Innovative RPG Ideas and Annoying Cliches

[Emil]

So, me and a friend are working on programming an action rpg of our own that is supposed to have a similar engine to Star Ocean 3/Rogue Galaxy. However, I'm trying to find ways in making this such that it avoids the many cliches of current rpgs these days, as well as bringing something unique(whether it's gameplay related, or storyline related) that hasn't really been done yet (or hasn't been executed well).

So, post here any ideas you have for rpgs that you've yet to see done, as well as some rpg cliches (like the overabundance of helpless healing girls, and how the main character almost always seems to be a sword wielder) that you just hate to see.

[Nekoboy Eriku]

Do one of those things where there's a chest hidden behind a waterfall -only make it so that when the player opens it, it restarts the game or something else that's totally ridiculous.

[GC!?]

http://project-apollo.net/text/rpg.html

List of RPG Cliches here so you can avoid them.

Might be worth looking at.

[Dasrik]

Don't kill exactly one character to make a point.

*kicks FF7*

[Slide]

Make it so the characters cannot cross-train.

Keep the game short and exciting, but with high difficulty based on utility and not grinding.

This way the game isn't about constantly leveling up to spam "Ultima" with all the characters no matter who they are. And also so the game doesn't become some non-productive piece of shit, where you play half way wondering why you don't feel like playing it anymore.

[Emil]

Make it so the characters cannot cross-train.

Keep the game short and exciting, but with high difficulty based on utility and not grinding.

I'm actually planning on making it very long, with an incredibly large amount of (optional) exploration.

I was very fond of the PHantasy Star games, and how they implemented planet exploration in an rpg. I generally bought Rogue Galaxy because it also had planet exploration, but was disappointed that the planets were *way* too small (mainly consisting of one town, and a few areas to explore). So yeah, I plan to have a reasonable amount of vast planets to explore.

Edit: I'm also planning on having some reasonably good AI for enemies...it seems most enemies in rpgs follow either a very predictable pattern, or just randomly choose an attack from their arsenal, instead of doing things based off of what is happening in the fight.

[SkyeElemental]

All I ask is that you make the main character use a weapon that is not a sword.

I'm serious.

[Emil]

All I ask is that you make the main character use a weapon that is not a sword.

I'm serious.

Hah yeah, I already considered that. And as said, the main female character is definitely not going to be a helpless "holy princess" with a staff.

[Windlord0]

Anything you do like phantasy star (the originals) is a plus in my book. The world was truly massive, and the fact that there was just as much town space as there was dungeon space was a great thing.

The AI of enemies in most RPGs is an overlooked factor, because there is only so much that they can put in, and that is the last thing that is going to be noticed. You will never see AI mentioned in the review of a traditional RPG unless it is so terrible that it is noteworthy (like healing the party or attacking itself or something insane). I agree with this mostly because you don't need a complicated system of AI to run an traditional RPG. No pathfinding, no GA, no decision trees, no learning. Now it would be cool to run a perceps and some learning stuff for repeating major enemies and have them adapt as you fight them over and over again, and maybe have them begin to hate certain characters and target them over others. There is a lot that you can do. This gets expanded greatly with an action RPG (in thinking the Tales of ... games) where they can have agression and movement patterns and following that can all improve the experience.

One thing I enjoy is for the final battles to actually be the final battles. There are so many enemies in the worlds of the recent final fantasy games that would rape the final "world threatening" boss in a heartbeat. The final boss isn't really a threat or dramatic when you just killed something 10x as strong. Also hav the whole party be useful and needed. Again recent FF games have had single characters that can solo the final boss with no problem, and others that aren't even a help (omnislash vs red's gay final, lionheart vs whatever garbage quistis had, etc) If I have a party, I want to use a party.

Finally I will throw in and say that having the main character have a sword makes sense. Yeah I like variety, suikoden games did that and it was cool, but the sword is iconic. It stood out in history as the most all purpose, consistent personal combat weapon of the melee era. It was also the distinction of class in certain times and places and the lore behind certain swords is unrivaled by any weapon of the times. It's your choice for main weapon, but I figured the sword needed some defending.

[Dasrik]

Edit: I'm also planning on having some reasonably good AI for enemies...it seems most enemies in rpgs follow either a very predictable pattern, or just randomly choose an attack from their arsenal, instead of doing things based off of what is happening in the fight.
Good luck with that, good AI is incredibly complicated to program. 99.9% of programmers use braindead patterns and just overpower all the "important" characters.

Good AI should be able to produce at least simple strategies that will put a monkey wrench in basic RPG strategy (which is basically give one character a boffo weapon, put another character as healer and have the remaining ones be cannon fodder).

[AdverseSolutions]

have black people in your rpg. and mexicans.

also refuse to involve kingdoms at ALL. did anyone else realize halfway through ff12 that you were fighting for some dumbshit kingdom for no other reason than saving its dynasty? a modern rpg should feature a modern storyline. fuck this saudi arabia shit.

have the main character fall in love with another female character only to quickly find out she's a lesbian and then have the rest of the game be really awkward between them.

if you really are making your own game, don't splooge too hard on the story. i can imagine that you're thinking about making something much more complex than the typical rpg but don't go overboard. complex but not overwhelming.

and....n00d cutscenes as hidden bonus. ::ahem::

[Emil]

Good luck with that, good AI is incredibly complicated to program. 99.9% of programmers use braindead patterns and just overpower all the "important" characters.

Good AI should be able to produce at least simple strategies that will put a monkey wrench in basic RPG strategy (which is basically give one character a boffo weapon, put another character as healer and have the remaining ones be cannon fodder).

I'm well aware of programming AIs (took a couple of AI and machine learning/data mining courses). I don't really plan on going as far as implementing neural networks or other forms of training on the computer, but rather just programming in actions based on certain conditions (and even this which seems basic enough, doesn't seem to be existent in most rpgs). Plus, the way they do it isn't that logic. FOr instance, an enemy has 5000 HP and you do about 1000 per round of battle, but he heals himself for 500. How useless is that? The enemy should first be able to heal far more than that, and secondly, compare if his healing is greater than the average damage your party is doing to it...plus factoring in it's own health, the party's state (fresh vs. clinging to life), etc.

Edit: well Windlord, making the AI learn on it's own is going to be far too difficult. It's going to be a reinforcement learning task, so I think it's just too complex to make without ripping my hair out.

[Ephidel]

It's hard trying to think of ways that haven't been done before. You should focus a lot more on maps, dungeons, and monster types first. It makes it so much easier to plan out your RPG.

Include new monsters types to confuse the gamer. By now, everybody knows what to expect from a dragon or something undead.

[Septimus Prime]

Try limiting the number of times you can use your weapons/spells/abilities, like the SaGa series. This eliminates people spamming their top tier skills.

[valaris]

It's hard trying to think of ways that haven't been done before. You should focus a lot more on maps, dungeons, and monster types first. It makes it so much easier to plan out your RPG.

Include new monsters types to confuse the gamer. By now, everybody knows what to expect from a dragon or something undead.

Undead Platypus Dragons are scary and innovative though. There's two things that annoyed me back a few years ago (I don't know if they still do them now).
-the human size diffrence. You talk to a dude and he's your size, then battle starts BAM! mofo's 10 times your size.
-skill diffrence: You fight a bad guy and he's tough as shit, then decides to join your party and is frikin weak.

Out of curiousity though what's the main character's weapon?

[Septimus Prime]

Oh, and check out the HEX battle system.

[Emil]

Out of curiousity though what's the main character's weapon?

I don't know actually...that stuff isn't really that important. I am currently in the process of programming the battle engine, and that can be done without even having a storyline, or any particular character (right now I just gave him a sword for testing purposes).

I don't like lame main characters though...think Jaster from Rogue Galaxy. I'd prefer games with main characters like Yagami Light from Death Note.

Oh, and check out the HEX battle system.

???

[Septimus Prime]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_arms_4

Scroll down to "Combat."

[Thongboy Bebop]

Try limiting the number of times you can use your weapons/spells/abilities, like the SaGa series. This eliminates people spamming their top tier skills.

This only worked in SaGa though because everything reset after battle, hey? The whole system was designed so you could do that, that's why it was ok (hell, why it was awesome). In point of fact, this is prolly one of the top two RPG battle systems ever, I say rip off the whole thing entirely.

N

[Emil]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_arms_4

Scroll down to "Combat."

That system seems interesting but at the same time, it doesn't really make much logical sense. Nonetheless, I should probably play some of those Wild Arms games.

[Ephidel]

Monsters that the player can adapt too is a good idea.

Ex.

FF: For the last couple of years, it's the Tonberry. Fooled by it's size, RPG noobs would attack it - then lose party members one by one. The Cactuar is no different, however, you see where this is going...

Dragon Quest: The slime has driven gamers insane with it's constantly ability to appear over and over. Since they are weak, gamers see little point in fighting them. Include stuff like that...

[Septimus Prime]

Actually, the SaGa series's battle system has evolved a lot. In the very early games, it was just standard RPG battles with limits on weapon/spell/ability usage (some of which, like abilities or weapons equipped to the robot class could be restored at inns). Later versions introduced LP, WP, SP, and "sparking," for learning new techniques. Unlimited SaGa fucked it all up with its reel battle system, though, so don't look at that one.

I think one of the things that made SaGa work was that you couldn't gain levels traditionally and had to advance your stats through your actions (although I don't really like the randomized growth rate of stats). This made the series incredibly hard if you didn't know what you were doing, and having a limit on your skill usage exacerbated things because it wasn't economically viable to power level until late into the game (although SaGa Frontier II pretty much fixed this problem, too).

[Emil]

I forgot to mention that the battle engine I was planning would be similar to SO3/Rogue Galaxy (ie, real time fighting as opposed to turn based/non-free movement), combined with fighting games. Characters will have normals, and special moves/supers (I'm unsure how these will be learned yet). Normals can be chained together (and just like fighting games, some will be cancellable into some things, others will not), cancelled into specials, etc but cancelling wastes stamina. I want to limit the usage of menus in the battles themselves, I'm trying to find effective ways of doing this.

I was thinking of allowing the player to set certain actions outside of attacks (like say, drinking a potion) as hotkeys, and thus instead of using a menu for this during battle, you can just hit the hotkey...but in battle, you have the option of setting different things to hotkeys if you like, using a menu. I think this will limit the number of times you go into the menu during battle.

[Thongboy Bebop]

That's the beauty of their system though (I mostly mean SaGa Frontier). It's a motherfucker until you figure it out, and that of course turns a lot of people off. But once you've got the hang of it it's an expert's dream. You really benefit from focusing on particular characters and their individual tendencies, that's one thing I loved most about the series. You know full well which characters you prefer by the end of the first couple of playthroughs, so then out of the umpteen characters you can choose from you already know which ones suit your style and you can snatch them up accordingly.

N

[Ephidel]

Use shortcut versions of spells and chains. Something like Kingdom Hearts (again, it's hard to think of something new)

I actually prefer a Dark Cloud type battle system. They barely use any menus and it's real time - 2 had an interesting way of building your weapons.

[Emil]

Use shortcut versions of spells and chains. Something like Kingdom Hearts (again, it's hard to think of something new)

No they will actually be done like you would do a fighting game move..."spells" would be like this too (a spell would really just be considered a special move that you learn). So yeah, I want this rpg to actually have some emphasis on execution as well.

Yes, there is blocking, but there is probably not going to be a notion of blocking high/low (too many sprites to draw).

[ToyRobotTerror]

That system seems interesting but at the same time, it doesn't really make much logical sense. Nonetheless, I should probably play some of those Wild Arms games.

Avoid 1-2

[Septimus Prime]

Just avoid 2.

[Ephidel]

Wild Arms 3 was the best imo - I liked the more old western type involvement - and so many great quotes.

Anyway, I know the RPG scene has shifted to "real time battle" or the preference - but remember the elements of what makes an successful RPG:

Great Story
Quality Music
Superior Gameplay

If you decide to go turn based, go for it. Remember, Grandia is a prime example of focusing more on the battle system and not other aspects of the game.

[Slide]

I forgot to mention that the battle engine I was planning would be similar to SO3/Rogue Galaxy (ie, real time fighting as opposed to turn based/non-free movement), combined with fighting games. Characters will have normals, and special moves/supers (I'm unsure how these will be learned yet). Normals can be chained together (and just like fighting games, some will be cancellable into some things, others will not), cancelled into specials, etc but cancelling wastes stamina. I want to limit the usage of menus in the battles themselves, I'm trying to find effective ways of doing this.

I was thinking of allowing the player to set certain actions outside of attacks (like say, drinking a potion) as hotkeys, and thus instead of using a menu for this during battle, you can just hit the hotkey...but in battle, you have the option of setting different things to hotkeys if you like, using a menu. I think this will limit the number of times you go into the menu during battle.

I don't know, just remember that you don't want universal abilities to overshadow everything else. It makes things shallow as hell. I mean, look at Sabin in 6. Why use his, unique to Sabin, blitz moves when you can just use ultima.

I don't really understand why they do this in RPGs giving players all of this universal shit. I mean you can hate a character, and then there's really no point to use them at all then, cause you can have someone else learn the good special abilities of the characters you didn't like. But in a game where they're unique abilities then you'd have to use that character regardless.

Think of it like this, imagine SF where everyone could learn the ability to throw a hadoken(and i mean Ryu style hadoken, no yoga flame, tiger shot, sonic boom. Just Ryu hadoken, the same shit same property). How lame is that.

Now games that got job systems mess it up too, cause everyone can eventually have matching movesets, with not difference besides appearance of the character themselves. It'd be much better if player A learned certain skills from the Archer job class, while player B learns a completely different skill set from that same job.

EDIT: this actually stems to fighting games in general too. Why is it that most of the new fighting games, ALL the characters fight so close to being exactly the same? Few fighters retain a full unique cast of character selections. I'd rather have a cast of characters less than 20 with all of them being completely unique in abilities, instead of a game with 40+ with 30 of them fighting the same way. Even if their moves are different their fight and their goal is exactly the same, it's retarded.

Keep the Archetypes the archetypes, and stop trying to make them do everything someone else can do.

[Kabuki Klash]

Hmm, If you're so keen on execution, how will that not conflict with the character's movement? I mean, say one character has the qcf+p "Rising Phoenix" skill: isn't there the risk of activating it while moving around and attacking normally? Just askin'...maybe it's a stupid question, as I don't know much about programming. I mean, it's one thing in fighters, where the match itself is the game's goal, but I'm not sure it'd work in a rpg, too...

[Emil]

I don't know, just remember that you don't want universal abilities to overshadow everything else. It makes things shallow as hell. I mean, look at Sabin in 6. Why use his, unique to Sabin, blitz moves when you can just use ultima.

Well the thing about this point is, you aren't forced to use Ultima since in FF6 you aren't really competing against other people. If you think Ultima is broke in FF6, you can just not use it.

EDIT: this actually stems to fighting games in general too. Why is it that most of the new fighting games, ALL the characters fight so close to being exactly the same? Few fighters retain a full unique cast of character selections. I'd rather have a cast of characters less than 20 with all of them being completely unique in abilities, instead of a game with 40+ with 30 of them fighting the same way. Even if their moves are different their fight and their goal is exactly the same, it's retarded.

Well I don't know which characters you have in mind but I really don't think it can be Guilty Gear, as the characters in that game are extremely unique from one another.

In any case yeah, I didn't plan on having many universal things. I DID love the FFX grid system but that is not what I plan to use here. Even with the FFX grid system, I purposely did not have certain characters learn certain parts of the grid, to make things more interesting. Auron being able to do Firaga's and stuff doesn't really make much sense.

Hmm, If you're so keen on execution, how will that not conflict with the character's movement? I mean, say one character has the qcf+p "Rising Phoenix" skill: isn't there the risk of activating it while moving around and attacking normally? Just askin'...maybe it's a stupid question, as I don't know much about programming. I mean, it's one thing in fighters, where the match itself is the game's goal, but I'm not sure it'd work in a rpg, too...

Well that is one problem I'm wondering how to program, but it's really not that different from fighting games in general. There's always the problem of accidentally doing a move when you try to say, super jump forward+P (in guilty gear, super jump forward+P can sometimes make you activate air qcf+P). Or I can just try to select the motions for these attacks in such a way that it doesn't cause conflicts with moving around.

Edit: Actually, I got the solution to that. Just make special moves/supers all require a motion and two buttons to perform. Then have it so all normals only require one button. This way, no conflict occurs, unless you did your normal with two attack buttons (which would be your fault, not the game).

As for other parts of the battle system, I'm not really sure what things would be needed. Not sure what type of meters (aside from stamina) would be required. I don't really plan on going the Magic Points route.

[Septimus Prime]

It would be cool if anyone could use any weapon, but to varying degrees of proficiency. And, of course, no weapon class should vastly outpower all others (fuckin' sword always owns everything else).

[Slide]

Well the thing about this point is, you aren't forced to use Ultima since in FF6 you aren't really competing against other people. If you think Ultima is broke in FF6, you can just not use it.



Well I don't know which characters you have in mind but I really don't think it can be Guilty Gear, as the characters in that game are extremely unique from one another.

In any case yeah, I didn't plan on having many universal things. I DID love the FFX grid system but that is not what I plan to use here. Even with the FFX grid system, I purposely did not have certain characters learn certain parts of the grid, to make things more interesting. Auron being able to do Firaga's and stuff doesn't really make much sense.


Well, that stuffs in the game though. It doesn't make sense to play some sort of "no throws honor system" with a game.
There are exceptions, but I mean cmon, it goes with that old argument people use on Smash Bros. about how they play without all the items and certain stages.

I think all of us tend to want to play the game how it was intended and made, and expand and draw depth from that. Not pretending like something just isn't there, in order to enjoy yourself.

The grid system in X was cool and all that, but it was lame that it was universal.

I gotta digress though with my last points because I was using fighting games as an example, and RPGs are just a 1p thing. But i dont know, that's just how i see it.

[Emil]

Well, that stuffs in the game though. It doesn't make sense to play some sort of "no throws honor system" with a game.
There are exceptions, but I mean cmon, it goes with that old argument people use on Smash Bros. about how they play without all the items and certain stages.

I think all of us tend to want to play the game how it was intended and made, and expand and draw depth from that. Not pretending like something just isn't there, in order to enjoy yourself.

I think my argument is valid in games where you are not competing with anyone though. In those games, it's up to you to make it fun for yourself, but you generally aren't worried about how other people are playing the game. So, in non-competitive games like rpgs, I think it's ok to ignore the existence of game breaking features in order to make the game more enjoyable for yourself. Someone else just spamming Ultima to beat FF6 doesn't affect how you play FF6 in any way.

That said, it is probably a good idea to not have these broken things in the first place, but the existence of them doesn't mean players can't just avoid them.

[Slide]

I think my argument is valid in games where you are not competing with anyone though. In those games, it's up to you to make it fun for yourself, but you generally aren't worried about how other people are playing the game. So, in non-competitive games like rpgs, I think it's ok to ignore the existence of game breaking features in order to make the game more enjoyable for yourself.

Yeah you got me before I made my edit digression.

[poppinrice]

Lots and lots of customization of characters please.

[{PFH}-Lake]

dont make emo/metro. Characters im sick of seeming them in almost every rpg.

[Ephidel]

I think every Mage should be able to summon something. A small creature, if any, intead of just wielding standard magic. The creature will be based on a law or ruling to determine it's strengths:

How many times was it summoned into battle - HP Increase
How many times it took damage - Defense Increase

And etc.

[Thongboy Bebop]

I think my argument is valid in games where you are not competing with anyone though. In those games, it's up to you to make it fun for yourself, but you generally aren't worried about how other people are playing the game. So, in non-competitive games like rpgs, I think it's ok to ignore the existence of game breaking features in order to make the game more enjoyable for yourself. Someone else just spamming Ultima to beat FF6 doesn't affect how you play FF6 in any way.

That said, it is probably a good idea to not have these broken things in the first place, but the existence of them doesn't mean players can't just avoid them.

I'm always competing at everything, me.

I remember when I used to play Phantasy Star Online (original, on DC) it was a point of pride for me to clear Vhard Ruins and Dark Falz with my trusty Dragon Slayer. When hacking became prevalent it wasn't that big a deal, and the experience did indeed feel diminshed. When everyone can just gameshark themselves a Spread Needle +99 and make quick work of the same areas, for some reason even if I "just played with legit people" I still felt like a chump knowing that everyone else could do what I had worked for from Day 1 if they were willing to cheat for it.

Bollocks to that. Don't make the experiences that should feel epic tainted by easy-mode options. There are some things players should have to work for.

N

[Difoj]

New Game+ ala Chrono Trigger was, to me, the best, but New Game+ like Final Fantasy X-2 where you start at level 1 but with most of your items was stupid.

[d2k]

some things not to take from rogue galaxy's fighting engine:

the need to block just cause your "energy" ran out and basically had to deflect an attack just to be able to attack again.

the outright abusive damage the ai does in comparison to yourself. for instance, that one fight with the dogman and his friend...ridiculous. i either sat an extremely long distance away from him where his shots would not hit me yet i can tick at him for 7 dmg a piece, or i would slash at him twice and go straight into block for 10 seconds. it was dumb. there was no sense of stun animation for him, but the second he touches you it's basically game over, because YOU have stun animation.

inspecific targeting. there were some monsters or what not that you had to hit on the head before you could do any dmg to it, yet you couldn't specifically target the head, just the general enemy. that was kinda annoying.

cool things from rogue galaxy's fighting engine:

instant attacks (although lengthy in animation) to crush all the peons in your way.

use of alternate weapons.


i like the concept of team attacks, like chrono trigger style, where everyone can team with everyone. it's a shame in many games where they implement team attacks but you only like one of the two characters or something.

[Kayin]

Try adding some actual role-playing elements so that is actually deserves the title of an RPG, unlike most console RPG's.

Your decisions effecting the storyline and how the main character develops, etc. This is one of the reasons I've come to enjoy pen and paper RPG's more, but I find it pretty awesome when such things are brought into console RPG's.

[Kalypso]

Best idea for a game that has not successfully been used yet (I played a game like this awhile back, 4~ish years after me and some friends fleshed out the idea, and it was terrible, Savage?) is:

RTS where 2 people on each side build structures and maintain the buildings, while the rest of the players in the game go fps mode controlling the units. It was 'attempted' in wc3 but the map editor didn't allow enough functionality to do it properly, I still want to see someone make it right. Essentially you balance an rts, then have people both managing the buildings and the units. There would be side jobs for the fps mode players to do besides just shooting people as well.

We wrote up an enormous amount of shit on how to do it right, theres so many ideas it's ridiculous. And no one has even tried that yet, except savage, which was a bad game.

edit- Also, HAVE A GOOD STORY. Most RPGs completely fail at telling a story, do research on literature and storytelling so you can do it properly.

[Emil]

the need to block just cause your "energy" ran out and basically had to deflect an attack just to be able to attack again.

Yeah I definitely didn't like this.

the outright abusive damage the ai does in comparison to yourself. for instance, that one fight with the dogman and his friend...ridiculous. i either sat an extremely long distance away from him where his shots would not hit me yet i can tick at him for 7 dmg a piece, or i would slash at him twice and go straight into block for 10 seconds. it was dumb. there was no sense of stun animation for him, but the second he touches you it's basically game over, because YOU have stun animation.

If you mean Deego vs. Gale, that guy wasn't hard...you just had to keep advancing with periodic blocking (blocking makes that gunshot of Gale only do 1 damage), then when you're close and he is recovering from his gun attack, slash him for about 170 damage (with that powerup super of Deego's). Also, you can block between the multiple hit attacks even if the first one hit (otherwise, Gale's 10 hit gun attack would kill you).

inspecific targeting. there were some monsters or what not that you had to hit on the head before you could do any dmg to it, yet you couldn't specifically target the head, just the general enemy. that was kinda annoying.

I think they wanted to make you do it. If you could target the head then you wouldn't have to jump attack yourself.

instant attacks (although lengthy in animation) to crush all the peons in your way.

This is what I didn't like actually. It's incredibly abusive, especially with the fact that there are so many save points in the game. To go from one save point to the next, you can just spam all of your abilities and then replenish the AP at the save point.

But...I'd have to say it was very useful in maxing weapons.

btw, you can just skip the lengty animations of those attacks by hitting Triangle..

i like the concept of team attacks, like chrono trigger style, where everyone can team with everyone. it's a shame in many games where they implement team attacks but you only like one of the two characters or something.

Well I actually liked games where you had to discover the team attacks - like Phantasy Star 4, instead of just being told what spells combine.

[Kyoujin]

Personally, I would be interested in an rpg that isn't based in a fantasy world, a futuristic world, or any other bizarre or cliche world: it should be based in the real world with elements of mysticism and magic-realism to boot.
Normal people, normal clothes (no crazy get ups, whether based of actual clothing or not), normal names, etc.

[Kayin]

Personally, I would be interested in an rpg that isn't based in a fantasy world, a futuristic world, or any other bizarre or cliche world: it should be based in the real world with elements of mysticism and magic-realism to boot.
Normal people, normal clothes (no crazy get ups, whether based of actual clothing or not), normal names, etc.

Best goddamn setting ever. Seriously.

[Emil]

Inventory management is also an issue I was thinking about, especially after hearing Odin Sphere's poor execution of it.

I personally don't think making a limited inventory brings much depth at all, and just results in nuisance more than anything. Putting a limit of how many items of the same type you can carry seems reasonable (to avoid people coming in with 1000 potions) but other than that I don't think there should be a limit.

Rogue Galaxy has gives you a ton of space but the problem there is that there are almost thousands of weapons to synthesis together, so eventually the inventory they give you doesn't end up being much.

[Korigama]

Hmm, I'm writing up plans for an RPG as well, so if I were to advise anything specific...

-No making environments big for the sake of being big. There's a fine line between large enough to create a realistic sense of scale and made huge so that it takes 5 to 10 minutes to get from place to place and piss players off (see FFX, XII, and Rogue Galaxy).
-Whether going with a real-time or turn-based system, have the option to toggle between having battles pause when accessing the menu. Aside from helping players ease into the combat, others might prefer having the time to think without the need to use an actual "press start" pause.
-Limit the amount of weird characters (if anything, part of my problem with Rogue Galaxy was the fact that there were too many of them in comparison to everyone else).
-No using multiple playthroughs to earn all cast members as a means to extend replay value. Seriously, even if you make some of the characters hidden (though I don't see the point), try to have them all available in one go. And, for the love of God, be sure to make your decisions as to who joins the permanent party more logical than others before you. *glares at Tri-Ace and their forcing Adray into the group rather than Clair in SO3 :bluu:*
-Balance, balance, balance. By all means, if going the path of the real-time battle system, no attacks in a serious fight should have no means of neither avoiding nor otherwise defending against, which was a major issue in the likes of SO3 (being in Japan right now, I'm tempted to find whoever designed and programmed the spider tanks and zip-flies in that game and drop kick them in the balls). Either way, have a limit placed on blocking too much without recovery (a guard break feature, perhaps).
-Try not to have too large of a cast. If you can manage a story accomodating the likes of a cast as large as a Suikoden, feel free, but otherwise, it probably shouldn't center on anymore than 10 characters at most (6-8 should likely be enough). Chrono Cross was an example of a game attempting to provide more than what was needed only to fail hard.
-As others have said, try to avoid "me too" aspects in regards to management and development. Having specific characters specialize in certain weapon types should be fine, and creating techniques unique to each character (rather than the shared magic among players and enemies in other titles) should be a worthy challenge.

And lastly, I'd say: give your lead a name. Even if he's the silent protagonist type, it beats having people avoid mentioning him by name in conversations (plus, if story is going to be something emphasized, it's not like the player being able to name him will mean much for a past and future that are already been set in place).

[Emil]

-No making environments big for the sake of being big. There's a fine line between large enough to create a realistic sense of scale and made huge so that it takes 5 to 10 minutes to get from place to place and piss players off (see FFX, XII, and Rogue Galaxy).

I thought the FFX environments were reasonable. There were a lot of sidequests in that game, most of the environments actually had things things in there. Not so much in Rogue Galaxy...Rogue Galaxy's dungeons were so incredibly annoying and for the most part, empty besides the few random chests. But...at least Rogue Galaxy put a lot of waypoints, which kind of balanced this out.

-Balance, balance, balance. By all means, if going the path of the real-time battle system, no attacks in a serious fight should have no means of neither avoiding nor otherwise defending against, which was a major issue in the likes of SO3 (being in Japan right now, I'm tempted to find whoever designed and programmed the spider tanks and zip-flies in that game and drop kick them in the balls). Either way, have a limit placed on blocking too much without recovery (a guard break feature, perhaps).

Yep, I was already planning on some sort of guard break feature, although it's going to be hard to make a group of enemies not able to stunlock you to death. I also hated those spider tanks in SO3.

Try not to have too large of a cast. If you can manage a story accomodating the likes of a cast as large as a Suikoden, feel free, but otherwise, it probably shouldn't center on anymore than 10 characters at most (6-8 should likely be enough). Chrono Cross was an example of a game attempting to provide more than what was needed only to fail hard.

Well when you have a lot of characters, the diversity of them decreases. I plan to have about 8 unique characters, maybe more.

Another thing I'm unsure of is whether I should have it so that the player MUST use all the characters at some point, rather than just beating the game with the same party throughout most of the game.

-As others have said, try to avoid "me too" aspects in regards to management and development. Having specific characters specialize in certain weapon types should be fine, and creating techniques unique to each character (rather than the shared magic among players and enemies in other titles) should be a worthy challenge.

There's probably going to be some characters that can use multliple weapon types (that are shared), but most characters will have weapons types unique to them only.

I'm also trying to make it so that the next weapon of a specific type you find, does not totally make the previous one you found totally obselete. This can be fixed by giving all weapons different properties and multiple different stat boosts, to give all (or most) a reason to be kept rather than immediately sold.

[Rioting Soul]

-No job system. No switching weapon classes.

-Combo system. Based on their level compared to your's, they could burst out of combo if they were strong enough. Enemies can be put in hit stun for other attacks to connect afterwards. Weak monster can literally be infinited to death but. Equal strength monsters could be comboed to a certain point then break free. Monsters of really high levels would nearly be impossible to combo.

-You can't directly control your party members but you'd only be able to program their actions. With a FFXII gambit-like system, you could add strong suggestions to your teammates to do a certain thing under a certain condition. If your partner has a powerful attack that sets the sky ablaze(doing extra damage to airborne enemies) then you could program the partner to only do that attack when the enemy is airborne. That way, the partner would only use up energy for that attack when it was most profittable. For grounded enemies then you(or any of the other party members) could hit the enemy with a launcher which would trigger the partner setting the sky ablaze. You can't alter the programs you have set for your party members during battle.

-You cannot program AI to do certain actions for the character you are currently using. You can't "gambit" him/her.

-Character's unique specials and supers have fighting game commands that act as hotkeys, but they are set to certain motions based on how powerful they are(Lionheart would be something like down,up,down,up,360+[insert attack button(s) here]). The moves could be changed to other motions with similar execution difficulty(the player could choose the motion that suits them/the motion that they think is easiest).

-Universal attacks like curaga/ultima/bio would not be programmable and would not have hotkeys. You'd be forced to open up the menu for these moves.

-Training mode where you can test out moves and programmed combos. Also display the trajectory/radius/hitbox of the attacks/spells you do like Chrono Trigger does before you chose your attack.

-If blizzaga hits and has a large percentage of freezing the target. If they are frozen then they are frozen as if it were from Sub-Zero(except that airborne targets fall). Burn will cause random damage and make the target receive more damage from attacks and heal less HP. Shock will cause random hit stun, airborne targets fall and guard will randomly be broken. Confusion will work like Tsunade's confusion from GNT4(movement is inverted and action buttons are randomized). Poisoned makes you recieve incremental damage and hit stun, you also take more damage if you are more active while poisoned.

[Emil]

You can't alter the programs you have set for your party members during battle.

I don't think this is a good idea...many battles would take you totally by surprise the first time you played through the game, and you'd almost always lose most likely because the actions of the enemy aren't appropriate for the current programmed actions for your party.


I'm also not sure about programmed combos for your party...it seems like the only way to make your party members be effective but at the same time, you could just give them rediculously hard to execute combos, and they'd execute it with no errors because they aren't human. Unless...every move is given some sort of %error that only applies to the cpu, which would make them sometimes screw up the move. Thus, rediculously hard to do combos will have a lower probability of being executed to the end, because of the error.

For example, if one combo was D, dp+A, dp+D, qcb f+B with errors of 1%, 3%, 3%, 5% respectively, then the overall probability they will execute the full combo is 0.99*0.97*0.97*0.95 = 88%.

[Rioting Soul]

I don't think this is a good idea...many battles would take you totally by surprise the first time you played through the game, and you'd almost always lose most likely because the actions of the enemy aren't appropriate for the current programmed actions for your party.

That was what I was going for. The player would be tasked for programming the party to fight well for the enemies you'd likely encounter in that stage instead of programming on the spot after seeing the enemy. You'd have to research and prepare. If you're on lava planet then prioritize ice spells in the programming or after noticing that the last two enemies you fought were on fire. I don't think this would own players as much as you suggest, I think it would add more of a tactical challenge. If you screw up on the programming then you'll have to work harder(depending more on your character) to win that battle so you can fix your mistake. You told your teammates to prioritize firaga while on the planet Magmon, that sounds like a bad idea and if you go into a battle like that then you should have to pay. I suggested this so that there would be something the player could fuck up on and work to perfect.


I'm also not sure about programmed combos for your party...it seems like the only way to make your party members be effective but at the same time, you could just give them rediculously hard to execute combos, and they'd execute it with no errors because they aren't human. Unless...every move is given some sort of %error that only applies to the cpu, which would make them sometimes screw up the move. Thus, rediculously hard to do combos will have a lower probability of being executed to the end, because of the error.

For example, if one combo was D, dp+A, dp+D, qcb f+B with errors of 1%, 3%, 3%, 5% respectively, then the overall probability they will execute the full combo is 0.99*0.97*0.97*0.95 = 88%.

Programmed poor execution is a good idea. I've thought about it alot for fighting game AI but it didn't pop in my head as ideas for this game. But it would work if implemented in this game IMO. Another idea that popped in my head after reading this would be to have some status effects fuck up combo program probability. Confusion would pretty much take the character AI out of the game when it comes to combos.

[Emil]

That was what I was going for. The player would be tasked for programming the party to fight well for the enemies you'd likely encounter in that stage instead of programming on the spot after seeing the enemy. You'd have to research and prepare. If you're on lava planet then prioritize ice spells in the programming or after noticing that the last two enemies you fought were on fire. I don't think this would own players as much as you suggest, I think it would add more of a tactical challenge. If you screw up on the programming then you'll have to work harder(depending more on your character) to win that battle so you can fix your mistake. You told your teammates to prioritize firaga while on the planet Magmon, that sounds like a bad idea and if you go into a battle like that then you should have to pay. I suggested this so that there would be something the player could fuck up on and work to perfect.

Thing is, since the enemy AI I plan is going to adapt to the battle, then the party not being able to change their actions would put them in pretty severe disadvantages. You're basically letting the enemy adapt during the battle but not the party.

Programmed poor execution is a good idea. I've thought about it alot for fighting game AI but it didn't pop in my head as ideas for this game. But it would work if implemented in this game IMO. Another idea that popped in my head after reading this would be to have some status effects fuck up combo program probability. Confusion would pretty much take the character AI out of the game when it comes to combos.

I like the idea too. So it's in. And I'm also thinking of adding this - attacks you just learned would get a larger error but as you use them more and more (or level them up in some way, however it may be), that error is reduced.


This is what is currently programmed right now - the party can move around the world (which was sloppily created), there are random enemy groups that move in somewhat random directions in a pre-programmed radius (so they can't follow you forever, but if they see you, they will chase you for some time). So...the actual battle encounters are like Xenosaga (if the enemy touches you, a battle begins). During the battle, the enemy stands there like an idiot (enemy AI not programmed yet). You can move around and use four normals (A, B, C, D) which trigger some basic looking attack animation. If the attack hits (hit detection is not so good so far), then they get damaged for however amount the attack is supposed to do. Moves don't really have any properties right now besides just doing damage and wasting your stamina, that stuff will have to be programmed later.

When all enemies are dead, the battle ends and you are taken back to the map (the enemy group that you just encountered disappears). Your characters also do gain exp and level up, but so far nothing much happens at level up besides a health bonus.

What I plan to program right now is - the ability to cancel normals together into a chain. And also, I have to make it so that stamina replenishes when you stand there, and you are prevented from doing attacks if your stamina is not high enough (this has yet to be programmed).

[AlphaDragoon02]

For the love of God leave out the following elements in your story:

- Stereotypical childhood female friend with secret feelings for the hero (read: Tifa, various anime characters). This cliche needs to DIE.

- Cool rival character that you have to strive to defeat (see Dias in Star Ocean 2 for example).

- Church that is really corrupt and their "god" is evil. No. Just no.

- Killing one character and going "ooh look we killed somebody we're unpredictable".

- No moronic main character who has to have his party member think for him. (usually found in games where main character has no voice).

[Emil]

- Church that is really corrupt and their "god" is evil. No. Just no.

Well since I plan to have quite a few planets, this idea is probably going to come up somewhere...

- No moronic main character who has to have his party member think for him. (usually found in games where main character has no voice).

Yep, as I said I was planning on having someone comparable to Yagami Light from Death Note. A calm, intelligent, confident genius...

Anyway AlphaDragoon, I'm pretty sure you're an RPG veteran from your posts (moreso than me), I'm sure you have some good ideas that you've yet to see executed well in current games.

Edit: Heh, I got AlphaDragoon mixed up with InfiniDragon.

[specs]

- Make the main character some war veteran in his 40s or 50s. Enough with the young chaps in lead roles.

- The main character should not use any of the following weapons: swords. :rofl: How about an axe or a hammer or a tape measure or sumthin'?

- Make the main dude the healer, so that the player has to take care of his party.

- FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, the whole world doesn't have to be in danger like in every other RPG. How cool was it when FF7 was going to be purely about having the Shinra Corp. as the bad guys? And then they mixed in Sephiroth and that "planet is alive" shit. Or hell, even FF8, before "time compression" turned the game's story into ass. The danger doesn't have to be to the whole world. The party could be fighting against an oppressive regime, or even a popular king/emperor/etc. who did the party wrong somehow, or, like in BoF3, a "caretaker" who is keeping the world safe but not allowing true freedom.

[specs]

As for ideas, I have a metric ton, but a far off dream of mine is to make games and some of those ideas are staying in my head.

I will share a few though:

Variance amongst the same enemies. This is best explained by example: you're in a forest where you constantly fight wolves and bears. In most RPGs, those wolves are statistically identical to other wolves, and the bears to other bears. If there is a level variance, the stats are still the same for any of the same mob at the same level.

That doesn't really happen in nature. Some wolves/bears are unnaturally aggressive or timid. If, in your world, the wild creatures can use whatever you call "magic" in your game, there may be the odd man out who uses a spell his fellow mobs don't have. Or alphas direct the attacks of others. Another example is in armies. How silly is it that every soldier in an army looks the same? Wouldn't there be some exceptional soldiers that are better than their fellows even in the lowly pawn ranks? Others that are more cowardly? Odd exceptions, like that swordsman who also happens to be a competent spell caster unlike the other seven swordsmen he's with?

Let's take a mob name. "Imperial Soldier" will do. Not every mob named "Imperial Soldier" should be the same as every other one. Some will be male, others female. Most will be physical fighters with some sort of melee weapon or gun (depending on your tastes and the universe you're creating). However, others, despite being named "Imperial Soldier" will not be quite the same. Some will see that you're ripping their allies to shreds and hang back to administer healing items or perhaps pull out a ranged weapon. Others will know magic. Still others will be surprisingly tenacious, hitting and critting you hard but leaving holes in their defense. And, yes, others will just be useless peons.

Just an idea.

Here's another one: different equipment slots for different characters.

Not every character needs to have the following generic slots: main hand, off hand, head, body, arm, leg, relic, relic 2, etc. Have something graphical that has slots relative to the character. Say, just for example, that your party consists of Zell Dincht (the martial artist from FF8) and Dark Knight Cecil (from FF4). Zell shouldn't be able to equip as much. He'd have a slot on his hands for better gloves, and maybe a slot on his feet for better kicking weapons, and perhaps a slot or two on his neck or fingers for some accessories. Cecil, on the other hand, would have a fuckton of slots: helmet, torso, arms, legs, hands, feet, belt, small weapon, heavy weapon, possibly a shield, etc.

Naturally, stats need to balance that out. Or Zell will just fall behind.

One final idea that I didn't have but that was done in the Breath of Fire games is the concept of equipment having weight. Heavy equipment lowered your speed stat. Some really good heavy equipment wouldn't, and light equipment didn't lower it much, but it's a tradeoff: more power, less mobility.

[InfiniDragon615]

I'm also writing a script for an RPG (a lot of game fans play with the notion I'm certain), so I'll throw out a few ideas that I regularly play with and think make my script a bit better, particularly in regards to character design and interaction:

-As Alpha said, try to limit the cliche character types. This is much easier said than done, as you will almost ALWAYS have some elements from something that has been done. Just try and make that character "type" yours, give them some trait totally unlike the stereotype that makes it more realistic and/or unique. Own it. And although a couple people joked about making lesbians and whatnot, avoid this like plague unless it's serious (read: not fanservice). Few things annoy me more than a character having to be definable (or limited to) a single character trait, and that being all people can see. And I don't have to tell you that bi or homosexuality is a big one that people slap onto anyone it applies to, without thinking about the actual personality or facets of that character.

-Add some conflict of interests in members of the cast. That does not mean that three people have to betray your group or anything close to that. Just don't make them all fall in line with whatever the "main quest" happens to be without having their own ideals and continuing to strive for them after joining the crew. Make them disagree with other people in the group at times, and not just the lead character. In real life, people are bound to have opinions that will vary. It's really lame when characters get all this hype and interesting elements while they're fresh in the story, but then degenerate into being that guy that smiles and nods with one word replies that ring verbatim with whatever the rest of the party is saying while the main character gets all the interest. You undoubtedly noticed this with Jaster and Kisala hijacking the plot in Rogue Galaxy...DO NOT do it. It's another difficult thing to plan for, and I struggle with this myself.

-This is going to get me flak, but I really feel it should be said. Make the lead (or any character for that matter) have whatever weapon you feel comfortable with him/her having. DO NOT let people (you know who you are) peer pressure you into giving them something weird and unique like a tank, a six-bladed axe, a shank, a shovel or a flower pot as a weapon just because they're sick of Cloud or Seph. If that character and setting calls for some guy to have a sword, then dammit give that man some Hanzo steel. Of course, if you can integrate something cool that's rarely seen into a character's fighting style or weapon and make it work, great. Just another reason that character will be potentially cool and interesting.

-On the topic of the battle system I'd say you're really on the right track, just want to add a few ideas. Multi-player would be a wonderful option if possible, I would have loved to play SO3 with Alpha, and loved playing Tales of the Abyss with him. Also, I'd limit damage potential of bosses to something far yet challenging, unlike a lot of the super-bosses in SO3; they weren't hard at all without their insta-kill specials that forced you to use cheap tactics like Stunlock or Stun Bombs to stop. In-battle AI is a great idea. So many times in Tales games or SO, the party acts completely inappropriate to the situation, so being able to do Gambit-like changes on the fly would be wonderful.

A bit long winded, but I hope some of my thoughts help you out. I'd love to play that game if and when it's completed.

[Septimus Prime]

Having the main character be a healer is stupid, and the game will be boring when all the player has to do is spam a few spells once in a while.

[Kalypso]

I see a great deal of 'Avoid cliché' posts, there's something you need to understand with originality- for the most part it doesn't really exist in the form of 'Look at my cool, new idea!'. Almost everything falls under one of two catagories-

1) Has been done, a lot
2) Doesn't work

It's very hard to come up with true, original ideas that have not been done and make them work. When it happens, it's great, but it shouldn't be all you strive for, odds are the game is just going to be worse because you went out of your way to avoid everything everyone else does.

With that said, presentation/execution are much more important than the actual ideas. You can use an old idea in a new way much easier than you can come up with a full fledged new idea. Instead of avoiding things old rpgs do, try and figure out a way to do them in a new way.

Example- Lufia 2 had puzzle-solving elements a-la Zelda along with a cool turn-based battle system and a good storyline. A good number of games take after this idea of having a traditional rpg with battle system/story, and incorporating adventure-style puzzle solving and such into the game. They are not all copied ideas, they present the same concept in a new way. Spend more time thinking about new ways to package old ideas than what new ideas you have, because almost all 'new' ideas are not new, they are just bad and didn't work for anyone else, and won't work for you.

[Night]

Pretty much scrap all "sleep" "curse" "silence" "petrify" "instant death" etc. spells altogether. They're USELESS. The only monsters vulnerable to those spells are monsters that can be easily killed by physical attacks and it's pretty much a waste of MP even going through the effort of casting those spells on those monsters. The monsters you'd LIKE those spells to be effective on i.e. bosses and tough big monsters are of course 100% immune to them.

But of course, when the monsters use those spells on you, they're likely to succeed. Fucking h4><

[Septimus Prime]

Silence and Blind tend to be extremely useful in Final Fantasy games, though. I didn't realize this until after XI or XII, but after going back and playing them all with those spells, they did indeed make a lot of battles easier.

[Alzarath]

Avoid stupidly long/tedious dungeons. Yes, Rogue Galaxy, I'm looking at YOU. :annoy:

[kainzero]

http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopic.php?t=1460

This is the most innovative RPG out there.

Actually, I've played it till the demo's end and it's pretty terrible. But with such a great premise, how can you resist?

[InfiniDragon615]

I see a great deal of 'Avoid cliché' posts, there's something you need to understand with originality- for the most part it doesn't really exist in the form of 'Look at my cool, new idea!'. Almost everything falls under one of two catagories-

1) Has been done, a lot
2) Doesn't work

It's very hard to come up with true, original ideas that have not been done and make them work. When it happens, it's great, but it shouldn't be all you strive for, odds are the game is just going to be worse because you went out of your way to avoid everything everyone else does.

My point exactly. The difficult thing in writing something "original", is that nothing is (unless it sucks, as you just pointed out). The trick is to present something people know in a way that is indistinguishable from others, that's what will truly make you stand out.

[Septimus Prime]

Parry.

[roninwarrior24]

1. Make your final boss a challenge. I am tired of these stupid easy FF final bosses (what happened to Exdeath and Zeromus?).

2. Limit the strength of your party members. They should be STRUGGLING to save the world, not having the enemies bow down to them. Since your RPG will have many fighting-game elements, you should make it so that the player has to master the system to beat the harder bosses rather than Ultima/KOTR/Rapid Fire/Quick Hit/etc. spam.

3. Strategy>>>Grinding. Grinding is a sin that is better left removed. Instead, put an emphasis on comboing, the elements, etc. You should still have to level up a little, but no grinding.

4. I say give your hero some kind of Beowulf-style gauntlets/grieves and make him play like a shoto character. Yes, Senel has done the whole "fighter hero" thing before, but it's probably better than having sword-user #20 million. Of course, it's your call, so do what you feel works best.

Story-wise, it's your call.


"may continue later..."

[Kalypso]

My point exactly. The difficult thing in writing something "original", is that nothing is (unless it sucks, as you just pointed out). The trick is to present something people know in a way that is indistinguishable from others, that's what will truly make you stand out.

Your avatar is more addicting than a blizzard game...

[*InVeRs3*]

I'm sick of saving the world.
No more Neo type storylines plz k thx.

[woof]

how you makin this



i sure hope it aint RPG MAKER

[AlphaDragoon02]

Your avatar is more addicting than a blizzard game...

That is the pure, unadulterated moe power that is Konata Izumi. :rofl:

[Ephidel]

Having the main character be a healer is stupid, and the game will be boring when all the player has to do is spam a few spells once in a while.

Hahaha, this is a good notion. The general rule for RPG's is that healers have weak physical power - so it would be hard winning battles early in the game if not pared with a brute.

You could give the healer strength, but you would be taking away from the game's challenging factors.

Making he/she broken in some cases.

[InfiniDragon615]

1. Make your final boss a challenge. I am tired of these stupid easy FF final bosses (what happened to Exdeath and Zeromus?).

Exodus I may give you, but Zeromus?! Ha, that guy was a fuckin' joke. I barely played FFIV and I owned his ass, he's much harder in FFXII than IV.

[Emil]

how you makin this



i sure hope it aint RPG MAKER

heh, the things I've already implemented aren't really doable with RPG Maker (I don't think, I'm not sure how sucky it reallyl is).

Right now it's done in Java (because that's easier to program, no need to worry that much about pointers and such), will probably port it to C++ when it's done.

[Debaser]

Make the main character use nothing but his fists. Limit Breaks could be taken directly from HnK. Hokuto Hyakuretsu Ken FTW.

[Kayin]

Make the main character use nothing but his fists.

Xenogears? Tales of Legendia?

[rogueyoshi]

i still very much like the idea of a main character who uses his fists.

[Ephidel]

heh, the things I've already implemented aren't really doable with RPG Maker (I don't think, I'm not sure how sucky it really is).

2 was the best one, however, all of them were pretty crappy.

[JubeiNinja69]

i like the judgment ring system in the shadow hearts series. kinda adds more to the gameplay than the ATB. sucks for people that can't get used to it.

[Debaser]

Xenogears? Tales of Legendia?

Don't remind of all the rpg's I still need to play:sweat:

[woof]

Right now it's done in Java (because that's easier to program, no need to worry that much about pointers and such), will probably port it to C++ when it's done.
ok smart move



rpg maker is kkiiiinda flexible but once you do enough the limitations become really obvious


2 was the best one, however, all of them were pretty crappy.
also i am talkin about rpg maker 2003/xp

[Emil]

So what do you guys think about skill/ability learning? I'm aiming for something that would give lots of options for a given character, yet does not allow for all characters to learn the same things (so please, no Xenosaga 2 skill system suggestions, I hated that one).

I was thinking of having multiple possible builds of that particular character that can be learned...where choosing one build would make it easier to learn abilities from that particular build, instead of learning all builds of that character at the same time. Technically it should be able to get learn all builds for that character (and thus all abilities for them) if you level up enough, but generally my goal is to have it so that, if you were to play the game through multiple times, that same character might end up playing differently depending on what you chose. Think of the isms in SFA3...technically it should be possible to get all abilities for all "isms", but for the majority of the game you will build that character to specialize in one of the three...thing is, these "isms" would vary greatly between the characters. Still though, I'm unsure how to set this up...skill trees, grid systems, something else?

Abilities that you could learn can be the following:

-new special moves/supers
-passive abilities(resistance to statuses, +stat modifiers, etc)
-new properties for already learned special moves(more cancellabliity, added elemental damages, more jugglability, new status ailments like dizzy, etc)
-new properties for normals(same possible properties as above)

[Kalypso]

I like systems that allow skills to level up, like Disgaea/Tales of Symphonia. Make sure if you do this that you need several abilities to properly play the game, but the using/skilling up of skills makes the game that much more fun to play.

[MagnetiX]

Add sex scenes into your RPG. With good voice acting, please.
I really hate how games still don't have sex scenes. I mean, we all want it, why don't they just give it to us?

I would've loved FFXII if Vaan was banging Penelo or whoever else.

[Silentness!]

have black people in your rpg. and mexicans.



haha close the thread.

[Windlord0]

ok smart move

how is using java a smart move for this project? How is using java for any performance intensive app a smart move? Is java 3d going to be the graphical api, because DX and OGL implementations are pretty awful thus far compared to their C++ counterparts.

The ideas you have emil are sounding better and better, and they keep reminding me to go back and play more Tales of the Abyss. I hope this works out well for you.

[Emil]

how is using java a smart move for this project? How is using java for any performance intensive app a smart move? Is java 3d going to be the graphical api, because DX and OGL implementations are pretty awful thus far compared to their C++ counterparts.

Well the latest releases of Java have sped up dramatically. That said, crazy 3d graphics aren't expected, so I don't think using Java would make it slow. I've actually used Java for other games as well, and the only real slowdown was due to my somewhat inefficient programming that I didn't care to optimize (like...using a bad collision detection method when quadtrees would be much more efficient).

Generally I have bad experiences with C++ thanks to university (like hours and hours of hairpulling trying to debug)...I want to avoid using that until I have something working.

Edit: I don't think you want sex scenes with my terrible art skills...

[AlphaDragoon02]

Edit: I don't think you want sex scenes with my terrible art skills...

Even if you were Jesus with a Wacom Tablet, don't do it. I know the guy was joking but in all seriousness I don't think you want your game to be known for "lol that h-RPG" and if you ever did create the game and wanted to sell it to a developer you'd have to make major changes by removing it.

If you have a serious thing where two characters shack up (read: Xenogears)...DON'T SHOW IT. The aftermath of them sitting in bed with the covers over them is plenty to get the point across without the risk of having Jack Thompson, parents' groups and the CIA after you. :rofl: