HODDMIMIR'S PROFILE

author=Blinkster
No, no! I hope it does work out. I want it to. Your game seems to be piecing together nicely. I hope you're able to upload a gamepage soon! But by all means, keep doing what you're doing.

Well I do value your opinion very much. After all, this is my first rpg and I have only had the rpg maker a couple of weeks or so. If one of you more experienced designers was to tell me, "That's probably not going to work out, I would try something different." I'm definitely going to listen. You would know better than I would.

author=LockeZ
Don't take my advice as an indication that your game absolutely won't work without more types of upgrades. Every beneficial feature you add to a game also adds new problems, it's unavoidable. Solving those problems will create different problems instead. Ad infinitum. A big part of game design, at least to me, is being able to see what the side-effects of each design choice you make will be, and figure out a way to limit the problems to minor things you don't mind.

This is a good point and I should take note of it. My game will not be perfect and I need to accept what small flaws there are. Thank you.

author=LockeZ
The damage formula for normal attacks in RPG Maker 2003 is (Attack / 2) - (Defense / 4). So if you want to heal about the same amount of damage as the attack dealt, then you can use variables to store the hero's attack in a variable, divide it by two, store the enemy's defense in another variable, divide it be four, subtract the second variable from the first, and heal the hero by the final amount in that variable. But normal attacks also do up to +/-10% damage randomly, and can crit, so the amount will never be perfect. And that will make healing very easy unless the enemies have very little HP compared to the hero, or the battles are very long and slow. So personally I'd just use a custom formula. Like 5% of the hero's max HP.

First of all, thank you so much for giving me this information. I was having a lot of trouble figuring out exactly what to do. Second, I was hoping to have the absorb damage be equivalent to damage done. Like half or so. However, that does seem like it would be complicated... Perhaps a 5% health increase would be fine. It would probably work out the same way overall anyway.

Here is another question for anyone who wants to help me out. How do I make it so that the "attack" command causes a hp absorb type effect? I was going to make an event cause the use of a skill but I see that there isn't an option to make events use skills. Then I tried to add a skill to the weapon but I see that it only works that way if you use the weapon as an item. I am therefore stuck. I would like to know how to do this and similar things as they play a sort of big role in the game design. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

AHA! Using a battle command instead of a skill did the trick. I had to make a skill that did nothing though so that there was something to select. Then a choice window appears and the player chooses the class. It's not quite as convenient a way to do it but it works perfectly! I don't really understand why it doesn't work the other way but as long as it works I guess! Thank you all so much for your help. :) I owe you.

author=Liberty
and as long as you don't make your vampires sparkly it sounds like it should work.

I laughed so hard when I read this. Lol. Thank you very much for your feedback! I am glad to hear that I have a good idea. I was worried that there might be something that sounds good in theory but all of the more experienced designers would be able to tell me NO Don't Do it! It never works and will drive you insane!!! Or something like that.

I am definitely going to check out this Encephalon game because to be honest I am having some trouble making things work the way I want. If anyone else has suggestions of things to look at or has a good tutorial they think would help I would be particularly grateful!

The way I figure it, I would be a fool not to take advantage of the vast pool of knowledge and expertise that can be found on this website. I am working on my first RPG and have some ideas but would like to get your feedback, suggestions, and any help that you are willing to provide. WIthout further ado:

The Game: Crimson

The Character: Lore Persephone, a vampire, and one of the most promising up and coming members of his coven. Lore is old but fairly young by vampire standards, but more important than his age is how well he has learned from his many years. He is a skilled warrior who understands that strategy is the strongest weapon of all. He is efficient, trustworthy, and loyal.

The world: Vampires are common, as are werewolves, zombies, ghosts, etc... Nevertheless Life thrives. Vampires and werewolves hate eachother (Cliche? Yeah I know) but werewolves are so primal and viscious that vampires usually lose in a fair fight. SO the five covens of the world work together as one to protect themselves and eradicate the werewolves. The covens are ruled by 6 Blue Bloods, 1 for each coven and then 1 to oversee them all. Humans know about vampires and some humans even run blood houses where a vampire can go, pay a fee, and have a drink from a lovely lady. There are also those who hunt and kill vampires though they are very very rare.

Classes
Wraith - a melee fighter with strong attack and an absorb effect with every attack. Since there is no healing class this fighter is also the primary means of healing. Abilities will be attack boosting or special physical attacks.

Blood Mage - a mage type class with strong magic. Deals magical based attacks and gives status effects to enemies. May have some buffs as well. These spells will be the best way on average to deal damage.

Reaper - a special class with strong defense. Every time the reaper kills an enemy with a physical attack it stores a "soul". These souls are then used to cast life manipulating type spells or summons. There may be a heal type spell as well.

Features:
A Day/ Night system - I plan to really use this system and not just have it for the sake of fleshing out the world. Monster encounters will change from the daytime to the nighttime. Most notably humans will be more common at day, and werewolves more common at night. Also, Lore will be stronger at night and there will be more vampires available to meet with or buy things from. Some areas may be unaccessible at certain times of day as well.

Class changing in battle. - I actually want this to be at the core of the battle system for my game. There will be three classes each with it's own strengths and weaknesses. It will be necessary in nearly all more difficult battle to switch classes at least once or twice to employ these differing strengths.

Hp cost abilities - being a vampire, the main character gets his strength through blood. In order to use most abilities and spells he will have to use some of his health. In my game health will be an even more valuable resource than normal.

Summons - The reaper may spend souls to create or call forth demons or old gods to join the party for the remainder of battle or until they run out of health. The best summons may have to be convinced to join Lore by battles or puzzles or something.

Rune System - Lore will not change weapons. His blood sword has been his since he became a vampire. It can however be customized by going to a rune master to inscribe up to 2 runes at a time. These may add an element or status effect to the weapon or it may just increase his stats.

Edit: I totally forgot to mention the feed stuff. So lore gains health form dealing damage because he is "feeding" on the target. This is usually good but there is some bad as well. Enemies will almost never cast status effects on Lore, but many enemies carry disease which Lore can end up catching from feeding on them. Worse still werewolf blood is posionous to vampires and will actually hurt lore rather than heal him. This makes werewolves a very difficult enemies.

So that's pretty much what I am looking at thus far... any critcisms, questions, comments, or help would be greatly appreciated!