Combat technicians / Story and gameplay idea feedback

[Blindga]

So I have a new story I want to try out. The trick I'm working on is how to make it interesting. I could use some feedback on this current idea I have.

I reorganized this into current and old ideas using spoilers. Hope it's easier to read.

Old Idea1

Spoiler

This is going to be a bit longer. The first few paragraphs sums up the idea though.

So, to set up the story for this...

In a dark sci-fi space world, the once loved and all-powerful government is losing it's grip on things, and many factions are rebelling and warring with each other to try to step into the power gap. Between all the fighting though, stuff gets broken. Stuff gets broken - stuff needs fixing.

The main heroine is a tech-savvy sweetheart who wants to get out of her boring life as a garage hand. She begins selling her skills as a mercenary mechanic to make money fixing things or fighting for whoever pays her. Her best friends, a snarky and sassy surgeon, and a quiet and insightful lab technician, join her to do the same; except with their medical and psionic skills. Together they form a three-woman team of highly intelligent combat specialists who work together and combine their knowledges to make money, investigate problems, win battles, save lives, and keep things running smoothly while everyone else does the real fighting; though the three of them eventually get involved in the bigger conflict themselves.

The main thing I want to do with this is create a system that focuses on the collection and development of different tool kits for different jobs. Create a focus on the planning and development of the techinical skills instead of just the fighting.

Each character can equip two out of five different tool kits at a time. Each kit serves different purposes, and has several tools that can be purchased as upgrades for it. The tools attached to the kit determine what challenges can be overcome in each mission.

The mechanic girl can equip:
Fine tool kit: Things like screwdrivers, wire cutters, and electrical tools. Delicate tools for delicate tasks.
Heavy tool kit: Things like a crowbar, hatchets and hammers, and big wrenches. Tough tools for dirty work.
Powered tool kit: Things like drills, laser saws, and industrial welders. Useful for tough fixes and very hard jobs.
Digital tool kit: Things like diagonistic drives, hacking software, and other digital interfaces. For dealing with computers.
Chemical tool kit: Things like oils, nanite gels, and fuel injectors. For when something extra needs to be added.

The surgeon girl can equip:
Surgery kit: Various cutters, lasers, and bandaging for all kinds of minor injuries and field surgery.
Trauma kit: Devices and tools for quick treatment of deadly wounds and critical condition victims.
Pharmacutical kit: Device for using nanites to synthisize drugs, painkillers, and medicines.
Antidote kit:  Arrangement of various cures for chemical poison.
Biohazard kit: Scanners, radiation lasers, and sterilizers for analyzing and combating biological weapons and phages.

The psi girl can equip:
Fields amp: Device for the creation and manipulation of energy and barriers.
Psitech amp: Device for the manipulation and interfacing of machines mentally.
Empathy amp: Device that allows for mind-reading, seduction, and persuasion of others.

Kinetic amp: Device that allows for the physical manipulation of objects and raw energy.
Paranormal amp: Device for manipulating psionic anomalies and ghosts.

The game starts with each girl having just a few tools in their first kit, and over time the player can use money to buy more tools to increase their functionality and sort of specialize in a particular field. Before a mission, the player can choose two of the five types of tool kits for each girl. Each mission presents a wide range of main goals and secondary goals. The tools the player has with them at the time determines what can be done and what can't.

As example, one optional mission that happens sort of early on is the team gets forwarded an automated distress signal from a cargo ship far off in uncontrolled space. The company, not wanting to spend resources outside of the war, hires the team to investigate the ship, save the crew, and, if possible, repair and rescue the ship itself.

As it would turn out, the engines are a wreck, and the crew has been zombified by an illegal parasitic bio-weapon that the company was trying to sneak around.

During the mission several challenges might present itself; ranging from mundane to critical. How well the player does on a mission and what penalties and rewards they recieve all depends on what the player has on the team.

One example, an electronic door appears jammed and refuses to open. The player needs to get in. The player hasn't bought a crowbar for the mechanic girl (she may not even have a heavy tool kit equipped if the player didn't chose that one), and the psionic girl doesn't have the technique (same thing as a tool for her) on her kinetic amp that would allow her to push the heavy door open. If the player had either of these, they could choose to safely open the door. Failing that though, the player has to break it down. Oops: that comes out of your pay.

An alternate positive example, a possessed crew member attacks the team and has to be defeated. After the battle, the medic girl uses her trauma kit to stablize the wounded member and then uses her pharmacutical kit to create a sedative to prevent them from waking up. Using this technique, the player can systematically save each poor soul on the ship: Hooray! This is thanks to the fact that the player has been building up that character's tools for that particular kit. They may have been weaker or less prepared otherwise.

The player goes through the ship, finding out what happened, doing the objectives, and they sort of begin to make up a story for that mission. Best case scenario: the player chose wisely; the crew is saved, the parasite is contained, and the ship is fixed. Worse case scenario: the player didn't have the right gear; the crew has to be killed along with the parasite, and the ship can't be saved. And there would be plenty of inbetween solutions and alternate answers to the problems on that mission. Doing well results in more bonuses, while accidents and failures result in penalties to the bounty.

It's sort of a simple logic game; deciding what tools to load up on and choosing which missions you think you can handle and avoiding those you can't. It's about prioritizing and preparation. Not too unforgiving, as there are usually more than one way to solve a problem, but it's not always possible to win every time. Some sacrifices have to be made from time to time, but if you're smart and make sure you have the right setup you can make a team of successful mercenary specialists out of the three women.

So that's the basic idea I have up to this point. Do you think this would make an interesting game mechanic? Feel free to comment and add suggestions. Anything is appreciated. And thanks for reading.

Current Idea

I'm back! Just wondering, were you planning on having the kits you choose replicate the skills you have in battle? Or is battle a whole different system? It got me thinking of the Engineer in Guild Wars 2 where switching kits practically changed your playstyle and it was fairly enjoyable.

Combat system is still something I'm thinking of, but since I'm here, I'll make a mention of what I'm thinking of on that to help solidify some of my ideas. Wasn't exactly planning something quite like you mentioned though. I know for sure I want to use GubiD's tactical system.

First, I have a new idea that confronts some things I was running into on the initial one.

I eliminate the concept that there are three different trades spead out amongst the girls. It would be too complicated. They are all mechanically inclined in this new idea instead of coming from different professions, and they start off knowing each other because they work in the same shop.

One of the main elements I want to include is a focus on psychic technology called Psionic Tool Rigs. Basically, it's a mental toolkit that uses holograms and mind-amplifying devices to create wrenches, screwdrives, drills, and welders from the mind. They're made entirely of psychic force, nothing for that matter, but the holograms that are built into the user's body gives the impression that the mechanic can create glowing ghostly tools from nothing and complete tasks on a whim.

The three girls are different in that they each have different minds, and thus, different tool specialties. Unlike in normal rpgs where your strenght, attack, defense, or magic grows, the characters in this game develop their Psionic Tools. This uses Rpgmaker's six natural stat system.

Calibration (Cal): Measuring and small fixes. Tightening a wire's connectors on a computer would use this stat.

Work (Wrk): Tough, heavy work. Removing an industrial bolt on a piece of heavy equipment would use this stat.

Maintenence (Mnt): Using nuts, bolts, nails, and screws to create fixes. Replacing rusty bolts on a door would use this stat.

Welding (Wld): Using heat to fix damage. Welding a fix over a leak to secure a container would use this stat.

Deconstruction (Dec): Cutting and breaking obstacles with destructive force. Cutting off a piece of heavy debris to clear an engine would use this stat.

Programming (Prg): Manipulating computers. Hacking into a malfunctioning network to reboot it would use this stat.

Each stat maxes at 40. Equipping a support item called an Amp can improve different aspects. And when characters start to level, they can spend skill points on perks that increase different abilities as well. How they grow, what perks they can learn, and what specialties seperate the three characters' abilities

So when the player confronts a challenge in a mission, they will be given a choice to decide which character will handle it (and they can briefly review their stats before hand). The person they select will have the relevant stat measured against the challenge. If the player's chosen mechanic has the skill, they fix and solve the problem. If they fail, the character will sustain damage from a shock or a burn, or they may damage the machine in question and cause a penalty.

The main trick to this is that each character has a limited amount of times they can use a their Psionic Tools. Tech Points (the tp) are used when a character attemps to fix something. When it hits zero, the character becomes exhausted from using too much psi. If they run out they will still be able to be selected to do work, but it will be much harder, and they are less likely to be able to succeed at it.

And then there are Kits.

A Kit is a consumable item stored in the inventory that allows the three girls to solve problems their ordinary tools wouldn't accomplish, or allow you to solve problems without using Tp. Something like chemicals, oils, and spare replacement material. Usually, a mission provides the Kits and materials needed to complete the basic task, but many secondary objectives will be missed just doing the basics. You may be able to gain access to areas with items that could help you, or complete secondary objectives for more money with the right kit. But the thing is, Kits cost money. They're cheap, but accidentally buying kits you don't need just wastes resources. But they still have another use.

So the game is more of a focus on a more concise and consistent skill set the player needs to develop for the characters, and it's more about on trying to anticipate and buy the right materials and having the right skills developed for each mission. There's a lot more lenience on things you didn't prepare correctly for, but it doesn't exactly hold hands. You have a lot of resources to balance to get all the way through some tougher missions; Buy kits, use them smartly, manage your team member's psionic stress, bring items to help them, and survive.

And then you have to keep up with their combat skills. Because if you don't spend money on guns, combat training, and other things, you won't survive very many battles.

I was planning on using GubiD's tactical battle system for this idea:

In combat, characters have four types of attack categories.  'Skill', 'Gun', 'Tech' and 'Tools'. Each serves a different role and has a different limiting factor.

Skills are the character's innate attacks and have the least drawbacks. The lead girl primarily fights with kicks and martial arts, one girl wields a set of knives that she can slash with and throw, and the other girl uses Kinesis for medium and long-ranged attacks. Through experience, the player can develop more attacks that are more powerful, but stronger attacks have cooldowns and warmups, and take time to use.

Each character also has a small gun of some sort; ranging from pistols, magnums, machine pistols, and other small PDWs. Players can choose their guns for the characters, and different guns have different ranges, damage specialties, and other characteristics. Guns are overall powerful , usually your most powerful attack, and have much longer range than most skills, but they require ammo (Your Mp). Ammo is limited and it's expensive to buy items that can recover ammo in a mission, so you have to carefully balance how much you use guns.

Tech is basically your Kits. Things that could be used to fix something, like an electrical wiring kit, could also be used as a dangerous weapon, like a deadly shock from said wiring kit. Basically, Tech allows you to use kits as weapons to create a mishmash of tactics for low-cost high damage attacks. But remember that Kits also fix and solve problems. If you use all your kits up to win battles, you could run into problems. You'll have a harder time completing a certain mission when you realize you used up all your cleaning chemicals and oils to make grenades to defeat that armored sentry, and now have to figure out how to clean a poisonous spill that you needed them for.

Tool attacks are a skill that comes much later. Each of the six stats maxes at 40. At 20 and 40 for each stat that character gets a tool attack that is totally unique to them. For example, if one of the characters reaches 20 in her Work stat, she will gain a psionic hammer that she can use to pummel enemies. But if another character reaches 20 in her Work stat, she may gain a kinetic wave emitter that stuns, or claw that can rip an enemy's armor off. The drawback? It uses Tp, which you need to actually fix things.

Combat is difficult. Enemies can kill the girls very quickly. It's all about how well they can fight back. Attacks are weak, and spending time developing powerful skills means losing experience that could be used to develop tech perks. Guns cost money, and kits and tools are useful outside of combat. There are a lot of resources to manage and think about outside of just winning a fight, and the player has to decide what sacrifices to make as well as figuriing out how to beat the various threats of this sci-fi world.

So, overall, the game is a trick of balancing resources and using simple logic. Buy amps to make your girls better at their job, or buy guns to help them protect themselves. Buy Kits to help complete missions, or go train for more experience. Spend that experience on perks that make fixing things easier, or buy combat skills to make them deadlier. You can't do everything, and you have to strike a balance on what you want to do with your team and what kind of jobs you want to be doing.

So how about that idea for a story and combat system? Any feedback would be appreciated.

 

[hiromu656]

I actually really like the idea. It gets the player to replay the game for different possibilities. The only concern I have with the system is that, players might feel cheated going into a mission with the wrong kit and being punished for something they didn't see coming (the zombified people for example). But if you had told the player about the zombies initially, it wouldn't be an effective "surprise" for the player, which would be important storywise rather than gameplay wise. Pretty much what I'm getting at is you need to find a good balance of telling an unpredictable story without making the player feel like they were cheated. You say that "It's sort of a simple logic game", however that would only be true if the player knows exactly what they're going into, you can't really apply much logic to the unexpected. Maybe in pre-mission zones, you could add a bit of free space for the player to explore the dark scifi world they're in and possibly get some insider background on the mission that is not shown in the "Mission Briefing." Such as stumbling upon a bar perhaps and talking with people that speak of odd rumors about "zombification" or something. This not only rewards players for exploring your world but it heightens immersion at the same time, making it feel more alive.

 

[Blindga]

I actually really like the idea. It gets the player to replay the game for different possibilities. The only concern I have with the system is that, players might feel cheated going into a mission with the wrong kit and being punished for something they didn't see coming (the zombified people for example). But if you had told the player about the zombies initially, it wouldn't be an effective "surprise" for the player, which would be important storywise rather than gameplay wise. Pretty much what I'm getting at is you need to find a good balance of telling an unpredictable story without making the player feel like they were cheated. You say that "It's sort of a simple logic game", however that would only be true if the player knows exactly what they're going into, you can't really apply much logic to the unexpected. Maybe in pre-mission zones, you could add a bit of free space for the player to explore the dark scifi world they're in and possibly get some insider background on the mission that is not shown in the "Mission Briefing." Such as stumbling upon a bar perhaps and talking with people that speak of odd rumors about "zombification" or something. This not only rewards players for exploring your world but it heightens immersion at the same time, making it feel more alive.

Balancing gameplay and story is one of my hardest challenges in game design. I feel like I can write a good story, but then I can't design a gameplay that fits it.

It's a good point though. I suppose the logic side of it doesn't work when I make things unpredictable.

But, this is probably given as a much more extreme example of a tough scenario. In general, the player will ususally know what they NEED to do from the start. After reading up on the mission breifing the player can chat with individual members within the party in a sort of team meeting setting where the protagonists can analyze the mission in detail and get better ideas and speculation as for what to do next. I thought about doing something like this to build up more details on the characters and maybe a bit of the world itself.

Or something like that. I still have a lot of decisions to make. But thanks for the reply.

 

[hiromu656]

I'm back! Just wondering, were you planning on having the kits you choose replicate the skills you have in battle? Or is battle a whole different system? It got me thinking of the Engineer in Guild Wars 2 where switching kits practically changed your playstyle and it was fairly enjoyable.

 

[Blindga]

I'm back! Just wondering, were you planning on having the kits you choose replicate the skills you have in battle? Or is battle a whole different system? It got me thinking of the Engineer in Guild Wars 2 where switching kits practically changed your playstyle and it was fairly enjoyable.

Combat system is still something I'm thinking of, but since I'm here, I'll make a mention of what I'm thinking of on that to help solidify some of my ideas. Wasn't exactly planning something quite like you mentioned though. I know for sure I want to use GubiD's tactical system.

First, I have a new idea that confronts some things I was running into on the initial one.

I eliminate the concept that there are three different trades spead out amongst the girls. It would be too complicated. They are all mechanically inclined in this new idea instead of coming from different professions, and they start off knowing each other because they work in the same shop.

One of the main elements I want to include is a focus on psychic technology called Psionic Tool Rigs. Basically, it's a mental toolkit that uses holograms and mind-amplifying devices to create wrenches, screwdrives, drills, and welders from the mind. They're made entirely of psychic force, nothing for that matter, but the holograms that are built into the user's body gives the impression that the mechanic can create glowing ghostly tools from nothing and complete tasks on a whim.

The three girls are different in that they each have different minds, and thus, different tool specialties. Unlike in normal rpgs where your strenght, attack, defense, or magic grows, the characters in this game develop their Psionic Tools. This uses Rpgmaker's six natural stat system.

Calibration (Cal): Measuring and small fixes. Tightening a wire's connectors on a computer would use this stat.

Work (Wrk): Tough, heavy work. Removing an industrial bolt on a piece of heavy equipment would use this stat.

Maintenence (Mnt): Using nuts, bolts, nails, and screws to create fixes. Replacing rusty bolts on a door would use this stat.

Welding (Wld): Using heat to fix damage. Welding a fix over a leak to secure a container would use this stat.

Deconstruction (Dec): Cutting and breaking obstacles with destructive force. Cutting off a piece of heavy debris to clear an engine would use this stat.

Programming (Prg): Manipulating computers. Hacking into a malfunctioning network to reboot it would use this stat.

Each stat maxes at 40. Equipping a support item called an Amp can improve different aspects. And when characters start to level, they can spend skill points on perks that increase different abilities as well. How they grow, what perks they can learn, and what specialties seperate the three characters' abilities

So when the player confronts a challenge in a mission, they will be given a choice to decide which character will handle it (and they can briefly review their stats before hand). The person they select will have the relevant stat measured against the challenge. If the player's chosen mechanic has the skill, they fix and solve the problem. If they fail, the character will sustain damage from a shock or a burn, or they may damage the machine in question and cause a penalty.

The main trick to this is that each character has a limited amount of times they can use a their Psionic Tools. Tech Points (the tp) are used when a character attemps to fix something. When it hits zero, the character becomes exhausted from using too much psi. If they run out they will still be able to be selected to do work, but it will be much harder, and they are less likely to be able to succeed at it.

And then there are Kits.

A Kit is a consumable item stored in the inventory that allows the three girls to solve problems their ordinary tools wouldn't accomplish, or allow you to solve problems without using Tp. Something like chemicals, oils, and spare replacement material. Usually, a mission provides the Kits and materials needed to complete the basic task, but many secondary objectives will be missed just doing the basics. You may be able to gain access to areas with items that could help you, or complete secondary objectives for more money with the right kit. But the thing is, Kits cost money. They're cheap, but accidentally buying kits you don't need just wastes resources. But they still have another use.

So the game is more of a focus on a more concise and consistent skill set the player needs to develop for the characters, and it's more about on trying to anticipate and buy the right materials and having the right skills developed for each mission. There's a lot more lenience on things you didn't prepare correctly for, but it doesn't exactly hold hands. You have a lot of resources to balance to get all the way through some tougher missions; Buy kits, use them smartly, manage your team member's psionic stress, bring items to help them, and survive.

And then you have to keep up with their combat skills. Because if you don't spend money on guns, combat training, and other things, you won't survive very many battles.

I was planning on using GubiD's tactical battle system for this idea:

In combat, characters have four types of attack categories.  'Skill', 'Gun', 'Tech' and 'Tools'. Each serves a different role and has a different limiting factor.

Skills are the character's innate attacks and have the least drawbacks. The lead girl primarily fights with kicks and martial arts, one girl wields a set of knives that she can slash with and throw, and the other girl uses Kinesis for medium and long-ranged attacks. Through experience, the player can develop more attacks that are more powerful, but stronger attacks have cooldowns and warmups, and take time to use.

Each character also has a small gun of some sort; ranging from pistols, magnums, machine pistols, and other small PDWs. Players can choose their guns for the characters, and different guns have different ranges, damage specialties, and other characteristics. Guns are overall powerful , usually your most powerful attack, and have much longer range than most skills, but they require ammo (Your Mp). Ammo is limited and it's expensive to buy items that can recover ammo in a mission, so you have to carefully balance how much you use guns.

Tech is basically your Kits. Things that could be used to fix something, like an electrical wiring kit, could also be used as a dangerous weapon, like a deadly shock from said wiring kit. Basically, Tech allows you to use kits as weapons to create a mishmash of tactics for low-cost high damage attacks. But remember that Kits also fix and solve problems. If you use all your kits up to win battles, you could run into problems. You'll have a harder time completing a certain mission when you realize you used up all your cleaning chemicals and oils to make grenades to defeat that armored sentry, and now have to figure out how to clean a poisonous spill that you needed them for.

Tool attacks are a skill that comes much later. Each of the six stats maxes at 40. At 20 and 40 for each stat that character gets a tool attack that is totally unique to them. For example, if one of the characters reaches 20 in her Work stat, she will gain a psionic hammer that she can use to pummel enemies. But if another character reaches 20 in her Work stat, she may gain a kinetic wave emitter that stuns, or claw that can rip an enemy's armor off. The drawback? It uses Tp, which you need to actually fix things.

Combat is difficult. Enemies can kill the girls very quickly. It's all about how well they can fight back. Attacks are weak, and spending time developing powerful skills means losing experience that could be used to develop tech perks. Guns cost money, and kits and tools are useful outside of combat. There are a lot of resources to manage and think about outside of just winning a fight, and the player has to decide what sacrifices to make as well as figuriing out how to beat the various threats of this sci-fi world.

So, overall, the game is a trick of balancing resources and using simple logic. Buy amps to make your girls better at their job, or buy guns to help them protect themselves. Buy Kits to help complete missions, or go train for more experience. Spend that experience on perks that make fixing things easier, or buy combat skills to make them deadlier. You can't do everything, and you have to strike a balance on what you want to do with your team and what kind of jobs you want to be doing.

So how about that idea for a story and combat system? Any feedback would be appreciated.

 

[hiromu656]

Is the equipment that you get for the girls purchased in a bundle or will you get them separately for each one of them?

 

[Blindga]

Is the equipment that you get for the girls purchased in a bundle or will you get them separately for each one of them?

Hmm. I don't know. I don't think so. I'm just really not sure how I want to handle the mechanic aspect of the three characters. I've got some better ideas here, but I'm actually kind of shaky on the stress system and the psychic tools. I may change that for the story and put more of a focus on the Kit/Tech skills system, since I do kind of like that little idea.

Guns, equippables, and items are purchased seperately. For the tools, I don't know yet.

I really wish I had some more minds with me on the same page here. I really like this idea, but I have no clue what to do with it gameplay wise. Nothing I come up with sounds plausable for me to make. Maybe I should abandon it and back up? Not sure what to do.

 

[hiromu656]

I hope I didn't discourage you at all D:

Just the idea sounded really cool when I read it so I had to reply a bit lol. Don't abandon the idea, it sounds like something I would love to play. If anything, just put it to the side and keep your ideas flowing, if it seems too tough to pull off, just give yourself some time to get your ideas straightened and maybe pick it back up. I have at least 5 different game concepts that I really wanted to make but I always seemed to run into a wall with them. I just put them to the side and if anything comes to mind I go back and write down a couple notes. In the end it's obviously your choice, but I recommend never throwing away your ideas, after all, it isn't solidified in code at this point so you have plenty of time to work things through.

 

[Blindga]

I hope I didn't discourage you at all D:

Just the idea sounded really cool when I read it so I had to reply a bit lol. Don't abandon the idea, it sounds like something I would love to play. If anything, just put it to the side and keep your ideas flowing, if it seems too tough to pull off, just give yourself some time to get your ideas straightened and maybe pick it back up. I have at least 5 different game concepts that I really wanted to make but I always seemed to run into a wall with them. I just put them to the side and if anything comes to mind I go back and write down a couple notes. In the end it's obviously your choice, but I recommend never throwing away your ideas, after all, it isn't solidified in code at this point so you have plenty of time to work things through.

No, it's not you. Just , the mood, game, and story aren't clicking. I have ideas I want to use, but don't fit together. I won't dispose of the idea, but I'm at a divide and I need to decide which I path i need to follow.

Thank you for consistently replying