The RPG Duelling League
RPG Debate => RPGDL Discussion => Topic started by: AndrewRogue on June 02, 2012, 11:34:14 PM
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Major Mechanics Not Yet Determined:
-Skill Learning? (Level, plot, some of A and B, other?)
-Clarify PC Swapping
Game Basics:
-True Episodic Release (Continuity issues = questions at beginning if we go that route)
-Turn Based (Default VX/VXA)
-CTB (Doable via Scripts VX/VXA)
-4 PCs in battle Max (Default VX/VXA)
-Side Facing (Doable via Scripts VX/VXA)
-Randoms Encounter Meter (ala CST, BoD, etc). Fight Random NOW button. Does not restore when leaving area.
-Heal Post Battle: HP/Revive, yes. Resources? (Note: Remember this necessitates designing towards individual encounters generally, unless we run a couple of attrition segments) (Scripts in VX/VXA)
-Save Anywhere, block Saves if becoming stuck is possible (Default VX/VXA)
-Limited in battle healing/revival, enforce via heal blocking/HP reduction off big heals/revivals normally (Default VX/VXA)
-Escape is possible from most battles, encounter manipulation tools exist (Default VX/VXA)
-Characters all level simultaneously (Scripts in VX/VXA?)
-Character Commands (As follows, Scripts in VX/VXA)
--Fight
--[Special]
--Defend (Unique Effects included)
--Weapon Swap
--Character Change
--Item
--Escape
-Exp curve (Roughly 10-15 levels per episode, expected end level is cap -2, ~50% harder to achieve new levels)
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Stats:
-HP: Representative of a character's health. Lose these, you die. (Default)
-MP: Representative of a character's stamina. Resource. Functions as you think of it. Tends towards magical skills. (Default)
-Focus: Representative of a character's ability to fully utilize their abilities. Resource. Functions similar to WA FP, though for individual PCs. Tends towards specials. (Default VXA, Script VX)
-Strength (Str): Representative of a character's physical strength. Increases damage dealt by physical attacks. Typically linear. (Default)
-Dexterity (Dex): Representative of a character's ability to attack and defend quickly. A higher Dex stat allows the character to swing more often when making physical attacks, and also causes enemies to swing less often when attacking him or her. (Doable via Scripts in VX, unsure VXA)
-Vitality (Vit): Representative of a character's physical durability. Reduces physical damage received (as well as some magical damage). Divisive. (Default)
-Intelligence (Int): Representative of a character's intelligence and ability to use magic. Increases damage (and healing) dealt by magical attacks. Typically slightly quadratic. (Default in VXA, merged with Spirit in VX thus requires scripts)
-Spirit (Spi): Representative of the strength of a character's soul/whatever that other world that is escaping my mind right now was. Reduces magical damage received. Divisive. (Default in VXA, merged with Intelligence in VX thus requires scripts)
-Speed (Spd): Representative of the character's physical speed and reaction time. Increases how quickly the character gets turns. Linear. (Default)
-Evade (Eva): Representative of a character's ability to avoid attacks. The higher this is, the higher the character's chance to evade (take no damage from) incoming attacks. (Default, Requires Scripts to function as modifier vs Acc VX/VXA)
-Attack (Atk): Representative of how well a weapon penetrates armor. Stat that determines physical damage (equipment only) (Requires Scripting in VX//VXA)
-Def (Def): Representative of how well armor defends against weapons. Stat that determines physical defense (equipment only) (Requires Scripting in VX//VXA)
-Magic Defense (Mdef): Representative of how well armor defends against magic. Stat that determines magical defense (equipment only) (Requires Scripting in VX//VXA)
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Needs revisions, pending this week's meeting.
Stat Scaling (All Default, as this can be handled manually in both VX/VXA):
-Stat = Base stat * (Level + 50) / 50 (Default)
For the notes below, "average" indicates the value of a stat that is rank C (Scales 8 ranks up, Scales 8 ranks down), whether or not this is the actual statistical average.
-Base stats for all core stats is 60 (meaning 120 at endgame).
-Base HP averages 800 (-> 1600)
-Base MP averages 200 (-> 400)
-Accuracy, Evade, and MEvade do not grow with levels. All three average 40 before equipment. Unlike the core stats they are regularly modified by equipment, however.
Base stats vary by the following amount per rank difference (i.e. from C- to C to C+ to B-, etc.), again assuming C as the average:
HP: 30 (3.75%)
MP: 20 (10%)
Str: 6 (10%)
Dex: 5.4 (9%), rounded to the nearest integer
Vit: 3 (5%)
Int: 4.8 (8%), rounded to the nearest integer
Spi: 3 (5%)
Spd: 3 (5%)
Eva: 5% raw
The core equipment stats (Atk, Def, and MDef) also roughly double in potency from earlygame to endgame. Unlike with personal stats this is not the result of a formula but instead is an approximation to the precise stats on pieces of equipment scattered throughout the game.
All weapons possess an Atk stat, while all armours possess Def and MDef stats (though in rare cases these may be 0). Def and MDef, like core stats, initially average 60 and rise to 120. Atk stats are twice as high, averaging 120 and rising to 240.
Specific stats for equipment is more appropriately found in the Equipment section, but some general trends... Weapon Atk typically ranges from 84->168 (gloves) to 165->330 (hammers), while armour defences typically range from 48->96 (light armour Def, heavy armour MDef) to 84->168 (heavy armour Def).
Weapons also add directly onto Hit, while armours add directly to Evade. Average weapon Hit is 70 earlygame, 90 lategame.
Average enemy Evade rises from 25 to 45, meaning that C accuracy wielding an average Hit weapon strikes an average enemy 85% of the time. Note that the actual statistical average accuracy is around a C+, so this true average hits around 90% of the time. Naturally, enemy evade will vary widely, however.
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Formulas (Scripts in both VX/VXA)
Accuracy = (100 + Hit - Eva)%
For physical attacks, Hit uses the weapon's hit. For magical attacks, Hit is simply a number taken directly from the magical attack used. Most Hit stats should be lowish (0-40); due to caps in the system, 100 hit is ITE.
For attacks with multiple swings or which target multiple targets, each individual swing and target gets its own hit check. The same applies to critical checks, below.
Physical damage = FS * (Atk - Def) * Strength / Vitality
FS stands for "first swing". The first swing of an attack (including the only swing if only one is made) has FS=2; all swings beyond the first have FS=1 (note: Ilona has a passive which changes this).
The damage formula is thus refreshingly simple. For all swings beyond the first, if the attacker and defender have equal Str/Vit, then damage is literally just Atk - Def (with the first swing being double this). Strength/Vitality gaps multiply this damage in the appopriate direction.
Swing count
Only applies to physical attacks. Compare the attacking Dexterity (Dex multiplied by the DexMod of the equipped weapon) to the Dex of the target enemy. If a physical attack targets multiple enemies at the same time, then the highest target Dex is used.
If attacking Dex is lower than defending Dex, then only 1 swing is made.
If attacking Dex >= 100% of defending Dex, then 2 swings are made
If attacking Dex >= 125% of defending Dex, then 3 swings are made
... 150% -> 4 swings
... 175% -> 5 swings
... 200% -> 6 swings
... and so on. More formally,
Swing count = (Attacking Dex * 4) / Defending Dex - 2 (rounded down, minimum of 1, maximum of 8)
If all attacks hit and do not crit, total damage is then: (Swing count + 1) * (Atk - Def) * Strength / Vitality
Critical hits
A critical hit does either:
Final damage = old final damage * 2
or
Calculate attack with target's Def replaced by (old target's Def / 2)
whichever results in HIGHER damage. Which version to will do more damage can be predicted by checking whether Atk is over or under Def*3/2.
Critical rate is based entirely on a combination of weapon and modifications due to passive and active skills.
Magic damage = [(Level/50 + 1) * Power - MDef] * Magic / Spirit
Power is a constant associated the spell or item being used. Higher powers overcome defence better (and will likely have fewer hits to compensate), and also scale -slightly- better with time. Spells do not scale quite as well with time as raw physical attacks (but PCs get upgraded spells to compensate). It is expected that most spells will hover roughly in the range of 40-80 power; outliers will interact with defence in extreme manners (i.e. be very affected by it or nearly ITD).
Some spells will use Vitality in place of Spirit.
Healing = Magic * Power / 10
Much simpler. Note that HP is currently ~5x higher than Magic so 50 power is roughly full healing, assuming average Magic and HP.
Experience gained = 10 * 1.5 ^ (defeated enemy level - PC level)
All levels take 200 exp to reach, and overflow exp past the amount needed to level is divided by 1.5 (as if the PC levelled up and then gained the rest of the exp). Enemies more than 5 levels above the PCs are treated as 5 levels above by the exp formula. Exp gain is rounded down.
The net result of this is that one must defeat 20 enemies of equal level (e.g. 7-8 battles of 2-3 enemies each) in order to level up. Grinding is possible but increasingly difficult as the player levels. There may be a level cap for each chapter, which will be roughly 2 levels above where the player is "expected" to finish.
Speed and turns
Speed is linear. Is linear, meaning that 200 speed gets twice as many turns as 100 speed. Like many CTB-like systems, the game uses a clocktick system for determining turn order.
Defending has a flexible RechargeMod depending on PC but will likely be 0.5 as a default
Weapon switching has a RechargeMod of 0.5.
(The following would be nice to have, but likely will not happen:)
TurnCounters of all PCs are displayed visually on a vertical graphic which, at battle's start, is scaled such that all PCs and enemies will always (normally) be visible on it, i.e. it allows for TurnCounters which are anywhere from 0 to 10000 / (slowest PC or enemy's Spd), plus some extra (50%? More?) to be safe. Thus, in battle, all combatants can be seen marching up the gauge at equal speeds, getting their turn when reaching the top, with slower (or slower recharging) characters dropping down further than the fast after each get their turns. Attacks with varying charge and recharge times will have their effect on the PC's next turn shown visually as the player chooses the commands, in a fashion similar to Final Fantasy X or the Shadow Hearts sequels.
(Note that 10000 is a totally arbitrary constant which only matters for coding purposes and affects nothing the player can easily detect.)
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PC Resources
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Equipment (Scripting in VX/VXA)
Weapon: Primarily deals with Attack.
(Off-Hand Weapon)
Armor: Primarily deals with Defense/MDefense
Accessory: Utility Item
Accessory: Utility Item
Weapon Categories (Needs Trimming Badly Based On Cast, Preliminary Assessment) (Scripting in VX/VXA)
Gloves
Katars
Daggers/Knives
Light Swords/Rapiers
Guardian Blades
Greatswords
Scythes
Javelins/Shortspears (Merge into Polearm)
Spears (Merge into Polearm)
Pikes (Merge into Polearm)
Staves
Whips/Chains
Axes/Maces
Great Axes/Hammers
Bows/Crossbows
Darts/Throwing Knives
Boomerangs/Slings
Shields (Trim?)
Rings (Trim)
Cookware (Trim)
Instruments (Trim)
Armor Categories (Default)
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Items
-Exist. Possibly scale down in general use. (Default)
-"Hi-Items" for some PCs (Scripting in VX/VXA)
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Reserved
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Reserved
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Some quick clarifications off the top of my head. These are to the best of my knowledge, so if there's anything to correct here, someone feel free.
-There are, in fact, scripts that enable sideview battles for VXA (ones that aren't Tankentai, even).
-Both VX and VXA allow for the disabling and re-enabling of saving anywhere by default.
-VX uses the same stat for magic attack and magic defense. VXA however seperates the two.
-Equipment-only stats will need to be scripted since there are no equipment-only stats by default in both systems.
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Looks good!
The only thing I'm curious about is if we can get some more elaboration on the Random Battles. I'm fine with just unseen Randoms, but I heard that there's a "Call Battle" command in the events section which would make On-Screen Enemies entirely doable (and even re-spawning upon exit/re-entering a room).
I honestly think that this would be a much nicer functions than simply randoms.
Alternately, I'd say we outright steal the CStW "Encounter Countdown" meter so that dungeon-crawling doesn't get bogged down with endless Randoms.
Both methods can even be tied into the story easily.
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You'd have to explain CStW's method to me, as I'm unfamiliar. I have no problems with a spin on pure rando-encounters though.
The reason we are currently opting against on-screen enemies is that it is actually a fair amount of work (mapping, spriting, eventing, etc) for debatable pay-off. During the previous discussion, people were relatively lukewarm about it, which doesn't really justify the possible workload involved.
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CstW I assume follows on from Breath of Death in that there is random encounters, but a fixed number of encounters per area, so if you grind out stuff you can explore dungeons unimpeded. There is also an option to look for a fight if you feel the need for grindan.
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Sounds like a pretty clever system. I believe there was mention of it being scriptable in chat (I remember it came up once before). I'd be interested in talking about it. Sounds like a pretty solid idea.
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Just to confirm an encounter counter would be easy to script. We would have the option of whether we would want the counter to reset every time we leave and re-enter an area, not sure what we'd want there.
I remain pretty ambivalent on how we handle encounters, with the following stipulations:
(a) on-map encounters are notably more work. If we want to put that work in, fine, but let's weigh the decision carefully.
(b) encounter control is a pretty big deal to me, whether it be in the form of a temporary "no encounters" item (a la Mrbl3's, Repels, etc.), WA4-style break points (nothing worse than re-exploring an old area and being interrupted by piss-weak randoms), or some other method.
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NEB's B is important to me as well. As someone who understands the urge to just be able to dive past randoms sometimes (replays, when I'm in a hurry, when they are seriously dragging me down), I am in full support of this ideal.
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Hm. I think we might as well confirm at this point that between the increased difficulty of A (no Call Random script, no Self-Switch Reset script), NEB, Trance's, and others' greater knowledge of RGSS2, and the general greater availability of VX, we're going with RMVX as opposed to VX Ace--poor music be damned. Of course, this probably means we can't have that many outlier damage equations without more scripting, but that's beside the point.
That aside, going with B, we've got a few ways of going about it, to say the least.
*Battle Counter (As seen in Ar Tonelico 2, Cthulhu Saves the World, so on) -- This is actually eventable, though if you need a graphical display, then there might be scripting involved--or possibly not. Yanfly's scripts include a graphical "encounter warning" deal that only turns on when there's a risk of an encounter. Needless to say, this value can easily be adjusted for when running out of encounters would simply not make sense for the area, but that's beside the point.
*Item-Based Repel (As seen in...countless games, really.) -- Yanfly's got coding for this. It's already been done, it works. It is step-based, for what that matters.
*Break Points (As seen in WA4, WA5) -- This...well, okay. The matter of activating break points is simple enough with eventing, be it field-style (with supercharged randoms) or dungeon-style (with puzzles). The trick here is whether you want to force encounters to be turned on and off at the break point, or in the style of WA4/WA5 (with a button after the break point's been cleared). In the latter case...well, have fun scripting that.
--Yes, the weapon categories do need trimming badly. We can largely do that upon cast detailing, I believe. We do not need twenty types of weapons--though I would like to keep it to where each PC has more than one weapon option, at least (No need for unique weapon classes, though). Single-weapon PCs are boring.
--I figure that if we're enumerating weapons, armor, and whatnot, we might as well make a tentative decision on precisely what element set to use; given NEB's opposition to nontyped attacks (even with them being energy-based) and my opposition to element quota-filling, we might as well make an official decision/statement on this at some point. I know that so far, we have the following:
-Slashing
-Impact
-Piercing
-Fire (I don't get why it's such a big thing, but hey, it's a basic element, and Erastus gets it, I guess)
-Disquiet (Enemy-usable only)
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Step-based encounter control ala Pokemon Repels seems pretty fair given RMVX's tile-based movement, I think it would really be fine if we were to pick that route. On-map encounters are a hassle and I'm not sure if they're worth the effort at all, because it also adds the dimension of on-screen enemy graphics, and if we want just one generic one, multiple, etc. Personally I am in favor of B mostly because we've got more options there and not all of them are annoying to implement.
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I think we roughly had figured (going off both gameplay and world here)...
-Slash/Impact/Pierce (Physical)
-Lightning (Metal)/Fire/Ice (Water)/Earth (Some secondary damage type? This one is always annoying)/Wood (Ostensibly Healing/Debuff effects only)
-Disquiet
Roughly speaking. Covers a decent range of elements and syncs well with plot concepts. Doesn't give us too many to deal with, but covers things decently enough.
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Andy has given us statheads the task of figuring out the generals of skill use; How skills are learned, their general usages, and enumerating in general terms what resources characters would be using. Basically, "who has what, how they get that what, and what it costs" --General terms, not overly specific, mind you.
As such, I'll try my own attempt on the six or so that are notably pinned down; Katarine and The Person Formerly Named Faulheit are going to be excepted for now because nobody seems to be able to agree on the former (especially now that we're reaching critical mass for pure casters), and the latter's undergoing a retool anyway.
Noemi--Variety of magic in general. (Offense, status, buffing, maybe a token heal later on)--she's a magical jack of all trades. Oh, and Prodigy to give her any other spell she may want from an ally for the fight. Depending, she may have a physical technique or two to use as well, but she's more variety than focus; master of none.
Prodigy should be started with, and as for the rest...well, she might be a decent starting point for basing how magic is learned in general. My kneejerk would be a skillpoint system (scripts exist for both engines), but that would then make me want to force a branching setup for spells--and I know Andy has stated he wants innate character progression to be linear, not branching, so I'm lacking in ideas for the time being.
I say she's a candidate for being of the multi-element persuasion, regardless; fire (Courtesy of Erastus' tutelage) and one or two others.
Mirek--Mirek is weird in that he's being expanded from his old self, rather than contracted, gameplaywise. But as such...largely varying physical attacks, and support abilities that are focused around defending against magic--both personally and for the party.
Largely, Mirek would probably be more TP-oriented than most--with the ability to smash the ever-living crap out of someone should his TP get maxed. (Note to self: there should not be a way to get a quick TP boost). Might either use MP or cooldowns for his more commonly-usable abilities.
Slashing-only as far as elements go. Yeah, he's that limited--unless we're going with sheathed attacks, in which case most of his attacks would be Impact.
Isolde--Isolde's largely being expanded in a different way--and reined in from her old incarnation. I guess I'll give in and go with the ice/earth everyone's pushing on her. :/
That aside, seeing Isolde as a mix of Magic, Physical, and Composite damage skills here--practically everything she has does damage of some sort, and if it doesn't have a rider effect (which would usually amount to debuffing enemy defensive/evasion stats in some capacity), it's often busy doing -more- damage. Oh, and Oversurge lets her get a shot of extra damage at a cost.
As far as resources go? MP at the very least, with Oversurge being a skill that costs HP straight up for an instant one-shot boost to an attack (but also increases MP costs for that attack to prevent abuse). May also factor in TP or cooldowns pending on how we're doing physical and composite skills on average.
Kasia--We'll be honest. Kasia's a healer. That means she's going to have the standard healer options (healing, possible status heal, revive) at some point--though with these all inflicting some sort of negative status on the recipient in turn. That aside, she's going to have her selection of status options, both through magic and through archery, the way I see it--we need fewer pure casters anyway. Standard status fare, I guess (Poison, blind, etc), with archery stuff doing damage as well.
Resources? ...yeah, MP for magic, TP/cooldown for physicals, assuming MP isn't going to be a general-use SP? I admit I'm slightly in favor of TP being used as more of a WA FP style thing here for most characters, but at the same time it's due to me liking to see basic physical use kept to a minimum--but that's my bias.
Erastus--Nothing really deep. He's a farking fire nuker mage. Could give him some sort of TP skills to expand upon his skillset, but as far as I'm convinced he's going to be largely one-dimensional. He's artillery, he'll blow stuff up--see later on how I'm seeing offensive elemental magic working.
Eirwen--Okay, so she's going to be a fast attacker, and the game is apparently going to have two entirely different classes of staves. Still say there's D3 influence here. :P That aside, I admit I'm not keen on the notion of making her absolutely dependent on weapon switching. However, I have a better idea on her resources than any of the other characters here, oddly enough: Rapidly regenerating TP, with most of her skills running off of that (and some usable turn 1, even). Cooldowns on a few of her skills (particularly First Aid and Resuscitate, her skill-based healing), and then she has Hi-Item access. Keep in mind, Hi-Item can encompass more than the better healing items, and if we are going magitech, there'll likely be bombs or the like in there somewhere.
Element quirks in general: I will admit, if it's one thing I utterly and completely detest, it's copypasta elemental spells with nothing differentiating them outside of element. It's boring, unimaginative, and needs to go, so I'll try to address this now. Properties for generic elemental spells, assuming I'm getting the list for proper offensive magic elements right (If not, poke me and I can include the others) (Unique stuff can break with these properties as much as it wants, it's unique and all that crap.):
Fire--Tends toward multihitting at lower power. In turn, it's generally sensitive to MDEF, and even merely above-average MDEF can put a damper on it. In short, it's Faulheit's wind spells from the old IAQ
Ice--Ice is more on the slightly low-powered side, but with a tendency to delay the opponent it hits.
Lightning--Super-accurate, but unreliable when it comes to its effects; very high damage variance means it can hit hard, or barely touch you at all. May also have a notable critrate for additional gamble-time bullshit. MT variants may trade this in for being rando-target off of shoddy accuracy instead.i
Earth--Earth is arguably the "power" element here, the way I'm proposing--not MDEF sensitive and good power with particularly low variance. But it's expensive, and has lower accuracy compared to the others.
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Here's my little "treatise" on how I think some of the characters should be handled. I suppose these are mostly to bounce ideas around and also to comment on some existing things which have been laid out. Which mostly seems thus far to consist of Namapost. I don't want to be very specific about it either, but it might end up drifting that way due to how I write things. I might also be a bit confusing. So like, let me know. For the same reasons as Nama, I won't touch on Katarine and whats-his-face. But before hand, I suppose I'll write about how I think of skill acquisition methods sometime too.
Well, one was already mentioned - skill points. That leads to a degree of customization that people might like, however it's hard to stick to the original ideal of "linear progression," and it becomes even more awry depending on how skill points are handled and how skill point gain scales. I think a skill tree system has also been developed but I do not remember where it is at present. It'll probably be more troublesome than it's worth and definitely does not follow "linear progression." That said, we may just have to stick to standard level-based ability gains for the meanwhile unless there are no objections for skill point.
So I guess I can head off to the characters proper now.
NOEMI
I think it's been well established that she's capable of using magic of many varieties and that they're not necessarily focused - her lack of specialization is what makes her stand out, so it's imperative to make sure that the spells she gets, while spread thin such as offense, status and buffs/debuffs, should never be as strong as another character who specializes in a given area of expertise but should not be too weak as to invalidate the variety she has. This probably will serve to be a challenge though, especially if some of her spells are universal (that is, she's not the only character with said spells).
On the physical side of the spectrum, she should probably not have very many physical abilities if any at all - the mere fact she's capable of using a weapon that isn't a staff (most likely a dagger, but I believe Andy in the PLOT THREAD mentioned the prospect of Noemi perhaps using 1H swords) is already testament to her Jack of All Trades nature. It would be cool if Noemi did get one or two uniques to fit her character, but I don't foresee this happening necessarily - I was thinking maybe something for flavor purposes, does not necessarily have to be that strong. On par with standard storeboughts, maybe? Or have a neat side-effect.
Prodigy is overall good.
MIREK
Sheathed blade strikes scream Iai as all fuck to me, which is kickass. In which case Impact would be more suitable of the physical elements here versus Slashing, unless he's going to be drawing the thing too. I don't think we should be restricted strictly to one element, but there would definitely be an innate bias to one of them vis-a-vis the other(s). The general consensus appears to be magic suppresion, both for self and party. This can be anywhere between direct elemental suppression to general magic defense. Reflect spells may be a neat touch too, but they'd probably be ST. These spells and defensive abilities would utilize the magic resource pool, whether that be MP or some other resource. If cooldowns are to be implemented they should be for any damage-cutting or damage-blocking spells.
Since TP appears to be the general physical resource for now, it seems fine that that'd be the pool of choice. Not sure if a max-TP limit would be a good idea, though. Actually, I think a better touch to fit the character thematically would be high-TP cost Slashing attacks, which while very few in number, would be solid damage dealers. On the flip side he would have mostly low-TP cost Impact attacks taking a line from the sheathed attack deal, and perhaps some of them would have secondary effects.
ISOLDE
Crushing enemies with Ice/Earth? Can work with that. High-energy attacks and utilizing a sort of bruiser philosophy would mean that her abilities should probably have moderate-to-high resource cost, but having a relatively high power to offset the higher costs. Not sure about composite damage skills, but they'd be a neat touch I guess. I prefer the distinct magic/physical split - magic attacks can focus on efficient target decimation while physical attacks have slightly less punch but come with debilitating effects, so as to encourage a more tactical usage of what I guess appears to me like a large arsenal. The whole "heavy weaponry" thing also makes me want to gear Isolde's physical repertoire with secondary effects and leave her magic as the truly damaging stuff.
Ok, apparently Oversurge seems to be a straight-up damage buff to skills that deal it, with an HP cost. That's pretty neat, but if we're going to factor in additional MP (and potentially TP and cooldowns) cost we should be careful as to how to scale that. Would it be based on initial MP cost? A percentage of the HP cost? In fact, how would Oversurge's HP cost be handled? Would it scale with levels? Or is it constant? Many questions need to be answered as to how to handle Oversurge. Mainly, it lies on this - does the boost from Oversurge become slowly higher as Isolde becomes stronger? Or is it constant? We should figure this out first. Food for thought mostly, because I have honestly not seen much discussion on the skill mechanic as a whole.
KASIA
Healbitch
Just kidding. Just taking a gander at her very rudimentary character info, she seems to be archer healer/doctor type. I always like those characters!
>Some sort of negative status on the recipient in turn
What? I am not sure where the impetus for this is coming from, but I'm not sure I can stand for a healer whose skills inflict drawbacks on the recipient of the heal/recovery unless said skills were REALLY good, so good that it justifies the drawback. Where did this come from? I'd really like to know, because this kind of screams "questionable decision" to me. However, this also really depends on the definition of "negative status." I'd probably agree with it a bit if the skills inflicted things like say, Sleep or Confusion, status that actually makes sense given the nature of Kasia's healing, but other than that, I don't think I can condone encouraging that direction.
Since she seems to be competent with a bow, and she's a student/researcher, it's very viable for her to be able to inflict status with her bow and some form of damage, piddly or not. The resource split would be obviously even between MP and TP (or whatever names will be finalized for the resources). However, it should not be such that it would encourage physical use more than Kasia's actually competent magic. It's just strictly an option there for when she doesn't actually need to heal.
ERASTUS
We've sort of agreed at this point that Erastus is a wizard.
He blows shit up.
WITH FIRE.
I don't really think much else needs to be said, mostly agree with the one-dimensional shtick going on. But it needs to be powerful enough to justify using it throughout the game. Again, careful thought and consideration with scaling is needed here to strike a balance.
EIRWEN
>Quarterstaff
BO STAFF BO STAFF BO STAFF
Okay, all seriousness. Swift attacker is something I can agree on, and it appears to me that there was a form of SOME Monk influence, doesn't seem to be from D3 though. Not sure about Hi-Item, but I can definitely agree that some form of enhanced item usage skill should be available. I don't think I was around for most of the more intricate discussions regarding the characters, so I'm basically shooting in the dark here. I think in her case the TP/physical resource build up would be gradual based on levels or stacks of resources, each of her skills requiring a number of stacks. Turn 1 would be 1 stack and some skills only need 1, and so on and so forth. I don't know why. I don't even remember if that can be easily implemented. Probably can be if I unlazy. Or something.
It's like 2313 at the time of posting so this is all I've got for now.
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Guess I'll try to clarify some things, given that I have the time and inclination to do so;
Ok, apparently Oversurge seems to be a straight-up damage buff to skills that deal it, with an HP cost. That's pretty neat, but if we're going to factor in additional MP (and potentially TP and cooldowns) cost we should be careful as to how to scale that. Would it be based on initial MP cost? A percentage of the HP cost? In fact, how would Oversurge's HP cost be handled? Would it scale with levels? Or is it constant? Many questions need to be answered as to how to handle Oversurge. Mainly, it lies on this - does the boost from Oversurge become slowly higher as Isolde becomes stronger? Or is it constant? We should figure this out first. Food for thought mostly, because I have honestly not seen much discussion on the skill mechanic as a whole.
--While specifics are typically out of the question at this phase, I feel I might as well go into a few to clarify what I imagine for Oversurge: HP cost is something between 20-40%, boost would be something between 1.5 and 2x (numbers are a range as of current, and definitely a loose estimate at this point). MP cost would similarly be multiplied to 1.5-2x original value; the reasoning behind this is that since full HP recovery is applied at the end of each battle, there would normally be little reason to NOT have Isolde oversurge-nuke and pretty much get away with vaporizing randoms at a level of unparalleled efficiency unless it ate into her resources more. (And then take advantage of recovery points to be at full for the boss) Needless to say, I figured this cost multiplier to MP (not to TP, given that you have to build up to it to begin with) would be a mitigating factor to keep her from simply nuking every single random to kingdom come with no repercussions.
>Some sort of negative status on the recipient in turn
What? I am not sure where the impetus for this is coming from, but I'm not sure I can stand for a healer whose skills inflict drawbacks on the recipient of the heal/recovery unless said skills were REALLY good, so good that it justifies the drawback. Where did this come from? I'd really like to know, because this kind of screams "questionable decision" to me. However, this also really depends on the definition of "negative status." I'd probably agree with it a bit if the skills inflicted things like say, Sleep or Confusion, status that actually makes sense given the nature of Kasia's healing, but other than that, I don't think I can condone encouraging that direction.
--This is both a carryover from the old IAQ and something that was meant to be thematic with the setting--Magical healing basically doing bad stuff to you in the long run. The standard penalties I remember generally being attached to being affected by magical healing was either defense/magic defense loss, max HP reduction, or having further healing blocked. Whether or not we keep with that is to be determined, but it is a matter of the setting.
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--This is both a carryover from the old IAQ and something that was meant to be thematic with the setting--Magical healing basically doing bad stuff to you in the long run. The standard penalties I remember generally being attached to being affected by magical healing was either defense/magic defense loss, max HP reduction, or having further healing blocked. Whether or not we keep with that is to be determined, but it is a matter of the setting.
This is something I virtually had no idea about.
Yeah did not know it was a thematic thing. Sorry. I still think it's a really bad idea mechanically, but if it's a setting thing... Well I guess I can't really argue with that.
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Well, one was already mentioned - skill points. That leads to a degree of customization that people might like, however it's hard to stick to the original ideal of "linear progression," and it becomes even more awry depending on how skill points are handled and how skill point gain scales. I think a skill tree system has also been developed but I do not remember where it is at present. It'll probably be more troublesome than it's worth and definitely does not follow "linear progression." That said, we may just have to stick to standard level-based ability gains for the meanwhile unless there are no objections for skill point.
Unsure. We can look into this. I generally like PCs to advance uniquely, but, at the same time, it is likely a good idea to add some variety and player choice into stuff. Perhaps we can look into some plot related specialization opportunities or something similar? Depends on how attached people are to that. We do seem to be aiming for equipment variation.
Noemi--Variety of magic in general. (Offense, status, buffing, maybe a token heal later on)--she's a magical jack of all trades. Oh, and Prodigy to give her any other spell she may want from an ally for the fight. Depending, she may have a physical technique or two to use as well, but she's more variety than focus; master of none.
Prodigy should be started with, and as for the rest...well, she might be a decent starting point for basing how magic is learned in general. My kneejerk would be a skillpoint system (scripts exist for both engines), but that would then make me want to force a branching setup for spells--and I know Andy has stated he wants innate character progression to be linear, not branching, so I'm lacking in ideas for the time being.
I say she's a candidate for being of the multi-element persuasion, regardless; fire (Courtesy of Erastus' tutelage) and one or two others.
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I think it's been well established that she's capable of using magic of many varieties and that they're not necessarily focused - her lack of specialization is what makes her stand out, so it's imperative to make sure that the spells she gets, while spread thin such as offense, status and buffs/debuffs, should never be as strong as another character who specializes in a given area of expertise but should not be too weak as to invalidate the variety she has. This probably will serve to be a challenge though, especially if some of her spells are universal (that is, she's not the only character with said spells).
On the physical side of the spectrum, she should probably not have very many physical abilities if any at all - the mere fact she's capable of using a weapon that isn't a staff (most likely a dagger, but I believe Andy in the PLOT THREAD mentioned the prospect of Noemi perhaps using 1H swords) is already testament to her Jack of All Trades nature. It would be cool if Noemi did get one or two uniques to fit her character, but I don't foresee this happening necessarily - I was thinking maybe something for flavor purposes, does not necessarily have to be that strong. On par with standard storeboughts, maybe? Or have a neat side-effect.
Prodigy is overall good.
No real arguments or disagreements here. I'd prefer to avoid healing on her if possible except maybe (plot basis: it is the one area where she isn't that talented, hence Kasia picks it up) and have her physical side be a little closer to a competent fall back physical and non-fail durability. She should generally be MP based with a decently deep resource pool, it feels like.
Mirek--Mirek is weird in that he's being expanded from his old self, rather than contracted, gameplaywise. But as such...largely varying physical attacks, and support abilities that are focused around defending against magic--both personally and for the party.
Largely, Mirek would probably be more TP-oriented than most--with the ability to smash the ever-living crap out of someone should his TP get maxed. (Note to self: there should not be a way to get a quick TP boost). Might either use MP or cooldowns for his more commonly-usable abilities.
Slashing-only as far as elements go. Yeah, he's that limited--unless we're going with sheathed attacks, in which case most of his attacks would be Impact.
MIREK
Sheathed blade strikes scream Iai as all fuck to me, which is kickass. In which case Impact would be more suitable of the physical elements here versus Slashing, unless he's going to be drawing the thing too. I don't think we should be restricted strictly to one element, but there would definitely be an innate bias to one of them vis-a-vis the other(s). The general consensus appears to be magic suppresion, both for self and party. This can be anywhere between direct elemental suppression to general magic defense. Reflect spells may be a neat touch too, but they'd probably be ST. These spells and defensive abilities would utilize the magic resource pool, whether that be MP or some other resource. If cooldowns are to be implemented they should be for any damage-cutting or damage-blocking spells.
Since TP appears to be the general physical resource for now, it seems fine that that'd be the pool of choice. Not sure if a max-TP limit would be a good idea, though. Actually, I think a better touch to fit the character thematically would be high-TP cost Slashing attacks, which while very few in number, would be solid damage dealers. On the flip side he would have mostly low-TP cost Impact attacks taking a line from the sheathed attack deal, and perhaps some of them would have secondary effects.
Iaijutsu was the concept, yeah. So yeah, the main idea would be a large array of impact attacks with a couple high damage slash attacks. Unsure of the correct way to handle the support section yet. There is also something to be said that he is also a reasonable candidate for counterattack based stuff as well.
This is also generally a good time to question how exactly TP should work in general if it is gonna be a primary resource. Is it something that starts at 0 and builds through time/ability use (representing focus?), which means it could be used in conjunction with MP (Stamina?). Should all PCs have access to it (perhaps for limits), while others use it as their primary resource?
Based on some of the later stuff, it does look like we're going to focus on those two as the major resources.
Isolde--Isolde's largely being expanded in a different way--and reined in from her old incarnation. I guess I'll give in and go with the ice/earth everyone's pushing on her. :/
That aside, seeing Isolde as a mix of Magic, Physical, and Composite damage skills here--practically everything she has does damage of some sort, and if it doesn't have a rider effect (which would usually amount to debuffing enemy defensive/evasion stats in some capacity), it's often busy doing -more- damage. Oh, and Oversurge lets her get a shot of extra damage at a cost.
As far as resources go? MP at the very least, with Oversurge being a skill that costs HP straight up for an instant one-shot boost to an attack (but also increases MP costs for that attack to prevent abuse). May also factor in TP or cooldowns pending on how we're doing physical and composite skills on average.
ISOLDE
Crushing enemies with Ice/Earth? Can work with that. High-energy attacks and utilizing a sort of bruiser philosophy would mean that her abilities should probably have moderate-to-high resource cost, but having a relatively high power to offset the higher costs. Not sure about composite damage skills, but they'd be a neat touch I guess. I prefer the distinct magic/physical split - magic attacks can focus on efficient target decimation while physical attacks have slightly less punch but come with debilitating effects, so as to encourage a more tactical usage of what I guess appears to me like a large arsenal. The whole "heavy weaponry" thing also makes me want to gear Isolde's physical repertoire with secondary effects and leave her magic as the truly damaging stuff.
Ok, apparently Oversurge seems to be a straight-up damage buff to skills that deal it, with an HP cost. That's pretty neat, but if we're going to factor in additional MP (and potentially TP and cooldowns) cost we should be careful as to how to scale that. Would it be based on initial MP cost? A percentage of the HP cost? In fact, how would Oversurge's HP cost be handled? Would it scale with levels? Or is it constant? Many questions need to be answered as to how to handle Oversurge. Mainly, it lies on this - does the boost from Oversurge become slowly higher as Isolde becomes stronger? Or is it constant? We should figure this out first. Food for thought mostly, because I have honestly not seen much discussion on the skill mechanic as a whole.
Unsure here on the split. Debuffs and high damage split should be split along physical and magic in general as well (possibly creating a fun interplay between MP and TP). Not sure composite skills should be common, but I do like the idea of one or two of them.
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Proposal for TP:
It is Wild Arms FP. It increases by varying amounts for different actions - when receiving damage, avoiding attacks, dealing single/multiple physical hits, dealing critical hits, using specific skills, or having an equipment/status that regens TP per turn.
It decreases when using skills that use TP as a resource, when using a "Limit" if the TP gauge is full, upon death/KO, or from attacks that deal TP damage.
The amount/frequency of TP increasing/decreasing can vary dramatically between PCs, depending on their TP needs and how powerful their TP skills are.
Uses for TP:
Most physical-based damage skills. Physical-based HP healing skills. MP-healing skills. Limit Breaks for characters who have them. Passive effects when TP is high (for Mirek/Guardians). Possibly we might want to make it necessary to use these for using Items, too, to keep their usage under control (a la Hi-Item).
Erastus: I still think he should have a spell or two that rando-targets damage or hits all units on the field with status or damage, just for some flavor in the sense that high-level magic is hard to control, particularly for a mentally unbalanced person like Erastus.
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I haven't really read all of these topics yet, but it's kind of interesting, and I do have some RPG Maker experience.
It's probably good to make TP something different than the default. Otherwise, it's just different coloured MP. Djinn's idea is good. Anything to make a battle system more interesting is good.
I'm not sure what scripts you plan on using, or what you've already got planned, but I find a turn order display incredibly helpful in an RPG.
Anyway, just throwing an idea out that I always wanted to use, but never really got working right. I like Wild Arms FP. I also like that it is a resource shared by the party. I must have seen this battle system somewhere before, but back when I was messing around with making a VX game, I wanted there to be two resources. I'll go over it now, just for the sake of it.
MP, which had your normal skills, which were less powerful, and Elemental Skills, which used points taken from a global resource.
A fight started out with an equal amount of all elemental points available. There were four - Fire, Water, Wind, and Darkness. Most attacks used only one of these, but some could use multiple. At the end of every turn, every element would increase a small amount. (Let's say the fight started out with 20 in each element, and the end of each turn, it increased by 5 or so). In addition, using an attack would cause the next element in line to increase by half. For example, using a 20 Cost Fire attack would increase Water by 10.
These points were shared by both you and the enemies. You could select to use the move even if not enough points were available at the time - if enough were created by the time your turn came up, then the move would be executed. Otherwise it would fail.
The point is, combined with being able to see whose turns were coming up, it was interesting to plan ahead. In addition, it let me come up with some neat skill ideas, and balance weaker skills in a way that might make them useful. (I had one skill that used a lot of one element and spread it out to the others, for example.)
I've never been a master scripter, so I did this mostly with in battle stuff. It did work, though it needed a lot of fine tuning (IE: Showing the amount of elements available on the screen, probably with pictures).
Honestly, the game never got far at all, and a lot of the skills didn't work, but I really liked the idea of it. Enemy scripting was a problem here, too. It wasn't impossible, but it took quite a bit of effort. That being said, if you know the fact that "This enemy has a really dangerous Black attack" then you would try to limit the amount of Black available. At least, that was the idea.
Anyway, I kind of went off on a tangent. But from what I've seen VX lets you do a fair bit of unique stuff. Even something like Lufia IP can make a battle system a lot more interesting. Anyway, I'll probably be reading through the rest of these topics in a bit. Probably post a bit more.
I've messed with RPG Maker a fair bit over the years, but I've run into two problems
1 - The game is in progress for too long, and I would come up with a "cool new idea" that I wanted to put in. This happens a lot. Then my games plot became a complete mess.
2 - Lack of motivation. This goes off and on to be honest, but unlike a game hack, an RPG Maker game can basically be endless. Which is scary!
Anyway, it looks like you guys are planning a lot better than I ever was, which is definitely the right way to go about it!
As a side note, my mess of a plot in my RPG Maker 2000 game is why my FF6 hack has a joke plot, and the Fire Emblem one is like it too. (Not saying the RPG Maker game didn't have a sense of humor, but it tried, and failed, to be serious.)
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Proposal for TP:
It is Wild Arms FP. It increases by varying amounts for different actions - when receiving damage, avoiding attacks, dealing single/multiple physical hits, dealing critical hits, using specific skills, or having an equipment/status that regens TP per turn.
It decreases when using skills that use TP as a resource, when using a "Limit" if the TP gauge is full, upon death/KO, or from attacks that deal TP damage.
The amount/frequency of TP increasing/decreasing can vary dramatically between PCs, depending on their TP needs and how powerful their TP skills are.
Uses for TP:
Most physical-based damage skills. Physical-based HP healing skills. MP-healing skills. Limit Breaks for characters who have them. Passive effects when TP is high (for Mirek/Guardians). Possibly we might want to make it necessary to use these for using Items, too, to keep their usage under control (a la Hi-Item).
Erastus: I still think he should have a spell or two that rando-targets damage or hits all units on the field with status or damage, just for some flavor in the sense that high-level magic is hard to control, particularly for a mentally unbalanced person like Erastus.
Sounds generally reasonable and in the neighborhood of what we've been sliding towards.
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First Dev Meeting highlights:
Broad view decisions:
RPG Maker VX
-Main scripters are more familiar with it, no large benefits to using VXA over VX. Limitation breeds creativity anyway.
Episodic Releases
-No save carry-over.
-In the end, this style best reflects our talents and keeps us focused. There's little benefit vs. effort to save carry-over
Design Elements to Highlight:
-Dual Resource Interplay
-Limited Healing
-Broad CTB/Turn Manipulation System
-In-Battle Weapon/Character Swapping (Minor?)
Aesthetics decisions:
-Archipelago-setting map, limited Tropical setting
-Musical naming/conceptual theme for Magic/Flow
On-screen Encounters a possibility
-Lower number of encounters a plus to increase balance and challenge of each individual battle
-Fewer/Smaller maps
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Important testing/implementation update:
Implementation of some aspects of the MP/TP interplay are now possible, as follows.
*As of Yami's revised take on YEM, multi-cost abilities are now possible.
*Individual Rage(TP) modifiers on skills are viable, having specific ones raise or lower it regardless of its cost.
*Rage(TP) can be set to reset between battles. Hooray.
Due to YEM being the way it is, however, there is a number of notetags that have not been properly implemented; either causing bugs (such as the Target All script crashing the game), or simply not working (Rage Boost tag for statuses)--this specific instance is the most notable because it doesn't have as many easy workarounds, and is fairly integral to a few of our PCs' setups as-is. To be precise, Mirek's, Erastus', and Eirwen's (and possibly Katarine's) all have some degree of regen or degen that could be simulated with a Rage Boost tagged status of some sort--if it did anything. As-is, it does nothing, and unless either NEB can code something or one of us can find a fix for it, we may have to change matters.
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New big question for folks:
Are all the stats we have necessary and could the game be improved by reducing stat bloat somewhat, or by reallocating some stats to equipment and the like? Here they all are, for a reminder.
Stats:
-HP: Lose these, you die. (Default)
-MP: Resource. Functions as you think of it. Tends towards magical skills. (Default)
-Focus: Resource. Functions similar to WA FP, though for individual PCs. Tends towards physical skills or specials. (Default VXA, Script VX)
-Strength (Str): Increases damage dealt by physical attacks. Typically linear. (Default)
-Dexterity (Dex): A higher Dex stat allows the character to swing more often when making physical attacks, and also causes enemies to swing less often when attacking him or her. (Doable via Scripts in VX, unsure VXA)
-Vitality (Vit): Reduces physical damage received. Divisive. (Default)
-Intelligence (Int): Increases damage (and healing) dealt by magical attacks. Typically slightly quadratic. (Default in VXA, merged with Spirit in VX thus requires scripts)
-Spirit (Spi): Reduces magical damage recieved. Divisive. (Default in VXA, merged with Intelligence in VX thus requires scripts)
-Speed (Spd): Increases how quickly the character gets turns. Linear. (Default)
-Accuracy (Acc): The higher this is, the higher the character's chance to hit with physical attacks. (Default, Requires Scripts to function as modifier vs Eva VX/VXA)
-Evade (Eva): The higher this is, the higher the character's chance to evade (take no damage from) incoming physical attacks. (Default, Requires Scripts to function as modifier vs Acc VX/VXA)
-Magic Evade (MEva): Like Eva, but works for magical attacks instead. (Default VXA, Doable via Scripts in VX)
-Attack (Atk): Stat that determines physical damage (equipment only) (Requires Scripting in VX//VXA)
-Def (Def): Stat that determines physical defense (equipment only) (Requires Scripting in VX//VXA)
-Magic Defense (Mdef): Stat that determines magical defense (equipment only) (Requires Scripting in VX//VXA)
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The ones in particular that I think -could- be gotten rid of (not that I am necessarily supporting any of these):
Vitality: The main thing that got me thinking about this is that we currently have six different defensive stats, which could be considered quite a lot. Of those, HP is necessary, and Defence/Dexterity are core to the battle system (I'll deal with magic in a moment). Vitality is the one that could possibly fall under question. Currently, Vit stats allow some PCs to be naturally tougher against physicals than others, even if they use the same armour. Do we need this, when we also have a differing HP stat?
Magic Defence or Spirit: We haven't pegged down the magic formula 100% for sure partly because there's still some debate about skill progression (though with the episodic structure I have little doubt that any system can be made to work due to the ability to tweak spell powers between episodes). Currently, MDef works like Defence and Spirit works like Vitality. Again we have two separate PC stats for magic defence, one from equipment and one as an innate PC thing. Do we need both?
Accuracy, Evade: To be clear, I am not suggesting doing away with these entirely; different weapons having different accuracies is crucial to weapon balance, and it's already been suggested that different armours and weapons (e.g. quarterstaves) give more evasion. The question here is does each PC need to have a separate base stat in these?
Magic Evade: Do we want this at all? If so, does it need to be a separate stat from evade? Even if we keep it the same comments regarding evade could apply, and PCs need not necessarily differ in it before equipment. If they do, what is the flavour logic for someone being good at avoiding physicals but not magic and vice versa?
I'm not opposed to any of these stats, but if we keep them all that does give us a lot of them (15) which can be quite cluttering for players to keep track of.
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I don't like doubleposting, but it feels like the most efficient way to go about this.
Anyway, everyone mathy is on the issue of who should keep what, and reviewing the old equations.
As it stands, the general agreement is on keeping the following stats: HP, MP, TP, STR, DEX, MAG, SPD, ATK, DEF. (and arguably critical rate and counter rate)
By extension, the following are what are being debated: VIT, SPI, MDef, ACC, EVA, MEV (the last three as character stats as opposed to equipment stats.)
I'm not going to say anything in favor or opposition to taking or dropping any of these stats, but instead simply describe what would occur or be required if one or more stats were missing.
--VIT: One of two possibilities here. The first is that DEF gets moved to a character stat, or defense is entirely equipment-based. The results are largely the same, however. Armor access becomes that much more significant, with the heavy armor users becoming that much better at taking hits overall--and those who can't have to increasingly rely on both DEX and Evasion to not get splattered. Naturally, formulas will need to be changed, but that's easy enough.
--SPI, MDEF: These are lumped together because the debate is not whether or not both should stay, but one or the other. If SPI is removed, well, see the above argument, only that DEX doesn't factor and that it pertains to magic rather than physicals. If MDEF is, then equipment in general matters that much less for magic resilience, and it becomes a very character-specific thing. See above about formula changes.
--ACC: ACC being removed from character stats would render weapon choice much more significant, as aside from possible accessories, it would be the -only- way to affect physical accuracy--which would more than likely have to be carefully balanced to avoid cases like axes and dark magic in varied FEs being so inaccurate as to be unusable. If it were removed entirely, the assumption would be that EVA alone affects evasion.
--EVA: EVA being removed from character stats makes it so that armor choice and possibly accessory choice would be the primary determinants of whether or not you could dodge something. If these values are lowered to the point of low significance, DEX would be the primary non-soak defensive stat, and mitigating hits would be less a matter of dodging them and more a matter of reducing their count. If removed entirely, either ACC is the sole determinant of evasion, or if both were removed entirely, we get Labyrinth of Touhou.
--MEV: See EVA when it comes to removing it from character stats, with the corollary that there's no second non-soak defensive stat for magic. If removed entirely, one of two possibilities occur; Magic evasion and evasion are merged into one stat (ala Disgaea, Fire Emblem, so on) or this game goes the way of so many that decide that nobody can evade magic. Ever. No need to point out how many games follow -that- route.
Anyway, that's my summary of the likely possibilities of what'd happen if each was removed/removed from PCs.
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Currently angling towards moving Acc modifiers to weapons (logic: low accuracy is inherently unfun and a bad idea in non-strategy games).
From a logic standpoint, favor merging Eva/MEva, but that may overinflate the stats value significantly.
Unsure on the other defensive stats. Still considering them.
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Personally in favor of merging Eva/MEva and then just making all magic spells have inherently low/high/ITE accuracy, depending on how accurate we want magic to generally be.
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I am in agreement with combining Evasion with Magic Evasion, it seems kind of redundant to separate them; if you can evade physical attacks then you're just about as capable of evading magical attacks, I think? The latter is typically telegraphed or AT LEAST you can anticipate it coming out? I mean, the magic in question has to be highly focused and/or specialized for it to be specifically difficult to evade (see: ITE). Basically, see Elfboy re: "Should we separate Eva/MEva and if so why?"
Unsure about defensive statistics myself apart from "this looks like a lot to keep track of."
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Well you can always flavor MEva as just blocking the attack or something similar if you're worried about that...
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Dev meeting results:
*EVA/MEVA are merged to just EVA, with spells having various accuracies/ITE to balance. Unanimous decision.
*ACC on weapons. Unanimous decision.
*VIT kept. SPR dropped, possibly merged into VIT. DEF/MDEF still exist on armors/enemies as separate stats.
*Magic Formula is getting retooled by NEB.
*Focus to be shortened to FP? (Suggestion, call MP "SP"... since these two resources seem to be flavored "Stamina" and "Focus", then just give their acronyms the appropriate letters?)
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Okay, so here is my proposal for magic damage:
(POW + Lv - MDEF) * hits * INT / VIT
I'm still not 100% happy with this formula. Here's why I'm proposing it anyway:
-It mirrors the physical formula somewhat in that spells with low power and high hit count struggle more with magic defence.
-It causes spell damage to be linear with INT. I tried some formulas where it wasn't but didn't like the result; it meant that INT buffs were either more or less potent than corresponding STR buffs which seemed unintuitive for the player, as an example.
-The "level" in the formula allows spells to scale. I tried experimenting with functions of INT here but it resulted in spells which grew wildly differently depending on the INT of their caster which seemed weird.
Now, the one odd thing about the formula, and the only reason I have some misgivings about it, is this: spells age differently depending on power. In particular, spells with low power age better than those with high power. Here's an example to illustrate this:
All stats start at 60. Defences start at 30. These stats double by endgame (Level 50)
Assuming STR, INT, and VIT are equal:
Basic physicals: 60 + 30 per extra swing -> 120 + 60 extra per swing
50-pow magic: 20 per hit -> 40
60-pow magic: 30 per hit -> 50
90-pow magic: 60 per hit -> 80
Let's say the 50-power spell hits 6 times, while the 90-power spell hits twice. Both will then do 120. However, at endgame, the 6-hit spell has aged perfectly and does 240 damage, while the 90-power spell does only 160.
Is this okay? I... actually think so, it doesn't bother me too much. But it may bother others, so speak up if you don't like it!
(As always, usual disclaimer that episodic format lets us cheat and have spell powers change between episodes, so ultimately any scaling flaws wouldn't become -that- big a deal.)
To summarise, for Nama/anyone else thinking of raw spell design: 50-power spells (which is probably on the low end, such spells will need 4+ hits to be competitive) scale just as well as physicals, while higher-power spells scale relatively less well and will need to be replaced / maintain utility uses / get cheaty power upgrades between episodes. Lower-power spells will scale extremely well and we should be cautious with them.
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Hm. Not the biggest fan of the formula if only due to level involvement and moreso how VIT ends up playing double-duty here. The former is more for the reason that I'm not sure if it can be implemented as a stat for enemies (and if so, how), whereas the latter...well, I guess we were dropping SPR but I admit I wasn't expecting VIT to be factored into the standard spell formula.
Well, time to change stats to match, or whatnot.
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Don't change anything yet, this isn't set in stone.
It's very easy to give enemies levels so that part isn't an issue (in fact, depending on what we use for an Exp-gain formula, it may be necessary just for that). The VIT thing was based on what was tossed around in chat last night, but that's still very open to debate.
We could, for instance, replace VIT with SPI and go back to having separate stats there. That's certainly cool by me. The formula ended up needing a PC defensive stat so if you want separate SPI and VIT stats we can certainly go with that. And we could still have earth spells (or whatever) use VIT instead of SPI in the calculation.
Honestly, I think that's what I'm proposing at this point, having had some time to think about it.
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So generally speaking you think it is worth keeping Spi around? (Just want to make sure things are clear)
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That's my current inclination. I'm sorry for going back and forth on this!
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Suggestion, split spells by element and have two formulas. Make say Fire and Earth hit Vit for example. Replace the Vit check for double dipping MDef on more arcane spells.
Physically oriented spells check the general bulkiness of a character while "magicy" magic checks how well they are against the arcane. Also gives you further ways to differentiate character effectiveness on a given fight and gives you a way to make people hit the three defensive stats you have in more variation (without making them have 2 different physical attack types or just Magic and Physical). Also I like this thematically in that it makes arcane spells more consistany performing enemy to enemy because they only check one stat. Fire on the other hand is all over the place depending one Vit.
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We don't really have any "Arcane" element types apart from Disquiet, which is supposed to rare.
I think our elements all create physical phenomena... Earth, Fire, Cold, Lightning, Poison? I guess Lightning and Cold are more "Energy" at least if you really want to split the damage formula based on elements?
As to the formula, I'm not sure I like Level itself as the growth mechanism. Perhaps averaging Level and SpellPower together would give a less strange growth to the spells? That way if we give something a higher power value (and matching higher Resource cost, I would assume?), it won't get outdamaged by a low-resource skill in 10 levels?
Something like:
(POW + [Lv+POW]/2 - MDEF) * hits * INT / VIT
And then just use lower base POW values than you were intending since now POW is being counted twice?
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Would say Lightning is on the end of Energy, Earth is on the end of Physical. Fire I'd actually call more energy, depending on how it's conjured. Cold would lean towards Physical as well, depending (the difference between, say, hucking ice blocks at someone- pure phy, and using energy to freeze their blood- both phy and mag). Poison would probably fall smack in the middle in all cases, if it's magic poison. Poisons attached to physical skills would be straight Vit.
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If you wanted a reasoning behind any split other than it being fun mechanically and flavoursome for algorithms, point of origin for the spell. Fire and earth you throw things at people. Poison you magically inflict upon them. Cold and Lightning are formed from an arcane manipulation of the energy surrounding the target (either unnatural dispersion of heat or changing flow of electrons to form a discharge). Boom. Done.
If you wanted some symmetry you could even flip a coin on one and have some moves hit either Vit or MDef depending on the kind of spell it is.
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Well, Earth, Fire, Cold, Lightning, Poison refers to how the spells would "look", their technical elements are from the Chinese system, respectively Earth, Fire, Water, Metal, and Wood, all of which seem pretty solidly physical instead of arcane (barring, oddly, Fire).
At least in the case of Wood (which is supposed to encompass Poison and Healing spells), I imagine it's based on a physical agent such as Pollen afflicting the target.
Water/Cold I suppose could still be "Energy", despite Water itself being a physical substance.
Metal/Lightning, I'm still not quite sure how that works, but I'm not picky.
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(POW + [Lv+POW]/2 - MDEF) * hits * INT / VIT
Well, that formula can be rearranged and better understood as:
(POW*3/2 + Lv/2 - MDEF) * hits * INT / VIT
And since MDef, as currently conceived, grows faster than Lv/2, this means the same spell will actually do less damage as the game goes on. I don't think that's especially desirable.
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It's not, but I didn't intend for it to be a finalized formula. The idea was for POW to modify Level in such a way that it mediates the effective growth that a straight-up Lv modifier would have on Damage. The exact method to achieve this, I haven't actually come up with yet.
Although, we could just rework the MDEF scaling to make it accommodate a Lv/2 modifier.
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The issue is, as the rearranged formula shows, you aren't actually modifying Level with the spell power. There might be a way to pull it off with multiplication though...
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Hrm. So the scaling issues results for the same reason that multi-attacking in 4th Edition DnD is generally > single large attacks (repeatedly adding the additional damage), right?
How does the scaling stand up when thrown against higher defenses?
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More hits suffer against higher magic defence, and this will be true at all levels. (Similarly, they do very well against poor magic defence.)
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How about something like this?
[POW*(1+LV)/50 - MDef] * hits * (INT / VIT)
Then the effective power about doubles from L1 -> L50, similar to MDef. [If you want it to actually double you can change the multiplier to 1 + (LV-1)/49 but whatever close enough.]
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I assume the brackets are in the wrong place and it should be
[POW*(1 + LV/50) - MDef] * hits * INT / VIT
But yeah, that's certainly another decent idea. Chat discussion suggested that we wanted spell damage to grow slightly less well (hence, getting spell upgrades) but that could be accomplished by increasing the denominator on level, I think. Hmm, let's go with 60...
50-power spell: 20 per hit -> 32 per hit
60-power spell: 30 per hit -> 50 per hit
90-power spell: 60 per hit -> 105 per hit
This time, it seems like spells with -higher- powers scale better, though the difference isn't nearly as significant.
If we were extremely insistent that all spells scale equally well, but not as well as physicals accounting for weapon upgrades, one way to pull it off would be to take Tal's formula and then multiply it by something like "1 - Level/200" but the designer in me thinks that this is a really ugly formula (negative level is a factor in damage) even though it would technically work.
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I don't think completely equal scaling is important (and can likely be accounted for with design), plus, working this way, we can compensate with number of hits.
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Don't want to derail discussion here, but instead I will pose another question I want to get out of the way.
By default, RPG Maker's equip screen (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_5BcCYginuds/TEiU7t8u8tI/AAAAAAAAAMI/1rc_5kSBSWg/s1600/RMVX-Stat-Icon.png) shows modifications to four different stats. With our different stat set we will be showing different ones. Which stats are important for us to show?
ATK, DEF, and MDEF are obviously essential since they are the main reason we equip things. Beyond that, possibilities include...
-Accuracy
-Evade
-Intelligence (-only- if we decide to have a lot of equips which boost this directly)
-Dexterity modifier, OR post-modification dexterity.
Every stat we add beyond the fourth (i.e. ATK/DEF/MDEF plus one from the above list) will shrink the window that shows the list of available weapons/etc. for the character to equip, so it's not just a matter of "eh no reason not to show everything". Stats that are only rarely modified can simply have those modifications listed in the equipment description (e.g. "+5 speed"). With that said, what stats do we want to display?
EDIT: The reason I am asking this now is that choosing which stats are shown this way actually takes a non-trivial amount of scripting so I'd rather only have to do it once.
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Accuracy is probably too important to not include, same with dexmod. Evade I am less sure on, Intelligence can probably be left to the description box.
Of course this only really matters if we want to use the default equip screen.
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My understanding is that accuracy is the only one there that is primarily driven by equipment with what you are using. Thinking on it from end user perspective though, ideally I would like to see expected number of hits most when changing weapons if possible.
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Projected swing count would vary by enemy too much, so we can't just do that. It is a question as to whether the raw dexterity modifier or the post-modification dexterity is a better number to show... leaning towards the latter?
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Latter. Players shouldn't have to do math, even if it is simple.
Still debating what should be shown. Definitely should be:
-Attack
-Defense
-Magic Defense
-Dex
Accuracy and Evade should probably make it up there too, but that's a lot of space.
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Since Accuracy is entirely dependent on the weapon and doesn't interact with PC stats, it would be much simpler to just write that in the Item description, right? Whatever the Weapon's Acc is, that's the Acc that character will have, so it doesn't need to be mathed out as much.
I'd say:
ATK
DEX (final)
DEF
MDF
EVA
Evade could also be put in the item description, but it seems like we'd have a lot of Equips that are designed around modifying Evade.
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That probably works.
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Just be wary of space limitations on gear descriptions non? If you don't have THIS IS FIRE ARMR +10 EV +5 MANG DEF and just stick to raw modifiers that is fine though. Item descriptions about the supple leather cords and how nice the studs feel is definitely something I would consider a "Nice to have".
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Appears to be a 100 character limit, off-hand. Not bad, so long as you're short and quippy.
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Alright, Gref. Enough room to fit COCKS 20 times!
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I think Andy can attest that I need to put cock in things more than 20 times to be satisfied.
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I think I am officially happy with DJ's list of stats, unless someone can come up with some magical window tricks to complete reformat the shop window for all stats.
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And now I appear to throw a wrench into things again.
So it was decided yesterday that armour could influence Dex. This is both realistic and neat mechanically. However, it means that, at this point, players really need to be aware of both offensive Dex and defensive Dex when equipping (it is important that they realise that equipping a dagger only affects the former, for instance). This pretty much necessitates the need for two listed stats.
What do we want to call them? ADEX and DDEX? Something else?
EDIT: To be clear, this is not a change of mechanics in any way. This is simply a change in how stats are displayed, which requires new names/abbreviations.
EDIT2: Also, I realised last night that the equip screen could show different stats depending on if the cursor is over weapons or armour. Armour will show DEF/MDEF/EVA/defensive DEX, while weapons will show ATK/attacking DEX... and we'd have space for two others which we haven't talked about yet. Maybe EVA (since staves affect that) and INT (since swords affect that) but if someone wants to argue me on showing HIT or CRIT there, feel free.
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Are you just proposing that there be two different stats for DEX now? I'm confused. Isn't the idea that DEX is a single stat that works both offensively and defensively? Why does the abbr. need to change?
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Again, this is not a mechanical change.
Dex is a single stat, but for attacking purposes it is modified by your weapon. This effectively means any given PC has two different Dex stats, one for offence and one for defence, although they're both based on the same core stat. However, now that we're going to have equipment which modifies both offensive dex (weapons) and base/defensive dex (light armour and perhaps some accessories?) it seems a bit misleading to only show one on the status screen.
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That is still a mechanical change as I had understood DEX. I assumed that when a Weapon modified DEX, that modification still affected a PC's DEX when they were receiving damage.
Is that not possible or something?
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It's possible but was never, at any point, how the system was agreed to function (see also: some weapons had 0 dex multipliers, which would obviously be an insanely stupid choice if it affected your defence).
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I'm honestly not sure where you got that from since I thought it was clear that DEX mod on weapons was something that pertained entirely to swing count, since it wouldn't necessarily make sense that someone who used a low DEX mod weapon would suddenly be susceptable to getting attacked by all the swings that ever were. Elevates high dex mod weaponry to too high a place.
Aaaaand beaten by NEB who basically says the same thing but more succintly so this is useless
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I can see how it makes high-DEX weapons really good, but I had just assumed that was a given and that's why we were always saying "have to be really careful with high-DEX". I keep conceptualizing DEX as FE AS, which does basically the same thing with Wt.
On a story level, too, high DEX makes sense on both weapons and armor. If you are wearing lighter armor or using a more maneuverable weapon, you are faster and more able to parry/dodge swings. I think it's more intuitive for the player if the stat isn't divided into aDEX and dDEX.
So -that- is "where I got that idea from".
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Oh wow. How did I miss that part of the swing formula? That makes defensive system even more obtuse (you have two division reduction stats against multiple swing count enemies). Hmmmm
That does really make me favour using Vit in Magic formulas since otherwise your Magic system defense (without Spirit at least) is functionally a 2 stat system compared to the four you have interacting with in Physical.
Still parsing how I feel about Dex impacting defense like that. It sits a bit wonky with me, but I can see interesting things to do with it (like accessories that boost your effective Dex for defense). I think it gives you weird scenarios at high levels of dex etc etc.
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If everyone could weigh in on NEB's question, as well as the question of should Dex Modification only really occur to offensive Dex or should it occur to Dex in general, that would be awesome.
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Regarding name differentiation: ADEX/DEX is fine. If it has to be shortened to three letters, then ADX/DEX should work
As for DEX modification; Currently of the mind that armor shouldn't affect DEX at all--base DEX mods should only be from accessories. Weapons, in turn, only affect ADEX. Keeps it simple enough, and it keeps things from getting a bit too out of hand with trying to balance for number of swings.
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Eh why not just call the defensive version like Parry or something?
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Eh why not just call the defensive version like Parry or something?
From what I understand, the offensive version depends on the defensive version, but the opposite is not true. So calling it Parry and then having the offensive Dex stat depend on Parry is very unintuitive and makes no sense.
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It seems general favor is towards two dex stats (offensive and defensive), with weapons only modding Offensive Dex and only positive mods (via maybe armor and accessories) to Defensive Dex. Could someone confirm this is true or, if nor, mention they favor the other way.
(Personally, I am preferential to one Dex stat for a number of reasons, but I'd just like to confirm the basic opinions)
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My top priorities are:
-That the fundamental dex-vs-dex for calculating swings remains in some way.
-That, IF we decide to have both the offensive and defensive side modifiable by equipment, that we separate the names of the two stats.
I'm pretty much not willing to budge on these stipulations, but there's a lot of ground in between.
After some reflection, I am favouring minimal ability to customise the stat via armour, as it just leads to twinking to match enemy benchmarks. In theory that's okay (and if people want it I'm not outright opposed) but I think this probably rewards forknowledge a bit too much. Still undecided as to whether the weapon choice should determine defensive dex or not. The upside of making weapons modify defensive dex is that this reduces us to a single dex stat which is nicer to keep track of. The downside is that it makes weapon dex mods extremely potent so we need to be more careful with them (this isn't the end of the world naturally). It will also mean that low-dexmod weapons must usually be the choice for raw offence since they will usually be hurting your durability, and some balance needs to be maintained there.
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That's my main argument towards favoring single Dex. It just feels... weirdly unintuitive to have two of them and creates a bit of stat clutter.
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Eh why not just call the defensive version like Parry or something?
From what I understand, the offensive version depends on the defensive version, but the opposite is not true. So calling it Parry and then having the offensive Dex stat depend on Parry is very unintuitive and makes no sense.
Assuming you were outputting two different stats the player wouldn't see any direct correlation between Parry and the "Dex" as the offensive version. It is just a labeling thing so your stats screen looks less like a medicine cabinet with ADX and DDX or some such nonsense.
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Assuming you were outputting two different stats the player wouldn't see any direct correlation between Parry and the "Dex" as the offensive version. It is just a labeling thing so your stats screen looks less like a medicine cabinet with ADX and DDX or some such nonsense.
Sure they would. If they equip an armor that increases (or decreases) Parry, their offensive Dex goes up (or down). This could be pretty confusing.
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I don't see how that is any better than your Attack Dex being impacted in the same say >_>
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So it was decided yesterday that armour could influence Dex. This is both realistic and neat mechanically. However, it means that, at this point, players really need to be aware of both offensive Dex and defensive Dex when equipping
When I first suggested this, I was always under the impression we had one Dex stat. So armor effecting the Dex means it just causes that one stat to go up. How much could be debated later but yeah, it was never meant to suggest two different Dex stats. You could always adjust the bonus up or down (probably down?) depending on how much you actually want armor to have an impact on that stat.
ie: This is akin to how in WA4, Arnaud/Raq got big boosts in evade via their armors (straight up boost to EVA). You instead just raise Dex an X amount.
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After last night's meeting, we have opted to go ahead and use a singular Dex stat, primarily modified by weapons.
As such, we will need to be particularly careful in making sure heavy weapons are respectable offensive threats.
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Discussed revival at the meeting.
Upon revival, a character will be restored with 15 Focus and 50% CT.
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Not sure where to update this, actually, so putting it here until I'm sure about something. Notes from last meeting.
-Poison/Bleed to be merged, remain distinct from Burn
-Status rates should generally be ~60-80%
-Stat +/-'s override each other
-5% variance is standard
-Sleep = Temp disable/Go away on damage
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I think Andrew can testify that I need to put dick in factors more than 20 periods to be pleased.
If your business needs between 2 and 8 voice lines, then isdn2 is what you need, if you need 8 lines or more then ISDN30 is a better option.
The greatest spambot ever.
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Jesus christ I even deleted that line once already.