Features Feedback

I'm pretty sure I'm in the right section... but feel free to move me if I'm not.

Hello! I read the forums quite a lot, but never post anything. My questions are related to class design. I'm trying to give my classes options, so that nobody is shoehorned into only performing one task at every encounter. Pronouns are placeholders.

Soldier - Can function as a typical meat shield, stun/stagger enemies with his shield, focus on damage, focus on support by giving the party buffs (as he has a leadership role), or use cheap items to heal and cure some states (field medic sort of feel).

Mage - Can buff herself or cause elemental damage / states to enemies. Can "open channels" to specific elements to cast stereotypical mage spells (a state, for example, "Fire" which causes a new Fire option to appear). Open channels lower max HP, but allow stronger attacks and party wide elemental buffs, whereas having no channels open allows her to have higher HP and give only herself a nice advantage.

Mercenary - Can use polearm based skills for high damage, dagger based skills for high speed and bleed damage (damage over time), and use different poisons for damage and states. Poisons inflict a wide variety of states and consume an item - so that item can either be used once to immediately inflict a state on an enemy, or consumed to give yourself a state with a percentage chance to inflict enemies with every attack.

Scholar - Mix of classes. Can use enchanted objects (scrolls, gems, what have you - bought, dropped off of enemies, or found) to mimic some mage spells, and can use items to heal and cure the party (for example, use two potions to heal the whole party). High pharmacology percentage. Also has a set of skills that allows him to make himself more effective when fighting specific enemies - Increasing attack for high defense enemies, increasing accuracy for high evasion enemies, etc. (And locking out the skills once one is selected, until it's canceled.)

Quick aside, many thanks to Yanfly. These are all things I've wanted to do since I started using RMXP, and until I discovered all of Yanfly's plugins, never thought them possible with my tiny knowledge of scripting.

Anyway, my question is, does all of this come off as too complicated, and/or unnecessary? Does it seem like too many classes can do the same thing? I've tried to create the classes in such a way that, while you CAN have three classes improving your party at the same time, it's not in your own best interest, as it will consume a lot of resources and time (which could be better spent simply killing your enemies). The battles are meant to be difficult and require thought on how to proceed, and not have an "instant win" combination of skills to use. I've been playtesting this with a friend of mine, and neither of us have really found a way to "game the system" so to speak. (Playtesting consisting of fighting a wide range of enemies with different strengths and weaknesses at different levels with different skills available - and yes, I did send my friend into this completely blind, with only in-game advice to aid him.)

I like the idea of a "tank" that isn't always tanking, a mage that isn't always blowing everything up, etc., and giving the player options as to how they want to progress. If they want to coat the mage in rock armor and have the soldier buff the party and heal, they can do that. It might not work in all situations, but that's also part of the point - to keep things fresh.

So. From an outside perspective, does anyone have any thoughts? All criticisms and advice are welcome!

 

'Game Mechanics Design' is not for feedback on individual projects, but is meant to be more wide ranging than that. As you seem to want feedback on your specific game with its particular combination, I am merging this with Features Feedback.

 

@Kes My apologies i didn't see that your first comment was a request so you could re-locate. I am asking which method would be best AND how would I go about it so in the most appropriate manner. Features Feedback would probably be the most appropriate then I suppose. Sorry about that (and my late reply).

 

@Raghin Merging this with Features Feedback.

Your question about "every troop page" - in the database there is the troops tab, and every troop you create has its own slot. That is what is meant. However, if it is something that could happen with every troop, you might consider using Yanfly's Base Troop Events script - then you just put it in once (with any conditions) and it will run in every battle where it is appropriate. It saves a lot of time, and I use it extensively.

 

I think this may be the best place to post my topic but if not, can someone please just move me awayy.

I've been trying really hard for other topics related to my feature I thought of but either there weren't any or I just wasn't searching hard enough but anyway, the player, when going into a designated 'marketplace' (like a flea market) can go to a vendor to get items like a normal shop keeper but in the flea market after choosing to buy or sell - you can Bargain with the shopkeeper for selling at a higher price or buying the item at a lower price.

I was thinking about using condition switches to check if the items price is x then the shopkeepers 'stance' on the item is raised or lowered and then it's more easier/harder to sell/buy and convince the shopkeeper for lower/raise their price. Maybe it would be too much work but each shop keeper would also have different stances on different items and be more willing to give you a better deal on like a potion than a different vendor.

Do you guys have more efficent/different/better ideas for this kind of thing?

Biggest inspirations for this was playing Profit Motive and remembering their awesome battle system to convince their opponents as well as the courtroom battles of Pheonix Wright and also watching my father successfully getting free beer at the market after intense haggling. And yeah thats it...

 

So I was wondering if anyone was willing to provide feedback on my characters kit design,

His kit design is like this

Normally he's just 50-50 in EVERY stat, however, he has a set of abilities that change his appearance and his stats,

Ex: choose the "fire" ability, his color scheme changes to red/gold, and offense stats increase dramatically while also lowering his defensive stats by the same amount.

So in short his stats change depending on the element you choose as well as his abilities.

Fire = ATK up, DEF down high damage and burns enemies (burns deal damage every turn and suppress effected targets damage output by 19%.)

Earth = DEF up, ATK down buffs party defenses and makes enemies stumble (miss 1 turn) and uses many AoE attacks

Wind = AGI up and all abilities go first every turn, HP down and has abilities that let allies gain initiative each turn

Ice = MDEF up and MAT down
Revolves around freezing slowing enemies while dealing a fair amount of damage

Water = provides healing skills and MAT up with MDEF down

Light = Mana up, LUK down (cures states and restores HP with abilities)
A supporting type that revives allies and cures states, can also blind enemies

Dark = LUK up, Mana down (abilities steal HP and Mana) restores HP and/or mana with abilities, inflicts silence and bleed effects (bleed is like poison but the damage per turn increases each turn)

Woodland = HP and Mana up, AGI and LUK down (inflicts paralysis, Poison, Sleep, Confusion and suppresses enemy stats with abilities)

Most enemies are vulnerable to at least 1 state (some can't be poisoned, frozen, burned, paralyzed etc.)

Any critiques on this niche?

 

"Woodland" feels out of place with the other six; what about "Wood" (which is an element in the Chinese system)?

From the mathematical / aesthetic standpoint, it looks odd that you have "Ice = MDef up and MAT down" but no element with MAT up, MDef down, or those two combined. (Thunder?)

It's hard to judge this in isolation. I like the idea of each element having an advantage and a disadvantage, but without knowing the rest of the system, it's hard to say how balanced it is. For instance, what does LUK do in your game? Are most enemies vulnerable to negative statuses, or is everything past the halfway point immune?

Then, you need to consider what the character can do after selecting an element. From the brief summary above, it looks like Woodland gives a lot of fun status-inflicting options, Fire encourages the use of normal attack, and Earth makes the character a damage sponge but doesn't let him do anything. I'd suggest you draw up a list of skills for each element, and make sure they all give fun options for turn-by-turn combat. This can include skills that go against theme: for instance, Ice could be mainly healing spells, but could also include a damage spell and an AGI debuff.

By the way, one thing that isn't really clear in your post: is this character a solo combatant, or the all-rounder of a party whose other members are specialists, or will everyone have a similar element-changing ability?

 

'Game Mechanics Design' is not for threads asking for feedback on individual, specific games but for looking at aspects of game play at a more conceptual level.

merging this with Features Feedback

 

Oh sorry the MAT up and MDEF down is supposed go on Water which I forgot to list

Fire uses high damage abilities that have a chance to burn and also abilities that increase party damage,

Ice does the debuffs and freeze state, frozen enemies miss turns COMPLETELY for 5 turns unless hit by a fire type ability which will thaw them out,

LUK is secondary effects chances increased and critical hit rate, the dark type is revolved around foul play hence the HP and mana stealing.

The character is 1 of 12 characters you can use in your party, also I'll clarify what each type does.

 

I have a story coming along but I'm not sure how I want there to be multiple endings. I want to use variables where if you make a choice a certain number is added or taken away. Basically if you make a choice that makes someone upset your friendship points will be taken away. But the opposite gives you friendship points if you make them happy.

To make this more complicated but I thought would be a cool thing to add and gives more depth to how the player plays. If you make a choice that makes character 1 happy but that choice also makes character 2 unhappy it takes away points from character 2 and that makes it harder to have a good ending with them. But you also get points with character 1 which increases your chances of getting an ending with them.

Thing is, I'm not sure how to properly balance this out if the player wanted to make everyone like them which is where they can have a good ending with everyone. I thought when the friendship points on character 1 were high enough it would mean they would have a good ending. But that can change if the player decides to agree with something character 2 said that made character 1 mad and their points go down. Now the player will have a normal instead of a good ending with char 1.

I also didn't want to show the player how many points they would get, the only thing that tells them if they made the right choice or not is the characters reactions. Would it be a better idea to show they did get a point instead? It might kill the immersive story which is why I didn't do it, but I thought would make it too hard.

So basically how do I balance the friendship point system between characters and should I make it harder or easier for the player to know if they made the right choice or not.

 

In my (dead) side project, there couldn't be a "good ending" with every character. Whenever there was a very important decision that meant the difference between friendship and enmity with a character, the textbox would turn red. IMO, there should be no visible "friendship points." That would make it too easy to get everything perfectly. (Not to mention would encourage resetting the game more often to get the best endings.)

 

Merging this with Features Feedback

 

Hey there, so I have a game idea in mind,, and I just wanna post the idea out here and see what people think of it. Feel free to offer any input on how to make things better or worse.

The big part of the game is it being a more open world, non linear story. There is the general story, Demon King invades and all that, but aside from the that there really won't be much. For example, there won't be "Progress to here, see cutscene, fight boss, etc." throughout the entire game. There will be mandatory story elements and bosses, but they would be few and far between (kinda like Skyrim). A map on hand would also be included, to see where you are in the world.

The next thing I want to add is, of course, a quest system. Quests would be given out by a wide variety of people, and each quest would affect your character's path.

Connecting to the quest system, I would have an alignment/morality system. This would be influenced by your choices during game play, and what quests you choose to take. At the end of it, you're alignment would fall into a few general categories that would determine what ending you get, and even then some decisions might put a surprise twist on it. For a loose example: -You chose your side, and fought with the Demon King against the King of [Kingdom's name]. After you both killed him, you moved on to conquer the rest of the world. Soon, humans, excluding you, were living as a low class individuals.- And that would be the Evil ending. But, certain decisions would lead to a different evil ending, the Evil Tyrant ending, where this would be added on in the regular evil ending: -But you were not satisfied with being a simple general. You wanted to become king. Wanted to rule the world. So, you made it possible. One day, when the King called you into his Throne Room alone, you enacted your plan, killing the King and taking the crown for yourself. Using your newfound power, you rule Humans and Demons with an iron fist.- And I might add a thing about popularity too, but most likely not.

The final thing I was thinking about were a Hunger/Thirst system. But, after reading through another post about it, I decided to modify my original idea. As a regular species, (I might add the ability to customize your species), you have no hunger or thirst you need to watch, as that can be inferred. But, there will be power-ups in the game that would add these. For example, you could become a vampire, but you would have to drink blood, and be careful in sunlight. Or you gain the powers of a dragon, but you have to consume items to keep the ability alive. And the penalty for not doing so would change depending on what it is. Using the previous examples: not drinking blood on your own would lead to your character passing out, and then a short cutscene of them destroying the nearest town and drinking the blood of all residences. But for the dragon, you would just lose the power, and would have to go through a complex process to get it back.

Finally, I might add housing and stuff like that, but

 

'Game Mechanics Design' is not for giving feedback on specific, individual projects.

Merging this with Features Feedback

If your first ending (humans are low class individuals) is evil, your alternative is no better - everyone ends up oppressed by a tyrant. So 2 evil endings, which is fine, if that's what you intend. However, the way you phrased it implies that only one of them is evil.

 

Yes, I did intend for two evil endings. And thank you for pointing out the wording issue, I will try to fix it.

 

Greetings!!

I have a project in mind that I would really like to work on but the technical aspect if beating me over the head. I’m trying to create a rogue-like game that’s simple and easy to play, but still has that perma-death aspect that makes roguelikes so frustrating and fun to play. The idea is a simple dungeon crawler and here are a few of the ideas I’ve had for it. Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated.

• Each room has three doorways that can teleport the player, randomly, to any other map, though the maps themselves are only one room. Each room can have an encounter with an enemy (only one) around similar level of the player, or other random events as soon as the player teleports into the room, such as being fully healed, getting poisoned, healing being negated while in that room, and so on.
• Random offerings of skills after battles, with the option of only five max skills a player can use. Meaning that if the player has 5 skills and wants one that is offered, one skill must be overwritten. I would also like if a player is offered a skill they already have then that skill would power up, such as Fireball going to Fireball Lvl2, which would do more damage. The skills themselves would have a sort of skill tree that would activate when that skill is powered up enough. Such as;
  Fireball
  +3: More damage.
  +6: More damage.
  And so on. Those are generic traits that I wrote, but you get the idea. These skills will also have cooldowns on how often they can be used, with durations that carry on from room to room. For example, if a skill says ‘Duration: Two fights’ then the skill will drop after two fights, having to be cast again after said fights if the cooldown duration allows it to be.
• The character would start off with a certain set of items meant to be replaced as the game progresses. After some battles the player will be offered random items with random affixes on them that scale with player level. Such as, if a player is playing a Strength class they would more likely get the Strength stat on items, but with other random affixes on them that might hinder (Blind, Berserk) or help (Ignore Enemy Defense, Healing on Hit). It would then completely replace the previously equipped item. No buying/selling. The item you would be getting would be side to side compared to the one you are wearing, with the player deciding if they want to replace their item or not.
• Enemies that level up with the main character with random bosses that appear every five to ten levels. Boss Rooms would be marked in case a player doesn’t want to face one yet, but eventually they will be forced to face one.
  
  I have other ideas but those are some of what I’m wondering about. If they can be done that would be awesome, but if they cannot then I’d love to know before I sink the planned hundreds of hours making this.
  
  Thank you, and please feel free to be as blunt as possible. I'm using RPG Maker MV, if that helps.

 

The Support forums aren't for feedback on ideas. They are more for "How do I ...[implement this thing]...?" questions.

I am merging this with Features Feedback

 

I apologize. I wasn't trying to post ideas, but more or less looking to see if these things could be done. Sorry if I wasn't clear in the original post.

 

Okay so, I've been wanting lately to make a Dating Sim type game that's more strategic based and difficult for the player, that doesn't end up being a game where if you know a lot about Tennis you can win the heart of Girl D in a day.

End Goal and Game Style​

Before I go into mechanics I should probably explain how you win it.
Basically so far my idea for the game is that, you have one year left of Highschool get a girlfriend/boyfriend and as many friends as you can, and that's about what I have with that. All my ideas so far are pretty much to make the act of befriending somebody, keeping a friend, getting them to be your girlfriend/boyfriend, keeping your girlfriend/boyfriend, as hard but fair as I can. The game won't end once you get a girlfriend/boyfriend, it'll go on until the end of the year, and that's when you get your ending.

Time and Basic Friendship​

I'm thinking of having there be a Schedule to the game, where you go though different sections turn-based style throughout every day.



This is just a example of what I'm thinking of here. I'll probably make it smaller in the future and change names around later on.
During each part of the timetable, you have a chance to talk to different characters. For example during the first walk of the day you can walk to school with somebody who lives close to you and get your friendship levels up, but after that you need to check that character's schedule too. It's not just the Player that has friends, but by making new friends you can be introduced to new people, and while maybe Girl A is busy, you can hang out with her friend Girl B on the roof during first break.

Hanging Out and Talking​

When hanging out with one person, your friendship level goes up, but by hanging out with more people everybody in the group's friendship level goes up more then with one. And this is where we get into talking.

In Dating Sims I realised a lot of talking is just trying to pick the option they agree with. Instead maybe there should be a strike out kind of system with respect mixed with questions about if the Player is lying or not. For example,



If you talk to Girl A and say you like sports, and then talk to Girl B saying you hate sports, then Girl A will realise you where lying the whole time and be reluctant to hang out with you again. Of corse the system will be more dynamic and flow more, but I've just started with these ideas so hopefully they'll be more complex later on.



As shown here in the diagram, if you invite somebody who doesn't like the same things or similar things to the other people in your Hang Out, then they won't really count as a bonus and end up being left out. Maybe if you continuously invite somebody who can't join in on all the conversations in your hang out, they'll start to feel unneeded and not want to be around you or the other people you're hanging out with.
I'm unsure about changing opinions, but I think it might be an interesting add-on that makes the characters have more things to talk about then what they already have.

I think an opinions system that changes and evolves as the game goes on would be extremely interesting, but I don't know if I should make the opinions and personality of the characters random to keep up variety or stick with the personalities I already have with an extremely varied opinion system backing it.

Family and Reasons​

One thing I'm worried about before I end this, is that there might not be a reason for the player to play the game at all, plus a lot of the mechanics might end up boring the player because they have to do tons of heavy work to win the game.

I'm very open to ears and I'd love to hear any ideas on how to make this gameplay concept flourish.

 

Wow, this is really in depth, nice job and I look forward to seeing what comes of it.
Not sure this is the right forum for this sort of thing, since it's a game idea and not a singular mechanic it might belong in Early Game Feedback, but a moderator will probably come by to decide that.

Regardless I really like the idea of having group hang outs, especially since most games of this nature focus on one on one interactions. You may also want to have characters hang out differently based on personality. Shy characters may not hang out in big groups, while suspicious characters won't hang out with you one on one until you raise your affection level enough.

I like the idea of changing interests but they should be events not random. Maybe during a sports date with Boy A he has a 20% chance to break his leg, and if that happens he'll lose his interest in sports.

I'm not a fan of the idea of competing over girlfriends because that makes the people you date feel like prizes rather than people you actually got to know.