WISE FWOM YOUW GWAVE: The Untitled IAQ Project Re-Imagined! A Real Game?

[Dark Holy Elf]

Finally, how would you script out an ability like Prodigy?

Essentially, you add the chosen skill to Noemi's list when she uses Prodigy. When either the battle ends or she uses it again (or whatever conditions we decide for her losing the skill), the script runs through Noemi's list of skills, looks for an ID of a skill that isn't normally "hers", and deletes it.

Also the idea of him having poor defense but good HP appeals to me for some reason.

I also liked the idea of him having low dexterity so that things would multiswing against him more. Seemed to fit his age. I also like the high HP.

As-is, I'm tempted to change him towards more of a glass cannon--strong physical and magic damage, but less than stellar durability, and possibly low resources as well.  Not sure on that, though, and it's just an idea.

Not really fond of another offence-focused PC in Isolde's team, or of a character noted for laziness being a glass cannon in general.

That aside, I think there is a need, as evident here, for someone who's properly tanky.  We're kind of lacking in characters who really scream that, to me.

Well, we have 2-4 more party slots. Aurel and Artur were probably the biggest two who fit this in the original draft, so if either of them sticks around, there you go. (Although if we have temp!Aurel you'll lack a true physical tank at the end of the game, but eh.)

We also feel like we've shortchanged ourselves on offensive mages. My instinct is to push one or both of Isolde's buddies a little more firmly in that direction (Faulheit, probably). Preserving Fahim/Faron/whatever his name is in some form is also an option, although both he and Rafael were PCs I was never really sure on how they fit into the main plot anyway so I'm not going to push for either.


I am still going to push for Yiu and Meilin though!

[074]

I can sort of gather from context what it is, but could you further explain what Warm-Up is?

Finally, how would you script out an ability like Prodigy?

Alas, I've gotten my scripts slightly mixed up, but Warm-Up in VXA (No existing equivalent in VX) is a scripted restriction--basically, you have X turns before a given skill becomes usable at all.  Kind of like how we used to have Oversurge.

The mixup comes in while there -is- a Skill Copy script in VXA, it unfortunately works differently from the one in VX (which I have experience using--you can literally have a party member temporarily copy other party members' skills there).  The VXA one is not only possibly enemy-only, but permanent Blue Magic learning.  I guess that whether or not we choose to implement this skill or not is another determining factor in whether or not we use VX or Ace.


As an aside, only posting now because I had the misfortune of being stuck AFK for most of the day, but I generally had the idea of (early on) Noemi striking out on her own to try and get the money (with Kasia in tow, but no Erastus thus far), but the only big-paying thing she finds (for which she is then accompanied by an undercover-as-mercenary Isolde and Katarine) happens to be a scam job and an attempted recruitment scheme by a Rogue Guardian--who is later (once Noemi and Kasia are sent on their way with far less pay than was originally advertised) exposed and killed by the two Imperial Black-Ops.

Just throwing it out there, really.

Not really fond of another offence-focused PC in Isolde's team, or of a character noted for laziness being a glass cannon in general.

Fair enough, I guess, though to be fair Isolde's old team was a hell of a lot about the offense (even Katarine's buffs were largely offense-focused in the original; she started with haste, and got attack and critical buffs.), and I wanted to change up the specialty somewhat; As stated previously, Faulheit was a fairly lackluster mage whose main quirks were ripping into people who had low MDEF (and doing shittily against MDEF so good as merely above-average) and getting more powerful for not moving.  And, I guess, having a spell comparable to ABM Launcher.  The ABM-Launcherness of that spell is kind of gone with the hex-grid, and his "not moving" gimmick really doesn't translate, which just leaves...a really "bleh" mage.    Just thinking we'll have to do -something- to change matters up.  ...Preferably other than reducing him to a bog-standard offensive mage, I mean.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Just some general thoughts on proposed character builds.

Roles: Physical Offense, Magical Offense, Status, Buffs, Debuffs, Healing

Durability: Physically Durable/Frail, Magically Durable/Frail, Evasive, HP Tank, Def increasing as HP decreases

Speed: Fast, Average, Slow, Variable (Mirek)

Resources: MP, TP, HP?


Noemi
Speedster Mage
High Magical Offense
Proficient Status, Healing
Average Phys Offense, Buffs, Debuffs

Durability: Highly Evasive, Physical/Magical Average
Speed: Fast
Resources: Good MP, with some TP skills that might restore MP? (Innate Slow MP Regen?)

Skill notes:
Progidy - temporarily learning skills from teammates or enemies
Magic Burst
Able to use all elements

Erastus
High Magical Offense, Status
Some Debuff, Physical Offense
No Healing, Buffs

Durability:  Physically Average, Magically Frail, Unevasive, HP Tank?
Speed: Below Average
Resources: MP, TP?, possibly HP?

Skill notes:
MT-oriented damage, high variance in damage?
Full-field effects for Statuses and Debuffs
Mono-elemental spells (Fire)


Kasia
Healing/Debuffing Archer
High Healing, Debuffs
Proficient Status
Average Magical Offense
Low Physical Offense, Buffs

Durability: Physically Average, Magically Frail, Average Evade
Speed: Average, High CT on Healing?
Resources: MP for Healing and Spells, TP for Archery-based Debuffs/Status?

Skill notes:
Most healing has Disquiet backlash of some type attached to it
MT/GT/ST Healing/Debuffs
Ranged physicals
Some magical elemental coverage


Mirek
Guardian
High Physical Offense
Proficient Buffs, Debuffs
Self-Healing
Low/No Magical Offense, Status

Durability: Physically Average, Magically Near-Immune, Evasive
Speed: Slow/High CT, First Strike
Resources: TP (increases with actions/dmg, activates passives at 25%, 50%, 75%, Fullness)

Skill notes:
Iaijutsu - conserve energy for a single fast powerful strike
Self-healing, some party-wide status-healing/magic negating
No innate elemental coverage


Eirwen
Healing Weapons Expert
High Healing, Status
Proficient Physical Damage
No Buffs, Debuffs, Magic

Durability: Physically Frail, Magically Average, Evasive, Evasion increases as HP Decreases?
Speed: Fast (or Average, depending on Weapon)
Resources: TP primarily, (perhaps MP for strongest Healing spells?)

Skill notes:
Most Healing is not magical, so no Backlash (Perhaps gets magical healing eventually?)
Weapon skills available change depending on what weapon is equipped.
All physical elements covered


Isolde
Bruiser
High Physical, Magical Offense, Self-Buff
Proficient Status
No Healing

Durability: High Physical, Average Magical, Not Evasive, (Magic Counter)
Speed: Average, High CT?
Resources: TP, charges with actions/dmg? for physical skills, Limited MP for magic skills

Skill notes:
Oversurge - amazing buff for 3 turns, then burnout happens
Offense skills are primarily ST (some GT), with maybe one, really expensive MT spell?
Mono-elemental magic (Ice), can hit all physical elements


Katarine
Buffer Mage
High Buffs
Proficient Magical Offense, Status, Debuffs
Average Physical Offense
Low Healing

Durability: Physically Average, Magically Frail, Evasive
Speed: Average, Low CT on spells
Resources: Primarily MP

Skill notes:
Buffs and Status-healing, MT
Lots of elemental coverage


Faulheit
Counterwhore Tank
Proficient Magical Offense
Average Physical Offense, Debuffs, Status
No Healing, Buffs

Durability: High Phys/Magical, Unevasive (100% Counter rate, variable Cover rate)
Speed: Slow
Resources: MP, TP can be used to charge MP?

Skill notes:
High accuracy, some ITE
Counter/Cover
Ranged physicals
Mono-elemental (Wind) spells

[Dark Holy Elf]

Random gameplay balance comments so far:


General
Not sure what I think about both MP and TP (in particular, if we do opt to have both, they should function rather differently... perhaps with MP regenning but TP not?). I think we may need to get our ducks in a row about how resources work. They can work differently for different characters, but I think we may need to talk about just how they work in general.


Noemi
Noemi is already fast and versatile with non-bad durability. I don't think she should have "high" offence of any type. Rather she should be merely passably competent at both. I suppose her offence is high when she blows lots of MP at once with Magic Burst, but not otherwise.

I'd suggest that rather than she be "evasive" that she have high dexterity so her durability there manifests itself mostly in the inability of high-swing enemies to swing multiple times against her. Though her evade can be decent due to light armour if she opts for that.


Erastus
Seems generally fine. His durability is pretty tanky but the low dex is a problem.


Kasia
Healers with low durability tend to feel like a liability. I'd bump her magical durability to average.


Mirek
Mm right, he uses TP as his "focus gauge". That's fine. I generally like his build. For mechanical reasons I'd rather have him be slow than give him high CT on everything, even basic attacks. (Then if we want one or two things that he'll be faster with, we give those low CT.)


Eirwen
Looks fine. A reiteration of an idea I tossed in chat but I'm not sure it's recorded anywhere: now that we lack range, one way that ranged weapons can still stand out is to have many counterattacks be against melee only, so bows/etc. can get around those.


Isolde
Looks good overall. Oversurge needs to be thought through. By costing a turn it is weak for short battles, then it is incredibly strong in battles that last exactly 4 turns, then gets weaker from there as an intelligent player will only use it when she thinks the battle is ending in ~4 turns... still strong because of its effect on those 4 turns mind. This just needs to be kept in mind during boss design... Isolde is OP if battles last certain lengths. (This may be fine now and again to show her off plotwise, but shouldn't be a regular thing.)


Katarine
Isolde's party is funnily enough feeling fairly magey now but that's fine. Different parties have their own flavours, with Mirek/Eirwen being mostly physical. We can even highlight this by having some shared enemies that react differently to physicals/magic which different parties can excel against while the other struggles, I kinda like that.

Anyway, this is mostly to say I am fine with the change. New Kat looks interesting enough and obviously complements Isolde well. She's going to be quite frail outside evade/dex (moreso than anyone else in the game so far), particularly relative to her party. I'm fine with that, especially since her party actually features a PC who is proactive defensively.


Faulheit
In the old draft he used crossbows, which feel like an odd choice for countering with... unless maybe there's a restriction that he can only use one physical attack (counter or otherwise) per round, since he has to reload? With maybe one of his actives being a specific counterstance that allows him to rapidly reload between enemy turns so that he can counter more than once. Hm, I actually kinda like this idea. It encourages the player to use both his magic and physicals (e.g. magic on his own turn, then counter with phys) and choosing between proactive offence (doing something on Faulheit's turn) and reactive (using a counterstance for more overall damage if the cards fall right).


Rough stat curves so far (combination of Djinn's notes and data from the old IAQ notes, obviously all points here subject to debate):


PDur, NOT including Dex/evade
Erastus > Faulheit > Isolde > Kasia > Noemi > Mirek > Katarine > Eirwen

MDur
Mirek > Faulheit > Kasia > Isolde > Noemi > Eirwen > Erastus > Katarine

Speed
Noemi > Eirwen > Katarine > Kasia > Isolde > Erastus > Faulheit > Mirek

Mirek and Katarine may have some attacks with better recharge time. So might anyone else. Or stuff in the other direction of course.

(Also we have apparently cut all the fast male PCs.)

Dexterity (and perhaps evade?)
Eirwen/Katarine/Mirek/Noemi >> Faulheit/Isolde/Kasia >> Erastus

Specifics will depend on weapon stats to ensure physical balance is what we want.

[074]

Alright, guess I'll go over these, see what I feel does and doesn't work and why--I was admittedly slightly distracted during the session last night, so I'll be going over stuff here.

Noemi
Speedster Mage
High Magical Offense
Proficient Status, Healing
Average Phys Offense, Buffs, Debuffs

Durability: Highly Evasive, Physical/Magical Average
Speed: Fast
Resources: Good MP, with some TP skills that might restore MP? (Innate Slow MP Regen?)

Skill notes:
Progidy - temporarily learning skills from teammates or enemies
Magic Burst
Able to use all elements

-First problem here--I'm seeing a slight bit of Overpowered Main Syndrome.  Cast's smaller here, we can't exactly get away with it without a good explanation like we could when the PC cast size was almost three times this many.  Right now it seems like she's pretty much a step above the rest of the cast--high magic, average durability plus high evasion, high speed, able to use -every- element?  And I'm not sure if we're keeping the MP regen or not.
-You got a detail on Prodigy wrong--it's meant to solely be ally-only.  Stealing stuff from enemies feels a bit beyond her grasp (at least immediately--she might get an upgrade later that can do this), and it's meant to be spells only, not other skills.
-I know you really liked Ifris Libra, but that'll probably have to go.  Alongside the "having all elements" bit--we can probably trim her down to three at the most, possibly two if we go with equipment that grants lower attack spells.

Erastus
High Magical Offense, Status
Some Debuff, Physical Offense
No Healing, Buffs

Durability:  Physically Average, Magically Frail, Unevasive, HP Tank?
Speed: Below Average
Resources: MP, TP?, possibly HP?

Skill notes:
MT-oriented damage, high variance in damage?
Full-field effects for Statuses and Debuffs
Mono-elemental spells (Fire)

Not sure where HP expenditure would come into it.  And frankly I'm seeing Erastus as more magically durable than physically so, on top of the huge HP.  As a sidenote, I'd like to mention that hitting your own allies with your super-wide-area attacks isn't antagonist-y.  It just comes off more as reckless.  Other than that, yeah, single element nuker with a focus on multitarget.  Need to be careful if we're going with WA4-style HP restoration at the end of encounters, though, since we don't want to trivialize randoms.

Kasia
Healing/Debuffing Archer
High Healing, Debuffs
Proficient Status
Average Magical Offense
Low Physical Offense, Buffs

Durability: Physically Average, Magically Frail, Average Evade
Speed: Average, High CT on Healing?
Resources: MP for Healing and Spells, TP for Archery-based Debuffs/Status?

Skill notes:
Most healing has Disquiet backlash of some type attached to it
MT/GT/ST Healing/Debuffs
Ranged physicals
Some magical elemental coverage

--Didn't see any discussion of her having elemental magic.  Healing and status, mainly, though some damage (physical or magical, either one) would be desirable early on to keep her relevant while she's not healing or statusing.  Most of the healing has a max HP debuff to it, assuming we're going to plan.

Mirek
Guardian
High Physical Offense
Proficient Buffs, Debuffs
Self-Healing
Low/No Magical Offense, Status

Durability: Physically Average, Magically Near-Immune, Evasive
Speed: Slow/High CT, First Strike
Resources: TP (increases with actions/dmg, activates passives at 25%, 50%, 75%, Fullness)

Skill notes:
Iaijutsu - conserve energy for a single fast powerful strike
Self-healing, some party-wide status-healing/magic negating
No innate elemental coverage

Yeah, I admit that I stay out of a lot of Mirek's stuff--he's largely been the one I was never really able to wrap my head around his intended style.  I'm going to have to ask where the hell the self-healing came from, though.

Eirwen
Healing Weapons Expert
High Healing, Status
Proficient Physical Damage
No Buffs, Debuffs, Magic

Durability: Physically Frail, Magically Average, Evasive, Evasion increases as HP Decreases?
Speed: Fast (or Average, depending on Weapon)
Resources: TP primarily, (perhaps MP for strongest Healing spells?)

Skill notes:
Most Healing is not magical, so no Backlash (Perhaps gets magical healing eventually?)
Weapon skills available change depending on what weapon is equipped.
All physical elements covered

-I think you got the focus wrong--she's not meant to be a healer first--more that she's a fighter with a couple of healing skills at her disposal for a tough spot.  Intended to have no magic at all here, honestly, so we could cut the idea of that.  Honestly didn't envision her as dependent on weapon ala Meilin, but then again I also didn't envision her as a speedster, so whatever.  I'd suggest looking into cooldowns for her basic skills or tweaking her TP regen so she isn't stuck spamming basic attacks.
-Thinking since she got the speedster role, I might as well give her the signature skill I was intending for Katarine--basically trying to work an Intrude clone here.  High TP cost, but it'd work.  And wouldn't be as game-breaking as it is for Raquel in WA4.

Isolde
Bruiser
High Physical, Magical Offense, Self-Buff
Proficient Status
No Healing

Durability: High Physical, Average Magical, Not Evasive, (Magic Counter)
Speed: Average, High CT?
Resources: TP, charges with actions/dmg? for physical skills, Limited MP for magic skills

Skill notes:
Oversurge - amazing buff for 3 turns, then burnout happens
Offense skills are primarily ST (some GT), with maybe one, really expensive MT spell?
Mono-elemental magic (Ice), can hit all physical elements

--Magic Counter's a maybe here.  Oversurge's being made her signature skill--and it's different now (Rather than a lasting buff, it instead modifies her next attack, but she pays a HP cost up front.  Might also force a multiplier on MP costs for it so she can't just get away with blasting randoms to hell with it at no real extra cost.
--While YEM and YEA both support area-target, there's little point to it since enemies neither move around akin to CT nor is there a hex grid anymore.
--...what is it with people and wanting her to be stuck with Ice or Earth?  Do they have that much of a problem with her magic being nontyped or something?

Katarine
Buffer Mage
High Buffs
Proficient Magical Offense, Status, Debuffs
Average Physical Offense
Low Healing

Durability: Physically Average, Magically Frail, Evasive
Speed: Average, Low CT on spells
Resources: Primarily MP

Skill notes:
Buffs and Status-healing, MT
Lots of elemental coverage

At this point, I don't care much.  A bit opposed to the status healing and/or any non-regen healing in particular, but that may be just me.

Faulheit
Counterwhore Tank
Proficient Magical Offense
Average Physical Offense, Debuffs, Status
No Healing, Buffs

Durability: High Phys/Magical, Unevasive (100% Counter rate, variable Cover rate)
Speed: Slow
Resources: MP, TP can be used to charge MP?

Skill notes:
High accuracy, some ITE
Counter/Cover
Ranged physicals
Mono-elemental (Wind) spells

And here, any comments I make, even about forgetting he has fairly distinctive Lightning stuff as well, I feel are largely irrelevant because there's a bigger fundamental problem with Faulheit; he doesn't feel like Faulheit anymore.  Between the varied character/background changes, and the very notion of him having Cover or countering...no.  The more I look at how he's being handled here, the more he feels to me like he's Faulheit In Name Only--that you could slap anyone else's name and nobody would really know the difference.  As such, I'm asking that we give him an identity and name overhaul, make things easier for everyone in the long run.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Hmm... thinking on it, Cover really -doesn't- suit Faulheit's 'lazy' type persona. I suppose that's more of a Mirek (or even Eirwen?) sort of thing.

The Wind-element focus on Faul is related to him being a sailor now.

I like the idea of Intrude and TP Regen on Eirwen. Good suggestions.

And when I said "High" Healing on Eirwen, I just meant in comparison to what's normally available. (Keep in mind that the current plan has it so that Kasia isn't around at endgame, so Eirwen would be the strongest healer then)

I'm not sure why, but I keep thinking the Mages would have innately lower Magic Defense, since they are "More Sensitive" to magic, so it affects them more? I may have misremembered how the current Flow system works, though?

Isolde should be mono-elemental because then I can draw cool pictures of her with an elemental theme. (Also, balance reasons and such, but I'm more attached to the idea of her being elemental just because I like characters being elemental).

Re: Noemi
Yes, I want her to have Magic Burst, and this is supposed to be her only "High" Magical Offense, otherwise, she's more average all-around, but I wanted her to be able to Magic Burst from the beginning of the game so there's a question of how you want to use her throughout the game - More Magical overall, or More Physical with the Occasional Magic Nuke, or some combination of both. Add in the versatility from Progidy and you have an interesting, but not overpowered, main.

I -do- still like the idea of some equips granting basic spells. (And this is what I was thinking for Kasia's main magical offense, too.) Makes Magic Counter more viable, too.

Erastus: Don't care anymore. Do what feels right, though no one has suggested any other ideas that really fit thematically. Just being the MT Magic guy is good, but really boring. If that's his main role, he's going to need some other signature skill to make him interesting.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Do they have that much of a problem with her magic being nontyped or something?

Yes.

NE magic should be rare since we can't make enemies react to it specifically, so NE magic will tend to cut through most defences well.

More to the point, think about what the spells are doing. -How- are they hurting enemies? Chances are you can come up with an element that fits whatever the answer is.


As discussed in chat, it might be a good idea to rename Faulheit to break free of Nama's design, since it feels like both the plot and gameplay directions the character have gone in don't resemble the original design much at all.

[Grefter]

You guys seem to be getting really wrapped up in stuff that you can change waayyyyyyy down the line.  All of that is pure theory and doesn't even have numbers to back it yet, but is numbers and balancing.  You can do that later.

Don't you have the basic framework of the plot etc already run over from previous work?  You have most of the fluffy parts of your design doc there.  As an outsider that looks to be missing to me is the actual core bits and pieces.  There has been some cursory looks at what you need to hack together for part of combat system, but that has been completely derailed.  Isn't that more what you guys should be focussing on here?

It is fine to focus on this stuff and be all over the place when it was just an IAQ, but there is something more tangible targetted coming from this that you are trying to put together.  I think you need a bit more discipline to this approach.  Ideas are great, keep them in mind, but don't go running off at a million miles an hour otherwise you are just going to end up with an undeliverable pile of kludge.

Also isn't Andy putting together a staff list?  Presumably there is some kind of Lead or Producer intended for this?  Topic has been up for like 4 days, maybe give it some time to settle before picking up the ball and running away with it at a million miles an hour guys.

[Tide]

Some DL peeps (especially Nama and Djinn) like talking about game design. Anyway, just dropping a line here in that I would be on board to do some work for this although given the large number of projects I have on the go, I'll avoid doing anything massive since it will probably take a while to get done.