Is anyone willing to give constructive feedbac on the early levels of my game? I believe I have struck a decent balance, difficulty and level of fun.

[SaintGrizz]

This is a breakdown of one of the classes in my game, along with a video displaying it in action.

This class is called Stormweaver: they use a 1H Axe (Physical) and Storm (Magical) magic. They have access to Spells & Skills (MP/TP) They have high Attack (ATK) and mid Magic Attack (MAT)

The way TP works is very important: you generate 6 per turn. You generate 3 if you apply a State to the enemy (even if they already have that state). You generate 9 if you use an item. You generate 3 if you apply a State to the enemy.

Elements:
Storm (STM)

States:
Storm: Passive, changes basic attack to Stormstrike.
Conduit: Debuff applied to enemy through user skills. 25% increased STM Damage.
Voltburn: Damage-over-time.

Their basic attack, and opener/filler/resource saver is Stormstrike: STM Element, Physical damage, scales mainly off of ATK and partly MAT.
Cost: Free
Target: Single
Damage: Low
Effects: 50% chance to apply the Conduit debuff.

The next skill in the rotation is Stormstya: STM Element, Magical damage, scales evenly off of ATK and MAT.
Cost: 8 Mana/8 TP.
Target: 4 random attacks
Damage: Mid
Effects: 35% chance to apply Conduit + 35% chance to apply Voltburn.

Each time Stormstya hits (4 times total), it has that 35% chance to apply 2 different states. You can generate between 0-24 TP (3(4 x 2)) depending on how many state applications succeed.

The last skill in the rotation is Stormslash: STM Element, Physical Damage, Scales mainly off of ATK and partly MAT.
Cost: 1 Mana/15 TP.
Target: Single
Damage: High
Effects: 100% chance to apply Conduit and 10% chance to apply Voltburn.



Essentially a good turn order looks like this(This is not the turn order in the video):

Turn1 Stormstrike: 50% Chance to apply Conduit succeeds. +3 TP, +6TP at End of Turn (EoT).

TP = 9

Turn2 Stormstya(Cost: 8MP/8TP): 4 hits, 3/8 possible states successfully applied. +9 TP, +6TP at EoT.

TP = 16 (9 - 8 + 9 + 6)

Turn3 Stormslash(Cost:1MP/15TP): 100% chance to apply Conduit succeeds. +3TP, +6TP at EoT.

TP = 10

And then continue this rotation, based off of how much TP you generate.

Stormstya is the backbone here as it generates the most HP and determines your turn order possibilities following this skill.
Stormstrike -> Stormstya -> Stormslash is ideal.
If you have the resources you could do:
Item (BuffPotion, SpellScroll, Throwable)(+9TP for using an item +6TP at EoT) -> Stormslash (-15TP, +3TP,+6TP at EoT) -> Stormstya -> Stormslash ect.

Stormstya costs a decent amount of MP so you don't want to spam it, you are aiming for 1 per battle.

As for the enemy, this is a Panther Cub. It has a chance to use a basic attack, a powered-up attack that can apply a bleed and it has Posture which is just Guard with some regen. On the 4th turn it will essentially enrage its allies and heal their HP, it will use this ability every 6th turn afterwards.

Pretty much, depending on RNG (that will usually favor the player), If you don't make the right skill choices in the right order and get a little luck, the Panther Cub makes it to the 4th turn and then starts hitting pretty hard. Keep in mind this is just 1 enemy. I have Cub + Cub packs and Cub + Bat or others in development.

All names and numbers are subject to change but this is the foundation. I will add in other skills and different abilities for I wanted the beginning of the game to not suck ass. There will be a difficulty plugin but this is the base difficulty for the game. On-map sprites, battles that will force you to use resources.

Does this make combat look somewhat fun in the early levels?

Spoiler: Video

 

[LordOfPotatos]

I would say it's too complicated for what it is.

these 3 skills are components of a simple 3 part combo. adding states, hit counts and random variation that doesn't change what you're meant to use them for only makes them harder for the average player to wrap his head around, and less consistent once you do understand them.

generally skills should only be as complicated as they need to be to accomplish their purpose, if you have a 1-2-3 combo you gain nothing by making it harder to understand that it is, in fact, a 1-2-3 combo.

maybe something like...

stormstrike: free, inflicts voltburn (damage over time) and generates TP.

stormstya: costs TP, deals 2x damage if the target is under voltburn, and inflicts conduit.

stormslash: costs MP, deals 3x damage if the target is under conduit.

this way you have a clear chain of skills you can use: spam stormstrike for damage over time, use stormstya for more and faster damage and use stormslash for really big damage but don't spam it.

from there you can make more abilities to expand the combo line into more interesting patterns, but always try to make each piece as simple as possible.

also, giving enemies that have timed enrage he ability to randomly guard with regen can't possibly end well.
somone will get mauled by a panther that loves to sit there guarding until enrage and that person will lose a couple hairs.

 

[SaintGrizz]

@LordOfPotatos Thank you for your feedback! I like your ideas for the combo. The Panther has a low priority to use Guard and Guard only has a 25% damage reduction in my game. I would say 80% of the time right now you kill them before they enrage. Also this is only for level 1, once you hit level 2 you would kill them preenrage easily, althought they have levels so the next area they are back to being a threat.

 

[Ms Littlefish]

As this is project-specific, I have moved this thread from Game Mechanic Design to Game Ideas and Prototypes.