QETZL'S PROFILE

Curious, have any of you ever played Devil Survivor for the DS? It has a very straightforward "These are the skills the enemy carries" system at the beginning of every fight, effectively removing the tedium of scanning (With the added bonus of everyone acting as a blue mage for the purposes of this argument). If utilized in a Final Fantasy sort of RPG, you could have a menu pop up at the beginning of the battle showing skills available to learn (That have yet to be learned). At this point, the player can browse the skills, and determine whether or not they are worth learning. I like this system, as I've never seen the inherent "fun" in getting into battle after battle, and the first thing I do is "check for blue magic" (If you want to make the spell hard to get/find, you could just go with a monster that spawns very rarely or in a super specific spot, and have in-game NPCs allude to "That fire monster you in the woods by the dead druid tree")

I believe the idea of obvious learnable skills from battle provides a much needed additional element of reward to fighting (Other than obligatory XP/money), and also one that requires some forethought and prep (Perhaps I have to put the enemy in a situation where he would use X, or perhaps letting the enemy use Y would let me learn it, but will also make this fight incredibly difficult), and I can't see how giving the player that information is a bad thing; it seems like just, skipping the step (Costik on Playthisthing once made a good point with megaman "If there's no reason to stop shooting, why not have it automatic?" If there's no reason to not scan, why not make it automatic?)

Finally, I think that an optional class devoted specifically to enemy skills is not the best way to go about it. Given the frequency of combat, and the constant *chance* of learning a new skill, bringing the Blue mage is almost a necessity. I would say either have a permanent character devoted to this advancement method, or have all characters able to do it to some degree.

But that's just me.

Pretty sure that was Xenosaga, but MGS4 did it as well.

See, I've come to realize something about excessively long cutscenes. While with precious few exceptions, they all suck, they can be an order of magnitude less suck with just, the addition of some decent music or some cool goings on. Xenosaga made me tear out my brain for the soul fact that it had the quietest, most static ginormo-cutscenes in history.

I find too often these days, cutscenes are not used to create awesome and/or meaningful cinematic moments, but as sort of, mandatory time for exposition. If they could just, nudge it back in the direction of "If the letterbox closes in, something awesome and or insane is about to happen", I think many people (Or maybe just me) would find cut scenes far more favorable.

author=Fallen-Griever
You don't give them the whole game on easy mode, you give them the first few levels and then throw out a fake/bad ending (hence the SoR reference), meaning they still have extra content to unlock/be rewarded with in normal mode!

It's all about application...

Hey all. Sorry if I'm late to the party but I thought I'd chip in.

On a fundamental level, I disagree with this design pattern (Which with use cases like Halo 3, still sees some use in the modern generation). The idea of a game that requires the player to beat it on it's most taxing difficultly to get the end is seen as somewhat disrespectful these days of the time and energy a player can actually spend on any given title. If they've selected it on easy, it often means they want to experience all of the content without the frustration of repeated failure, and playing it on the easy setting lets them do that. Taking away content from the easier settings does not 1:1 end up with the player trying it again on a harder setting. Development now more than ever, feels like an environment where "Oh, you just aren't good enough to get the real ending" is just not an acceptable practice, and it may drive people away from your game.

I feel games should move away from this level of negative reinforcement, and more into building fun, exciting ways to increase the game difficulty. Look at Super Meat Boy. Now look at those band-aids. Now look at that Hell World. Most of it is totally optional for the standard player, but exists to create the same kind of challenge for hardcore gamers without any sort of alienation.

Now, I'm totally for unlockables only available in the harder difficulty setting, because there you can throw something to tease the hardcore gamer into challenging your most brutal mode, without sacrificing the ability for Easy-mode players, be it skill, time, or interest that keeps them from doing so themselves.

First off,
Hey everyone, new guy here. Cutting right to the chase,

I just downloaded the RMXP demo, which is now 29 days left to expiration. I figured "What the hell, I'll try to make something in that timeframe". Long story short I'm looking to do some edits with the battle menu, but I'm finding the script index in RGSS a little unintuitive. I'm looking for a way to search for elements across Scripts (Use case: I'm trying to significantly alter the battle UI, and there's some dependencies to unnecessary elements (At least for me) like Window_PartyCommand I'm having difficulty finding what line of what script is calling it).

Conversely, are there some in-depth tutorials in manipulating the battle menu system available on site? First post, so I haven't had a chance to look around in-depth.

I'll be around about this time daily, if not sporadically during my work day. When signs point to positive, I might throw up some more game details in a development thread proper.

All help is appreciated!