A few basic, but unusual ideas.

[floralContemplation]

Salutations,


I'm working on a small game for mainly a few of my friends and I was wondering if the following ideas would benefit the game:


Gems:


So, since the game will have multiple characters, I wanted to make each one of them fresh and unique, but why should I do it, when the player can do it on their own pace?


Unlike most RPGs, the equipment slots for mine are:


-Weapon


-Top


-Bottom


-Gem


-Extra


As a fan of minerals and shiny things, I got the idea of using up one of the equipment slots as a holder for Gems - different types of stones that grant the user varying skills, commands and buffs. As you may guess, this was heavily inspired by Final Fantasy V's job system. Here are some ideas:


-Basic healer class with a few healing spells and maybe a bonus to healing items+stats boosts to defensive stats and stuff.


-Martial artist class with skills focusing on self-inflicted statuses that allow for a simulated combo system. For example, the Crane Stance skill gives the character a "Crane" status which gives them a buff to a stat and allows them to use strong skills which benefit from the "Stance" skills themselves, making it more of a technique class than a pure power one.


-Dancer/Bard class which can string together moves and songs like the Martial Artist's Stances, but they're "customisable" in that every song/move opens up more and more skills, allowing for crazy status effect patterns and such.


-Basic Mage class with skills like "Fire" and such. I'm still looking for a way to make it less diverse so that other spellcasters would be viable, maybe limit it's access to elemental spells?


-And many others.


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On to my questions:


Will this be easy to make?


Is it understandable?


Any ideas that would allow the player to mix and match skills/commands?

 

[Azurecyan]

It's an interesting concept and understandable, though I feel like one gem might be overshadowed by another because of its general use and power. Perhaps you can have something where if you master the gem class, then you get to keep all the skills.


Will stat increase be dependent on what gem you are holding?

 

[Wavelength]

I don't see too many problems with this idea and I think, design-wise, it's something to go ahead with in your game if you have the time and talent to implement it.


The one major drawback of any system that allows you to give any class (or in this case Gem) to any character, in my eyes, is the weaker identity that the player will build around the character.  Having a defined role in battle can help players understand (plot-wise and game-wise) who this character is supposed to be and what they're good at.  It also helps keeps characters distinct (since a player could create a team of all Dancers or all Mages or whatever).  None of this makes such a system bad - but it's worth thinking about your story and your other game mechanics and thinking about whether it's right for your game or not.


If you decide that you want to keep characters' roles somewhat distinct but still want to press ahead with gems, one thing you could try is limiting which characters are allowed to equip which gems.


As to your question about "mixing and matching", you could have two gem slots, each with a limited number of skills/stats/passives/commands/whatever that they provide on their own, plus a few extra benefits provided by each possible combination of two gems.

 

[floralContemplation]

All the characters are supposed to have little to no combat experience, so I thought it would be fitting for them to try out everything.


And yes, I was thinking of some sort of skills that can be passed onto other gems and maybe passive boosts like, +10 % Magic would just become permanent? 


Anyways, I dig up and I realized this is a bit too much for my first solo project, so I'll drop down on a lower level for my first project.


I still think this is an idea good enough to use, but without the time to learn scripting, I don't know if I'll ever be able to use it.

 

[Wavelength]

There's a big difference between "hey this idea would be cool" and "wow, this idea would make my game into a far better experience".  How do you feel about the idea?  Is it something that will greatly enhance your game?  If so, you could offer a Commission Fee to script this system for you (depending on the mechanical and graphical complexity you're looking for, anywhere from $30 to $150 would probably be a good price), or offer your services in other areas for their game as a trade.  If it's something that "just be kind of neat", then scale it down a little bit and implement it using database features (collections of stat boosts, skill adds, etc.) and event commands (to process things that need to be conditional).

 

[Authumbla]

All the characters are supposed to have little to no combat experience, so I thought it would be fitting for them to try out everything.

This is kind of an "eh" justification. If I were you, I'd try basing their chosen classes around their personalities. You'd expect a stereotypical mage to have a different personality than a stereotypical fighter, right? So if your characters have distinct personalities (I'm hoping they do!) they'd probably seem to fit different skills better. Like, a headstrong, kind of dumb character might be a fighter, a smart, cocky character might be a thief, etc etc etc.

 

[floralContemplation]

The original idea was for it to be one of those games in which all characters are actual people and I didn't want to restrict anyone to a single role.