Looking for some feedback...

[coticka]

I've been working extensively on my own project and I feel it's coming along nicely. The game has a mixture of interactive key items/tools, choices that matter, and custom sprite animations/characterization. There are no random battles and currency is decently scarce. But I do have a few ideas that I would like some feedback on.
1. Acquiring buffs through food. These buffs can be decently strong but only last temporarily. Food can be found throughout the world, with different types of food existing in certain regions. Grocers can also sometimes be found who sell less powerful food. It's set up so that the remaining turns and steps are independent of each other, but both are able to exhaust the buffs. Is this a pointless mechanic? I originally came up with it to combat giving actors overpowered buffing skills. Food is only able to be eaten out of battle, so it's not prone to abuse either. Some foods also affect the extra parameters like accuracy and recovery rate, not just primary ones. Also, would having certain foods be unable to be used corresponding to an actor's likes/dislikes be pointless as well?
2. Do people hate cooldowns? Most of the skills have at least 1 turn cds/warm-up times. This is to prevent spamming stronger skills if you somehow grinded hard enough to have a plethora of items. Stronger skills have more. Never exceeding 5~7. Plus, I find that at least a little brainpower is necessary this way. (CDR can also be manipulated by slow/haste statuses.)
3. Should bomb items/damaging items do static damage or scaling damage? Should they exist at all?
I know this might've been a bit long-winded and annoying to read through but thanks if you took the time. Any feedback or thoughts hugely appreciated!

 

[JtheDuelist]

There are no random battles and currency is decently scarce.

Trust me- did exactly this in the original Downfall FES (pre-v1.5), and that was the only part people who played it HATED. Those things led to criticizing comments on Miiverse like "If there are no random encounters, then why is there a level-up system in the first place?!" and "Why did you make that one armor that is not even broken impossible to buy?!"... I eventually had to add a rare encounter monster that gave a lot of gold if you could find it and kill it before it ran off/fled.... Just trying to help you avoid some of the pitfalls my RPG Maker Fes game got criticized on....

 

[Kes]

'Game Mechanics Design' is not for feedback on individual, specific projects. That belongs in 'Ideas and Prototypes'. You have also bundled together very different mechanics, which will make answering this rather confusing. If, however, the discussion can be kept broad, then it can stay here. On the other hand, if you want specific feedback, this thread will have to be closed as it cannot be moved to Ideas and Prototypes, which has its own posting requirements.

Cooldowns cannot be judged on their own, but on how they fit in to the broader balancing of skills. You might find these threads helpful for a range of opinion.
https://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/inde...magic-cooldown-and-limited-uses-system.80225/
https://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?threads/mp-vs-limited-use.87436/

The same can be said about static damage or scaling damage - this cannot be judged in isolation. This thread, while not directly on this topic does raise some interesting points about scaling in general which might throw light on the subject.
https://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?threads/utility-scaling.88071/

Then we come on to the question of buffs and food. This is now starting to sound like everything but the kitchen sink has been thrown in. Balancing across a multiplicity of things like this could be very tricky. And tools - does that mean crafting? Or what?

The more I think about this, the less likely it is that this discussion will be able to stay broad. There are probably too many considerations specific to this individual project. However, I'll leave this open for a while to see if others can come up with broad responses.

 

[HumanNinjaToo]

I think having buffs on food can be a good idea, especially if the game has a limited inventory mechanic (i.e. only 20 of each item or something), so you have a reason to carry around so many different things. I can understand how you may want to have them only usable outside of battle, but how might you translate that to having a timer in battle?

I think cool-downs in general can work to keep players from exploiting super powerful skills, but I wouldn't put them on every skill. If you do that, you may end up partially destroying the usefulness of those less powerful skills. If I've got a skill that does 2x normal damage, I don't mind paying the MP to use that and get through the battle a bit quicker. If I had to wait and only use it every other turn, I'd get frustrated (but that's me). I think the amount of MP I spent is fair compensation for using that generic skill.

It's a good question about the bombs. I think it would depend on how they implemented. If they are available to every character, I'd say to pick static damage, that way the player is getting what they pay for. I would make them pretty powerful too, the cost being the amount of gold spent on them, as opposed to the MP cost of a skill. If you were to make the damage scale, then they become more powerful as the game progresses, especially since the gold cost probably is not changing. If the damage was to scale, I think they would be more appropriate as a 'skill' type of item that only one particular character can use, maybe have it as an item that is crafted rather than bought, so you have more control over the resource management aspect. This makes me think of an alchemist type of character, whose skills may be the mixing of ingredients to use as 'skills' in battle.

 

[Kes]

Coming back to this again, this is indeed something too specific, including your question for each section: "should I have this?". That can only be answered with reference to your project.

Please read the Rules and Guidelines for Ideas and Prototypes and post there if you want more more feedback. I'm on my phone now so can't do links.

[mod]I am, therefore, closing this.[/mod]