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An ATB system with a small change

While this game is fantasy, I am removing the concept of "Attack, Magic, Item" and replacing it with abilities with their own Stamina costs. Though modern would be fun :D

Currently, a character can have 4 or 5 abilities equipped at a time and a single Adrenaline ability which is much like a limit break or, more accurately, Super attacks in Street Fighter.

You may also have up to 8 passive abilities that improve the character in some fashion and/or augment one of your equipped abilities.

In addition, each character may have up to 4 items at the ready to use in combat if needed.

An ATB system with a small change

Oh! I didn't even think about that... Yes, I guess it would be similar to Chrono Cross, and it's even called Stamina, isn't it... (As an aside, I liked Chrono Cross for what it was, but I didn't like it as a sequel to Chrono Trigger (one of my all time favorites!))

I am considering adding a "wait" functionality and that would make it more like Chrono Cross. But the fundamentals would shift from CC at that point, because the actual abilities themselves are so different. I am attempting to create a tactical system where a player must utilize several skills per character to survive a battle.

Good analogy though, for people that are unsure how this would flow! Thanks :)

Action Resolution System - Thoughts

Awesome, I'm glad you like the idea. It does seem like it would be a complicated system from a programming point of view, but hopefully you can streamline some of the mechanics.


Action Resolution System - Thoughts

post=146381
PS: Who is able to guess the games the font, the cursor and the textbox are from (only top part of the picture)? :-)



Secret of Mana for the font! And I guess one of the FF's, like VI, maybe for the cursor. Not sure about the text boxes though.

This is a neat idea and I wanted to share an idea my brother had a while ago related to this; maybe it will help you!

His thoughts were, the inherent problem with random skill checks is that even if you have a high chance of, let's say, 75%, if you were to fail, you'd be upset. It's even more pronounced when you have something like a 95% chance, and you fail.

Now, using a battle system as an analogy, you don't have something like a 70% chance to win a fight using an Attack skill, you exchange blows back and forth until someone is victorious. You may have a hit chance of 70%, and it's not as big of a deal if you don't hit each round because you just need to win most of the rounds. Take this concept of back-and-forth exchanges and put the skill system into it.

As an example, if you were to try to haggle with a shopkeeper, you would initially select Haggle (and it may still show you a colored panel to give you a rough idea of how difficult it would be to do.) Just like a battle system, you may factor in several skills if you wanted to such as: Charm, Smooth-Talker, Knowledge of Items and Trading (think of a better name lol), and Intimidation.

Now the actual skill check would be a series of events that would either be successful or not. After 6 out of 10 successes, you win. You could even pick what skill you want to use each "round," with some being better choices at different times. If the shopkeeper is getting angry, you could use Charm or Smooth-Talker. If he is starting to break down, you could use Intimidation. If he tries to convince you that his higher price is the actual going price, you can use your Item Knowledge skill to see through his lie.

You could even go as far as giving a character a daily allotment of Hero Points, Action Points, or whatever you want to call them. If you are failing at something that you desperately want to succeed at, you could expend a point to either automatically win a "round" or to increase your overall success rate. This is all pretty unpolished, but I'm just trying to give you food for thought. :)

Another neat part about this system is that you could easily incorporate combat. Let's say you have the Brawling, Pistol, and Telekinesis skills, combat could play out in the same manner, or a similar one, by allowing you to choose what skill you want to handle each round with, and again, special abilities would be done using the same 'Point' fashion.

The way abilities could work is every couple points you learn of a skill, you would gain a new ability. Some examples being:

Charm: Flattering Complement - You deliver kind words, flattering your opponent. Increases your success rate by 50% and decreases the target's hostility toward you.

Fast-Talker: Quick Lie - You conjure up a quick, but very convincing lie, and the opponent believes you. Instantly grants a success.

Pistol: Aimed Shot - You take aim and fire a deadly and precise shot. Causes 300% damage.

Brawling: Headlock - You attempt to grab your opponent and put them in a headlock. Not exactly sure what this would do, but it could open all kinds of other possibilities.

Hope this isn't off track, or confusing, but maybe it'll evoke some entirely new ideas. Good luck!

An ATB system with a small change

post=146596
See, that's the interesting part, not the fact that you're using cooldowns over MP. Should've mentioned it earlier.

(It's worth noting that you'll get farther with interesting skills than you ever will with "cool systemzâ„¢")


Oh ok! Honestly, I thought I would bore you with example skills. Well thats good! But its not cool down based, you can use any ability as long as you have the Stamina.

Thanks for the feedback everyone!

An ATB system with a small change

Hmm, I don't think I'm explaining the system very well. Yeah, i had forgotten The Philosophers Stone. It would be similar to that.

But i think the thing that crux of the system is the abilities themselves. You see, there wouldn't be Fire Fira Firaga Ultima. Powers would all have a use in one situation but not in another. So you couldn't just spam your most powerful ability because there isn't one ability that is simply a better version of another ability.

There might be a fire spell that does 100 damage to an enemy costing 3 Stamina. Another fire spell that does 50 to all enemies and costs 5 Stamina. A third might be a fire spell that sets an enemy on fire causing 150 damage but over 20 seconds and only uses 2 Stamina. So against a single, wimpy enemy, you should just use the normal fire attack. He'll be dead before 20 seconds and theres no reason to do 50 instead of 100 damage. But against a boss fight with 3 minions you might hit the boss with the periodic fire spell, blast the MT fire spell doing 50 to 4 enemies, then do the ST fire against the boss. This way, there is some actual strategy rather than just using your most powerful attacks all the time.

So, I didn't mean to step on anyone's toes, I was just hoping to make an interesting battle system. I'll play with it and see if I cant get a demo or something to explain better!

Oh i forgot to mention that you would return to full life after each battle because your LP or Constitution would determine your closeness to death. (not the greatest wording...)

An ATB system with a small change

post=146590
You changed the name of MP to Stamina. They are honestly the same in every way, just you're going to display it with bar chunks rather than numbers.


Well the difference is that Stamina is constantly regenerating and every action you do requires some Stamina, not just special abilities. Think of it more like if in a Final Fantasy game your Attack command only consumed half an ATB bar. Also, if you've played FFXIII, its similar to that.

An ATB system with a small change

Just saw this and figured I'd point out that you're playing the wrong games. now to read the rest of the post


...what games should I be playing? O.o

An ATB system with a small change

Edit:

Here is a video link to show how the concept would flow in a real battle:


Simply tap an arrow key to select a character, tap a number key to choose a command, and then finally tap an arrow (to target an ally) or a number (to target an enemy) to execute the command.

Original Post:

I've been trying to think of a battle system with an altered version of an ATB system. It would utilize what I call a Stamina bar that would be in 5 blocks. (Maybe 5 with half-blocks.) Characters would constantly generate Stamina and you could select any character you wanted at any time. As soon as they had enough Stamina to perform an action you wanted to do, you could pick them and use the ability.

This would allow the removal of the all-but-useless MP system which I've grown to dislike quite a bit. It really is pretty pointless. In most games you just conserve MP when you need to and then use it all on a boss. Or you just use it as often as you like and then use Ethers to restore it.

With this Stamina system, you would be inclined to use different abilities depending on the situation. If a powerful ability cost 5 Stamina, and hit the entire enemy party, such as Firaga (in the Final Fantasy universe) you wouldn't use it against a single enemy, because it's not Stamina-efficient. Final Fantasy XIII really had this pretty well done, but I wanted to take it a step further and develop interesting abilities rather than the simple: Attack, Fire, Blizzard, Thunder, Cure. That system works fine for FF, but really is pretty stale.

The game system I'm currently thinking about has some roots within the Romancing SaGa (or just SaGa) series. You would have HP and LP. In my world they would be Vitality and Constitution. Each time your Vitality reached 0, you would lose 1 Constitution. Any further damage would lower your Constitution by 1 and if that reached 0, that character would permanently die. If the main character permanently died, you would game over. Also, some of the very powerful skills would consume 1 Constitution and could only be used once per fight.

Anyway, sorry if that was a bit boring but game design is my favorite part of RPG making :D I just wanted to test the water and see if this was something that was interesting or something not worth bothering with.

Greetings from Ivalice!

Hi! As you can imagine, I love the world of Ivalice! FFT, Vagrant Story, FFXII! That whole team is just amazing. I am pretty open to most any kind of game, some other favorites including Metroidvania-style games, adventure games, and RTS's.

I am a student going to college for computer science (programming), I also have a job at Best Buy (ugh), and I've been playing with RPG Maker for years now, though I'm never able to actually complete anything. I don't have a lot of free time to work with RPG Maker and read forums, but I try to do so during the evenings.

My strength is game design (stats, abilities, battle mechanics), with my weakness of character development, stories, and mapping :x. As you can see, I don't make a very good one-man-army. I can come up with some characters, and make them generally interesting, but I'm not that great at delivering a storyline and dialog for them.

Even though the Ivalice games represent some of my favorites, I'm very much JRPG'd out. I'm pretty tired of the same ol' Final Fantasy style of games, and am always looking for a fresh, new idea. I'll be posting some ideas I have in the design forum later :)

Anyways, hello to everyone and I look forward to playing some games!