really don't sound neccessary that way.

The cosmetics of the class system might be kept while keeping the characters maintain absolute growth freedom. (You pick a gender, name and appearance for the character and maybe spend some initial points, but that character who looks like a mage could wind up being a raging warrior later on.) Or just change their appearances as they change into an alternate class.

Either this or change pc battle sprites to whatever class-restricted armor they are wearing. Or do a front view battle system. (I don't actually want to do that)

On that note. I don't mind writing alternate NPC reactions depending on alignment and charisma. Although I could be biting off more than I can chew there. We'll see.

On an irrelevant note: I wonder if it might be interesting for the final dungeon to be approached from drastically different ways. (A number of quests making it substantially easier to gain entry, taking a stealthy route, teleporting in, using raw brute force, et cetera.) If the party is particularly focused in a given area they might need one of several routes to make it practical to finish the game (and to flaunt their developed skills) However! That may not be practical if the party is very balanced. (Also, there's the whole issue of trying to implement too many ideas and just being overwhelming.) Thoughts?

I'd be up for contributing a good deal of writing as well. Alternate paths don't have to be so intimidating, either. Different approaches are not as difficult to implement as it may seem. So long as we stay on top of all the different possible paths, it's just a matter of coding them all in correctly. Iam not saying it will be easy, just it is certainly possible with enough work.

As for choosing classes being more friendlier, you're right, it is. It lets the player know right off how his party is going to operate, what the strengths and weaknesses are of each member. I'd much rather discover those things for myself, through my own decisions and actions. That's just me though. I like to have that sense of control, I guess :p.

As a final thought, we could restrict high level non-battle skills to the pc's class. For example, a fighter can learn to identify mysterious items, but only a wizard can increase the item lore skill past a certain point, allowing him to identify the most ancient of artifacts. To balance this out, you can always pay a wizard at the wizard's guild (assuming we'll have one of these) to identify items for you. The really ancient ones are expensive though.

Another question, if we are going to have a lockpick skill, can the wizard possess a spell that opens locks? Is a fighter able to smash through them?

Here's the thing about control: It's good to give the player choices, but TOO MANY choices can be utterly overwhelming. If you are are given a choice between too many statistics, the player won't have any idea what to invest in and would probably become frustrated when the game crushes them as a result.

Well if we're moving away from a cbs, we won't really have to worry about giving the player too many choices. The dbs is what it is after all. The only way to give the player any choice will be in an outside-of-battle skillset. This in itself turns into a serious project, I agree. Say we just stick with 4 playable characters throughout the game. . .will we give each pc their own skillset to put points in? In my personal project right now, I have 4 pcs and each one has 2 unique skills to use outside of battle. You don't get skillpoints through leveling, though. You need to talk to npcs to be "taught" an increase in your skill, or randomly get an increase through direct use of the skill. To get skillpoints through leveling is pointless unless each pc has access to a slew of skills, otherwise you aren't given much choice at all.

Here's another idea, taken graciously from Etrian Odyssey. Perhaps you can control, say, a dozen people, but can only travel with four at a time? That way, you would have a greater chance to mix and match character types to get what you like.

If given the opportunity to interchange your party members, a master skillset would be more appropriate. You don't neccesarily have to have a "home base" either. In Chrono Trigger you pressed one button on the controller and could switch your party members. But I do agree this could pose problems when you need to constantly switch out your best fighter to bring in a master of lockpick in order to open a locked chest. I guess you could just use one master skill list for your entire party. . .but that doesn't really sound that fun to me.

@MK634: You bring up some interesting points. The pursuit of storyline elements aside for now. . .Having pcs develop their own skill trees depending on class sounds like a good idea, though certainly not neccessary. If we use pre-set classes, may as well have skills already determined. Weapons skill development would be near impossible as I have said using the dbs. Actually I shouldn't say impossible, as I guess we could give a skill-based bonus to damage for every weapon possible for every pc in every battle event (sound impossible yet?). . .a good idea for a cbs but too much effort I think otherwise. Combat development is an unmentionable given. And Items/shop development? You mean like a barter system?

So I'll suggest that instead of characters developing differently lets make the classes develop differently. That way one class could grow from weapons and armour, another by absorbing enemy abilities and stat bonuses, a third through a skill tree, a fourth one from useage of the abilities, and so on.

I don't really understand this but I like the sound of enemy-skill absorption.

And going back over the topic, I am all for an intricate plot and storyline. While story certainly doesn't make the game typically, to be constantly developing it is a good way to keep people interested (me, for one). Plus, I really love a good story. I would much rather have an atypical story, though.

I've considered the idea that we open with the player using a faux-party to confront the villain. Try and give the implication that maybe this is just the start of the game, but then have the villain kill the group with ease. (Which might be even more crushing if you got to name them) Or at least reference another group taking on the villain directly and failing.

I enjoy good storytelling elements such as the second suggestion here. Instead of directly confronting a villain at the beginning, note that an evil exists elsewhere in the world, and the party, while not directly affected by its presence, will certainly have to confront it eventually. Even better, the great evil is defeated by the third party before the player even gets a shot at it. The third party could in the end be corrupted by an artifact possesed by the evil, forcing the player to battle old friends, too. This is just an example of a way to spice up an old cliche (not that this example hasn't been done before. .) While greater heroes are off fighting a terrible evil, the player's party could be stuck in more rudimentary conflict, like they are fighting against a not-so-evil rival faction that is vying to gain diplomatic control over the immediate region.