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Hello there, thanks for passing by.
I've been struggling a bit to build a battle system that reflects the importance of the "power source" that my game uses.
Here's a brief explanation of what I mean: In my little universe most characters can use certain skills depending on the geode they are linked to (see geodes maybe as a "class"). They determine what kind of skill they can learn and use, but also, like the green lanterns (DC Comics), they have limited power. Once they ran out of power the user wouldn't be able to use any skills until recharged. Also geodes generally grant certain power related to an specific element, like water or fire, but they do have more properties that does not rely on the type of geode, such as healing, detecting other geodes and defensive uses like barriers.
Now, translating that to battle has been tricky for me, at first I thought of just using mp as the only source of power, and while it does makes sense, I felt like it does not portray the actual relevance of these "geodes". So I came up with this concept:
Health points (HP): remain as always, if your character gets to 0 it gets the death status, nothing new here.
Skill points (SP): is the source needed to use skills if it gets below the required for a certain skill it can't be used until refilled. Pretty much regular MP.
And Vitality Points (VP), which is the new concept. I was thinking of this as the geode energy. So, why would I add another energy source? As I stated before, geodes have more uses beyond their elemental specific, and since some characters have self skills, let's say a skilled swordsman doesn't need a geode for his attacks. That said, here are some properties I wanted to assign to this source:
- Heal and Guard skills: geodes can both heal and protect its user without draining skill points.
- Boost state: users can push beyond their regular limits and gain buffs by draining faster their geode's energy and being able to perform stronger skills.
- Seconday "health" source: so, when a geode user rans out of vitality points (or just getting low on VP), doesn't die, but becomes weaker, this would be related to the geode being their power source.
- Balance op skills spam: All skills consume SP, but only geode related consume VP. So I was thinking, to prevent players from spamming op skills (which are geode related) over and over, let's put them in the situation of not only needing specifc SP but also VP, by doing this I'd also like to give the player to manually choose between rising SP or VP when leveling up. So if a player has lots of SPs but low VPs, it could probably just do one great skill and draining most of its VPs would certainly be a bad idea.
I do have a few more ideas, but these ones are the main concepts I'd like for you to consider on the question: should I keep it simple HP-MP? Or this method could bring more complexity and identity to skill usage?
I know abundant information in a game can be tedious, specially if its either bad explained and the players wander around without understanding core mechanics, or its just too complex when it could've been simplified. I'd like to hear a second opinion on the topic, feel free to ask any details I may have missed or that I didn't explained properly.
I've been struggling a bit to build a battle system that reflects the importance of the "power source" that my game uses.
Here's a brief explanation of what I mean: In my little universe most characters can use certain skills depending on the geode they are linked to (see geodes maybe as a "class"). They determine what kind of skill they can learn and use, but also, like the green lanterns (DC Comics), they have limited power. Once they ran out of power the user wouldn't be able to use any skills until recharged. Also geodes generally grant certain power related to an specific element, like water or fire, but they do have more properties that does not rely on the type of geode, such as healing, detecting other geodes and defensive uses like barriers.
Now, translating that to battle has been tricky for me, at first I thought of just using mp as the only source of power, and while it does makes sense, I felt like it does not portray the actual relevance of these "geodes". So I came up with this concept:
Health points (HP): remain as always, if your character gets to 0 it gets the death status, nothing new here.
Skill points (SP): is the source needed to use skills if it gets below the required for a certain skill it can't be used until refilled. Pretty much regular MP.
And Vitality Points (VP), which is the new concept. I was thinking of this as the geode energy. So, why would I add another energy source? As I stated before, geodes have more uses beyond their elemental specific, and since some characters have self skills, let's say a skilled swordsman doesn't need a geode for his attacks. That said, here are some properties I wanted to assign to this source:
- Heal and Guard skills: geodes can both heal and protect its user without draining skill points.
- Boost state: users can push beyond their regular limits and gain buffs by draining faster their geode's energy and being able to perform stronger skills.
- Seconday "health" source: so, when a geode user rans out of vitality points (or just getting low on VP), doesn't die, but becomes weaker, this would be related to the geode being their power source.
- Balance op skills spam: All skills consume SP, but only geode related consume VP. So I was thinking, to prevent players from spamming op skills (which are geode related) over and over, let's put them in the situation of not only needing specifc SP but also VP, by doing this I'd also like to give the player to manually choose between rising SP or VP when leveling up. So if a player has lots of SPs but low VPs, it could probably just do one great skill and draining most of its VPs would certainly be a bad idea.
I do have a few more ideas, but these ones are the main concepts I'd like for you to consider on the question: should I keep it simple HP-MP? Or this method could bring more complexity and identity to skill usage?
I know abundant information in a game can be tedious, specially if its either bad explained and the players wander around without understanding core mechanics, or its just too complex when it could've been simplified. I'd like to hear a second opinion on the topic, feel free to ask any details I may have missed or that I didn't explained properly.