No levels, no gear grinding, turn-based chess like battles

[Kes]

What I quoted in my post was not from the forum rules. Please note carefully what I wrote. I said

And as I said at the beginning of this thread,

and then quoted from my own post.

So no I did not "bring a rule out", nor was I acting like a judge. I simply pointed out to you that this forum is for everyone, and anyone can post in a thread. And you are quite right when you said

How a discussion develops in a thread is something organic and it is done by the people who are in the discussion.

So don't try and push some people out of the conversation by inviting them to hit the back button instead of joining in. Organic conversation and discouraging people because you don't agree with them are mutually exclusive.


However, based explicitly on the Forum Rules
[dpost]Kurdiez[/dpost]

 

[Kurdiez]

@Kes, I don't see the point in arguing with you. You value more your interpretation of the rules than the actual discussion that is going on here. It's a pity.

 

[bgillisp]

@Kurdiez: As another moderator, I have to say that the way they interpreted the rules is how they have been enforced on this forum for years. Also, please refer to the rules for how to disagree with a moderator. If you keep being combative, I will be forced to act accordingly.

 

[Kurdiez]

@bgillisp I do not take back a word I said so far. Go ahead and take your actions on me according to how you have been moderating.

 

[mlogan]

I don't understand why you're getting so worked up about "the rules". Kes was just trying to help you out initially by pointing out that this forum was for discussing game mechanics in general, as it seemed that you were wanting to discuss your project specifically. I get that we have a lot of guidelines and rules and such, and that can be a bit overwhelming for new members. But there are there for a reason and I promise, as moderators, we're really not out to get you, we're just trying to keep the forums running smoothly.

We try hard not to limit discussions here, unless they are going completely off-topic or are causing problems. In reality, yes you can ask people not to offer criticism, but I can tell you, it won't go well. One of the main purposes of these forums is to get feedback on all aspects of game making, and feedback can include criticism.

I'm going to try to bow out of this conversation now, but if you're going to keep getting angry at us for trying to do the job we volunteer for, we will need to take action.

 

[Kurdiez]

@mlogan i'm not getting "worked up". I thought it was a necessary thing to say. Again I am not sure how this is becoming me vs. the moderators now. But all I am going to say is I don't intend to take back anything I said so far. I wasn't being emotional about anything I said, I just said them rationally. So do what you gotta do to me however you think is appropriate.

 

[Pierman Walter]

Were some posts deleted? I have no idea what is going on.
From a non- mod point of view, it is kind of insulting to spend a lot of time thinking and writing about someone else's game, and then have you explicitly tell us that our ideas are going to be ignored because we don't agree with you. I don't understand why you are asking for feedback, because it seems like for every issue someone points out, you change nothing, instead choosing to argue that they are features and were meant to be there. Did you post here so everyone could gush about your world-shatteringly revolutionary and uniquely special battle system that is so much better than the traditional RPG battle system that only unenlightened peasants use? That's fine, but this is a discussion forum, and the people who are disagreeing with you are trying to help you make a better game.

The Candy Crush pace works a lot better for this type of game, but I don't see how you can get the same cascade of effects that you can in that type of game. Are there enemies continuously entering the battlefield? Do some enemies have actions when they are killed or damaged, like releasing toxic gas from ruptured venom sacs or angrily swatting everything in their way after being blinded? Another issue I see is that Candy Crush is prevented from becoming boring and repetitive because it has thousands of different levels, so you'd have to make that many, too, unless you use storytelling or over world features to compensate for it.

 

[Kurdiez]

@Pierman Walter, No I do not want people to "gush about my world-shatteringly revolutionary and uniquely special battle system". I am not the judge of that. If such thing is ever built and made public, it's the market that judges that. I just don't want to have discussions about whether such new genre would be feasible or not because it doesn't make sense. It's like sitting behind the computers and discussing whether VR based RPG games will be successful or not. Nobody knows, only way to find out is build it and let the gamers decide. I started this thread saying here is an idea worth exploring let's see what we can come up with, because this is the "Game Mechanics" discussions forum. All I got back was, basically to sum everything up, this idea is flawed in all aspects. Ok... that's fine, point taken. I tried to defend my idea answering point by point. Made my case clear that for those who completely disagree with it, their opinions are heard. Now let's round up those who see something in it and see what we can come up with. Then this triggered some alarms in moderators I guess. Telling me not to suggest anything about how the discussion should go because a "rule" says it. So I said no, that kind of freedom should be given to the general public in my opinion. And that is that. I said what I believed in and moderators kept piling up defending their opinions and I said I still believe what I said is right. I just find it odd how I am viewed as "combative" to the moderators. I told them I am not getting "worked up" with them as they put it. I told them such flexibility and freedom should be given to the people in the thread in my opinion. You can go ahead and ban me or whatever I will accept it. Me gone. End of story. Came here to see how people feel about the idea not so much interested in fitting in this community. I mean it'd be nice to hang around since there seems to be a lot of passionate game makers here but I respect that you guys have your own culture and if it doesn't fit, it doesn't fit.

Candy Crush does have the pace thing you are talking about. That's a valid point. I probably couldn't have thought of it. That's an interesting point. I haven't seen a turn-based game where you quickly knock down enemies and more of them keep coming. Maybe prior to the boss fights this could be the way to do it for trash mobs... anyways this sounds interesting.

About having different levels. Yes in order to prevent that from happening, what I suggested before was to start the game off fighting on flat grounds with no obstacles or any other "dynamic factors" in the battle. Just like how early stages of Candy Crush does not have all the weird things happening on their map. Then these little quirky map dynamics can be added to keep the battle more and more interesting as you progress in your story line. I haven't thought about what exactly these extra map things should be just yet. But that's the general idea. Do you think this would just confuse the hell out of players? or just plain annoying to deal with?

 

[Basileus]

@Kurdiez

There are some definite issues with your proposed mechanics that I feel must be addressed. Not only for you, but for everyone that reads this thread and wants to make a game similar to yours. And to properly get my points across I'm afraid I'm going to have to get a little mean for a moment.

<Mean Basileus>

re: Role-Playing Game

I was not "somewhat" correct about your game not being an RPG, I was 100% entirely correct. Creating combat "roles" does not an RPG make - Call of Duty and Team Fortress 2 also have classes with unique skills and different weapon types and nobody would call them an RPG. What makes a game like Dungeons & Dragons an RPG is the progression system. You do not need levels and equipment drops to progress, but there needs to be some measure of getting better at your role over time. It's not just having a "job", it's getting better and learning new ways to do that job through practice - that's why we call them "Experience Points". The characters become more experience at their "role" and learn new skills to do their job better and become overall stronger for their continued success. Two characters might be Wizards, but the more experienced Wizard should have more spells to cast and can cast them stronger or for less mana than an inexperienced Wizard. The core gameplay fantasy is the feeling of becoming more powerful over time, of rewarding hard work and succeeding at tasks with some means of gaining power to take on even more challenging tasks that could not be completed before. If your game has units that never grow stronger and have fixed stats, then you are making a puzzle game and need to acknowledge this. You are not going to create a "new" type of RPG because you are not making one at all. If you create a puzzle game - and you are - but try to appeal to RPG players throughout the entire design process, then all you will accomplish is making a watered down product that doesn't appeal to either RPG Gamers or Puzzle Gamers and fails to live up to its potential.

re: Candy Crush

KILL IT WITH FIRE. Candy Crush is not a game, it is an abomination known as a Skinner Box that is designed to trap people with addictive personalities and scam them out of money. It's like a casino using pretty lights and sounds to look flashy and impressive and make you feel good spending money. Many players do not actually spend money on it, but that it irrelevant. It's only purpose is to make money from the players that cannot control themselves. If this project is just to make money on the mobile market then you can try to rise above the many failed clones of Candy Crush, but if you want to make a great game that has real merit and meaning, then Candy Crush is the worst possible base imaginable. Just having a combat system resembling Candy Crush will guarantee that few people will ever take your game seriously. At least look into Strategy and Tactics RPGs like Fire Emblem and Final Fantasy Tactics for examples of successful games with battle systems similar to what you are talking about.

</Mean Basileus>

re: Taunt and Utility

I feel you are missing the point. A "Taunt" skill is a means to allow the player to alter the actions of the enemy. This is a form of "Utility", a non-damaging skill that does something useful for success. It is not meant to be "free invulnerability" for squishy high DPS units, there are supposed to be trade-offs like one of your characters taking damage from all enemy units every turn, or only working on a single target, or only lasting one turn so the tank needs to keep using it to keep protect the weaker units. And no, it is not unrealistic. If you are a commander and let the enemy accomplished all of their objectives without trying to impede them or alter their course of action, then you would be the worst commander in history. Sun Tzu's The Art of War is basically Taunting the Book. If you want to make good puzzles, then the ability to manipulate the enemy's targeting - at a price - is a solid and powerful tool.

An example: Say you are a soldier and your mission is the capture stolen intelligence. You injure the runner and go for the intelligence when you hear the sound of a shotgun pump behind you. Would you ignore the enemy behind you and mindlessly go after the intelligence since it is your actual objective, or would you hold off going after the intelligence to deal with the threat behind you? It's good to have enemies with a goal in mind, but it's damn frustrating to fight enemies that can never deviate from their task since there is 0 room for error and no way to save the mission if you fall behind. Rogue got injured? Welp he's dead since there is no way to distract the enemy to let him dash behind cover.

Taunt is hardly the only form of Utility. The ability to manipulate the enemy, alter their course of action, deny them turns or specific actions. All of it is important if you intend to make puzzle battles. Otherwise you are just bludgeoning things with sticks until one side falls down, and stat-checks in a game without scaling would be downright miserable.

re: Lack of Level and Loot Scaling

@bgillisp is right. Studies have shown that the thing that makes an addictive RPG is gaining levels and acquiring new tiers of loot and rare items. See: World of Warcraft. The feeling you are going for is a Candy Crush style addiction which is really just a cheap thrill, basically an extension of the online casinos from the 90's and early 00's. The feeling of an addictive RPG isn't one of "Yay I solved a puzzle" but one of constantly acquiring things, money not so much but gaining levels and getting new skills, perk points, and stat boosts from it and getting weapons and armor stronger and cooler looking than the ones you have.

If you want to apply "modern mobile gaming" to "Traditional RPGs" then I hate to break it to you, but Japan beat you to the punch years ago. Google games like Granblue Fantasy, Kantai Collection, and Fate/Grand Order. That is what a successful mobile RPG looks like and the style is being copied about as much as Candy Crush is being copied. Hundreds of units to collect (unique art work but plenty of overlap ability-wise so you aren't screwed if you don't get certain ones), lots of leveling to make your favorite units stronger, big upgrades and new art for boosting your favorite units up a tier, acquiring materials to craft and enhance equipment or skills, pretty basic RPG combat with missions consisting of chains of battles with no healing in-between and a boss at the end, and Gatcha rolls where you expend resources obtained from completing missions to get random units or gear. The Gatcha rolls are unbelievably addicting for many players due to the randomness and the "jackpot" feeling of getting lucky and getting Super Rare units. There is a danger of veering into Candy Crush territory with real money micro-transactions, but the emphasis is strongly on the actual characters/units and stories (especially unit-specific side-stories) and generally does not press the player into spending money...but they will hold special limited time events and dangle very cool limited content in front of players.

I strongly urge you to look up Granblue Fantasy and Fate/Grand Order before you move forward with this.

 

[ShadowHawkDragon]

As @bgillisp and @Basileus mention: progression, the act of becoming stronger with repeated action carries a mental component that compels the player onward; they want to get stronger. Without that the only hook left is the mental thrill of solving gradually more complex puzzle/battle-scenarios.

In addition simply bumping up enemy numbers and/or stats quickly becomes overwhelming, it makes the players feel a sense of 'reverse-progression' where they are becoming weaker with each fight. The whole game would have to be designed as a puzzle (which classes with which skills to deploy, how to use each turn, reacting to special enemies like suicide bombers, complex objectives other than 'kill everything', etc.)

I recommend you look up Cube Tactics for the 3DS, its a Puzzle RTS. Each mission is effectively a puzzle, units too have predefined stats/behaviours. I should point out that the main selling point of the game is the multiplayer battle aspect. As in once you've done all the single-player puzzles, the only 'thrill' left is to pit your newly learnt skills against other players (just like in chess).


In regards to taunt type skills. The true concept of taunt is not, as you hate; to magically make all foes turn to face the immobile knight as if he were a human magnet. But to represent him literally jumping in front of his allies to protect them, or simply standing further up-field than everyone else bashing anyone who tries to get past him (think Gandalf "You shall not pass!").

Stella Glow has a good realistic way of implementing this in a grid based battle system. The tanks have a passive effect that turn adjacent spaces into 'blocking zones'. Enemies can still move into these spaces, and even out of them on their next turn, but even if they were to have 100 squares left to move they immediately stop upon entering one these 'blocking zones'. Think of it as grabbing the enemy's arm to stop him from slipping past, after-all what noble knight would stand there and let a foe walk right past him (literally by an inch) on its way to kill a vulnerable ally.

 

[Tigersong]

I've been thinking while I read this topic. What came to mind were two games- "Banished" and "Spiral Knights".

Banished is a strategy game where instead of having to research everything, you can build whatever you have the resources for. So you build a lumber mill, recruit a villager to man it, and have the forester replant trees so you don't consume the entire forest. (It's challenging because you have a small number of villagers, all of whom need food, shelter, etc.)

In Spiral Knights you don't level up- your weapons and skills do. It's an action MMO (for want of a better term) where the focus is on moving toward the end of a level. Not a bad idea if you want several different mission objectives.

It's only purpose is to make money from the players that cannot control themselves.

I'm not sure Candy Crush is the sole culprit here. There are plenty of online games that either require a monthly subscription, or severely ****** your progress if you don't pay. Let's face it- part of the motive behind making video games is financial. If that requires using underhanded psychological tactics, some studios just shrug and go, "So be it."

If I'm going to pay by the month anyway, I guess I'd rather blow up candies than kill hordes of enemies.