Progression Help

[Willibab]

I'm a little unsure about my progression system...

So...I have no classes or levels. You pick 4 characters as your party (FF1). Each have different stats and traits (character specific passives).

I wanted to have character power be a mix of several things.

Weapons teaching you skills (ff9 style, but all characters can use any weapons so basically learn any skill.)

Armor Sets that grants you powerful but specific bonuses.

Passives learned from talent tree that can improve upon the skills you have chosen to learn or fill in the weaknesses of the armor sets you wear.

The only problem is....Only the main character can use the talent tree, and I kind of like that in a way. Micromanaging 4 characters is kind of a pain imo. I will already have a bit of that with the equipment.

But as it stands, the main character will basically carry the party xD I know I can have party based buffs and support stuff but the player will basically have to get those which is lame.

The easiest solution would just be to have armor teach passives and no talent tree...But that's basically just FF9 then xD Maan, I do actually love the equip passives system too... Stupid perfect FF9.... A ff9 system with no restrictions could be its own thing tho.. hmm

I thought about actually having exp and levels and even classes....But only for support characters. So part of the puzzle is choosing the right classes to blend with you, or that you build your character to fit your party?

Thoughts?

 

[NamEtag]

I think you're constraining yourself too much with what a talent tree entails. There's a variety of passives that stay within the power tier of the other members, not just stacking +20% stat boosts.

There's a bunch of games with the main character having access to their own set of mechanics without breaking party balance. Trance, summon, alchemy, etc.

And, well, there's also the option of out and out asymmetrical parties. Overpowered hero, normal soldier, pansy ass item chucker. Main character and a gaggle of cheerleaders who will die every aoe. Commander and a bunch of fodder who are more valuable for formation buffs than individual attacks.

Last Remnant, Gig and the World Eaters, Nocturne: Rebirth, there are games out there that experiment with miniaturizing the customization of individual units and have you build parties as a whole.

 

[LordOfPotatos]

the thing is having more options in itself is stronger, even if you can't get all of them. if you CAN get the whole tree then it's ultra OP.

if you want the MC to have access to everything and still be balanced you have to nerf him in some other way or buff the other members.

like give the MC lower total base stats than the rest, so he has lower performance overall and has to compensate with smart use of all the options.

or give the others special traits that the MC can't replicate, so they are better in their area of expertise.

for example, I made a character that has access to every element unlike everyone else, but I made her have to use an ability to get temporary access to each element.
so she has way more abilities than the others but unlocking each element uses CTB time and MP, so she can't be better than anyone at their particular element.

 

[Willibab]

@NamEtag I am doing that idea, of the commander with basically expendable troops in another project actually
Wanted more of a balance here since none of the characters are supposed to be the main char. I just didn't find another plugin for skill tree that wasn't super complicated, until now at least.

@LordOfPotatos I did actually have plans for the other characters to have a special trait But with a new skill tree plugin, I can have it for all chars.

I suppose its not that much more management. Not like you will need to buy skills every battle

 

[ArcaneEli]

The Persona way is the MC can do and fill in any party role, you can make them a full healer, dps, whatever you need. while the other party members fill in more specific roles or Jobs. So you'd have your Warrior, Mage, Crit Warrior etc etc etc and the MC fills in whatever you don't have for a better team.

IMO I don't like armor sets unless it's like an MMO and there's ALOT of armor to pick from, cause either the set effect is useless and then what's the point, or it's really good and I won't swap armors for long periods of time.

so IMO make the party members specific classes like Rouge, White Mage or whatever. and the MC is the fully customizable one but make only specific characters wield weapons to learn from them, but the MC can learn whatever and everything

 

[freakytapir]

Simple solution: Party members learn skills as the story progresses or by sidequests.

Or the TM/HM system from pokémon.
You find the skills as a one or multiple times usable item.

Or 'Stat' seeds. Like treasure chests containing 'Magic Seeds' raising the magic stats.
Maybe make them unusable by the MC.

 

[Willibab]

The Persona way is the MC can do and fill in any party role, you can make them a full healer, dps, whatever you need. while the other party members fill in more specific roles or Jobs. So you'd have your Warrior, Mage, Crit Warrior etc etc etc and the MC fills in whatever you don't have for a better team.

IMO I don't like armor sets unless it's like an MMO and there's ALOT of armor to pick from, cause either the set effect is useless and then what's the point, or it's really good and I won't swap armors for long periods of time.

so IMO make the party members specific classes like Rouge, White Mage or whatever. and the MC is the fully customizable one but make only specific characters wield weapons to learn from them, but the MC can learn whatever and everything

I intend to make the sets all have a specific purpose, they will mostly be good at one thing, like one against lightning enemies, or one set might be good for characters that need a lot of MP. No set will be the best at everything.

They will be mostly optional, if you happen to find a whole set then you have a good way of dealing with a specific problem.

And I intend to have quite a lot of items, I personally like having a lot of choices in rpgs.

@freakytapir

I did actually consider all these options and have used them all before in other games

Don't think they will fit here for various reasons. It might if I change some things. Nothing is set in stone atm.

Man, there are so many cool systems to use, its difficult choosing which ones to use

 

[RCXGaming]

So @Willibab I actually played a game that functions just like this - it's called Castlevania Lament of Innocence. It's an action RPG, but you don't level up at all. Instead what happens is the following:

• Killing certain amounts of enemies unlocks new techniques
• Killing bosses unlocks "Orbs" that modify your subweapons to have different properties
• You could find relics across the map that lets you activate spells that increase speed, increase attack, etc.
• You could find different elemental whips that do effective damage against certain enemies

I've found the interplay between these different factors to be very engaging because some enemies took more damage if you went in with the right set-up.

I hope this helps you in some way.

 

[Willibab]

So @Willibab I actually played a game that functions just like this - it's called Castlevania Lament of Innocence. It's an action RPG, but you don't level up at all. Instead what happens is the following:

• Killing certain amounts of enemies unlocks new techniques
• Killing bosses unlocks "Orbs" that modify your subweapons to have different properties
• You could find relics across the map that lets you activate spells that increase speed, increase attack, etc.
• You could find different elemental whips that do effective damage against certain enemies

I've found the interplay between these different factors to be very engaging because some enemies took more damage if you went in with the right set-up.

I hope this helps you in some way.

That sounds unique Might consider some of them, I do like having many different ways of obtaining stuff.

I'm leaning more and more towards a more sandbox rpg. I want my characters to basically be nobodies and equal. No real main character.

I got an idea from this actually, like killing enough of a certain type of monster grants you a bonus against that monster etc... Dragon Slayer passive or something, and you can upgrade it by saying more dragons! Small bonuses ofc.

Already planning on maybe having some bosses drop improvements or things needed to get improvements to utility stuff. Kind of similar to the orbs...sort off