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What is the perfect encounter rate?
I don't think I've seen the argument made that dealing with enemies should be optional in any other genres. The fact that you cannot assume the someone who chooses to play a certain RPG will actually enjoy it's battles speaks volumes of the quality of the average RPG battle.
If you go that route, give the player some sort of indication of how many enemies they are supposed to fight, like all that are on the way or something like that.
...and the player has a much easier time making the boss fights as hard/easy as they want.
If you go that route, give the player some sort of indication of how many enemies they are supposed to fight, like all that are on the way or something like that.
What is the perfect encounter rate?
author=Fallen-Griever
If your battles get boring at all then there is something wrong, and it isn't the encounter rate.
I've never seen any game where you can encounter the same set of enemies again and again in the same stage without it eventually getting boring. Pick for example one stage in Megaman X and imagine it thrice as long. Most players would get bored before that stage is over.
What is the perfect encounter rate?
author=Zachary_Braun
For modern games and modern players, don't go by encounter rate... go by player exhaustion.
What this means, is to make a test run of a dungeon and then guage the point at which the player's party becomes exhausted (low ability to restore one's self, usually by magic reserve). If it's at halfway, the encounter rate is too high.
This is an example of what I mentioned that I don't think you should do.
What could happen if you do it the way that you suggest is that the player ends up having to fight more monsters than what's fun. Imagine you playtest a dungeon and find out that after about 15 encounters they start to get boring. However, you also find out that the player still has 50% of his MP left at that point, so you adjust the encounter rate so the player is expected to run into 25 encounters. Now the player has to fight 10 more encounters after they started to get boring in order for the dungeon to be exhausting enough.
What you could do instead is to increase the MP cost of all skills by say 60%. Likewise, with your example where the player is exhausted at halfway point, you can lower the MP cost of skills instead of lowering the encounter rate. Basically, don't adjust encounter rate according to exhaustion, adjust exhaustion according to encounter rate (which in turn is adjusted according to fun.)
What is the perfect encounter rate?
author=slashphoenix
The Perfect Encounter Rate depends on many factors, some of which you've pointed out, including:
1) Dungeon size (one hallway vs. several floors)
2) Length of Battle in time (Frequent, long battles are unbearable)
3) Avg. drain on resources (HP/MP/Items)
4) EXP per battle (How much EXP is necessary to proceed)
5) Game's overall focus on combat
Some of those factors seems like addressing the issue in the wrong order. You should not adjust encounter rate depending on the EXP income, rather you should adjust how much EXP the encounters give depending on the number of battles the player is expected to fight. Likewise, I recommend adjusting how much resources the player has according to the encounter rate rather than the opposite.
That leaves factor 1), 2) and 5) which all are related to how many encounter you can have without boring the player. That I think is what you should take into account when deciding encounter rate, how much can the player fight while still being entertained. Factor 3) and 4) are more about how many encounters you must have to keep the game balanced and it's better to adjust numbers so that the "must have" is equal to what's fun rather than adjusting the encounter rate away from what's fun.
Rhianna Prachett (Tomb Raider reboot writer) discusses gender/sexuality in games
author=slashphoenix
Maybe the solution lies in thinking critically and carefully how certain aspects of a character's life would affect their personality. Stereotypical writing seems to come from laziness as often as malice.
While stereotypical writing doesn't necessarily come from malice, I think that most likely the writer is either indifferent or at a subconscious level harbors cetain attitudes.
You cannot write a damsel in distress without realizing that you are in fact writing a damsel in distress. If you write a character like Barret, you have to either know that you are stereotyping black men or you have to at least subconsciously think that this really is how black men behaves.
I'm all for thinking critically about the characters, but I don't think it takes good writing just to not stereotype characters. I think stereotyping has far more to do with attitude than writing skills.
Need answers to make a good traditional rpg game (not necessarily asking how to make a good traditional rpg)
1. Almost never use buffs or debuffs, unless it gives me a godlike advantage
I tend to use them against bosses unless the buffs have a low duration, but otherwise, I will only use them if they grant a huge advantage. That is not by itself enough though. More on this later.
2. Never use any kind of defense option, exception 'active guard' in dbz attack of the saiyans
True. There are games where I defend, but they usually attach other effects to defend as well or the game has a "defend right now dummy"
tell.
3. Never use status recovery options unless in a boss fight or in a bind
Yes.
4. Slay everything that engages me in battle so that later on I don't get stuck and have to intentionally grind
Usually, that's what I do. There are games where I skip a lot of on screen encounters though.
5. Speed up the game if possible, for example vba and pokemon
It happens, but usually I won't.
6. Try to one hit KO opponents regardless of the requirements, for example use up lots of SP
Nope, if an attack is to expensive, I won't use it.
Anyway, some games where I used buffs in random encounters are older Dragon Warrior games, Phantasy Star II (Deban from Snow Crown only) and Seventh Saga. In the old Dragon Warrior games, I could by casting a 3 MP Increase spell save myself from having to cast healing worth maybe 5-10 MP. In Seventh Saga, the buffs could mean the difference between a victory and defeat. In Phantasy Star II, both issues were prevalent. Also, the buffs were powerful in either games.
Now, Final Fantasy VII let you link Barrier to an All materia and that way you could cast a protective spell that halves the damage from most attacks. I didn't bother though. Why go trough that trouble when you can just eat the damage and then heal it? It's faster to just attack and heal. There are other games where I've faced the same issue, powerful buffs are ignored because despite their power, they don't contribute to anything meaningful.
RPGs are heavily number based games. I think that making skills useful is not a question of system, it's a question of numbers. The skills have to give the player a numerical advantage that actually matters.
In some of the earlier DW games, the Increase spell cost less MP than healing the damage you otherwise take. The numerical advantage lies then in MP spent. This matters because running out of MP and having to retreat and redo the dungeon was a very real threat. In Seventh Saga, the numerical advantage is lower chance of game over.
As for FF VII, the only advantage you got is less damage taken. However, why does it matter? I don't feel any pain when the characters take damage. The chance for a game over is pretty much zero either way and saving MP (doubtful you even do that by casting defensive spells in that game) isn't important since there's plenty of ways to replenish them mid dungeon.
So, if you want to make usually underused skills useful, they need to give the player a numerical advantage that actually matters. If you think of a skill like "it puts the enemies to sleep and therefore prevents them from acting" you will usually make it useless. Instead, look at what numbers you get. Does the skill decrease the chance of a game over? Does the skill decrease the amount of time battles takes? Does the skill decrease the use of a limited resource?
The upshot is, if you want to make a traditional game, you don't have to invent something new to make underused skills more appealing. You just need to get the numbers right.
I tend to use them against bosses unless the buffs have a low duration, but otherwise, I will only use them if they grant a huge advantage. That is not by itself enough though. More on this later.
2. Never use any kind of defense option, exception 'active guard' in dbz attack of the saiyans
True. There are games where I defend, but they usually attach other effects to defend as well or the game has a "defend right now dummy"
tell.
3. Never use status recovery options unless in a boss fight or in a bind
Yes.
4. Slay everything that engages me in battle so that later on I don't get stuck and have to intentionally grind
Usually, that's what I do. There are games where I skip a lot of on screen encounters though.
5. Speed up the game if possible, for example vba and pokemon
It happens, but usually I won't.
6. Try to one hit KO opponents regardless of the requirements, for example use up lots of SP
Nope, if an attack is to expensive, I won't use it.
Anyway, some games where I used buffs in random encounters are older Dragon Warrior games, Phantasy Star II (Deban from Snow Crown only) and Seventh Saga. In the old Dragon Warrior games, I could by casting a 3 MP Increase spell save myself from having to cast healing worth maybe 5-10 MP. In Seventh Saga, the buffs could mean the difference between a victory and defeat. In Phantasy Star II, both issues were prevalent. Also, the buffs were powerful in either games.
Now, Final Fantasy VII let you link Barrier to an All materia and that way you could cast a protective spell that halves the damage from most attacks. I didn't bother though. Why go trough that trouble when you can just eat the damage and then heal it? It's faster to just attack and heal. There are other games where I've faced the same issue, powerful buffs are ignored because despite their power, they don't contribute to anything meaningful.
RPGs are heavily number based games. I think that making skills useful is not a question of system, it's a question of numbers. The skills have to give the player a numerical advantage that actually matters.
In some of the earlier DW games, the Increase spell cost less MP than healing the damage you otherwise take. The numerical advantage lies then in MP spent. This matters because running out of MP and having to retreat and redo the dungeon was a very real threat. In Seventh Saga, the numerical advantage is lower chance of game over.
As for FF VII, the only advantage you got is less damage taken. However, why does it matter? I don't feel any pain when the characters take damage. The chance for a game over is pretty much zero either way and saving MP (doubtful you even do that by casting defensive spells in that game) isn't important since there's plenty of ways to replenish them mid dungeon.
So, if you want to make usually underused skills useful, they need to give the player a numerical advantage that actually matters. If you think of a skill like "it puts the enemies to sleep and therefore prevents them from acting" you will usually make it useless. Instead, look at what numbers you get. Does the skill decrease the chance of a game over? Does the skill decrease the amount of time battles takes? Does the skill decrease the use of a limited resource?
The upshot is, if you want to make a traditional game, you don't have to invent something new to make underused skills more appealing. You just need to get the numbers right.
Does this sound like a good storyline for an RPG? Any ideas on where I should go with it?
The story sounds great and I recommend not letting the player know about the demon summoning ritual immediately.
Try to be a bit more clever than "they have the right bloodline." You can involve bloodline, but a good explanation of why the bloodline is needed would be good. Basically, his bloodline shouldn't be the right just because, there should be reasons behind it. See for example Fire Emblem IV.
Think carefully about what the main character's husband feels about her. He has obviously been using her, but he didn't just kill her to prevent her from looking for her son. Is there a practical motive behind not doing so or is killing his own wife something he'd rather not do, demon summoning cultist or not? This is a goldmine as far as potential goes.
Try to be a bit more clever than "they have the right bloodline." You can involve bloodline, but a good explanation of why the bloodline is needed would be good. Basically, his bloodline shouldn't be the right just because, there should be reasons behind it. See for example Fire Emblem IV.
Think carefully about what the main character's husband feels about her. He has obviously been using her, but he didn't just kill her to prevent her from looking for her son. Is there a practical motive behind not doing so or is killing his own wife something he'd rather not do, demon summoning cultist or not? This is a goldmine as far as potential goes.
About Custom Battle Formulas
author= Noel_Kreiss
The damage formula for most spells is as follows: ((user.spi * obj.base_damage) / 9.9) * 1.5
The formulas adds additional 50% of the base damage to the spell as otherwise it would be very inferior to the Attack command.
You couldn't just make obj.base_damage 50% higher? That or divide by 6.6 instead of 9.9?
Questions and Stuff
author=bigtime
1. Perfectly fine crush I think. Where I live its not legal, but a games a game. I think the young aspect should stay with this character.
Actually sleeping with a 16 years old girl may be illegal, but I have a hard time imagine a feeling being outlawed.
Anyway, it does not seem unlikely at all for Poppy to develop a crush on a man who saved her life, even with a 9 year age difference. As for creepiness, you should be safe as long as you don't hint at sexual tension.
The problem with the characters is a potential game killer. The more characters you have, the harder it is to fit them without watering some of them down. If you have seven characters and add an eight, that's up to 7 extra "how does X interact with Y?" questions to answer. This goes double for unplanned characters. Chance is you end up having them only interact with 2 or so other characters, which makes the character rather bland. See Kimari from FFX.
Logical Dungeons in RPGs
Personally, I don't want necessarily logical dungeons, but I would like dungeons that look like what they are supposed to be. If it's a castle, I don't want it to be a linear set of hallways and room who's layout makes no sense.
A problem is that normally you want to design a dungeon so that the player sees at least most of it, you rarely want to say design a realistic forest where there's no point for the player to see more than a quarter of it. This requires you to either skillfully hide the linearity, meaning it is linear, but it doesn't look linear unless a player carefully examines the layout or you need a nonlinear design.
That or you don't even bother making the dungeon believable.
A problem is that normally you want to design a dungeon so that the player sees at least most of it, you rarely want to say design a realistic forest where there's no point for the player to see more than a quarter of it. This requires you to either skillfully hide the linearity, meaning it is linear, but it doesn't look linear unless a player carefully examines the layout or you need a nonlinear design.
That or you don't even bother making the dungeon believable.
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