So on my RPG Project I'm trying to get every ability, piece of equipment, etc. completely planned out before I start implementing them in the game (haven't been able to work on it in a while) and I'm worried about something: Namely, I'm worried that characters have too many abilities at their disposal.
Here's how it works:
Each character has two sets of abilities- Spells and Feats. Spells consume MP, Feats consume TP (well, it's called FP in-game). Between them both, every character, at this point, has a grand total of 52 abilities (with the exception of the protagonist, who has 53 because of Main Character Privilege, getting that last one as a story event). You don't learn by leveling up, but by spending Learning Points (LP) that you get alongside EXP, and you can learn abilities in any order you want, with a few exceptions. Stronger abilities cost more LP to learn.
The ratio of Spell to Feat is different for each character, with some having more Spells than Feats or vice versa. My main question is: Is 52 per character too many? Is this mitigated by not actually having to learn abilities you don't want? And if it is too many, how should I go about trimming down the abilities so they aren't redundant?
EDIT: Yeah, 52 is unbelievably excessive. At this stage I’ve whittked it down to 28 per character. Technically it’s fewer, since certain abilities are only usable with a specific type of weapon. I think that’s fair, but I could be wrong.
Meanwhile here I am with 4 characters, each of the characters has 9 skills already have a hard time to make each skill shine on its own (used to have 10 skill per character but it was getting redundant).
The problem with that many skill is
Too many to remember for the player.
The player may only begin to use several skills.
Scrolling window because it's too many.
The player may stop to use a skill that looks useless.
Balancing
Not to mention how many characters you have.
In my game, instead of learning a new skill, you learn a perk. Learning a perk enables you to either learn a new skill or upgrade a skill. For example, if you learn Perk A, skill B will have a stronger effect or simply has more side effect. I plan to have each character has 25 learnable perk, and so far there is no redundancy.
I can say that right now, each character averages about 20-25 total skills, and I feel that's too many; most of them have their skills divided in to two sections, with anywhere from 6-16 skills per. 52, to me, seems...if I may be honest, pretty damn insane.
Yes, it's way too many. That's the only reasonable answer you'll find in this thread. Theo did a good job of summing up why.
Remember, also, that skills and battle prowess are excellent ways to develop a character and their story. "Brave" or "experienced" characters tend to use physical skills and have higher HP stats, for example, while "gentle" characters might be dedicated healers or casters. These are very basic archetypes, but you can get even more creative. One of my game's party members utilizes item-based skills (herbs/plants) and uses support skills since he's not really a fighter and enjoys botany. Each skill (he has about 20 total) says something about him and his persona - I think it's really important to develop this connection since the player will be spending much of their time in battles.
At 52, skills aren't special anymore. Players don't care what they're called or why a character learns them, they will immediately gravitate towards the strongest skills since there's no need to waste time on the others. I can only imagine how repetitive and boring the skills will be too if you have to make 52 for every single character.
In other words, make each skill special. Let each one say something about their user, or develop their role in battle. Put as much time into one skill as you would into 5 normally, and really flesh out its formula, animation, strategic worth, and balance. If you make 52 skills for one character, corners will be cut and we will notice.
My general philosophy is that any game where each character has over 16-20 skills absolutely should have some sort of Skill Equip system in order to A.) Reduce clutter, and B.) Promote careful planning and build setups. In regards to A, judging by the fact that your characters have 50+ skills each, I assume that your skills are going to end up very same-y and simplistic, so therefore there are bound to be several skills that your average player would likely find useless, and would therefore appreciate a way to remove them from the in-battle skill menu entirely in order to prevent needless clutter. On the other hand, if you somehow found a way to make each skill interesting like Guild Wars did, then B is also necessary in order to prevent the player from having access to all of these assets at once. It also allows for the player to set up different builds for each character, which gives them more choices.
To be honest, though, you probably should cut down on quantity and focus more on quality. It'll make the experience better for both you and your players in the long run.
The common issue I see with "many abilities" is; Does Firaga make Fira worthless? In that situation, it's often better to "combine" skills and let skills upgrade. There's still 52 unique skills, but there aren't 52 choices with some being blatantly worth less.
The most important thing approach to having multiple abilities is that a skill choice is being made at the cost of every other skill choice in a given turn. We can even look at the bare minimum amount of 3; Attack, Defend, Item. Even with that tiny list, notice how often Defend isn't chosen, yet Attack is the mainstay and Item is extremely important, even when we consider this character might only ever use phoenix downs.
To make 52 skills relevant, that means that each has to be a viable choice to make. That's enormous and I can't think of a rpg, let alone game in general, that has succeeded at that (The best I can think of is Gau in FF6 and he's generally considered vastly overpowered for it). It requires balance, good impressions, and a need to try out new skills. And that's ignoring how much room that takes up in the skill menu (@Redeye points out a good solution).
That largely depends on what is redundant. For instance, if one unit is largely based around using similar attack spells that just differ in element (say, Black Mage from FF), you could shrink them down to one skill that lets you choose an element on use. Skills that do the same thing but on a different scale (such as FIre/Fira/Firaga) could just be one skill that's either upgraded, able to choose an MP cost on use, or just scales well based on Mag and lvl. You might also have skills where you realize it doesn't do enough (such as Defend) and you can either just drop them, make them better, or combine multiple skills that fall into this category.
Thank you all for your advice! I decided to go in and combine abilities that are just improved versions of previous abilities (so you upgrade those skills instead of learning new ones) and it seems like the total per character has gone down from 52 down to 32, which I feel is a pretty reasonable amount.
My only real issue now is MP costs for some of the upgrades. See, for some upgrades, the only improvement is the ability to hit multiple targets instead of just one. However, there are certain instances where the player wouldn't want to hit every enemy or every party member (Example: casting Protect II when one of the party members has Reflect on). So I thought the upgraded form would give you the option of switching between one or all, but that raises the problem where using it like the old version still costs more MP. (Feats don't have this problem since FP is percentage-based) Should I be concerned about this?
So I thought the upgraded form would give you the option of switching between one or all, but that raises the problem where using it like the old version still costs more MP.
There are two solutions in my mind;
Let the spell deal extra damage with a single target. Even double is plenty.
Don't change the MP cost between levels. Hitting everything is better, but the option of hitting only one is nice. When the MP cost doesn't change, it feels like a strict upgrade instead of forcing a different skill in its place.
52 - and even 32 - skills per character does tend to be too much in most games, especially if you're actually bringing 52 (or 32) skills into battle on each character, rather than having a Skill Equip system or similar (where you could, for example, choose 8 out of 32 skills each character has learned to bring into battle).
My main concerns, aside from the very obvious one of having to scroll through a LOT of lines of abilities, are that some skills will completely dominate other skills on the same character (making the latter useless), and that characters may be too similar to each other (because with so many skills available, each character would be able to perform any and every possible role in battle).
The best way to pare it down, in my opinion, would be to lay out what role you want each character to have in battle. Write down a description of how each skill directly or indirectly serves that purpose, and then remove the skills that don't serve the purpose in any way. Then, compare the descriptions for each skill that remains. Where two or more skills have a very similar description, you might have skills eclipsing each other. Think about what situations will make Skill A better than Skill B and Skill C, and what situations will make Skill B or Skill C the best instead. If you have a hard time doing so, or the situations are rare/unrealistic, then you should remove the less useful skills, or combine all of those skills into a single skill.
Making cuts on your own content can be hard sometimes, so if you'd like a bit of help to get started, feel free to present one of your characters as an example (be sure to elucidate the character's/class' role in battle), and we could show you how to go about paring down your bloated set of skills to create a trim, interesting kit with a strong sense of purpose.
Making cuts on your own content can be hard sometimes, so if you'd like a bit of help to get started, feel free to present one of your characters as an example (be sure to elucidate the character's/class' role in battle), and we could show you how to go about paring down your bloated set of skills to create a trim, interesting kit with a strong sense of purpose.
All right, I’ll give that a shot, with the main protagonist, Autumn. To sum up, she’s the healer, but stat wise she’s actually pretty versatile. Character-wise, in addition to the kindness expected from a healer, she’s non confrontational, starved for affection, and desperately wants to see the best in everybody. She can use weapons, sure, but she’s not great with them.
Here’s what she has going on skill-wise. I actually trimmed it down further to 30.
Restore: Restores HP to either a single party member or the whole party.
Purify: Cures Poison. Later upgrades allow it to heal Blind and Silence as well, and again lets it cure everything.
Mend: Bestows healing over time. Upgrades to allow you to target the entire party.
Revive: Brings back a KO’d party member. Upgrades to bring them back to full.
Protect: Increases target’s Defense. Upgrades to allow you to target the whole party.
Barrier: Increases target’s Magic Defense. Upgrades to allow you to target the whole party.
Accelerate: Increases target’s Speed. Guess what the upgrade does.
Temper: Increases target’s Attack.
Aura: Increases target’s Magic power.
Mirror: Bestows magic reflection on the target.
Cloak: Raises target’s Evasion.
Silence: Inflicts Silence, preventing target from casting spells. Upgrade let’s you target multiple enemies.
Stasis: Inflicts Paralysis, preventing target from moving.
Berserk: Inflicts Berserk, causing target to attack nonstop.
Lux: Deals Light-elemental damage to either one target or all enemies.
Sword Slap: Bludgeons an enemy over the head with the flat side of a sword, dealing less damage than a normal attack but has a chance of stunning the target. Requires a sword.
Spin Attack: Deals damage to multiple enemies. Requires a sword.
Javelin: Throws your weapon to do normal damage from the back row. Requires a spear.
Lancet: Absorbs HP and MP from the target. Requires a spear.
Careful Aim: An attack that never misses. Requires a bow.
Warning Shot: Doesn’t do damage, but lowers the target’s Attack and delays their next action. Requires a bow.
Cleric Bane: Deals massive damage that only affects demons and the undead. Requires a staff.
Aether Shaft: Absorbs MP. Requires a staff.
Shield Bash: Rams into an enemy with a shield, doing less damage than a normal attack but also decreases damage you take this turn. Requires a shield.
Shield Counter: Counters physical attacks with a shield, which doesn’t do damage but does stun them, all while remaining on guard. Requires a shield.
Focus: Increases the power of your next spell.
Cheer: Lets out an encouraging cheer, which increases the party’s FP.
Hug: Cures the status effects Confusion, Berserk, and Amnesia with a good old-fashioned hug.
Flirt: Inflicts Confusion on an enemy by making a pass at them.
Persuade: Attempts to reason with a human enemy, which if successful will cause them to leave the fight.
For the record, I do plan on implementing a skill equip system, but I’m uncertain if it should be something like 8 spells and 8 feats (like I said, one uses MP and the other uses TP) or if it should be something like 12 total.
At a glance, I noticed she is very versatile. I'm not sure what role she can't cover. That wouldn't be an issue for the main character alone (in fact it can be a good thing), but are the other characters as versatile? As for the feats specifically, it looks like half are linked to specific weapons, and could just be skills on those weapon types.
Yeah, I'm going to say that 52 per character is too damned many. It's important to realize that not every character needs to be able to do everything by themselves. Not everybody needs full elemental coverage, full status recovery coverage, full healing + raise capability, and soforth. Stat buffs/debuffs can be consolidated to give characters more action time and less maintenance time. Weapon-restricted skills could have those restrictions lifted to reduce redundancy (Lancet + Aether Shaft). There's other redundancies that could be trimmed too, such as Purify (upgraded) and Hug.
But really, just figure out a niche or two for each character and make them good at those 1-2 things rather than trying to make every single one a renaissance man/woman. It makes each one feel more unique.
It's actually usually better to not do this. Having a single "red mage" character is nice but niches both let characters be more unique and make decisions generally more meaningful. Note that there are different types of niches. You can have roles (support, damage, etc) or you can focus on a theme (pirate could have access around the range of skills but is limited to only water elements) or you can focus on a specific restriction (a character could have access to many states, healing, and damage, but be entirely built around every skill costing fairly at 0MP or 100TP).
Honestly, 52 skills split up between all characters or all classes sounds like a fair restriction for a game. That is plenty of possible options.
I’ve figured out the niches of most of the cast. I’ve already described Autumn- a healer who can pinch hit in most situations- but the party also includes:
Valden, the tankiest of tanks and heavy hitter to boot. In addition to the requisite tank abilities, he has debuffs (like Auron from FFX), has abilities that buff him and ONLY him, and some moves that are situational but do massive damage (i.e. damage dealt is dependent on a certain factor like his max HP)
Charon, the squishy witch who has access to elemental magic (Fire, Ice, Lightning, and Shadow) and most status effects, and most of her feats are about her own survivabity (example being Human Shield, which is basically an inverse Cover) or improving her own spells (like Doublecasting)
Jewel is an interesting case. She’s also a Red Mage type but she uses different elements (Earth, Water, and Wind). Her feats mainly come in two flavors: Bow skills that emphasize her prowess as an archer, and abilities that only work on wildlife, in addition to a couple that are in line with other parts of her personality, like Cry (debuffs the enemy party’s defenses for a turn or two) and Sing (puts enemies to sleep)
Winter is the second best physical attacker behind Valden, but doesn’t have tanking in his arsenal. His spells are actually geared around imbuing his attacks with elemental properties to maximize damage, as well as bestowing elemental resistance to party members. In addition, he also serves as something like a magic tank, having abilities like Magnet (draws all spells towards him for a couple turns) and Spell Counter (blocks the next spell that hits him and counterattacks for massive damage)
The main trouble spot I’m having is in the three speedsters.
Phantom’s shtick is that he’s a thief who, in addition to stealing items, can also steal the powers of monsters the party fights. This makes him too varied in his skill set, and we already have Autumn and Jewel with Red Mage aspects to them. His feats are all based around stealing crap, speed (such as instantly fleeing from battle or raising his own evasion to make up for his low HP), attacks that disable enemies in some way (such as Disarm) and other trickery (like Sneak Attack, which has him disappearing for a turn and attacking hard the next). His final ability is Mimic, which lets him copy the last thing one of his party members did.
Skye is a ninja. I have no idea what his skill set will revolve around. He has the best Speed in the game and the only one who can use katanas, the best melee weapons in the game. I know for a fact that one of his feats will be Decoy, which throws a stuffed animal into the fray to draw attention away from the party. The thing is, in a turn-based RPG, I have no idea how to give him skills that take advantage of his ability to go first every round.
Valerie’s shtick is more clear-cut. Statwise, she’s the 3rd best physical attacker behind Winter and Valden, and she’s the fastest of the three, and the 3rd fastest in the game (behind Phantom and Skye). She has access to pretty decent armor but has lackluster (not terrible) HP. She’s a mechanic. She gains her Gadget abilities (standing in For spells) by using components she either finds, or gets by destroying mechanical enemies. Think Edgar from FFVI. She has a few feats that take advantage of this by dealing massive damage or having really adverse effects on mechanical enemies (such as Disable, which immobilizes them; Hack, which turns them against their allies since machines can’t be Confused; or Disassemble, which just kills them). I don’t know what I should do for her Gadgets to keep her from being too varied, but one of them is 100% confirmed to be Energy Donor, which transfers her own MP to a teammate.
It's actually usually better to not do this. Having a single "red mage" character is nice but niches both let characters be more unique and make decisions generally more meaningful.
I'm actually not entirely sure if the OP means that the 52 abilities are in a pool shared across all characters, or that each character can learn 52 total abilities. If spread across all characters, then it might actually be a bit sparse since 8 characters sharing a pool of 52 abilities is only 6-7 per character. To contrast with my own game, each character gets approximately 15-20 abilities, with the main character of course learning a few more than everyone else.
Here’s what she has going on skill-wise. I actually trimmed it down further to 30.
Restore: Restores HP to either a single party member or the whole party.
Purify: Cures Poison. Later upgrades allow it to heal Blind and Silence as well, and again lets it cure everything.
Mend: Bestows healing over time. Upgrades to allow you to target the entire party.
Revive: Brings back a KO’d party member. Upgrades to bring them back to full.
Protect: Increases target’s Defense. Upgrades to allow you to target the whole party.
Barrier: Increases target’s Magic Defense. Upgrades to allow you to target the whole party.
Accelerate: Increases target’s Speed. Guess what the upgrade does.
Temper: Increases target’s Attack.
Aura: Increases target’s Magic power.
Mirror: Bestows magic reflection on the target.
Cloak: Raises target’s Evasion.
Silence: Inflicts Silence, preventing target from casting spells. Upgrade let’s you target multiple enemies.
Stasis: Inflicts Paralysis, preventing target from moving.
Berserk: Inflicts Berserk, causing target to attack nonstop.
Lux: Deals Light-elemental damage to either one target or all enemies.
Sword Slap: Bludgeons an enemy over the head with the flat side of a sword, dealing less damage than a normal attack but has a chance of stunning the target. Requires a sword.
Spin Attack: Deals damage to multiple enemies. Requires a sword.
Javelin: Throws your weapon to do normal damage from the back row. Requires a spear.
Lancet: Absorbs HP and MP from the target. Requires a spear.
Careful Aim: An attack that never misses. Requires a bow.
Warning Shot: Doesn’t do damage, but lowers the target’s Attack and delays their next action. Requires a bow.
Cleric Bane: Deals massive damage that only affects demons and the undead. Requires a staff.
Aether Shaft: Absorbs MP. Requires a staff.
Shield Bash: Rams into an enemy with a shield, doing less damage than a normal attack but also decreases damage you take this turn. Requires a shield.
Shield Counter: Counters physical attacks with a shield, which doesn’t do damage but does stun them, all while remaining on guard. Requires a shield.
Focus: Increases the power of your next spell.
Cheer: Lets out an encouraging cheer, which increases the party’s FP.
Hug: Cures the status effects Confusion, Berserk, and Amnesia with a good old-fashioned hug.
Flirt: Inflicts Confusion on an enemy by making a pass at them.
Persuade: Attempts to reason with a human enemy, which if successful will cause them to leave the fight.
At a glance, I noticed she is very versatile. I'm not sure what role she can't cover. That wouldn't be an issue for the main character alone (in fact it can be a good thing), but are the other characters as versatile? As for the feats specifically, it looks like half are linked to specific weapons, and could just be skills on those weapon types.
I'm inclined to agree with @kirbwarrior. Autumn can heal one or all targets, cure status effects and disables, raise party stats, lower enemy stats, inflict disables, deal physical damage, deal elemental damage, revive allies, restore her or the party's resources, remove enemies from battle, and do even more based on the type of weapon she has (such as backline access or tank abilities). I can't really think of anything she can't do besides extreme DPS and Stealing Items! There are probably a couple of other things she can't do too, but my point is that this much versatility actually leaves her without a clear battle identity, and would only be appropriate in something like a one-character battle party.
The goal here is not so much the number of skills, but to ensure that each skill feels meaningful and unique from other skills in her kit, and that her kit feels meaningfully different (when you strip the aesthetics) from other party members' kits. Here are some important concepts that are applicable here, and how I would use them to pare down her current 30-skill kit into a purer essence:
1) A Good Interface Can Reduce Clutter
In addition to minimizing the number of button presses it should take to reach an ability, it's also good practice to do whatever it takes to ensure that only skills that are available in the battle will show up on the battle menus. So for skills that require weapons, only the two out of ten skills that you have the eligible weapon for need to show up, and need to be considered in kit bloat. We can safely ignore any 8 out of the 10 weapon skills in further consideration. Skill Count: 30 -> 22
2) Skills Should Never Dominate Other Skills in the Same Kit
Purify's final upgrade can cure everything. Hug, meanwhile, only cures certain "mental" ailments. In theory, Purify dominates Hug because Purify will be at least as good as Hug in all situations, and might be better in some situations (where the ally also has some physical ailments like Blind). Unless MP is very, very precious, or the player cannot feasibly earn all of Autumn's skill upgrades during the course of the game, there's no reason to have two separate skills here. Merge Hug's functionality into upgrades of Purify.
Similarly, we have four different status-inflicting skills: Silence, Stasis, Berserk, and Flirt. Why inflict Berserk or Silence (which still let them attack, and in the case of Silence use Feats) when you can simply Paralyze them (allowing them to do nothing)? Perhaps these are "easier" to inflict, but you shouldn't need to rely on the RNG anyway, and really what's the difference between a 50% chance at an 80% shutdown (Silence) vs. a 40% chance at a 100% shutdown? Nothing, really. Flirt's Confusion may have a reason to exist since the enemy might attack you or might attack their own allies (the latter being better than a Paralyze). Remove Silence and Berserk from her kit. Skill Count: 22 -> 19
3) In a Party-Based System, Gaps in Utility Lead to Clear Identity
As I discussed before, Autumn's kit provides far too many different types of utility. She can do too many things, so she will step on the toes of other party members (and they might step on each others' toes as well). It's up to you what kind of utility you think feels the most appropriate in her kit, but from your description my take would be that healing, buffing, reviving, and status removal, in addition to a couple of damage skills (because everyone deserves the chance to kill a few dinky monsters, even the party healer). Disables definitely seem like a good candidate to scratch in her kit (allow another party member to focus on disables), as does party-wide resource boosting (this seems like good utility to add to a more pure DPS-style character). Remove Stasis, Flirt, and Cheer from her kit. I would normally recommend moving Persuade as well, but if this is an important element of gameplay, you can leave it in. Skill Count: 19 -> 16
4) Not Every Stat Needs Buffs and Debuffs
A common "skill bloat" mistake that many neophyte designers make is to have versions of de/buffs for every single stat when, in practice, several end up doing the same thing as each other. There's some room to prune your kit here.
Temper increases an ally's ATK; Aura increases their MAG. Whoever the target is, there's most likely going to be one right answer for which one to increase, and once you do, using skills that rely on the other stat will be a waste. Combining them into a single skill that increases both ATK and MAG accomplishes the same purpose without limiting strategic decisions, and it reduces skill bloat. Combine Temper and Aura into one skill.
Protect (DEF) and Barrier (MDF) are less of a slam-dunk to combine because there will surely be some battle against troops with mixed damage types, and while one might be better than the other, there's a reason to cast both of them. However, it's not always obvious whether enemy attacks (like an electric sword or an acid attack) are physical or magic, so the existence or two different stat boosts partially serves to offer an opportunity to screw the player. Don't screw the player. Combine Protect and Barrier into one skill.
In addition, there's an argument to be made that skills like Cloak (increases physical EVA) serve the same purpose as skills like Protect (increases DEF) - reducing physical damage. Yes, Evasion also increases your chance to avoid ailments from Physical attacks, but unless you get the numbers beautifully balanced, or ailments are such an important part of your game that the player is making a conscious decision to avoid them instead of avoiding damage, one of these skills will probably dominate the other. It's your call, but my suggestion would be to remove Cloak and Mirror, and replace them with a skill that either fully protects the target for one turn, or fully negates a single hit. Replace Cloak and Mirror with a single short-term full protect. Skill Count: 16 -> 13
5) Power Amplifiers Need a Variety of Interesting Uses
Focus increases the Power of your next spell, but most of Autumn's spells don't seem to use the concept of Power. For example, Purify is either going to cure Poison or not cure Poison; there's no room for Power. Aura is going to add a state or buff that increases MAG, so unless you're using Utility Scaling (where the Power of the skill influences the magnitude of Aura's buff), there's no room for Power here either. In fact, the only spells I can see that would use Power are Lux, Restore, and perhaps Mend (if you're using a plugin or creative eventing to implement it). I don't think this is enough interesting use cases to justify including a Power Amp in her kit. Remove Focus from her kit. Skill Count: 13 -> 12
With only 12 skills available in an endgame battle, we may have taken the reduction a little far. That's okay! Now there's room to examine her very trim and efficient kit, and come up with two or three skills that could be added in to give it a little extra room to breathe. Perhaps an Autolife skill would be appropriate, or perhaps a buff that heals an ally whenever they receive a new negative status effect. Maybe some way to increase her power when one of her allies is attacked. Let your imagination go wild; just make sure it stays within the bounds of Autumn's specialities, and make sure it doesn't eclipse other skills that already exist in her kit.
Good lord, listen to @Wavelength, OP. This is some great design advice with well-supported points and reasoning. I would take every sentence to heart.
However, it's not always obvious whether enemy attacks (like an electric sword or an acid attack) are physical or magic, so the existence or two different stat boosts partially serves to offer an opportunity to screw the player. Don't screw the player. Combine Protect and Barrier into one skill.
Personally, I enjoy requiring my player to think outside the box and figure out whether an enemy uses predominantly magic or physical attacks (usually it's obvious by design, but you never know). To make it less risky (or less likely to "screw over" the player), I would make a learnable passive skill that allows Protect and Barrier to target all. Hence, greater payoff if you do choose the correct one and less backlash if you don't. If you have another character that is designated to be the "buffer" of the party, then scratch that; instead, water down Autumn's buffs as much as possible so she can't be totally relied on to buff the party. Sort of like how Persona 4's Chie gets Tarukaja (single target Attack-buff), but you also have the less-powerful Teddie who gets Matarukaja (target-all Attack-buff) plus a few other support skills. In fact, Persona should really be mentioned here more as one of the best games to simplify "roles" and "skill availability" to the point of perfection.
That's not bad. I actually heard in a few places that "seven choices" is how much the human brain can easily hold at once and balance out. In games with tons of choices of characters or classes, I don't often see more than 9 active skills.
With only 12 skills available in an endgame battle, we may have taken the reduction a little far. That's okay! Now there's room to examine her very trim and efficient kit
A nice thing I hear about making a good product is "Don't focus on what you can add but what you can take away. Once there's nothing left to take away, it's perfect".
Valden, the tankiest of tanks and heavy hitter to boot. In addition to the requisite tank abilities, he has debuffs (like Auron from FFX), has abilities that buff him and ONLY him, and some moves that are situational but do massive damage (i.e. damage dealt is dependent on a certain factor like his max HP)
Any skill is better when you go first
But, seriously, single turn effects are best when they happen first and even effects that affect statistics or turns are great early; stunning, atk+ on an ally, healing an ally before the enemy can kill, killing the enemy before it deals damage, there are tons of possibilities. Being a ninja, I'd suggest debilitating effects and damaging weakened enemies.
A lot of redundant buffing abilities mostly, which have since been excised. I’m working on getting everyone else down to 28 skills and whittling them down from there. (Except Autumn gets an extra skill as part of the story due to Main Character Privilege)
The thing is, I gave Valden a bunch of abilities I find really unique, including a personal favorite of mine, “Attack Rush” which gives the entire party an insane buff to their physical attack and speed that only lasts for the next turn and forces them all to attack one enemy. Really, only useful when the entire party consists of front-row physical attackers.
Oh, and incidentally, I tweaked Purify to only cure physical status effects like Poison and Blind, because dang it, Autumn hugging characters to snap them out of confusion is too cute.
Also in regards to the ninja stuff, I’m working on his abilities and I had a TON of fun coming up with his abilities, and decided to make them gratuitously Japanese. Examples:
Fusayami (Dark Blockade) paralyzes one enemy AND inflicts damage over time
Ansatsu Datsu (Assassin Dart) inflicts Poison and Sleep simultaneously. It may seem redundant, but the Sleep effect doesn’t last as long as Fusayami, and it can multi-target. Plus, the damage over time effects are distinct from one another, meaning you can apply both.
Furashuu (Flash) inflicts mass Blind, but has a chance of inducing Confusion as well.
Skye isn’t the only character who can apply most of these. Charon also has access to Blind and Poison. However, Charon’s Virus spell does immediate damage as well, plus her other status-inducing magic is more MP efficient.
Skye also has a few abilities that revolve around, of all things, an enemy’s MP (which Phantom’s Spy and Jewel’s Sense abilities have the ability to see, along with their HP and elemental weakness)
Kyushu (Absorb) drains MP from an enemy and Bakuhatsu (Explosion) deals non-elemental damage based entirely on how much MP the enemy has. There was originally a skill called Danzetsu (Sever) that just straight-up reduced an enemy’s MP but realized that Kyushu made it redundant. Maybe I’ll keep Danzetsu around but have it upgrade to Kyushu.
Just beat the last of us 2 last night and starting jedi: fallen order right now, both use unreal engine & when I say i knew 80% of jedi's buttons right away because they were the same buttons as TLOU2 its ridiculous, even the same narrow hallway crawl and barely-made-it jump they do. Unreal Engine is just big budget RPG Maker the way they make games nearly identical at its core lol.
Can someone recommend some fun story-heavy RPGs to me? Coming up with good gameplay is a nightmare! I was thinking of making some gameplay platforming-based, but that doesn't work well in RPG form*. I also was thinking of removing battles, but that would be too much like OneShot. I don't even know how to make good puzzles!
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