Basic Features

Started by winkio, March 03, 2011, 08:46:56 pm

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winkio

March 03, 2011, 08:46:56 pm Last Edit: March 04, 2011, 10:40:06 am by winkio
Basic Features:

  • 8-16 hours gameplay? - maybe more with sidequests

  • Reaction based 2D battle system? - golden sun perspective

  • Quest Journal?

  • Day-Night System?

  • Tactics based enemies? - same few attacks won't always work - weak points

  • Weapon+Armor Upgrade System?



Alright, it's never too early to start thinking about the basic feature of the game.  These are things like what type of battle system?  How long should the game be?  What sorts of things will be important elements of the game (think things like pieces of heart, etc.).

I for one would like to see a reaction-based 2D battle system similar to Paper Mario, where if you press a button at a certain time during an attack, you do more damage.

I would also like to see a quest journal to help keep the game objectives and side quests organized.

WhiteRose

I think, as far as the length of the game, we don't want to be too overly ambitious - that tends to be the downfall of many projects, even community ones. It needs to not overstay its welcome. I'd say a good length would be about that of a shorter console RPG, like Mario RPG for the SNES. It needs to be long enough to let the story completely unfold, but not feel unnecessarily padded.

I agree that a reaction based battle system would be awesome, but CBSes are generally difficult to code and take a significant time investment. Maybe we should just create a plug-in to an existing CBS?

winkio

Existing 2D CBSes suck, just putting that out there.  If we ended up going in this direction someone (probably me) would script something that:
a) could use RTP charsets and animations, so we wouldn't need to make hardly any extra graphics.
b) was compatible with everything.
c) was not overcomplicated.

You'd be surprised at how simple doing it right actually is.

Also, are we saying 8-16 hours?  Does that sound right?

WhiteRose

Quote from: winkio on March 03, 2011, 08:59:51 pm
Also, are we saying 8-16 hours?  Does that sound right?


Yeah, that sounds about right; we could always expand it with things such as additional side quests and the like if we feel that it needs more substance.

winkio

March 03, 2011, 10:37:04 pm #4 Last Edit: March 04, 2011, 01:04:54 am by winkio
I think a world map screen that gets revealed as you visit certain places would be cool.  That could be evented.

EDIT: Also, Day-Night system.  We can use one of the ones from the CP database.

AliveDrive

Quote from: WhiteRose on March 03, 2011, 09:04:18 pm
Yeah, that sounds about right; we could always expand it with things such as additional side quests and the like if we feel that it needs more substance.


Secret bosses always seem to do the trick for other games.

I think a quest journal is an absolute necessity due to our community nature, I don't envision it being time consuming or difficult to implement as we go.

If I got to put just ONE feature in this game (that hasn't already been said), I'd choose an upgrade system for many weapons and armor. I know that this is possible from personal experience, albeit time consuming in the database. Getting a fresh sword to swing around really motivates you to keep playing, or to try that hard side quest again. When base weapons include multiple lines, as they should, it adds replay value (What if I chose the thunder sword instead of the raw damage one?). This extends the game's custom features.

Those are my thoughts.
Quote from: Blizzard on September 09, 2011, 02:26:33 am
The permanent solution for your problem would be to stop hanging out with stupid people.

Subsonic_Noise

I agree, I think if we have a turnbased / ATB system, we should include quicktime events ala paper mario that can trigger different outcomes for an attack.

What I would like to see, too, in terms of battle system if we're gonna have as custom one: One with a perspective ala Golden Sun - it works great and is really not as overused as most other perspective. We'd need rather large animated battlers, then, though - but I think it'd be worth it.

Another important part should be that we massively include tactics in the battle system - no primitive using the same attack 100 times and hoping the hp doesn't run out. I'm thinking multibody enemies, as in you can attack certain parts of the enemy, and they'll have different weaknesses. And, if you "killed" certain body parts, the enemy will not be able to use certain attacks anymore.
This is more for bosses, anyways.

A quest jounal, as you mentioned, is pretty important imo, though I think it should also log the main story. It happened to me far too often that I forgot about a game for some time and then had problems getting back into the story - Tales of Symphonia though had the whole story written down as if the characters kept a diary. That helped alot.

In terms of substance, the game definitely needs some rather large sidequest(s) that are difficult and difficult to find - to give the player a sense of just having discovered something big, like the whole Cursed Weapons or the Maxwell quest in Tales of Symphonia - it both ended in epic boss battles (one was even stronger than the final boss) and gave the player unique abilities.

Blah Blah I'll add more later.

AliveDrive

Pit of 100 Trials anyone?

And yes, even Super Mario RPG included a rough "timed hits" feature so I'm sure we can achieve this.

I like the boss idea of weak points, you could even have say the chest "break open" (transform into another monster) and then be weaker to an element type. A la http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jA4xjyo-UpM

If element weakness is a big deal, it forces the player to try new lines of weaponry.

What does everyone think?
Quote from: Blizzard on September 09, 2011, 02:26:33 am
The permanent solution for your problem would be to stop hanging out with stupid people.

winkio

March 04, 2011, 10:46:23 am #8 Last Edit: March 04, 2011, 10:57:20 am by winkio
I don't like the idea of weakpoints as multi-bodied enemies, as it just presents a small obstacle.  There is no timing or aiming factor required to hit the weakpoint, so if you know where it is, you are guaranteed a hit.  However, since we are talking about a reaction based component, we could make some aiming/timing required to hit the weakpoint/deal extra damage.  For example, when you use a bow, a large crosshair pops up, which takes about 1 full second to shrink down to a point during which you can move it around, and then the arrow is fired.

Also, sub, could we use RTP charsets/battlers for your idea, or do you know of graphics we could use?  Because we aren't going to use a ton of custom sprites for charactersets (we will for attacks/battle actions though, but those will be considerable easier.)

AliveDrive

Or some sort of timing system like blacksmithing in fable.

I think we should be mostly RTP, but if we find someone to make custom characters that would be cool.

I volunteer for making custom icons for items/weapons/armors. It's not so hard, but with lots of custom items it's sure to take some time.
Quote from: Blizzard on September 09, 2011, 02:26:33 am
The permanent solution for your problem would be to stop hanging out with stupid people.

winkio

I'm just saying for the size of the project, it's not worth it to start from scratch graphically for a battle system.  Also, because this is a community game, I think it should make good use of the RTP to use something everyone can work with and decrease filesize.

AliveDrive

What do you suggest battle system-wise?

I agree, we should try to exhaust the RTP before expanding outward.
Quote from: Blizzard on September 09, 2011, 02:26:33 am
The permanent solution for your problem would be to stop hanging out with stupid people.

WhiteRose

I agree that we should try and use the RTP as much as possible, however, I do think that we should use original sprites and battlers for our main characters so the players can relate to them better and not think, "Oh, look, it's Arshes again." Using RTP tilesets and sprites for enemies and generic NPCs shouldn't be a problem, though.

AliveDrive

Anyone but Arshes xD

So this calls for at least 4 custom sprites, and battlers.

Are we going to stick with 4 party members? We could have more characters, but 4 would suffice.
Quote from: Blizzard on September 09, 2011, 02:26:33 am
The permanent solution for your problem would be to stop hanging out with stupid people.

WhiteRose

Quote from: AliveDrive on March 04, 2011, 03:02:03 pm
Anyone but Arshes xD

So this calls for at least 4 custom sprites, and battlers.

Are we going to stick with 4 party members? We could have more characters, but 4 would suffice.


I think we should stick with 4; it eliminates the need to come up with a party switching system, and allows all of the characters plenty of screen time for proper character development, in addition to allowing them to each have a definite, unique personality and role in combat.

winkio

Anything that you can do with more than 4 party members can be done just as well or better with 4.

AliveDrive

There are some pretty simple party switchers out there.

What about the possibility of finding a secret character or two?

I agree that fewer characters is better for development.
Quote from: Blizzard on September 09, 2011, 02:26:33 am
The permanent solution for your problem would be to stop hanging out with stupid people.

winkio

Here's how I see it: if you have a party switcher, then that means that there are characters which the player is not using.  Why even have those characters in the first place?  Every character should be playable all the time.

AliveDrive

Oh true i never thought of it that way.
Quote from: Blizzard on September 09, 2011, 02:26:33 am
The permanent solution for your problem would be to stop hanging out with stupid people.

The Niche

So much for BABS then...and damn, I was looking forward to working on a babs community project :/

There's a lot of features I could offer, but they're all babs driven.
Level me down, I'm trying to become the anti-blizz!
Quote from: winkio on June 15, 2011, 07:30:23 pm
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