Puppeteer General Discussion

[fireflyege]

As far as we can say we have some interesting class options. I find the puppeteers one of the most interesting in one of them, due to their ability to control the enemies themselves. This opens a path to many strategies for example taking control of the enemy healer which supports your healer is a thing or taking control of an enemy DPS to dispatch that said healer oh the possibilities are endless.

From all I can see, most people do not design such characters anymore. Part of the reason would be them becoming either useless or overpowered against bosses, or they simply do not do damage because most puppeteers give up their own movements to control those enemies so the impact they do becoming not visible enough would be a reason.

This thread is not about my own individual project, since I already finished designing mine but I want to learn how players view the puppeteers in general.

 

[Alice's hat trick]

Well I think they can still contribute in boss fights if you gave them more love. Maybe instead of controlling the boss, they will lower the agility of it or sort of stopping/delaying skill use of the boss! Since each class has it's pros and cons I think it's ok if puppeteers are stronger against minions but weaker against bosses. You can just treat it as a characteristic of this class!

 

[fireflyege]

Some puppeteers have ways to control bosses for a limited time. For example if the Puppeteer slowly builds TP, a high TP spell that it can only use once in a while also would help. So that the boss would keep its overall impact, but the Puppeteer would also be able to make plays for example when the boss is about send a nuke the Puppeteer can time its move right so the boss will hurt itself.

 

[kirbwarrior]

I've seen puppeteer type allies work great in Tactical based games. I'm not so sure in normal rpgs. However, I do love the idea. My favorite I've seen in a jrpg was the puppeteer was basically a pokemon trainer; they can recruit up to one enemy into your party. They can do it midbattle against random encounters and after battle against specific bosses.

If I were to have one in my game, I'd have very few (or no) boss fights that just had one enemy. I'd probably do something like Culex from Super Mario RPG, where there is one boss with multiple pseudo-parts pseudo-minions.

 

[fireflyege]

My first idea was a guy using strings that generate from a crystal to control people, infusing it with different energies doing different things for example you can take control of an enemy using blood strings or take control of an ally using soul strings, and I thought ''Why not?'' since I can make that interesting.

I espicially love puppeteers since you can control an enemy and use its own strenght against it, control an ally and amplify the power of the said ally or you can not do that and use whatever power you have yourself espicially if you have other character specific utilities.

I think the power is too great though so I have made a way to combat that. I personally designed my puppeteer in a way that you pay HP but get MP and a little TP over time for controlling the enemy, and you use that MP to drain health back or control your allies instead, and your TP is for a skill which can control even bosses or control all enemies at once for a short duration.

But really, when a boss is charging up a powerful attack you making that boss attack itself with the ability it was charging the whole time is priceless.

 

[kirbwarrior]

I espicially love puppeteers since you can control an enemy and use its own strenght against it, control an ally and amplify the power of the said ally or you can not do that and use whatever power you have yourself espicially if you have other character specific utilities.

Final Fantasy Tactics A2 has probably my favorite form of this. Instead of directly controlling the enemy, you have access to it's abilities and the abilities use the monster stats but it uses your turn. You never stop the monster from taking a turn, but it also never fails to control (the ability can still miss). Relm in FF6 does something similar, but the actual end result might leave something to be desired (mmm, I love you Sketch Glitch).

But really, when a boss is charging up a powerful attack you making that boss attack itself with the ability it was charging the whole time is priceless.

Reflect does something similar and always feels awesome.

I think the main issue is the 'stun' that's attached to control. If you can balance your bosses to be allowed to stun, then I think controlling them is easy to balance.

 

[fireflyege]

@kirbwarrior I did not want reflect actually. Yes it feels awesome but it is risky unless what the enemy will do it telegraphed.

I managed to balance the stun with only making the ultimate skills being able to control bosses. It will take a while to build that TP to use that ultimate skill. Also my puppeteer can take control of his own allies, making them way stronger.

I do not think a puppeteer without stunning the enemy would be considered a puppeteer at all. I even thought of adding a DoT in the name of ''struggle damage'' as the victim tries to resist the strings. I also thought of cruel effects like the controller getting %X of the healing the enemy gets, and the enemy taking %X of the damage controller takes.

 

[kirbwarrior]

Also my puppeteer can take control of his own allies, making them way stronger.

Wow, that's interesting. How does that work? Does controlling enemies make them stronger?

 

[fireflyege]

@kirbwarrior my first puppeteer design had two options, controlling enemies and allies. Of course both of them is different because of a simple thing, the subject's cooperation.

When controlling enemies:
-The puppeteer gets a percentage of the healing the victim receives, and the victim receives damage for a percentage the puppeteer suffers.
-The victim takes struggle damage each turn.
-Also the controller's target receives a defensive debuff in both its defensive stats, but the controller is unable to move.

When controlling allies:
-All of their stats are buffed.
-The controlled ally can also attack twice a row in one turn with getting a small amount of MP and TP recovery.
-When the controlled ally dies, the control is broken and the controller becomes able to move again, also the target gets revived with a small amount of health and a large damage mitigation that ends when the next turn starts.

So you see, allies get stronger just because they cooperate with the controller and the controller cooperates with them too, so the controller actually supports the movements of your ally. Think of it like the wind is pushing you when you walk, naturally you go a little faster but when the wind does the opposite you struggle a little.

The magic designed for allies and enemies are different because of that. I designed two types of ''string'' abilities in my first design, first is ''Blood String'' which is used for the enemies and the second is ''Soul String'' which is used on allies.

But I thought the control mechanic was just too OP, so I made a new design to control enemies. The guy does not use blood magic anymore to control enemies, but uses mental magic.

I plan on a strategy called breaking the will. In this strategy, the puppeteer will use ''Cerebral Siphon'' to get a small health but lots of mana over time, and will use that mana to use stronger abilities like ''Psycho Shocker'' and ''Mind Crush'' which has a good chance to apply ''Broken Will'' to the enemy. Your control spells will control your enemies only if their will are broken beforehand.

I am trying to think of a good way for ally control to be interactive though. Maybe I will make a way that your offensive spells have a small chance to apply each ally ''Shared Will'' effect which will be used to control allies as well.

Of course those are the things that struck my mind, I can do better so I will do better.

 

[kirbwarrior]

Think of it like the wind is pushing you when you walk, naturally you go a little faster but when the wind does the opposite you struggle a little.

Random idea; I wonder if this could show enemies that might be willing to help you or want to join you (like an extreme version of recruiting characters in Fire Emblem)

''Broken Will''

''Shared Will''

I'm liking these ideas. I've seen something that reminds me of Shared Will; one character gives their turn to another character so they get two actions.

 

[fireflyege]

@kirbwarrior that could be a fact, but nothing you fight against would get controlled willingly.

Broken Will and Shared Will work exactly like that, you can simply immobilize yourself and give your turn to an ally. Controlling enemies also work the same way but it only lasts for a short duration since when you control enemies, you cloud their judgement. As for the enemies, when their will is broken your mental commands go through them easily so that is how you control them in my second design. So all your effort goes to control someone, but when you control your allies you do not need to get so much effort to enter their minds so you can amplify their strength.

I am still thinking though. It must be perfect you see, and even though I am particularly intelligent I feel that I cannot reach perfection. That simply won't do, so I must be even more creative. Puppeteers have so much more things that they can do, I must look at every perspective of it.