LOCKEZ'S PROFILE

I play RPGs because I like numbers. More numbers is more interesting, less numbers is less interesting.

My friend's game Soul Shepherd seems just about right to me:



Or possibly World of Warcraft, which has so many stats that it would take 30 screenshots to show them all.

Personally, I don't think five stats is enough.

FF13 pretends to only have three, but it really has a lot more. TP is used to execute techniques, and ATB segments are used to execute normal attacks; both of these are stats in that they can be depleted and refilled like MP, and your maximum ATB segments increases over the course of the game like max MP does in other games. And then equipment adds like 20 more stats.

I generally think the more stats you have, the better. Make the player choose between different things; a bracelet that increases your attack power but lowers your dodge rate, or a shield that increases your resistance to two elements but has negative defense power. These kinds of complex decisions create tension when the player is choosing their equipment/setup, so that battle preparations and equipment purchases are actually interesting, instead of making every choice be an obvious no-brainer upgrade.

author=Feldschlacht IV
What if the player wants to grind

I don't think you have to worry much about this scenario

author=LightningLord2
I see grinding as a difficulty slider within RPGs - if you want an easy fight, grind more, if you want more difficulty, grind less. As for myself, I often end up at places where most players think you can't win without reaching a specific level. I'm not at level usually, and I win anyways. Several RPGs have consumable items that can make up for the lack of levels.

That's definitely one way of looking at it, and I definitely treat grinding the same way in a lot of RPGs. If it actually works, then great - I don't have a problem with it. But in a lot of other RPGs, in order to be at a difficulty that would challenge me, I'd have to run from more than half the battles and not do any of the sidequests. This is really painful for me to do, and greatly decreases my enjoyment of the game as I prefer to actually experience the entire game. So I am forced to choose between skipping major parts of the game or fighting battles against enemies that can't even hurt me.

I have a friend whose problem goes a step further - he feels that grinding and gaining power itself is an integral part of the game, and can't stand to not do it. To him, the whole point of an RPG is to become more powerful. So he does that to maximum effectiveness. But then he still wants every battle to be a challenge. So basically he's insane, and his RPG Maker game will murder you.

author=ChaosProductions
You haven't played them and their well-thought-out bosses and interesting random enemies, then. Honestly. You don't have to lose to be challenged; scrutinizing enemies' attacks for opportunities to dodge and counterattack was more than enough.

I've played both Paper Mario RPGs and two of the Mario & Luigi RPGs. I beat most of those due to boredom/OCD, but they weren't fun. For there to be a challenge, it has to take effort and skill to not lose. Otherwise it wasn't a challenge. That's the goramn definition of a challenge.

Ideally every fight should be an even match. If you're stronger or better than the enemy, then it's no challenge and thus no fun. This implies you should lose about half the time, on average; but in a game where you only get a save point every 30 minutes, that would clearly be absurdly unplayable. So to make your game challenging but still accessible, you have to create some sort of system where the player can easily recover from mistakes and try again. Like the "retry battle" option in Wild ARMs games and FF13, or the SOL Restore option in Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter, or some other innovation.

Of course, predicting how skilled the player is can be nearly impossible. Thus why I like to include a difficulty setting. Then you get the best of both worlds, ne? I realize there are people who just like easy games. But I can't really see the downside to letting the player select the difficulty.

Yes, it's called phasing mode in the popular translation of 2k3.

Make sure you don't leave the hero in phasing mode at any time the player has control! They will be able to walk through walls. If you want to move the hero with phasing, do a phase on, move, phase off all in the same movement command.