Upgrading Skill System and Combat

[EGStryker]

Hey, everyone!

So, just recently, my game used to take the path of the common skill system which is having each character learn 5-8 skills with of course different effects as much as possible which requires MP which I called EP or energy points. In addition to this, each of my characters has their ultimate skill which consumes 100 CP or charge points (obviously the TP). I believe that this is commonly done to many RPGs out there, but I'm somewhat concerned about having basic attack useless at some point. My game also have a lot of characters (around 30+) since it will have a guild system and as I started to create skills, the effects of different skills became a bit redundant and it went to the point wherein I think as a player, it's no fun building and strengthening different characters at all. Building every characters is what I aim to do since there will be like a free roaming around my game with additional challenges once the game is done.

As I started to think of a way around this, I came up with an idea. First is my concern about the standard basic attack. Now each of my characters has its own unique basic attack. Like the first 4 characters introduced in the game. The first one deals damage twice, one deals damage with nature element, one with mental element and the last one deal physical damage but a bit stronger compared to the other three. I came up with this idea believing that this will give flexibility and uniqueness to every characters because as I've stated, there's a lot of characters in my game.

Second thing is the skills. From 5-8 skills, I came up with each characters being limited to three skills. However, these skills can be upgraded twice. I know this one's been done a lot too, but upgrading them usually doesn't just increase the skill's damage. One great example is the skill I came up with which I called "Electric Kill". I'll leave the skill description here as an exaimple.

Electric Kill I - deals damage equal to 150% of the user's attack. If target is affected by Shock, deals 50% more damage. Cooldown: 1
Electric Kill II - Skill will have additional 10% chance to critically hit. If the hit is critical, resets the skill cooldown.
Electric Kill III - Killing an enemy with this skill will inflict Shock to the remaining enemies.

With this kind of skill upgrades, I think I gave more potential to one skill while battling strategically. Also, this will make each characters unique as well and will give players the idea of like, "Oh, the area I'm going to is filled with blah blah monsters, so I guess bringing this with me will be nice." And personally, I'm loving the idea. All their skills will have different kinds of upgrade of course.

Now my new concern is, is this actually a good idea? Won't this overwhelm players? Like many characters with different assets and liabilities? And with this kind of skill upgrades, will it still be a good idea to give each characters a nuke skill or an ultimate skill? 'Cause, you know, overpowered? Any ideas and feedbacks will be appreciated.

 

[Milennin]

I think the idea of skill upgrades is fine, the main problem is more of an RPG Maker thing, and that's dealing with the limited skill texts. If your skills have like 4 different effects each, how do you get all that information to show for the player during combat? Because if the only time you can see what the upgraded skill does in the upgrade window, people are going to forget what it does.

And with this kind of skill upgrades, will it still be a good idea to give each characters a nuke skill or an ultimate skill? 'Cause, you know, overpowered? Any ideas and feedbacks will be appreciated.

Only a lot of testing and time will tell.

 

[XIIIthHarbinger]

30+ characters seems excessive depending upon the amount of time you spend in game. & finding a way to make 30+ characters feel different from each other will be difficult.

I've seen games that executed it well, for example the Shining Force series often had that many characters. However, you often took a dozen characters into every battle, so it was relatively easy to rotate a new character in, see how they operated within the larger group, & then decide whether to keep them as part of battle party, or keep them as a bench warmer.

How many are you planning to have in the battle party, & what happens to the characters who are "one the bench"? If your "on the bench" characters don't level up &/or their skills don't level up, the player will lose any incentive to take them off of the bench rather quickly. Making the overwhelming majority of those 30+ characters pointless.

I would say that as much as possible, you need to make certain that there is virtually no overlap in skills, so that each character feels unique. Because otherwise half your roster is simply going to be pointless filler. Not to mention keeping them balanced to the best of your ability, so that you don't have half a dozen or so characters that are so fundamentally better than the other 20+ characters, that player doesn't see any point in using them.

 

[EGStryker]

If your skills have like 4 different effects each, how do you get all that information to show for the player during combat? Because if the only time you can see what the upgraded skill does in the upgrade window, people are going to forget what it does.

I'm taking advantage of Yanfly's plugin which decreases the text size to display those added effects. Seems pretty useful for that.

@XIIIthHarbinger maybe 5 battle members? Non-battle members won't receive any exp though. I'm planning to make the players grind to keep up with the previously owned characters as each characters will have their weaknesses. So it's possible that the previously owned characters won't be effective at a certain point in the game, forcing the players to build all characters for wider range of synergy and strategy.

 

[Milennin]

I'm taking advantage of Yanfly's plugin which decreases the text size to display those added effects. Seems pretty useful for that.

Oh, what's it called?

 

[EGStryker]

@Milennin Yanfly's Message Core by using the \fs[x] command with x being your desired font size right before the text you want to display.

 

[XIIIthHarbinger]

I'm taking advantage of Yanfly's plugin which decreases the text size to display those added effects. Seems pretty useful for that.

@XIIIthHarbinger maybe 5 battle members? Non-battle members won't receive any exp though. I'm planning to make the players grind to keep up with the previously owned characters as each characters will have their weaknesses. So it's possible that the previously owned characters won't be effective at a certain point in the game, forcing the players to build all characters for wider range of synergy and strategy.

The problem I see with that, is you're essentially talking six or more possible teams of characters for grinding. Virtually nobody is going to grind with six different teams of characters in the same area, so that all of the characters can stay useful. So most of the characters that you have are going to be to end being ignored "bench warming" characters.

Unless you force the player to use all of the characters at different points in the game, in which case you're going to irk more than a few of your players. Because grinding is bad enough with one team of characters in an RPG, but grinding for six or more teams of characters is likely to cause your player to simply quit.

Now if you're fine letting the player choose who they use, & two thirds or more of the characters really not seeing any use then there isn't an issue. I have seen games that do that. Once again the Shining Force series is a good example. As your bench warmer characters don't level up with your active characters. So by the end of the game you have characters that are ten, twenty, or even thirty levels behind your battle party members; but it doesn't matter because the game doesn't force you to use them. They can be nothing more than decorations that you occasionally interact with at your headquarters.

 

[EGStryker]

@XIIIthHarbinger I don't mind letting the players pick who to build and invest time in. And I don't think I'll force players to use a certain character too on how I will design the game to the point that it really is needed. The characters that aren't that much effective at a certain point wouldn't really be useless at all. The team will just be put in a disadvantage but still manageable.

I see your point and this will help guide me towards the change I'm going to implement on my game. I will keep this in mind. Thank you so much. : D

 

[XIIIthHarbinger]

No worries,