So from a conceptual viewpoint, the process is usually something like this:
- Figure out what role you want a character to play in battle. For example, you might decide that a character would be a "Vanguard", protecting their allies from being harmed.
- Use that role to create that character's kit of skills. For our Vanguard, their skills might include ways to Substitute (take a hit) for low-health allies who are about to be attacked, attacks or taunts that greatly increase the user's Aggro rating (if the game uses an Aggro system), bonds that redirect part of the damage taken by allies to the Vanguard, team-wide Defense buffs, and so on.
- Based on the character's skills, choose which stats will be the most useful. Since you want your Vanguard to take a lot of hits, DEF and MDF will be the most useful stats for them, and would logically be the two "great" stats for this character. AGI might be important too, to use the defensive moves before enemies can attack, and you'd probably want to give the Vanguard at least decent AGI. Other stats like ATK and MAG can be lower.
There's a case to be made for not perfectly aligning the kit of skills with the set of stats (for example, a squishy character with a skill that allows them to Substitute for allies could be a fun, risky way to protect allies in danger), but this is only appropriate for certain styles of combat system, and it requires really good design to not mess up. Generally, it's better to make the stats line up with the skills, since the player will be trying their hardest to boost those "useful" stats for the character anyhow.
As far as balancing different characters that are designed in this vein, all you really have to do is make sure that each stat is exactly as valuable as each other stat. Increasing ATK by 3 points should be just as valuable as increasing AGI by 3 points (for a character who values both ATK and AGI), in terms of improving their shot at winning the battle. This is easier said than done, because by default AGI and LUK are not that useful in RPG Maker's combat, and also because generally characters only need one stat out of ATK or MAG to be effective at offense, whereas they need both DEF and MDF to be effective at defense (meaning that ATK and MAG are twice as valuable as DEF and MDF in many games). But if you get to the point where each stat is approximately as valuable as every other stat, you'll have a very good balance baseline to work from. From there, it's all about making sure that some skills aren't too situationally useful/useless; the skills' cost, cooldowns, or power can be adjusted to compensate.
Yeah that's the process I was finding myself working out. Especially if you only have 4 characters, you want them all to be unique and useful (or at least I do), so some can have some crossover skills, like one can have some healing capabilities but not like how your healer is built, or whatever. I personally don't want all my members to be heavy hitters, or at least divide them into 2 physical attackers and 2 magic attackers, and one of each maybe having more support than offensive skills than the other in the same category, and make their stats accordingly.
Yeah, low numbers are usually best. They just make the math easier for the player.
Hmmmmmmm, I personally don't do classes. I just let everyone learn and equip everything. That said, I do balance things out via mp/stamina cost. So if a spell is 20 mana, then I'll make sure it's neither better nor worse than all the other 20 mana spells in the game. (there are some exceptions to this, but that would require a longer post)
Yeah I love the low numbers! And that's a cool take. It makes me think of FF6 a bit where everyone can learn ALL of the magic. I guess their stats do differentiate and they have their own unique skills, but even so. Balancing the mp/stamina is a cool idea too.
I actually didn't balance my party's stats at all. Iii, the main girl, has a higher attack stat than the rest of the party put together. She's a demigoddess and the other two are just competent mortals so it makes sense her stats are a lot higher. But, I balanced the characters around a different metric, conservation of force and utility.
Iii can't use AOE attacks so you have to make sure you're attacking the right target, because if you have her cleaning up the small fry the big guy'll kill the party, but its complicated by things like lesser enemies tanking for the big guys, or the lesser enemies killing the other members of the party.
That's a good way to switch the typical party up! Having a character that really has to be OP because of, really, who/what the character is can be difficult to work into a game and still keep it challenging. So making it that she can only attack one target at a time is a good strategy! Nice!
I was thinking about how to incorporate elemental attributes to skills as well. I don't think I want to cover every element you can think of, and I don't think I even want to have the ones I use to be the traditional fire, earth, water, and wind.
At first I thought it could be cool to have an FF6-style of skill system. Everyone has their own unique skill list and at some point in the story they come across some kind of equippable (sp?) artifacts that will teach you "magic". So everyone can learn all there is that those offer, but still have their own set of personal skills that are valuable.
Then I thought maybe something like Chrono Trigger where each member is assigned an element that most of their skills are based around. And this is where I started thinking of atypical elements like nature (organic?), mechanical/technological, space (cosmic even), and time. So I want a guy, a girl, an alien, and a robot. OR a guy, a girl, an inventor type guy, and an alien. The alien would use space/cosmic, the girl would use nature, the robot/inventor would have the mech/tech skills, so then the main guy would have power over time somehow (would have to figure out a way to apply that story-wise).
Time - Definitely supports/buffs like a haste/slow/stop kind of thing. Could have some kind of aging status effect, too. Some offensive skills.
Space - More offensive skills, like singularity skills, gravity skills, meteor stuff, star stuff. OR I can take it in a sci-fi cosmic way and do like eldritch summonings, but I think that's more on the antagonist side of things for me.
Nature - Healing for sure. And more natural elemental attacks that would induce status effects like "burning" than "fire-damage". Maybe even creature summoning.
Technology - Lasers, projectiles, crazy tech stuff. Might have it work like Edgar in FF6 with needing to have the appropriate "tools" in the inventory. Can have some minor healing skills and some stat stuff. Lasers can induce burning, and so on.
I dunno! These are just thoughts at the moment! I kind of like where they're going though! And I'd adjust the character stats accordingly, too. I guess. Maybe use YanFly's stat extension plugin or something. Game progress wise, I'm just trying to get the menu to work out the way I want it right now haha.
