Hello All, New Member Here Looking for Feedback

[zombiecharger65]

Hello, Rpg Maker fans!

I am new to the whole RPG Maker thing, (currently using VX ACE) and I was looking for some feedback. So far I have avoided any scripting outside of doing things with the engine as is.

I have been playing RPGs since NES (yes, I am that old). My first RPG was Dragon Warrior (Or Dragon Quest as the Japanese call it). Chrono Trigger blew my mind when it came out on SNES and needless to say Final Fantasy 7 was the be all and end all of RPGs for me (that is until Dragon Quest 8 hit the PS2).

I have scoured the used game stores and online market place for years on end trying to find the best old school RPGs because the modern styles have me disillusioned at best.

Long story short, I stumbled upon RPG Maker 3 on the PS Store and looked into it further, found VX ACE and got it instantly. The last few weeks have been filled with headaches, mostly due to my inexperience but I have started to really understand the program and can fix bugs rather quickly now.

Any how, my first endeavor with the game is for the truly old school RPG fan with some minor tweaks.

I would love some feedback on the direction I have decided to go with. Random battles and power leveling were always a pain in the butt, and being the big fan of Chrono Trigger that I am, I went for that style of "random battle". The enemies are on the map, very visible and can be relatively easy to avoid given a little maneuvering! However, in my game when you defeat an event (monster) on the map, that monster is gone for good. You never have to fight that particular event again. I have received a lot of flack from my friends for this. They claim that people like to level up and do the grinding, I have always hated it. So, I added a random battle "Arena" to my game. You can go there, walk around and experience random battles with monsters from that region.  To me that seemed more like a compromise that I would love to do away with. Any thoughts on this?

While I am getting the hang of the command lines for events, I would love to delve into Alchemy items much like you can do in the later Dragon Quest titles. Of course my alchemy system would be much less advanced than in those games, I was just wondering if anyone has done this wit RPG Maker VX or VX Ace. Does it function or can it function reliably?

I have a bunch of other ideas that I want to try in the future but for right now I am mostly focused on developing my items, armor, weapons and basically the entire inventory from scratch. In my teens I played a lot of Dungeons and Dragons (with dice and paper!) and have used my old Monster Manuals, Player's Handbooks and Dungeon Master's Guide for a starting point in most of my item creation and monster development. Not to bore you with the small details but I basically came up with formulas for converting from D&D to RPG Maker.

At any rate, I would love some feedback from other RPG fans.

Zombiecharger65

 

[seita]

hello and welcome to the forum!

I personally love the idea of having random battles in an arena for a specific area. This is a great compromise, allowing the player to also revisit past areas without having to fear those battles. I do love the grind, but only if there's a goal later in the game that makes it worth it.

As for your alchemy system, there's already a script (or two, or three, or ten?) for that. Just need to find it, a good place to start would be the master script list:

http://rmvxace.wikia.com/wiki/RPG_Maker_VX_Ace_Master_Script_List

Good luck!

 

[zombiecharger65]

As I said, I really hate random battles. Once you clear an area, is there really any reason to keep fighting inferior creatures for minimal experience rewards? I mean, in some games like FF7 you would often go back to old monsters to steal from them (Carbo Nut, anyone?) or to morph them (Ribbons!). But for me, kill the damn monsters, gain the levels you need to survive the boss for that area and move on. If you have to do a lot of back and forth from one region to another (so far I have a little bit of that) why slow the game down with unnecessary random battles? I figured the random battle arena in each region would work just fine if you really needed a few extra battles.

I have been play testing as I go, often replaying the game from scratch when I make a major change such as revamping the items or monster strength. I wanted a challenging battle system, not complex but one that you really have to think to win. Many monsters I have created cannot even harm you with physical attacks but the status ailments they give you bring you down quick (coupled with a high critical attack rate that I give them). The battles truly are random in nature. For example, I can play the same boss fight 3 times and win each and then go back and play it again and get killed on the first few rounds. I kind of like that. I think that reducing the battles but making them more challenging is a good direction to head in. That's just my opinion, really but I think it will let the player focus on running through the main story as fast as they can.

After about 2 weeks I have about 5 hours of playable content and yet the game is really bare so far. By the time I add in characters, more towns, some optional quests and such I can really see this game being the 90 hour epic that the great RPGs are. The only thing that really slows me down is that each time I make a change to the story and head in a slightly different direction, I have to go back through all the events and change the dialogue (which takes FOREVER!).

Oh well, like I said before, I am getting faster and fixing issues and am finally heading towards a cohesive experience.

 

[Celianna]

You know, if you don't like the default battle system, you can always:


1. Find a script that changes the battle system. There's lots out there.


2. Event your own battle system that's challenging in your opinion.

 

[zombiecharger65]

The front view battle system is just fine, it is the random battles that I did away with. I actually like the way battles play out. It took me a lot of time to work out weapons, skills and enemies that allowed for a somewhat randomness within the battles themselves. I am going to have my brother-in-law play test the game this week and let me know what he thinks about it. I am pretty good at winning 95% of all encounters because I know what each monster is capable of and how they function. I know what level to be when I approach certain events or monsters so that gives me an edge that someone else might not have.  But as I mentioned before, there is still a bit of a chaos theory within the battles, as in something will happen such as a critical hit or a combination of poison, darkness and paralysis that sends me straight to the game over screen. I am fine with that, I wanted it to be challenging.  The random battles I was talking about is walking around on the map and then suddenly you are in a battle. I have always hated that in games. I want to see the enemy and be able to avoid it if I run fast enough! lol

As for scripts, I am trying to avoid those for the time being. I want this game to be mostly of my own creation. At least for now, I really don't want to borrow anything from the work of another person. I have seen some of the things that people on here can do and it is simply amazing. It truly is but they got their with their own hard work and I would like to do the same.

I really do appreciate feed back. Keep it coming!

My original post was merely to get an opinion on my map system, one that can be cleared of all battles. No re-spawning, no random encounters, none of that. I think it is a great idea, but others might think that it is a bad idea. Most of my friends were not fond of it which is why I added in a battle arena where you can in fact do random battles if you need to level up some more but the area is truly optional.

 

[Kes]

As an additional way of avoiding grinding or re-fighting enemies if you have to back track at any stage, put a "Go through" option on the transfer event into that area.  Not only skips the battles, but also saves a lot of walking time.

 

[zombiecharger65]

Not completely sure  I get what you are saying. I do however use the transfer command when clearing a final boss in one of my dungeons. Rather than climbing back up through 3 levels of maze like dungeons I have it put the character back outside the entrance to the dungeon when the boss is defeated.

 

[cthulhusquid]

Hello, Rpg Maker fans!

I am new to the whole RPG Maker thing, (currently using VX ACE) and I was looking for some feedback. So far I have avoided any scripting outside of doing things with the engine as is.

I have been playing RPGs since NES (yes, I am that old). My first RPG was Dragon Warrior (Or Dragon Quest as the Japanese call it). Chrono Trigger blew my mind when it came out on SNES and needless to say Final Fantasy 7 was the be all and end all of RPGs for me (that is until Dragon Quest 8 hit the PS2).

I have scoured the used game stores and online market place for years on end trying to find the best old school RPGs because the modern styles have me disillusioned at best.

Long story short, I stumbled upon RPG Maker 3 on the PS Store and looked into it further, found VX ACE and got it instantly. The last few weeks have been filled with headaches, mostly due to my inexperience but I have started to really understand the program and can fix bugs rather quickly now.

Any how, my first endeavor with the game is for the truly old school RPG fan with some minor tweaks.

I would love some feedback on the direction I have decided to go with. Random battles and power leveling were always a pain in the butt, and being the big fan of Chrono Trigger that I am, I went for that style of "random battle". The enemies are on the map, very visible and can be relatively easy to avoid given a little maneuvering! However, in my game when you defeat an event (monster) on the map, that monster is gone for good. You never have to fight that particular event again. I have received a lot of flack from my friends for this. They claim that people like to level up and do the grinding, I have always hated it. So, I added a random battle "Arena" to my game. You can go there, walk around and experience random battles with monsters from that region.  To me that seemed more like a compromise that I would love to do away with. Any thoughts on this?

While I am getting the hang of the command lines for events, I would love to delve into Alchemy items much like you can do in the later Dragon Quest titles. Of course my alchemy system would be much less advanced than in those games, I was just wondering if anyone has done this wit RPG Maker VX or VX Ace. Does it function or can it function reliably?

I have a bunch of other ideas that I want to try in the future but for right now I am mostly focused on developing my items, armor, weapons and basically the entire inventory from scratch. In my teens I played a lot of Dungeons and Dragons (with dice and paper!) and have used my old Monster Manuals, Player's Handbooks and Dungeon Master's Guide for a starting point in most of my item creation and monster development. Not to bore you with the small details but I basically came up with formulas for converting from D&D to RPG Maker.

At any rate, I would love some feedback from other RPG fans.

Zombiecharger65

Crafting systems can be done without scripting, but would be pretty simplistic. I have not tried scripting at all, but have just relied on custom events. So yes, it can be done.

 

[Kes]

Not completely sure  I get what you are saying. I do however use the transfer command when clearing a final boss in one of my dungeons. Rather than climbing back up through 3 levels of maze like dungeons I have it put the character back outside the entrance to the dungeon when the boss is defeated.

Perhaps an example will make clear what I mean.  You work your way through a wood to the other side. Using the transfer out of the wood for the first time activates a switch "Blah Wood".  Your party goes on and does whatever, and the player then wants to go back through the wood to the area behind it.  On the transfer into the wood, show choices : Go through/Enter.  For Go through the player is transferred to the other side of the wood, for Enter the player is transferred into the wood.  Coming back is where you need your switch so that the transfer event knows whether to give you the option (because you have completed the area) or only let you enter it.

 

[zombiecharger65]

Oh, I get what you mean now. I suppose that could work for dungeons and such but would have little application on the World or Over World map. But thanks for the advice, I might have to try that at some point and see how it works.

 

[Dfreeman321]

I think that its a great compromise and some good foresight on your part. Ultimately the choice to grind or not should be up to the player. With that said, in order for it to work your way you'd need to scale the game so it is doable on the limited number of battle interactions. Instead of grinding for levels in these arenas, why not grind for a specific powerful item? You could lead up to it in some of the optional quests. That way you get a little bit of both worlds. 

I hardcore wanna play your game though, I like to play games that people put their heart and soul into and it seems thats exactly what you're doing. Any plans for a demo soon?

 

[zombiecharger65]

Doubtful on the demo any time soon. I have only been working on it for a few weeks. Most of my time has been spent fixing resources and creating items within the game. The game is technically playable and I have about 4 hours of content so far (if you fight every battle on the map). I in the middle of a playtest right now and am going to spend the next few days just polishing up some of the areas. I never put much time into designing the regions and towns because I wanted to focus on the main events before creating filler stuff. I bought all the Add-On packs that would work with VX ACE and even still, I feel limited by the Tile Sets.

Most of the game will be custom by the end including hand drawn Battlers. Just waiting on getting a graphics tablet so that I can use Photoshop to draw. Tried the paper/scan/color technique but it just didn't work out.

 

[Dfreeman321]

I'll friend you. Let me know if I can help with testing or anything. 

 

[zombiecharger65]

Will do, but like I said, a playable demo is many months off. I am very thorough about testing it myself, which is what makes it take so long but it does insure that everything is as it should be. I know the game in and out so far because of that.