Torn on Elemental Essence skill-learning/stat-boosting system.

[JarinWinters]

So I have a couple of ideas for how I want the skill/power progression system in my game to function, and I'm having a tough idea deciding on which idea would best fit with the design goals I want to prioritize for my game.

So as an overarching idea, I want to focus on the keywords of "customization" and "quality-of-life".

To achieve this, I designed a mock-up for players to have about 7 equipment slots, inspired by the myriad of equipment options in Valkyrie Profile specifically. I also have each piece of equipment be 1 of 8 different colored "affinities" , which correspond to a certain stat and type of magic. I envision a sort of "alchemical fusion" aesthetic tied into narrative themes I want to explore in my story.

Red Equipment -> Attack & Fire
Blue Equipment -> Defense & Ice
Yellow Equipment -> Agility & Lightning
Green Equipment -> Luck & Earth
Orange Equipment -> Health & Light
Purple Equipment -> Mana & Shadow

Additionally, in lieu of additional classes, certain characters will come with equipment slots that are already in favor of possessing a certain color of equipment, inspired by the Polarity system in Warframe. This leaves them more pre-disposed to fulfilling a certain role, but the slots affinities can be modified and shifted around to create a custom "class" of sorts through the use of obtainable modifying items.

For example:

-An "offensive mage" type character comes with a purple slot and a red slot.
- A "sturdy tank" has an orange slot and and a blue slot.
- A traditional "fast rogue" has a yellow slot and a green slot.

Using this system, I want to give my players control over each characters skills, individual stats, tons of different accessories and armors to choose from for different tradeoffs and situations.

I've come up with 3 different ideas for how to achieve this:

---

Idea 1:

Based on certain linked colors in the equipment grid, players can acquire skills, and begin to gather "mastery" points by defeating enemies to be able to use that skill without the required combination. Kind of like a fusion between the Final Fantasy V Job system and Valkyrie Profile 2's Rune system.

Example 3-slot combo skills:
- Fajro (1 Purple + 2 Red): Fire-based magical attack. Has a small chance of reducing enemy Attack.
- Glacio (1 Purple + 1 Blue + 1 Red): Frost-based magical attack. Small chance of reducing enemy Defense.
- Fulmo (1 Purple + 1 Yellow + 1 Red): Lightning-based magical attack. Small chance of stunning the enemy.

---

Idea 2:

When levelling up, players will gain stat bonuses based on what colored equipment they have equipped, with equipment slotted into matching slots being awarded with higher stat gains.

These ideas I picture overlapping with each other, wherein not only are players earning skills that would compliment the archetype they want that character to fill, they're also earning stat gains to facilitate that transformation as well.

---

Idea 3:

Rather than the above 2 ideas, when players are equipped, they earn different colored "element points" so to speak, which can be used to unlock skills. Any points not allotted to skills can simply be allocated into boosting stats. These can be exponentially increased (ex. at lvl 1 it only takes 5 red points to increase attack, at lv 10 it takes 50, so on). Its basically a remixed version of those ideas, and an idea I feel like would be easier to implement overall.

---

Additionally, I've thought about adding interesting caveats to this as well, such as having the players elemental weaknesses and resistances be affected by their affinities. I'm not sure if this would be irritating more than engaging, however.

I'm curious to hear about which ideas would be feasible to implement, as well as general critiques and suggestions. In particular I'm curious about how linking together individual pieces of equipment could work in RPG Maker, without having to cycle through each individual combination of equipment slots.

Lemme know what you think ^^

 

[ArcaneEli]

I like the idea alot lot, but

Additionally, in lieu of additional classes, certain characters will come with equipment slots that are already in favor of possessing a certain color of equipment, inspired by the Polarity system in Warframe. This leaves them more pre-disposed to fulfilling a certain role, but the slots affinities can be modified and shifted around to create a custom "class" of sorts through the use of obtainable modifying items.

Seems kinda odd for your choice of having alot of options and freedom.
FF10 had everyone in their roles in the beginning, but after maingame or earlier depending on grinding they greatly interchange so much no character is different aside ultimate weapons and overdrive.

Persona has the main character which is fully flexible in every sense of the word, while everyone else is shoe horned on a more direct path.

And then we have recent Fire Emblems with Second Seals allowing them to change to any class, and those classes influence growth rates, but the characters also have their own personal growths. So why would you place Anna with a 15% str growth rate in a Berzerker class that gives her another 20%. Or just keep her as a Mage with her persona 50% magic growth and the class gives another 20%. So it kinda greatly influences them.

So I think you have to decide what do you want: 4 blank characters to fully customize, 4 characters leaning a specific way which encourage you just to follow their path cause why not. Or 1 main character that's fully custom, with others on a small path but nothing too demanding.

Idea 1: Mix colors for skills, but I feel like you'd swap colors so much and forget all the skills you can learn and it'd be very cluttered. Swapping colors just to see if a skill is good, then swapping back seems like a hassle.

Idea 2: Permanent stat increases based on color seems like a bad idea for customizable options. Imagine first two party members you went full RED for max strength frowths, then the third party member was supposed to be a berzerker so as the Developer you already gave them alot of Strength Growths, now the player is screwed with 3str classes and they lose so much trying to swap. Also discourages swapping and experimentation. After like 5lvs in one color I'd never change almost no matter what for fear of missing what I've already done.

Idea 3: Reminds me of Fable, equip what you want more skill points for and then use it for whatever you want and change out. Seems more closely aligned to jobs but more flexibility. So this is the one that gets my vote the most. Also helps if you end up stuck vs a Water boss, you can swap to Yellow equipment until your party gets thunder magic, swap back to their original gear and fight the water boss with new stuff.

 

[ZombieKidzRule]

I don't know most of the games you mentioned, but what you are proposing sounds interesting.

My one significant question would be if attributes and skills are linked to equipped item slots, what happens when you change equipped items?

For me, how you handle that is a very important part and something that would definitely impact my opinion. I think @ArcaneEli raised a similar point above.

 

[NamEtag]

Valkyrie Profile 2

OH. I remember that. Frankly, I despised it, and I'm pretty sure I know why.

First is balancing the value of a gear's stats and its color. Second is even having equipment at all for each slot to get the full number of colors. VP2 was painful since it failed on both counts. With the way party members, equipment, and crafting materials works, you need to make a conscious effort backtracking and grinding to make sure you've got something in every slot, let alone the right color for each build.

SO, with regards to this system you're cooking up:

1) When will a player realistically get an item in every slot? End of tutorial? Midgame? Endgame? That greatly alters the pace and complexity of color combos and color-related mechanics.

2) How do you make each piece of gear unique? Sure, you've got 6 different flavors of tier 1 hats, and they're unique because the color is different. What about tier 2? Are they really all just going to have 5 more DEF? That's a LOT of equipment bloat, even if you don't give all the colors for every tier and equip type. It kind of sounds like the stat spreads will be different for each color, but that still doesn't make the gear itself unique. It's still just "tier 3 blue shield", not "hoarfrost shield" compared to "blue wyrmshield"

3) You're going to need a way to consolidate color spreads at milestones. Don't lock the purple boots at the starter dungeon because you never made a midgame equivalent. Whether it's a shop, easy access to crafting mats, or just having a decent alternative boots.

 

[LordOfPotatos]

I think you might have pulled a junction system here, not gonna lie.

as in you created a big complex system with subsystems that accomplishes nothing that couldn't be done with a simpler system that's easier to learn for players.

for example:

idea 1: "Based on certain linked colors in the equipment grid, players can acquire skills, and begin to gather "mastery" points by defeating enemies to be able to use that skill without the required combination."

needing to manage the equipment grid to link colors means there is a limitation the player has to make choices with, which is good.
but if the player can permanently learn the skills then the color linking becomes pointless as soon as you learn them. all the player is deciding is what skill to learn first, which after a litle grinding is completely irrelevant.

idea 2: "When levelling up, players will gain stat bonuses based on what colored equipment they have equipped, with equipment slotted into matching slots being awarded with higher stat gains."

this has 2 issues:

-if the point of this system is customizing the character's stats, then why are matching slots given more stats?
if it's used optimally you get characters with certain higher and lower stats tailored to each character, which is exactly what fixed levelup stats do anyway so what's the point of this system?

-gear determining levelup stats interferes with build freedom. what if you have gear that perfectly matches a certain fight but it doesn't match the stat gains you want?
what if you have a final build you want but it's stat gains are incorrect? will you grind to max level to finally use it?

idea 3: "Rather than the above 2 ideas, when players are equipped, they earn different colored "element points" so to speak, which can be used to unlock skills. Any points not allotted to skills can simply be allocated into boosting stats."

this sounds like it's different from ideas 1 and 2, but it's the same thing and has the same problems.
you get skills and stats depending on the colors of your gear, the choices lose purpose as you learn the skills permanently and the stat gains may clash with what you actually want to equip.

having multiple systems interlink with each other sounds cool on paper but it almost always ends up being a tangled mess that when solved reveals it's actually not that deep.

 

[NamEtag]

What idea 3 reminds me of is the La Pucelle system for levelling individual stats.

I think there's some merit to it, but I recommend opt-in levelups. Winning fights gets you exp for each color, multipled by the number of each colored gear you wear. Then you cash-in a specific colored exp for a level to go down that build path. OR, you bypass levels and buy specific skills. Not too different from skill trees at that point.

 

[JarinWinters]

I think you might have pulled a junction system here, not gonna lie.

as in you created a big complex system with subsystems that accomplishes nothing that couldn't be done with a simpler system that's easier to learn for players.

for example:

idea 1: "Based on certain linked colors in the equipment grid, players can acquire skills, and begin to gather "mastery" points by defeating enemies to be able to use that skill without the required combination."

needing to manage the equipment grid to link colors means there is a limitation the player has to make choices with, which is good.
but if the player can permanently learn the skills then the color linking becomes pointless as soon as you learn them. all the player is deciding is what skill to learn first, which after a litle grinding is completely irrelevant.

idea 2: "When levelling up, players will gain stat bonuses based on what colored equipment they have equipped, with equipment slotted into matching slots being awarded with higher stat gains."

this has 2 issues:

-if the point of this system is customizing the character's stats, then why are matching slots given more stats?
if it's used optimally you get characters with certain higher and lower stats tailored to each character, which is exactly what fixed levelup stats do anyway so what's the point of this system?

-gear determining levelup stats interferes with build freedom. what if you have gear that perfectly matches a certain fight but it doesn't match the stat gains you want?
what if you have a final build you want but it's stat gains are incorrect? will you grind to max level to finally use it?

idea 3: "Rather than the above 2 ideas, when players are equipped, they earn different colored "element points" so to speak, which can be used to unlock skills. Any points not allotted to skills can simply be allocated into boosting stats."

this sounds like it's different from ideas 1 and 2, but it's the same thing and has the same problems.
you get skills and stats depending on the colors of your gear, the choices lose purpose as you learn the skills permanently and the stat gains may clash with what you actually want to equip.

having multiple systems interlink with each other sounds cool on paper but it almost always ends up being a tangled mess that when solved reveals it's actually not that deep.

I appreciate the input, I wasn't even aware of what a junction system was. If I may ask, do you have an idea for what sort of system incorporating the element linking mechanic could be used to encourage better customization? I saw you mention that if players learned it permanently it would defeat the purpose, so do you think that having "magic" abilities only be castable when possessing the appropriate color combination makes it a viable system?

Additionally, my idea is to introduce a mechanic early on where the "attunements" that characters come with aren't permanently set it stone, and can be transferred over to a stone/some receptacle that can be used to modify a different slot on that character, or even other characters' slots.

 

[JarinWinters]

OH. I remember that. Frankly, I despised it, and I'm pretty sure I know why.

First is balancing the value of a gear's stats and its color. Second is even having equipment at all for each slot to get the full number of colors. VP2 was painful since it failed on both counts. With the way party members, equipment, and crafting materials works, you need to make a conscious effort backtracking and grinding to make sure you've got something in every slot, let alone the right color for each build.

SO, with regards to this system you're cooking up:

1) When will a player realistically get an item in every slot? End of tutorial? Midgame? Endgame? That greatly alters the pace and complexity of color combos and color-related mechanics.

2) How do you make each piece of gear unique? Sure, you've got 6 different flavors of tier 1 hats, and they're unique because the color is different. What about tier 2? Are they really all just going to have 5 more DEF? That's a LOT of equipment bloat, even if you don't give all the colors for every tier and equip type. It kind of sounds like the stat spreads will be different for each color, but that still doesn't make the gear itself unique. It's still just "tier 3 blue shield", not "hoarfrost shield" compared to "blue wyrmshield"

3) You're going to need a way to consolidate color spreads at milestones. Don't lock the purple boots at the starter dungeon because you never made a midgame equivalent. Whether it's a shop, easy access to crafting mats, or just having a decent alternative boots.

I was thinking that I want to introduce each at least 1 accessory of each color fairly early on in the game (all in 1st area) to encourage experimentation early. Then as you progress through the game, you get higher tiers of accessories that are more effective in terms of point acquisition. I also thought about including a system of consolidating low-level accesories to be "fused" into a high level accessory, sol you can either grind for the high-level item or if you end up with a ton of otherwise useless accessories of that same color, you can combine them to achieve the same goal in the end.

 

[JarinWinters]

I like the idea alot lot, but


Seems kinda odd for your choice of having alot of options and freedom.
FF10 had everyone in their roles in the beginning, but after maingame or earlier depending on grinding they greatly interchange so much no character is different aside ultimate weapons and overdrive.

Persona has the main character which is fully flexible in every sense of the word, while everyone else is shoe horned on a more direct path.

And then we have recent Fire Emblems with Second Seals allowing them to change to any class, and those classes influence growth rates, but the characters also have their own personal growths. So why would you place Anna with a 15% str growth rate in a Berzerker class that gives her another 20%. Or just keep her as a Mage with her persona 50% magic growth and the class gives another 20%. So it kinda greatly influences them.

So I think you have to decide what do you want: 4 blank characters to fully customize, 4 characters leaning a specific way which encourage you just to follow their path cause why not. Or 1 main character that's fully custom, with others on a small path but nothing too demanding.

Idea 1: Mix colors for skills, but I feel like you'd swap colors so much and forget all the skills you can learn and it'd be very cluttered. Swapping colors just to see if a skill is good, then swapping back seems like a hassle.

Idea 2: Permanent stat increases based on color seems like a bad idea for customizable options. Imagine first two party members you went full RED for max strength frowths, then the third party member was supposed to be a berzerker so as the Developer you already gave them alot of Strength Growths, now the player is screwed with 3str classes and they lose so much trying to swap. Also discourages swapping and experimentation. After like 5lvs in one color I'd never change almost no matter what for fear of missing what I've already done.

Idea 3: Reminds me of Fable, equip what you want more skill points for and then use it for whatever you want and change out. Seems more closely aligned to jobs but more flexibility. So this is the one that gets my vote the most. Also helps if you end up stuck vs a Water boss, you can swap to Yellow equipment until your party gets thunder magic, swap back to their original gear and fight the water boss with new stuff.

This was another idea I was debating, do I want the main character to be the only clean slate, or do I want the other party members to be modifiable as well? Do you think there is merit in taking the Persona route to only have a fully customizable PC, or would it be antithetical to the focus on customization?

 

[JarinWinters]

What idea 3 reminds me of is the La Pucelle system for levelling individual stats.

I think there's some merit to it, but I recommend opt-in levelups. Winning fights gets you exp for each color, multipled by the number of each colored gear you wear. Then you cash-in a specific colored exp for a level to go down that build path. OR, you bypass levels and buy specific skills. Not too different from skill trees at that point.

Honestly, almost makes me think of EVs from pokemon, maybe could have monsters each give differing amounts of each elemental experience type?

 

[Ms Littlefish]

JarinWinters, please avoid double posting, as it is against the forum rules. You can use the "Edit" function on your posts to add additional information you've forgotten or respond to multiple people. You can review our forum rules here. Thank you.

 

[RCXGaming]

Yeah, what @Ms Littlefish said. If you want to address multiple points, just ping (@) or quote the person in question.

In general, I feel customization systems like this have a tendency to balloon your work as a developer for not much in return, but I'll give my two cents regardless.

My first question is: "How does this make the game more fun than a system that doesn't have this?"

My second base question is: "How do you design the game based around these customization options on a player-to-enemy basis, and how much do you punish the player for not adapting?"

Idea 1: The mixing is a nice idea, but this could easily lead to skill bloat and that could cause your players to forget what certain ones do. It's very likely that if they find a combination that works, they'll be using that for the most of the game, if not throughout the entire thing. Bit of a less is more situation.

Idea 2: Big yikes. Permanent stat gains depending on the equipment you put on will just lead to players optimizing the fun out of your game, because what's stopping them from just putting on +ATK or +MAG for every situation and curbstomping the game?

+DEF or +HP wouldn't help unless you deliberately put in situations where you want the player to tank hits, but then you run into the problem of "what if the player didn't do that" as well as it not being an engaging concept for turn-based combat in general.

It... honestly kind of nullifies the point of character classes to begin with.

Idea 3: The skill points thing sounds like a good idea EXCEPT for the stat allocation part. It still has the looming problem of skill overload, but it's at least managable.

There's also the problem of "what do I do when I've learned everything"?

 

[JarinWinters]

Yeah, what @Ms Littlefish said. If you want to address multiple points, just ping (@) or quote the person in question.

In general, I feel customization systems like this have a tendency to balloon your work as a developer for not much in return, but I'll give my two cents regardless.

My first question is: "How does this make the game more fun than a system that doesn't have this?"

My second base question is: "How do you design the game based around these customization options on a player-to-enemy basis, and how much do you punish the player for not adapting?"

Idea 1: The mixing is a nice idea, but this could easily lead to skill bloat and that could cause your players to forget what certain ones do. It's very likely that if they find a combination that works, they'll be using that for the most of the game, if not throughout the entire thing. Bit of a less is more situation.

Idea 2: Big yikes. Permanent stat gains depending on the equipment you put on will just lead to players optimizing the fun out of your game, because what's stopping them from just putting on +ATK or +MAG for every situation and curbstomping the game?

+DEF or +HP wouldn't help unless you deliberately put in situations where you want the player to tank hits, but then you run into the problem of "what if the player didn't do that" as well as it not being an engaging concept for turn-based combat in general.

It... honestly kind of nullifies the point of character classes to begin with.

Idea 3: The skill points thing sounds like a good idea EXCEPT for the stat allocation part. It still has the looming problem of skill overload, but it's at least managable.

There's also the problem of "what do I do when I've learned everything"?

Thank you for the input! ^^ Though I was curious for clarification.

For the 1st idea, if the player finds a solution that they enjoy using, is that not achieving the goal? I can understand if its done too early on, then what is the point of even playing if its just repeating the same steps.

I agree on the second, but I feel like min-maxxers will exist in any context, so I'm not entirely sure how/if I want to dissuade people from finding a meta for speedrunning.

Could you elaborate a bit on the skill overload with regards to the 3rd idea?

 

[RCXGaming]

For the 1st idea, if the player finds a solution that they enjoy using, is that not achieving the goal? I can understand if its done too early on, then what is the point of even playing if its just repeating the same steps.

Could you elaborate a bit on the skill overload with regards to the 3rd idea?

1 and 3 are linked together in my criticism. Let me put it like this: Your conveyance of the game's mechanics need to be pitch perfect otherwise this will snowball out of control.

If you can teach your characters any given skill at any given time, based on the type of color equipment / EXP attached to their equipment, how do you:

* Make a large amount of skills useful, especially without overlapping each other (eg. no multiple copies of "attack that does the same damage but is a different element flavor" or "attack that only does status and nothing else", etc.)

* Make the skills usable for different situations that call them

* Balance them so you can't just use THE ONE solution for every fight.

EX. What situations would I need to use a Blue skill over a Red one, or why would I even use Blue skills at all if Red skills are already doing the job just fine?

This is why I mention enemy design, because enemies with different weaknesses/resistances and gimmicks can influence how that should go.

I agree on the second, but I feel like min-maxxers will exist in any context, so I'm not entirely sure how/if I want to dissuade people from finding a meta for speedrunning.

It's not really about something meta like speedrunning or min-maxing. It really is a question of how you will design the game based on stats are allocated.

The reason the Junction System from final fantasy was so hated (well, based on what I've seen here as what @NamEtag talked about a while back) was because the limitless control over stat growth devalued combat to begin with, because if you can infinitely build a stat regardless if you're a casual player or a skilled veteran speedrunner... then what's the point?

Freedom of choice only really matters when you have limitations to work around, because... again, literally anybody can just pour all their stats into strength or magic attack to nuke everything. People are lazy and will pick the best option.

It's not the worst thing in the world, but it could make the game less engaging in the long run.

 

[JarinWinters]

1 and 3 are linked together in my criticism. Let me put it like this: Your conveyance of the game's mechanics need to be pitch perfect otherwise this will snowball out of control.

If you can teach your characters any given skill at any given time, based on the type of color equipment / EXP attached to their equipment, how do you:

* Make a large amount of skills useful, especially without overlapping each other (eg. no multiple copies of "attack that does the same damage but is a different element flavor" or "attack that only does status and nothing else", etc.)

* Make the skills usable for different situations that call them

* Balance them so you can't just use THE ONE solution for every fight.

EX. What situations would I need to use a Blue skill over a Red one, or why would I even use Blue skills at all if Red skills are already doing the job just fine?

This is why I mention enemy design, because enemies with different weaknesses/resistances and gimmicks can influence how that should go.



It's not really about something meta like speedrunning or min-maxing. It really is a question of how you will design the game based on stats are allocated.

The reason the Junction System from final fantasy was so hated (well, based on what I've seen here as what @NamEtag talked about a while back) was because the limitless control over stat growth devalued combat to begin with, because if you can infinitely build a stat regardless if you're a casual player or a skilled veteran speedrunner... then what's the point?

Freedom of choice only really matters when you have limitations to work around, because... again, literally anybody can just pour all their stats into strength or magic attack to nuke everything. People are lazy and will pick the best option.

It's not the worst thing in the world, but it could make the game less engaging in the long run.

Ahhh, okay. Thank you for that! I'll take that back to the drawing board and try to think up a good solution. I'm curious if I really want to focus on the elemental interactions both in the equipment and skill system as well as magic, maybe incorporating a sort of tradeoff in resistances or some other type of drawback Maybe even ditching the stat tie-in mechanic all together?

 

[NamEtag]

limitless control over stat growth devalued combat to begin with, because if you can infinitely build a stat

No, VP2 had an entirely different problem. You have 16 equipment slots, and I think the colors needed to be adjacent to even activate color set effects. On 4 party members. And since we're talking about Valkyrie Profile, about a dozen or more characters. You only get SOMETHING in every slot around midgame.

 

[JarinWinters]

No, VP2 had an entirely different problem. You have 16 equipment slots, and I think the colors needed to be adjacent to even activate color set effects. On 4 party members. And since we're talking about Valkyrie Profile, about a dozen or more characters. You only get SOMETHING in every slot around midgame.

Not quite, You only had 9 equipment slots. And a lot of the equipment was obtained by breaking different monster parts. I do specifically remember though that Green Runes were a hot commodity, so I agree there.

 

[NamEtag]

I was thinking that I want to introduce each at least 1 accessory of each color fairly early on in the game (all in 1st area) to encourage experimentation early. Then as you progress through the game, you get higher tiers of accessories that are more effective in terms of point acquisition. I also thought about including a system of consolidating low-level accesories to be "fused" into a high level accessory, sol you can either grind for the high-level item or if you end up with a ton of otherwise useless accessories of that same color, you can combine them to achieve the same goal in the end.

That's fine, but doesn't really interact with the color system unless this fused accessory is multi-color.

The primary question I asked is still about how you pace the color combo progression. How will earlier combos be weaker or simpler compared to endgame combos?

Honestly, almost makes me think of EVs from pokemon, maybe could have monsters each give differing amounts of each elemental experience type?

I strongly discourage that. It's a lot of database bloat that doesn't change much. If what you fight is actually important, then you've just changed where a particular player grinds. On the flipside, if the exp is controlled by equipment, the player knows the general spread of how their character is progressing, and how much effort it will take to pivot to a different build.

 

[Tai_MT]

I glanced through some of the other posts to see if my opinion differed any at all. I think it differs likely more in "nuance" than anything else, but I'll give it a whack.

So I have a couple of ideas for how I want the skill/power progression system in my game to function, and I'm having a tough idea deciding on which idea would best fit with the design goals I want to prioritize for my game.

So as an overarching idea, I want to focus on the keywords of "customization" and "quality-of-life".

To achieve this, I designed a mock-up for players to have about 7 equipment slots, inspired by the myriad of equipment options in Valkyrie Profile specifically. I also have each piece of equipment be 1 of 8 different colored "affinities" , which correspond to a certain stat and type of magic. I envision a sort of "alchemical fusion" aesthetic tied into narrative themes I want to explore in my story.

Red Equipment -> Attack & Fire
Blue Equipment -> Defense & Ice
Yellow Equipment -> Agility & Lightning
Green Equipment -> Luck & Earth
Orange Equipment -> Health & Light
Purple Equipment -> Mana & Shadow

I never played Valkyrie Profile. This sort of confuses me. Is there any benefit to the elemental affinities attached here? How do those work? Do they give you resistance to that element, allow you to learn magic spells of that element... or... something else?

Just based on what you have right here, I'd probably dump one color into every single slot to cover all the elemental bases and not really give a crap about the stats.

After all, the stats in most RPG's don't typically end up mattering since combat is usually very easily "cheesed" or "broken" through over leveling anyway.

So, unless it's super important to get another 100 HP for a character, I probably won't care to do so.

Especially since stats like Defense, Luck, and Health REALLY don't matter so long as you can act first and your first attack, no matter what attack that is, kills the enemy.

Additionally, in lieu of additional classes, certain characters will come with equipment slots that are already in favor of possessing a certain color of equipment, inspired by the Polarity system in Warframe. This leaves them more pre-disposed to fulfilling a certain role, but the slots affinities can be modified and shifted around to create a custom "class" of sorts through the use of obtainable modifying items.

Honestly, I actually have huge problems with the polarity system in Warframe. The point of such a system (and the ONLY point of it) is to pad playtime and add grind to boost sales.

Seriously, the way the system is designed, that is its only purpose.

If you match a polarity, the "cost of equipping" the thing simply drops to half. So, if it costs 30 points to equip something, and you match polarity, it now costs 15. This is sort of stupid in a system where you can only equip like 10 things anyway. It's like saying, "You can carry 800 pounds, but you only have 6 slots to carry items". At what point does the player ever even carry 800 pounds? The hard limit is the slots available. The same is true in Warframe. It really isn't difficult to have a lot of "points left over" for equipment, but still be out of equipment slots to plug stuff into. The system would be better served if the "equipment points" were simply removed entirely.

However, there's a reason they don't do that.

The money and padded playtime.

See, players who aren't at "endgame", will be hard pressed to be able to do the above scenario. They'll be battling with the "equipment point limit" most of the time. Which is also nonsensical since they already have TWO limiting factors on how "powerful" they can be anyway, so it makes no sense to give them a THIRD barrier to power (money and endo are limiting factors to making ANY of the equipment cards even remotely useful for even "after 3 hours of gameplay"). This doesn't even factor in that most "equipment drops" are pretty worthless unless you're going to go grind specifically for the powerful/useful ones... which is a FOURTH barrier to power in the game. Getting those equipment cards can require you already be powerful enough to tackle the content, you get a lucky drop in the content, you log in enough days, or even that you have the currency or reputation to purchase the equipment card.

But, let's go back to how the system works at "endgame". That's what is going to be important here.

Once your armor or weapon reaches maximum level (level 30), you can install a special item to "change the polarity" of a slot. What this is, is the player declaring that "they want to have this thing do something extremely specific". Okay, fine. Except, changing the polarity of a slot resets your level, and you can't change the polarity of another slot until you've grinded back to 30 again. So, if you need to change the polarity of every single slot for the build you want, you now have to grind your item to level 30 approximately 10 times. Oh, but I also need the items that let you "change polarity". But, the only place to get one of those regularly is through the shop.

All these interlocking systems here do nothing for the game except add pointless padding and "pain points" to get new players to spend money.

Does a player really need 4 points of "restriction" to power? Or, do you think one would be good enough?

What would the point of allowing me to change the "polarity" of the equipment slots later in your game be? Why can't I do it immediately? If you're limiting me from doing it at the beginning, why remove the restriction later?

For example:

-An "offensive mage" type character comes with a purple slot and a red slot.
- A "sturdy tank" has an orange slot and and a blue slot.
- A traditional "fast rogue" has a yellow slot and a green slot.

Using this system, I want to give my players control over each characters skills, individual stats, tons of different accessories and armors to choose from for different tradeoffs and situations.

I mean, I already do that without your system and it's just "restrict characters to what they can equip" and then making items for that restriction.

If I wanted to, I could make a set of mage armor that boosts the Attack Stat and lets them use Claymores. I can make it fit into any "equipment slot" I want. Accessory, Helm, Boots, whatever.

This sounds like an overcomplication. Like, you're using the colors to just tell the player "This is what the specialty of this character is, so they can only equip this stuff". But, I don't know why you're doing that. If you just ensure nobody else can equip the armor meant to boost stats of tanks... you don't need to color code anything or have this oddball system in place on top of it.

I've come up with 3 different ideas for how to achieve this:

---

Idea 1:

Based on certain linked colors in the equipment grid, players can acquire skills, and begin to gather "mastery" points by defeating enemies to be able to use that skill without the required combination. Kind of like a fusion between the Final Fantasy V Job system and Valkyrie Profile 2's Rune system.

Example 3-slot combo skills:
- Fajro (1 Purple + 2 Red): Fire-based magical attack. Has a small chance of reducing enemy Attack.
- Glacio (1 Purple + 1 Blue + 1 Red): Frost-based magical attack. Small chance of reducing enemy Defense.
- Fulmo (1 Purple + 1 Yellow + 1 Red): Lightning-based magical attack. Small chance of stunning the enemy.

I'm not sure how this is actually going to work. I get the concept, but in practice... This sounds messy.

Let me run down the initial issues I'll probably have with it as a player:

1. How am I to know which stuff needs to be linked to what in order to "learn the skill"? Am I just meant to "trial and error" this stuff? If so, we're approaching "Guide-Dang-It!" territory here. ( https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GuideDangIt ). If you are communicating to me, in game, what these combinations are, where is that at? The tooltip? Description? Some random exposition journal somewhere? Is there anywhere I can just hit "print book" from inside your game so I don't have to keep navigating to a menu, or to a physical location within the game to keep looking stuff up?

2. Do you always get Fajro from 1 purple and 2 red? Or, can you learn other skills with this combination and different equipment? If you always get it that way, regardless of tier of equipment, then it wouldn't be difficult to just give every character every single skill the moment you have the equipment combination necessary to do so. You're running into a similar problem that Final Fantasy Endless Nova did with its "learn magic" system. That is to say, once the enemy became available to get a new spell you didn't have, it was exceptionally beneficial to the player to grind out that enemy until they had 7 of the item that let them learn the skill (or, rather, fought the same enemy 7 times, captured their magic skill, and then used it on every character). I can see your equipment working the exact same way here. Once I'm able to get a "Cure" type spell, I'll teach it to everyone and grind it out on everyone so that everyone can heal at all times. Same with any other useful skills. Sure, the Tank's "Fajro" might not be as powerful as the Mage's version... But, if the enemy is weak to it, then it's beneficial for everyone to be able to quickly and easily exploit that weakness. If the enemy is weak to magic spells, it's nice to be able to have 4 mages in the party to exploit that weakness. Your balance is probably going to be VERY BAD if this is how it works.

Now, if you use different equipment in the 1 purple 2 red and get a different skill... we go back to "Guide Dang It!" territory. Now I'll need a spreadsheet of every single skill that can be learned via each piece of equipment combination. Forget how much of a nightmare that is going to be for a PLAYER to figure out... That's going to look INSANE as a dev trying to PROGRAM THOSE COMBINATIONS IN THERE.

I am the king of "overdesign" and "excessive spreadsheets". I'm the king of "doing way more work than necessary for my game". But, even I would balk at trying to program that. I'd get like 12 equipment pieces in and go, "Nope, not worth the effort."

3. Can I get the same amount of "mastery points" from low level critters as I would high level ones? If so, is the amount needed for each skill always "the same"? If so, I can see instances where it's beneficial to just equip the best stuff and fight the weakest stuff possible to "learn the skills". If I only need 100 points to learn Fajro, then I don't mind fighting 100 or 50 battles or whatever to learn it permanently. Especially if I'm not bleeding time, effort, or resources to learn it. If I can earn 20 points for a 2 minute fight... that MIGHT be beneficial... unless I can earn 1 point every 5 seconds. 120 seconds, divided by 5... 24 points.

This is actually something I did in Final Fantasy 5. There's an "early game" area where you get a "higher than usual" amount of Job Points for Mastery than most other places in the early game. There are some squirrels early in the game that come in a troop of 5. They drop 5 JP a fight. I taught everyone "Berserk", then equipped it on everyone. Then, I only had to walk around in circles until I maxed out all my Wind Crystal Jobs. I come back to this location at each new set of jobs and grind the 5 Job Points per kill in the same way. Watch Netflix, grind a ton of levels, learn everything immediately, done. Granted, that basically put me at level 40 before completing the first chapter of the game (first world). But, I never had to worry about needing to "get access" to anything useful anymore. I could then just slap "Learning" on everyone to learn all the Blue Magic spells and then swap them into whatever roles I needed for whatever section of the game I was on. Generally speaking, Magic Knights can tackle most of the challenges in the game. Especially at Level 40 and above.

Put simply, the system really only existed to punish players who didn't bother "grinding" out any of the jobs. It did so by drastically limiting what they could do and what they had access to.

I mean, even in far later "grinding areas", you aren't likely to get more than 5 Job Points a fight very easily... so... more beneficial to fight the "Level 1" monsters than the "Level 30" monsters.

Idea 2:

When levelling up, players will gain stat bonuses based on what colored equipment they have equipped, with equipment slotted into matching slots being awarded with higher stat gains.

These ideas I picture overlapping with each other, wherein not only are players earning skills that would compliment the archetype they want that character to fill, they're also earning stat gains to facilitate that transformation as well.

Are they actually earning those stats, or are those temporary and only limited to what you currently have equipped?

If Temporary, then if you have a well-designed combat system, that MIGHT be interesting. Though, if it's just for the purpose "allowing you to min/max", then I don't see the point in it. I also fail to see the point of EV's in Pokemon for the same reason. If there's only 1 or 2 viable builds per Pokemon, then what is the point of EV's? It's not like I could turn a Tank into a DPS under such a system, so earning "EV's" in anything other than what they're already hyper specialized to do is just a complete waste. Which means, for your system, I'd never bother equipping anything that DIDN'T just min/max my stat gains. Warframe has this same issue, too. You just don't equip anything into the Polarity slot that would "increase equipment point usage", no matter how useful it was, because it's going to hurt your overall effectiveness to do that.

If permanent stat gains, then it works similar to the "Magicite" system in Final Fantasy 6... in which a good chunk of the "Magicite" is utterly worthless to equip since its bonuses are so low. It actively lead to players "avoiding gaining levels" so that they didn't hurt their characters stat growth. Why would I want to equip something that only gave +1 Attack power every level, when late game, there's one that gives +10 Attack power every level? If new equipment just obsoletes old equipment, then there's little reason to have the stats fluctuate at all based on "equipment slot", since now your system works like a standard equipment system ANYWAY, except it's got an arbitrary layer on top that overcomplicates the system for no real player benefit.

Idea 3:

Rather than the above 2 ideas, when players are equipped, they earn different colored "element points" so to speak, which can be used to unlock skills. Any points not allotted to skills can simply be allocated into boosting stats. These can be exponentially increased (ex. at lvl 1 it only takes 5 red points to increase attack, at lv 10 it takes 50, so on). Its basically a remixed version of those ideas, and an idea I feel like would be easier to implement overall.

So, just equip one of every color of item on you so you can unlock everything and change stats as you please? Okay, got it. No customization here. Everyone will equip everything, no specializing, then I can get any skill I like at any time and any stat I want at any time.

Why are there extra steps to just giving me a "blank canvas" set of characters? You could just award "skill points" every combat that a player can distribute however they want, without this weird color coded element system restriction thing on it.

Does better equipment give more points? Or does stronger monsters?

I can see this getting REALLY grindy REAL quick and detracting from anything else in the game.

Additionally, I've thought about adding interesting caveats to this as well, such as having the players elemental weaknesses and resistances be affected by their affinities. I'm not sure if this would be irritating more than engaging, however.

Off-hand, without even getting into weaknesses... I'd already be "irritated" as a player by the amount of hoops you're having me jump through to gain stats and learn skills. If I have to manage elemental weaknesses and strengths ON TOP OF that...

Good lord.

I can't even imagine what that would look like from the dev's perspective, either. Like, how complicated and time consuming that would be to implement.

As a player, I'd probably just do a "set it and forget it" type thing. One piece of equipment to cover every element and be done. Especially if they're "flat bonuses". Or, if I REALLY NEED fire immunity, just equip red stuff on everyone for the fire dungeon and then swap it all back out when I leave. Which, I mean... is more complicated than "buy a Fire Resist Ring for everyone at the town outside the fire dungeon"... and that only takes up a single slot of equipment. Imagine making your players swap out 7 pieces of equipment per character when they wanted to go to the Fire Dungeon.

Even my own system that heavily involves "players need to swap their armor for the challenge ahead", relies on a "general defense", rather than something like a tiered one. Like... all Chainmail, regardless of Tier, reduces damage from Piercing attacks by like 50%. I'm also not asking my players "swap out armor" very frequently either. Nor does every character have access to Chain Mail to equip either...

Menu fatigue is a thing. Even I know to avoid making players swap equipment frequently, and when they have to, that they don't have to do much of it.

I'm curious to hear about which ideas would be feasible to implement, as well as general critiques and suggestions. In particular I'm curious about how linking together individual pieces of equipment could work in RPG Maker, without having to cycle through each individual combination of equipment slots.

Lemme know what you think ^^

Feasibility... I'm not sure. It's likely possible to do so, but I can't imagine doing it wouldn't be tedious for the dev to implement. It also just has so many downsides, that I'm not even sure it'd be worth the effort to implement.

Sure, it "sounds cool" on paper, but in practice? Eh...

There's a reason I tend to give this advice:

Do not implement things based on "rule of cool". Everything you implement needs to have a purpose. If it doesn't serve that purpose, then you get rid of it.

Every feature you put into a game needs to answer two questions:
1. What do you want the player to do/feel?
2. How does this feature accomplish that?

Never implement something because "game I really liked had this feature, therefore, it will be good in my game too". Too many devs fall into this trap.

"X game had Crafting! I WANT CRAFTING IN MY GAME TOO!".

Yeah, well, crafting is rarely done very well, and if you don't know what you're doing and it serves no purpose other than "to exist, because game I liked had it in it", then your players aren't going to like it either.

So, I ask you:

What do you want this system to do?
What do you want your players to get out of this?
How does it accomplish those goals?

If you can't answer any of those questions for this sytem, then I recommend complete scrapping of it.

 

[gstv87]

haven't read all of it, but here's my two cents: work by addition, never by subtraction.
have all the base skeletons for characters be the same, and have all the equipment always add on top.
don't give the equipment negative values.. it's easier that way.

you can add a sort of "primer" layer before that, on top of the base character, that makes every character unique.
so, the character with the lowest value on a stat would never get to be the highest rated when compared to *the* highest rated class with no upgrades, even after upgrading.
and, the lowest stat will never go lower than that.
the lowest will never go lower, the highest will always be highest regardless, but all the middle ground will shift around depending on how you equip them.

if your system is set to work from 0 to 999, you'll have to squeeze the whole construct in there, with upgrades and all, so the highest value will never exceed 999 whenever a display of value is required (battle damage, menus, status display, etc)
that will give you a base line to start shaping things.