Full Games List
Featured Games
New Games
Reviews
Media
Blogs
Game Updates
Images Feedback Summary
Game Design Highlights
Tutorials
Articles
Scripts
Utilities / Plugins
Resources
Engines
Engine Bulletins
What is Makerscore?
Past Events
Achievements
Misaos
Forums
Chat
New to RMN?
Full Store List
RMN Music Pack (free)
Profile
Locker
Play ListsCRYSTALGATE'S PROFILE
Crystalgate
694
CloseSearch
Filter
All
Game Pages
User Statuses
I hate the 'Miss' mechanic
A small variance in numbers prevents situations where increasing strength with one single point makes the difference between needing three attacks and just needing two to defeat an enemy. With a small random variance, that one point of strength will just mean you have a slightly higher probability of only needing two attacks. The question is whether or not you see that as an advantage.
Things I've Learned
author=LockeZ
Your response to Craze doesn't make sense. The battles obviously aren't lacking in variety if you're switching characters. Changing the battle situation is the very definition of variety, and 50% of the battle situation is on the player side. You want variety, but you think that adding more variety to battles will help very little in that regard?
Technically you're introducing variety if you switch characters, but the same can be said about fighting three imps instead of three dire-wolves. This does not mean that the variety is meaningful. For example, if I toss out an axeman who spams Cleave 90% of the battles and replace him with an archer who instead spams Power Shot 90% of the battles, it does not constitute variety in any meaningful way.
My observation from various video games is following; unless the game is such that fighting different line-ups of enemies results into a meaningful change of tactics (which is what I view as meaningful variety), changing the characters you use will not result into a meaningful change of tactics either.
Basically, changing characters can add variety to a game that already has variety prior to using that feature, but it cannot meaningfully introduce variety to a game that lack variety in the first place. At least I haven't seen it done.
author=LockeZ
If a designer gives you an archer character, or an earth-elemental spell, or a crit-avoiding talent, or an accessory that grants immunity to paralysis, and you for some reason decide against using it, how is forcing you to do so going to make you enjoy the game more? Well, that's easy to answer. Figuring out how to win is enjoyable. If the solution is always whatever you were going to do anyway, victory after victory starts to feel flat. It's highly enjoyable to figure out how to overcome a variety of different situations and prove your total mastery over the game.
Generally speaking, the more you absolutely have to use something, the less figuring out there is. For example, a boss that uses a multi-target paralysis move would force me to use an anti paralysis accessory. However, figuring out that I have to use that accessory is now so trivial that doing so grants no satisfaction and barely even qualifies as figuring out.
A better approach IMO is if a certain battle had say ten options (a skill, a character, an accessory, whatever) that are more useful for that particular battle than the majority of other battles and the less of those option I make use of, the harder the battle is. If I use none of those option, the battle will be impossible. The minimum number of option needed to make a victory possible depends on how skilled I am. I have to at some extent adapt my strategy, but there is still no single option that I absolutely have to make use of.
author=Craze
Crystalgate, I'm gonna try not to be minorly offended by you assuming that my battles are gonna be boring :<
I interpreted the "mix up falling into a routine" part as meaning if you don't enforce character switching, the player will fall into routine and I in turn interpreted that as meaning the player will use the same tactic over and over. On a second thought, I realized this is not necessarily what you meant. If you didn't mean that, then I apologize.
Things I've Learned
author=Craze
Do you mean this for all RPGs ever, or just for the traditional epic fantasy? Because for the traditional epic fantasy, I agree. When I want to force people into switching their party (with something like the partner XP or fatigue) it's because I design more meta, gamey games. I am forcing swaps for a purpose -- to spice up the gameplay and mix up falling into a routine. My plans also tend to be for short games meant to have lots of replayability.
I can not recall seeing this ever work. If battles are so lacking in variety that the player can fall into routine even when fighting enemies that are appropriate for the level the heroes are at, then switching character helps very little. The battles are designed to be dull and a new set of characters will not change that. Also, if you give me an archer character and I for some reason decides against using him/her, how is forcing me to so anyway going to make me enjoy the game more?
author=LockeZ
Swapping characters is a strategic choice, just like swapping equipment or alternating between skills. What's even the point of including different tactical and strategic options in your game if the player never has to make use of them a single time in the entire game to win?
A choice is only a choice if it's neither mandatory nor unusable. There has to be a question of whether or not you should use it. Also, there's a point to an option if it's advantageous to use it, even if it's not mandatory. Say I find the optimal party for one dungeon. In the next dungeon, said party is no longer optimal because enemy line-up has changed. By changing the party, I can cut down the number of turns needed to beat each battle by a half in average and also halve the number of times I have to open the menu to do after battle healing. Even if I nevertheless could have beaten the dungeon with my old party, it's still meaningful to make the change.
I hate the 'Miss' mechanic
I'm against the way RPGs in general handle misses. Often you have a low chance to miss which you can't do much if anything about. That said, I don't mind how Final Fantasy X implemented it where you can miss a lot, but only if you do something wrong.
Things I've Learned
author=Ramshackin
If 4 characters can battle at a time, only 4 characters will be used
This comes in two flavors: large number of characters to recruit to the 4 man party, or large party of freely swappable characters, where only 4 can battle at a time. Having not finished a game of the second type, I'll use Edifice as my example. My party always consisted of the same characters. Craze must have known this when making the game, because there are battles that force you to use a random party.
This problem compounds when unused characters don't receive updated equipment or battle experience. I thought I could be clever by making side quests that required a certain character. It just meant I spent time on content that will never be played.
How I handle this situation varies a lot from game to game. In some games I switch parties a lot while in others I stick to one set of characters. It does however help a lot if inactive members receive experience and equipment can easily be swapped.
I find it troublesome when I see people post solutions where they try to force the player into swapping characters. Swapping characters is only fun when it's encouraged, not when it's forced. If you force the player, you have character swapping for the sake of swapping characters, it's no longer contributing to fun. That said, I could get behind the idea of forcing the player early on just to get her/him used to using different parties and then make it optional the remaining 90% of the game.
Enemies should be more than bags of HP
Enemies never did anything interesting in my early games. No threat. Nothing to react to. The challenge was how fast you can kill them.
Isn't this well known already? I think the problem it actually doing this rather than knowing this has to be done in the first place.
Don't wait until level 20 to introduce the interesting mechanics
This is the recurring theme of my games. The interesting skills, original mechanics, and character building come later in the game. I always have this need to ease players into the game by starting off with the generic RPG systems. Player's interest is gone by the time the game gets good.
There is nothing wrong with easing the player into the game, but I have noticed a lot of RPGs takes that idea to a ridiculous level. You need one dungeon, maybe two if the first dungeon is a mini dungeon, at most to ease the player into the game. If you have multiple new mechanics, you can introduce them one at a time and use one dungeon for each new mechanic to ease the player into it. Anything more is overkill.
That said, I've noticed, thanks to the Let's Try videos, that some player get confused as soon as the game turns slightly more complicated than + and -. You're going to have a hard time making your battles appealing to both them and players with actual comprehension skills.
Repeatedly failing to apply a condition due to chance is frustrating
Especially when there is no indication that the boss was just straight up immune.
I don't get why so many insist on giving status effect a failure chance on cannon fodder enemies. I have no problem with skills failing when it makes sense, like skeletons being immune to poison. However, when a sleep spell randomly fails against a cannon fodder bat, that's a clear "status effects are not actually meant to be used" signal to me.
So, I'm sitting on a complete game and - Serial Key Systems!?
author=Madurai
Haha, sorry.
Too much work and time and profit to lose to just release it for free. If you only knew man!
So do you know how much profit you lose? Do you have any experience of this? Usually when proficiency due to piracy is discussed, people just speculate wildly.
Has anyone made an online service made to inform parents about weather a game is OK for their child a lot
The ESRB is probably the best bet for a parent who don't want to take the time to research what the game is about. As the ESRB errs on the side of being overly cautious, it will work for any kid who isn't very mentally unstable. Adding more crap is unlikely to help for following reasons:
1) You should engage yourself with what your kids are doing. The chance of things going seriously wrong increases dramatically if the parents don't pay attention to what their kids are doing and don't at least partially involve themselves. If you just park your child in front of the console/computer while you distance yourself from it as far as possible because of reasons, there is an increased chance something bad will happen to your child. No rating will change that. As such, there is very little help for parents who don't consider themselves having time to pay attention to what their children are doing.
2) There seems to be zero basis behind the ratings anyways. The ratings are based on various criteria, but what are the criteria based on? For example, if a game is rated T it's supposedly suitable for teenagers and not for pre-teens. However, was there ever any research done that showed thirteen years old children can generally handle violence, suggestive themes, crude humor, minimal blood, simulated gambling and/or infrequent use of strong language while say ten years old children can not? I see little point in trying to inform the parents what games are suitable for their children when in reality those who are doing the informing doesn't actually know themselves.
The ESRB should do just fine as something you just throw at the paranoia parents until they are fully replaced by parents who grew up with gaming.
1) You should engage yourself with what your kids are doing. The chance of things going seriously wrong increases dramatically if the parents don't pay attention to what their kids are doing and don't at least partially involve themselves. If you just park your child in front of the console/computer while you distance yourself from it as far as possible because of reasons, there is an increased chance something bad will happen to your child. No rating will change that. As such, there is very little help for parents who don't consider themselves having time to pay attention to what their children are doing.
2) There seems to be zero basis behind the ratings anyways. The ratings are based on various criteria, but what are the criteria based on? For example, if a game is rated T it's supposedly suitable for teenagers and not for pre-teens. However, was there ever any research done that showed thirteen years old children can generally handle violence, suggestive themes, crude humor, minimal blood, simulated gambling and/or infrequent use of strong language while say ten years old children can not? I see little point in trying to inform the parents what games are suitable for their children when in reality those who are doing the informing doesn't actually know themselves.
The ESRB should do just fine as something you just throw at the paranoia parents until they are fully replaced by parents who grew up with gaming.
Cutscene2.png
Some analysis on Earthbound's opening
author=unity
I agree with your conclusion, to a degree. The mundane opening certainly adds something to the feel of Earthbound's opening. Just as long as "mudane" doesn't immediately equate with "boring," I think it's all good.
Very much yes. While I liked Earthbound's opening, I can not say the same about Twilight Princess.
Anyway, starting with the mundane may not always be the most efficient method to enhance the fantastic.
Imagine following; you start with the hero experiencing something clearly out of the ordinary. Something goes seriously shit. End of day. The next day everyone else in town goes about with their lives as usual. They have no idea something bad and out of ordinary even transpired, nobody else witnessed it.
What Videogames Are You Playing Right Now?
Kingdom Hearts. Destiny Islands beaten. Selphie's head also beaten some more times. Now I have only Traverse Town left and then the main story will slow down to a crawl until Neverland. Good buy to the voice of Sora's mom, it was the first time we meet and will probably be the last in the series despite the owner of the voice being alive. It's also good-buy to Riku as an interesting character, when we next meet he will be a total idiot. As for Kairi, while it's also good-buy to her, she was and will remain an uninteresting character.
On the plus side, the mini stories of all worlds are, while not particularly good, still enjoyable and Donald and Goofy are fun in this game. The story tends to work whenever Nomura doesn't try anything more complicated than 2+2 and gets a bit wonky when he does.
On the plus side, the mini stories of all worlds are, while not particularly good, still enjoyable and Donald and Goofy are fun in this game. The story tends to work whenever Nomura doesn't try anything more complicated than 2+2 and gets a bit wonky when he does.
Games - Tester
Games - Other
