 |
Castle Paradox
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
msw188
Joined: 02 Jul 2003
Posts: 1041
|
 Posted: Fri May 12, 2006 10:28 am Post subject: |
 |
|
Moogle1:
Yeah, the positioning thing was a neat idea, although as you say it became less and less useful as the game went on. I was going to give Antipode as an example of a useful combo tech, because Fire and Ice both could only target one thing, but Antipode could target many in an area. Can this be simulated with the OHR battle system? Not exactly, although I think it might be possible to have attacks that target a certain 'area' (like, say, the nearer half of the screen).
JSH357:
I have some attacks that damage AND affect stats; I think that that is a very good idea. Having very few statistics however leads to the other danger that was brought up originally - having the support characters absolutely necessary. This is, some would say, just as undesirable as having them be useless. What about having several different sorts of MP? Or making supporting attacks free?
Another possibility that is easy with the OHR is making real use of the 'delay before attack'. What if powerful attack spells are made to take a very large amount of time to use, while support skills can be cast almost immediately. This could help balance some things out, perhaps. |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
Iblis
Ghost Cat
Joined: 26 May 2003
Posts: 1233
Location: Your brain
|
| Posted: Fri May 12, 2006 10:53 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: | | Having very few statistics however leads to the other danger that was brought up originally - having the support characters absolutely necessary. This is, some would say, just as undesirable as having them be useless. |
It depends on the game. In a game like FF1, where the player chooses a party, then yes you can't have any one character be too indispensible. However in a game with a fixed party, then the opposite is true: every character should be indispensible. I can see why you would not want them to be so necessary that the death of one character makes a battle impossible, but they still need to be pretty necessary.
In a game I'm currently working on, any character can be for damage or for support, but cannot be both of those at once. A character can be in the front or back row (it's a custom engine). In the front row they have more attack skills and fewer support skills, and in the back row the opposite (it also affects their stats in various ways). Furthermore, MP usage changes as well: in the front row attacks cost less and in the back row support skills cost less. In this way I can make support skills necessary without making the player depend on any one character for them (this is a game where the player chooses their party), because any character can have them upon moving to the back row (the characters all have similar, but not identical, support skills). The party leader can move other characters from one row to the other during battle as well.
The delay idea is a pretty good one too.
_________________
Locked
OHR Piano |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Mr B
Joined: 20 Mar 2003
Posts: 382
|
| Posted: Fri May 12, 2006 1:00 pm Post subject: |
|
|
At one time I was thinking of having a battle system that had something called "The Tide of War." The tide of war was represented as a bar across the top of the screen that was divided into two colors -- the color on one side represented the enemies, and the color on the other represented the heroes.
Different events in the battle would affect the Tide of War. A character dying would dramatically reduce its party's placement. It was sort of like morale, but was more closely tied to the chances of each party. I mean, a party with high morale could still die, but the Tide of War was tied also to the chance that a party would win the battle.
The colors on the Tide of War would shift to reflect each party's chances. As a party gained position on the Tide, they would gain bonuses. As they lost position, they would accrue penalties. If the heroes completely control the Tide, the enemies are defeated (and vica verca).
Maybe support abilities could be used to influence the Tide as well as specific hero bitsets and attributes.
| moogle1 wrote: | | Which brings me to what seems to be the prevailing problem in the genre: every game wants its characters to be heroes. Every character ends up being a standalone superpower, each capable of dealing thousands of damage to the entire screen. This is a horrible design decision. |
Yeah -- that's pretty much half of the problem in a nutshell. Either everyone is great alone, or you are required to rest on a support character.
What if attacks and abilities were not specific to a character, but were sort of determined by who composed the party? The dual and triple attacks from Chrono Trigger were like this. Or maybe the support characters could have abilities that modify the damagers attacks...sort of "fill them up" with different potentials?
YEAH. Each character has meters for passive abilities. The support active abilities would fill up the meters for the passive abilities, which are used until the meter is depleted.
For example, the "Pierce" ability would fill up a character's Pierce meter with however many points (dependent on support Int or whatever), and then the direct-damage character would automatically use Pierce damage on all attacks, depleting the Pierce meter by however many points of additional damage that the piercing caused.
In a similar vein, maybe support characters could have skills that "unlock" higher-level abilities or versions of abilities in other characters. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
