Rules Ideas That Don’t Deserve Their Own Thread

[Seacliff]

Okay, so this has been bugging ever since I got a ways into my long-ish game. Years even.
I want to rethink skills and equipables a bit.

So it's pretty common for standard RPGs to introduce updated equipment for armors and weapons for each new town, or at least during certain checkpoints in the story. Unless these weapons offer a change in gameplay style, exactly how necessary is it to include new and updated equipment? Wouldn't it be more efficient to balance the game around leveling alone, and leave weapons and armor 'upgrades' to more superficial changes? (Inflicting/Prevent stats or offering new skills).

And if that was to change, would that not remove a lot of clutter revolving around skills? We have tiered skills like Fire, Fira, and Figa, but from my experience, the new replaces the old when physical attacks become a more efficient option for damage via equipment. (IE: Normal attack becomes stronger than Fira, so just ignore that skill and use Figa). So it would be more efficient as well (from a development standpoint) to have one or two skills per element instead of several.

I don't know if this was enough to post a new thread or not. But I wonder if this new take on power scaling is the direction I should take for my next game.

 

[Kes]

@Seacliff I'm not sure that it has to be such a definite either lots/or nothing. For example, in my own games, lasting on average 12-15 hours, there are not a lot of weapon updates. Partly this reflects my preference that the player should not be able to buy their way to excellence. If you want the best gear, you have to explore for it. In my last released project, you couldn't buy armour or weapons until the very last town, any better gear could only be found with exploration or rewards for side quests. This was tied in to world building - why would a small town have sophisticated weaponry and armour for sale? From this it's obvious that my answer to your question "how necessary is it to include new and updated equipment" is - not necessary (in the sense of absolutely required) at all. Done occasionally, it can add significantly to the idea of story and character progression.

But there is a consequence of reduced upgrade possibilities that you will need to take account of, imo. If your party is not spending gold to buy lots of shiney new gear, then you will have to adjust your gold drops so that they are not awash with the stuff. Indeed, if gold is less plentiful, it becomes more significant and satisfying for the player when the party finds that obscure chest with 200G in it.

For your question about tiered skills etc., there have been a couple of threads over in 'Game Mechanics Design' which you might find interesting.
https://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?threads/utility-scaling.88071/
https://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/inde...use-it-in-your-game-do-you-even-use-it.88285/

There are other approaches, rather than having Fire 1, Fire 2 etc. Two that I have used are skills which get stronger the more they are used, so the basic skill is never replaced. Or you could incorporate the actor's level in some way in the damage formula so that they automatically increase in power during the course of the game. I see from the info under your avatar that you are using RM2k, so I don't know how possible either of those would be for you. Does RM2k allow you to set a percentage as the MP cost of the skill? Because the drawback with the 2 suggestions I've just mentioned is that unless you have a way of scaling the cost of the skill as well, you could end up with very powerful skills which cost next to nothing (in relative terms) by the time you are getting towards end game.

 

[gigaswardblade]

Okay, so this has been bugging ever since I got a ways into my long-ish game. Years even.
I want to rethink skills and equipables a bit.

So it's pretty common for standard RPGs to introduce updated equipment for armors and weapons for each new town, or at least during certain checkpoints in the story. Unless these weapons offer a change in gameplay style, exactly how necessary is it to include new and updated equipment? Wouldn't it be more efficient to balance the game around leveling alone, and leave weapons and armor 'upgrades' to more superficial changes? (Inflicting/Prevent stats or offering new skills).

And if that was to change, would that not remove a lot of clutter revolving around skills? We have tiered skills like Fire, Fira, and Figa, but from my experience, the new replaces the old when physical attacks become a more efficient option for damage via equipment. (IE: Normal attack becomes stronger than Fira, so just ignore that skill and use Figa). So it would be more efficient as well (from a development standpoint) to have one or two skills per element instead of several.

I don't know if this was enough to post a new thread or not. But I wonder if this new take on power scaling is the direction I should take for my next game.

you should do what epic battle fantasy does and make it so that you can upgrade gear that you got ages ago and give them better resistances and sometimes even passive abilities. like the pirate captain outfit for example. its matt's default outfit at the beginning of the game, but if you get all the materials, it allows a decent water resistance and it has a random chance to summon a narwhal. though it does kinda become useless after you finish the beach level in ebf3. i dont remember how useful it was in ebf4 since its been quite a while since playing that one, but i imagine it is since theres an actual after game in that one.

you could do the same for the skills as well. acquire certain monster drops in order to power up fire instead of just getting fira and then firaga. (its firaga and not figa btw.) hope this helped.

 

[Seacliff]

@Kes
Thank you for the insight. I recognize that changing one aspect of progression is going to change a lot of others, but at the moment I don't consider this a problem because I want to find a new efficient structure to design a game around.

My goal isn't to have fewer weapons in the game, on the contrary, I want to give the player a larger variety of weapons at their disposal. Armor A might not offer much different stats than Armor B, but Armor B lowers the change of the player being inflicted by poison, which is more helpful in the current dungeon, and maybe future dungeons too.

My other solution is to rebalance the worth of each piece of currency via deflation. I'm not an expert on psychology by any sense of the word, but I believe players might be more incentivized to buy certain items they would normally skip in other RPGs if all the numbers are lower (worth a shot, at least). The closest I have to 'proof' of this would probably be Paper Mario 1 and 2, where the max currency cap is only 999 and items in shops are either consumables or accessory-styled equipables rather than new weapons or armor.

Also, thank you for the links, I find those really useful.

 

[trouble time]

@gigaswardblade On the subject of character races, I don't see anything too bad. The orcs you have are pretty interesting, and I forgot onigiri existed (last time I played it was in beta). Though, I'm not sure what kind of specific element you'd want feedback on though.

@Seacliff I kinda like the idea of having spells and equipment be more scalable, though I also like the idea of say, equipment that is a sidegrade to existing equipment. In my own game I wanted pretty much all the equipment to be around as powerful as other equipment, but to do so I made currency very limited, there's a finite amount in the game, and you're not buying it, you're requisitioning relics and rather than money you're using what is basically the clout of your sponsor. So "selling" equipment gets you a full refund as its not money its requisition points.

 

[gigaswardblade]

@gigaswardblade On the subject of character races, I don't see anything too bad. The orcs you have are pretty interesting, and I forgot onigiri existed (last time I played it was in beta). Though, I'm not sure what kind of specific element you'd want feedback on though.

i kinda just wanted to know if the races i mentioned made sense i guess.

 

[StrawberryFlower]

For this year's IGMC my team and I created a game based on our MAIN project about one of the characters as a child.

(Well, we TRIED. We ended up rushing it, and I was a second late in submitting it. We are now revamping the entire thing for a local showcase.)

It is primary an adventure game with stealth and puzzle elements. There are few times when you fight something: your sister (for fun), your older brother (to prove something), and spiders outside.

I don't want anything complicated - like 10 stats, equipment, 50 skills, etc. I also don't want something TOO simple where you just push "attack" the whole darn time. And it could be as simple as swinging your stick in real time, but I don't know how to event that... and it's a lot of work.

I was thinking of something similar to Paper Mario, as seen in this video. Or something silly like this "minigame" in Final Fantasy IX.

Any ideas? Or what would you do?

Why was I skipped??

 

[trouble time]

Why was I skipped??

My bad I must have missed it. I think there is some script somewhere for timed button presses and that'd probably help get the ball rolling, I've never put too much thought into eventing swinging a stick in real time, I probably could do it, but it'd take me a while and some testing, so someone who's already done this might be better to ask. I do like the idea though.

 

[AquaticChaos]

Based on the lack of replies, I'm gonna guess I can link to my game's thread. If I'm wrong, I'll gladly delete the link before I get the banhammer or some sort of kick. To refresh, I'm looking for a good main mechanic and official name.

 

[trouble time]

Based on the lack of replies, I'm gonna guess I can link to my game's thread. If I'm wrong, I'll gladly delete the link before I get the banhammer or some sort of kick. To refresh, I'm looking for a good main mechanic and official name.

Well, I can't really come up with a main mechanic for you, and I honestly think Project Color is a fine name.

 

[Prez]

I've been kicking around a number of concepts and gimmicks for a crime-themed game in a real-world setting, and today I had an idea for a hybrid stealth-adventure game. The idea being you play as a burglar, and the entire game takes place in a single expansive location that you must break into, navigating the place through item-based puzzles, distracting the locals and sneaking around others - combat is not an option. The catch being that there's a time limit, a la Dead Rising, and you can't steal everything before the time runs out (let's say about an hour in real time, maybe less) because you have a limited number of inventory slots; and large items have a separate category, and you can only carry one at a time.

In terms of story, I wasn't thinking of anything particularly deep or complex; ordinarily I'd think a lot about the story but with this I just really like stealthy games. I'm mostly wondering if this idea is at all feasible in RMMV, for instance. Like, I'm imagining that you could set up a script that revolves around characters reacting differently depending on, say, whether or not you're in their line of sight, or if they run into certain events (clues that a careless player would leave, like the footprints in Metal Gear Solid), and affected by factors like there being noise in the room or it being dark, and so on. ...But could you?

Sorry about the massive walls of text, I get a bit carried away when I'm typing. :/

 

[trouble time]

@Prez sounds kinda similar to Theif: the dark project. Which imo is a good thing.one thing thar game had which wasnt mentioned here is that IIRC you could snuff out torches to create darkness, and some floors made more sound than others so you could drop moss arrows to make that tile quieter. Region id is a good starting point for this.

 

[Kawers]

@Prez I just finished a stealth section in my VXAce project. My stealth section is, effectively, split into two mini-game sections.

One is a line-of-sight based "avoid the guards" game (which is, I guess, in the style of Metal Gear). I used a piece of script that I wouldn't even pretend to understand fully, but, however, does the job, and comes with a complete guide and tutorial project by The Infamous Bon Bon.

The other mini-game is basically a "Grandmother's Footsteps" game which runs on Region ID and a conditional branch which checks which way the guards are facing. This game is further split so that the player has to signal the rest of their party members when it's safe (this idea was ripped off from Floor 59 of the Shinra Building in Final Fantasy 7).

The entire section is by far the most complicated thing I've ever attempted, but the end result is something that works, and is actually satisfyingly challenging to complete as a player. Whilst I can't speak 100% for RMMV, I expect there's enough crossover to say that such a thing can be done.

 

[gigaswardblade]

i made some additions to the whole "feral" thingy. i've decided to add some categories to the different feral species. the 4 most common are lycans (wolves) wampus (wild cats) kobolds (rats and ferrets) and ursals (bears). lycans are straight forward fighters, wampus are the rouge ranger type, kobolds are voodoo shamans, and the ursals are the beef cakes.

there are some extras that are somewhat the same, but live in different areas of the world so its justified. like gnolls (hyenas) (btw did you know hyenas aren't canines?) hoggondy (boars) tuskees (walruses) minotaurs and centaurs (if you don't know what those are, then you don't belong here.) suargs (apes and monkies) (i made them up by the way.) and some cyborg rabbit and a squire squirrel. plus some mix up mini bosses that are a bunch of different animals mashed into one. if you think that this is a kinda weird choice of animals (as in some obvious species missing or something like that or maybe they're too diverse) let me know. now back to some new races.


#1 humans (for real this time): i was kinda joking before with the whole "humans are just humans" thing. i don't have too much lore for the human race in this game atm. humans are one of the first races to be created in riften. along with elves, ahn'tlo, and other stuff. 1 thing that they did was join the light elves during the war. the vast majority was convinced that the light elves were good and the dark elves were evil. humans live mostly in the presko region. they do have a giant city in the merigate region though. their cities are like modern day new york/san fransisco type cities. they mostly wear stuff like t-shirts and jeans and stuff. there are 2 different armies that are mostly associated with the humans are the holy army and the R.D.C. (riften defense corps)

the holy army (or whatever i'm gonna name them) consist of different classes such as clerics, knights, paladins, templars, crusaders, and holy assassins. they wear white and gold robes and heavy armors depending on what class they are. they're your typical "we act in the goddesses favor" army that is totally hypocritical and just likes to kill whoever doesn't believe in their religion. their leader is a cooky fanatic who is completely obsessed with his faith to the point of madness. the only reason hes still the leader is because everyone is too scared to make him step down. there are a few members who see that he needs to be stopped and are planning on taking him down.

the other army is a more U.S. military themed army. i've mentioned before that any race can join the R.D.C. but they mostly consist of humans. they're basically the first respondents to any continent wide disasters that occur, like giant dragon attacks or zombie plagues. they wear modern army gear like camo jump suits and stuff. they have standard issue assault rifels , shotguns, snipers, pistols, ect. there are still mages and knights in the R.D.C. though. theyre just modern looking. their main element is mostly light. theyre not the most elemental race, but they can pretty much adapt to any element if they train enough.


#2 sprites: sprites were once guardians of nature, but after many generations passed, they became more industrialized and have polluted their lands. they chop down all the forests they once called home to build factories that produce so much smog that it covers the skies. the sprites look like normal humans, except they have antennas on their head and either butterfly or fly wings. they hail from the kamborion region, which is sort of an alpine region that has snowy mountains to the north. they live in a city without a sun, so they rely on neon lights and signs to see. (they also have their antennas to help) their city was nicknamed "darkness city" because of their lack of sunlight.

there is a gem stone called "kamborionite" (or kamborium. i don't know my stone terminology) that they discovered and refine. the gems can do things like power stuff, but the way to extract them is harsh on the environment. their the main distributors of kamborionite since its dug up and refined in their region. their culture is somewhat the same as the humans. their armies are somewhat similar too. their city is secretly under control of the main villain of the game and the 1 sprite party member is able to tell the difference between normal sprites and corrupted ones. their main elements are mostly nature based. like grass, poison, water, stuff like that.


#3 beastkin: there are many different hybrids in riften, but the beastkin are the most prominent of them. there are so many of them that they basically count as their own race. they are a combination of humans and ahn'tlo. they have the skin of humans but have ears and a tail that are the same color as their hair color. its still unknown as to how the beastkin came to be. some theories say that they came from a magical accident or something. another theory is that there were a lot of humans that mated with ahn'tlo. (something i forgot to mention with the ahn'tlo is that they have 2 different colored eyes. left eye is the mothers color and the right eye is the fathers color. beastkin have this trait too.) beastkin have the size, strength, and senses of the ahn'tlo, and whatever traits that the humans have.

like other hybrid races, the ahn'tlo still aren't really accepted is society. they live in a secluded kingdom in the misty forests in the south east of the merigate region. only creatures with a keen sense of smell can find their way to the kingdom. (both good and evil) they have a somewhat mix of ahn'tlo and human culture. the kingdom its self isn't covered in fog, only the surrounding forest is. there are many beastkin that have resorted to thievery, which doesn't help with their poor reputation. the beastkin have a pretty diverse range of classes like most other races. like knights, archers, ninjas, berzerkers, mages, clerics, vanguards, etc.


#4 ubus: ubus is short for succubus (if female) and inccubus (if male). the ubus aren't the most common race in riften. they hide during the day and come out at night to feed on people, animals, or monsters. they use charms to lure in people and feed off of their blood and or use them as their slaves. they are sorta like vampires in a way. ubus have pointed ears, bat wings on their head and back, devil tails, horns, sharp fangs and generally alluring bodies that they can alter under certain circumstances. they originated from demons, sorta like the oni. they can turn into a bat and fly around. they either wear skimpy clothing or gothic attire and live in dark, spooky zones. their elements are darkness based and are horribly weak to light.


i think that's enough for now. these long ones kinda take a lot out of me. let me know what you think about these races. if they need more work or if they're fine just the way they are.

-jigas

 

[trouble time]

@gigaswardblade I do like that you put a lot of thought into your various races, and their lore. It may not all make it into the game but it will likely be useful when trying to make the world feel lived in.

 

[gigaswardblade]

do you think that all of these posts that aren't about my characters are kinda pointless? i feel like i get more feedback when i do character bios than anything else. i was making these posts about the races for future reference for when i finally get back to making character bios so that way you could understand the background of each race that i have and haven't mentioned yet.

 

[trouble time]

do you think that all of these posts that aren't about my characters are kinda pointless? i feel like i get more feedback when i do character bios than anything else. i was making these posts about the races for future reference for when i finally get back to making character bios so that way you could understand the background of each race that i have and haven't mentioned yet.

Well this thread in general doesn't seem to get too many responses from people. That's why I make a point to respond to this thread often, because I know that pain.

 

[gigaswardblade]

maybe i should stop with the races for now. i've basically covered all of the races that my characters will be, except for maybe a few. besides, a new problem has arisen. and that is the fact that I CANT MAKE ANY LOCATIONS LOOK GOOD IN MY GAME. i may be pretty ok at designing characters and races, but making landscapes and interior/exterior designs? ill probably make a video of all the landscapes that ive put effort into over the past year or so and see if you (i say you because i know youre basically the only one who responds to people on this board) can help me in any way. i dont know why its so hard to make a decent town/forest/dungeon/ect.

 

[trouble time]

maybe i should stop with the races for now. i've basically covered all of the races that my characters will be, except for maybe a few. besides, a new problem has arisen. and that is the fact that I CANT MAKE ANY LOCATIONS LOOK GOOD IN MY GAME. i may be pretty ok at designing characters and races, but making landscapes and interior/exterior designs? ill probably make a video of all the landscapes that ive put effort into over the past year or so and see if you (i say you because i know youre basically the only one who responds to people on this board) can help me in any way. i dont know why its so hard to make a decent town/forest/dungeon/ect.

honestly I was hoping eventually more people would start responding, I'm a very particular, weird, and terrible person so my advice probably isn't the only advice people should listen too. Other people do post in here sometimes at least though, just with lesser frequency.

 

[barnzie8]

@gigaswardblade Check out the map and screenshot thread. Take a picture and they will critique it. Also practice, practice practice.