AETHERS'S PROFILE

Double post, I am terribly sorry.

@Feld
That RUIN FIST looks really cool *steals*


Uhh, WIP boss for a dead (sort of) side project.

Robotic Samurai armor or something.

Woops, what I meant by "don't punish the player when they go and explore" is basically not to implement an ER system that cause quests and things missable without warning. And not to "trap" the player in the dungeon that starts off easy then suddenly : hard bosses, without way out. That's also cruel.

Free roam is also my favourite so yeah, I am all in for that idea.

post=129955
Romancing Saga was more like what you said; all of the characters have a Saga Frontier did it a little 'better' in the fact that although the free roam aspect is always there

I've heard that Saga Frontier was more a bunch of different characters with their own plots but all in the same world, is that what you're planning? How would it work out with the idea of radically different regions?

Easy. In Saga Frontier, all of the characters existed in the same 'world',

This. Saga frontier have what RS3 and RS:MS lacks : that is different plot and ending for the characters. Sure, the subquests stay the same (I repeat the same quest 7 times in a row, welp, how fun (runestone)) but at least, at least they make each hero... unique.

I mean, in RS (both), basically you are going to end up with the same thing. There is an extra scene here and there etc but it all boils down to one plot, which you can play for 7 times, each time with slightly modifications. To me, it is not too shabby, but I don't see myself replaying RS3 too much (record:3 time). In SF, I did all the 7 quests and pretty much complete everything.

What I mean to say is basically, in SF you have a lot of different worlds (it's pretty clever they made it that way so they can put in all the vampire/robot/monster thing in, I like it), but you can't really fully understand it unless you give all of the hero a shot. Like for example in a town there is person who said "a rich man who lives here has moved out in hurry" - if you play one of the hero's quest, you will find out why since he is involved in the quest. If they did a RS:MS version of Unlimited Saga, I think that's the closest to SF in PS2. Also, what SF lack is the tie in finale, and that's because the game is incomplete I think.

Compared with RS:MS, once you play the game with all the quest done, you pretty much see everything. Not much new place to see (in SF you get different final boss and did I mention character specific dungeon for each hero?). No incentive to actually do all the thing together except for the little bits. It's always that guy for the final boss.

@Feld
The list looks pretty nice. One thing I always look forward in RS is to make my own character, so you can either let us have :
a. Customized character in the game (which you can remove at will - and have little lines (silent protag))
or
b. A guy who can be recruited by everyone (no limitations like Lute).

He probably should also be a tie in character I guess, because that's usually how it turns out (and how lute's story should have been).


EDIT
Also I like the fact that the characters aren't exactly "fate-chosen" heroes (most of the time). In RS:MS , you are but mere adventurers and in SF the heroes have their own agenda instead of trying to save the world from evil or stuff like that.

hmm, I am not too fond of grinding, so I tend to make enemies/bosses easy and don't drag on too long (especially the normal fights).

So enemies would probably take 2 hits to kill they come in groups of 2 or 3 depending on your party size; your speed is about 1.5 to 2x the enemies; and probably a 10 minute grind (like fighting repeatedly) would be more than enough to learn a few new skills (no lv, just Ability point).

For bosses, I like to make them annoying strategic.

Of course this is pretty basic idea atm.

Man, me and HAUS (used to be in GW art forum) had been planning to make RS- style game for the longest. The saga series is basically one (somewhere on the top) of our favourite games. Especially the newest RS for PS2.

That being said, I also think that RS game (especially the mostly) is basically a guide-dang-it game. Sure, the mysteriousss aspect of the game (algorithms, randomness, ER etc) is interesting, but to me, it is also a rather bad idea. To fully enjoy the SAGA SERIES tm experience, I have to resort to guide (thank you gamefaqs) most of the time - and that is pretty tedious for me. I mean, there is a SYSTEM faq that is probably over 200 pages. Cool but really really heavy for new players. Thus, it's hard to get into the game (probably only people Saga fans would play and "get it") - in fact I think a lot of people complain about the story and get stuck at bosses or miss a lot of things.

Here is a run down why I think that game is lacking/weak (since we are sorta analyzing the series right?):

Summary : Very challenging (good) but too much randomness (it punish you for that too), not enough explanation/help.

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It's fun to be random, and I like it - to an extent.

1. Move Learning
Having to mash the buttons for hours just because you want to learn that ONE FINAL MOVE while you can already steamroll the game is not fun. Not fun. I just want to see the move and the game won't let me. Don't make it too random, that can be tedious!

2. Status increase: STOP GAINING WILL, I NEED STR/MP!
Sometimes the growth is just pretty messed up it's not funny. Especially when you know you are going to fight a strong boss.

3. Hidden things not explained (ER)
First time I played the game I have to restart because I just realised that more fights you do = increase in Event rank, which progress the game forward - deleting some sub-quests you haven't done them yet. Actually this is the main idea of the game so I am not even sure if this is a good thing or bad, sometimes I think it's neat, at times I think it's pretty shitty. I mean, there is this boss you have to beat to save some town (kill it before it moves out), and you have to do it early. It's all pretty doable until you realised that the enemies you have to beat to get to him is so frikkin hard during that time of the game. And yeah, as you progress forward, he moves out to the town. Now I assuming you also read the faq as I do, I am sure you also know that : you have to beat certain enemies to delay the ER further and if you skip them (you can), you are pretty screwed.

Or during those times I was wondering what good does each class do, WP reduction formula, what does WILL/CHR do, and why doesn't the game explain more about these stuff. In fact, there are a lot of things still left unknown I think.

Stuff like this is pretty annoying. But since I think that most square games are "buyy our guiddeees or you will miss out that one itemm" so I guess it is to be expected (I can sort of tolerate this since this is a commercial game, but for RPG maker game, well, I am not too fond of it).

3. Items randomness
It's a neat idea that chest respawn (it takes ages though) and that the content is dependant on the how far you are in the game (don't worry if you don't get this).

But I also think that it's pretty bad that you can't get the final weapons without a treasure map that is 1% drop from an enemy (any enemy). And that you have like uhh... I am not too sure but extremely low chance that it will be LV5 treasure map (for the best weapon) and the content is still pretty random (not too random, so this last part is easy; assuming you can get the map). Actually, by that time even if you wield a weak weapon, your arts will make up for it so this is not a big issue. But I dunno, it still piss me off though, being unable to use those weapons. This game is another completionist's nightmare.

The greatest offender is the fact that to get rarest drop from enemies, you have to be at the highest battle rank (determine how tough the enemies are) and that requires specific number on the counter to be reached. So imagine that you need to get to 30 from 25 and a battle can give you 1-7 point for example. However, when you go over 30, the counter is reduced to say... 20+ instead of 30. I think that is pretty unfair to the player so yeah.


Things I think are pretty cool
Definitely the challenge - The whole ER system is pretty challenging and each fight can essentially be a game over if you are not careful - especially in the early part of the game. That's pretty intense I guess - and requires a lot of planning (and luck luck luck). Sometimes a boss can go down in a few hit, but at times it just spam "I win" button repeatedly.

Ending path - there are 3 ways to end the game, but I still like it better in Saga Frontier, different final boss for everyone. It's just lack one thing : Completion. It would be better if there is some sort of plot tie in together after you get to finish all the scenarios, but SF is an incomplete game so what can I say.

Some characters do quests differently - obviously replay value.

Ambiguous story - most people hate this, but I like it? I dunno the idea of making the story myself as an adventurer is my kinda game. The only thing it lack is the feature to make your own hero. Why can't they do this.

Enemies/Scaling : it's pretty cool that enemies only get harder the more ER (or the farther you go into the game). I am not sure if there is a limit of how strong an enemy can get in an area so yeah. You can encounter even the strongest beast monster in an area you visit early in the game if you are progressing far enough..... I think.

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So yeah, don't go nuts with the randomness man. Otherwise you will end up with unlimited saga - cool concept but so frikkin random and tedious it's not even funny.

EDIT: I find it pretty funny that I like the game and complain a lot about it at the same time.