<Untitled IAQ Project>: War Never Ends (voting over, but discussion to continue)

[DjinnAndTonic]

I wouldn't say TWEWY is designed around this particular mechanic, there's a lot of different systems that interact rather seemlessly in TWEWY. It's more than TWEWY just made all the right decisions with the system they chose.

But I'm not married to the idea. Yakumo's AT2 suggestion is pretty cool, with a decreasing gauge for random encounters that eventually empties for exploration purposes. Though I'd change it from 'invisible randoms' to a meter that determines 'enemy aggressiveness'. That way you can still display the randoms on-screen, but they would chase you less and less as the meter goes down until eventually they are static obstacles you can walk around (or you've cleared them all out without exiting the dungeon/area).

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

True, but it also sounds like the game was very explicitely designed around this mechanic.  And without that, the whole thing falls flat.

Tangentially, this is something that -must- be kept in mind when coming up with general mechanics. Some particular ideas generally require a lot of commitment in a system's global design, and have to be accounted for even in the subtleties. I'll use an example from Wizard of Oz: a very simple and formulaic design choice (targetting cannot be done on single units, only on single groups, and once a group is selected, the characters who picked that group focus on an enemy until it dies) ends up affecting, in subtle ways, the entire bevy of enemy formations in the game. The only enemies that show up in large (3+) groups are the frailest ones - the ones that can be at worst 2HKOed by Dorothy/Strawman physicals - and enemies in general are very frail so the targetting design choice doesn't end up hamstringing your party's strategical approach. The more durable enemies always come in separate groups. It may also be a choice stemming from the decision to make enemies play precisely by the ratio rules doled out to the PC cast (thus, forcing a more patterned way in which enemies appear, since haphazard formations become utterly ineffective as battle design), and so it goes on and on.

This basically is just to show in a simple example how deeply a single design choice can seep into more minute choices. Picking things that look good in a vacuum since they were well applied in a game and not designing further aspects with those earlier choices in mind -can- and -will- backfire, and a well-designed system is one that fully accounts its decisions in all aspects where they are ever relevant. And, to answer Djinn, a seamless mesh is generally result of a game being designed accounting those decisions. The way you handle random encounters changes the way an interface is made, and has aspects that seep even into the battle system if so desired (TWEWY's interface obviously acknowledges both these aspects. But then, TWEWY is lauded as a well-designed game in many, many fronts for a reason).

[074]

VERY IMPORTANT WORDS

...This.  Very much this.  You can't just throw a mechanic out there.  This is why the base battle system--NOT character quirks--but the base battle system should likely be considered first--it's a base of gameplay, and once that would be selected (with whatever minute details), then we could work on how to handle encounters--regardless of the derision toward invisirandoms.

Therefore, I propose we at least finalize the base battle system choice before working on any of these other details; character customization or random handling.

Confirmed: CTB base.  Large total party size.

Not confirmed: Presence of SRPG elements (movement, AoEs), impact of speed stat on actual speed, resource limits, expectation of PC durability, scale of battles, presence and use of switching alongside active party size, presence and effect of combo system, presence or absence of combo attacks...have I missed anything?

[Dark Holy Elf]

I can't speak for everyone obviously, but TWEWY's system annoyed me because I'm one of those people that hates grinding, and fighting randoms that are wholly optional like that feels like grinding.  At least with randoms on the field they're actively trying to get you into a fight usually and as such encounters feel like part of the main sequence.  When the encounters appear to be totally optional but really aren't since you need to do them regardless, it gets on my nerves.  I'm not sure if I'm explaining this well or if anyone else feels this way, but figured I'd get this out there.

I haven't played TWEWY and am not going to enter into any debate on it specifically, but I basically agree with Yakko in principle here. Sounds like a design choice which needs to be implemented very carefully if it's implemented at all, and I am voting for not implementing it.


Rob: Well, pretty much all my favourite RPGs are either SRPGs or have random encounters (some exceptions: XS2, G3) so part of me wants to defend them as not hurting a game terribly, and they do have the benefit of serving for a very effective guideline for how many enemies you fight... but I agree that they have little place, and lose their major selling point once there are other safeguards to keep PC levels within an expected range (like Suikoden... a game which oddly has randoms anyway, but hey). So sure, map randoms, but preferably ones who act with some aggression towards getting into fights with you.


Nama's list:


Presence of SRPG elements (movement, AoEs): I'd still like to have this in some form. AoEs are really cool. I like a little more movement than Grandia offers... but it could be as simple as WA4-5 I guess.

impact of speed stat on actual speed: linear, it's simpler, and I heart easily understandable mechanics. Relatively minor issue overall, though, and could change based on the stat building system.

resource limits: definitely still needs debate

expectation of PC durability: Not sure what this means? How many hits the PCs die in generally? Depends on skillset, enemy number, etc.

scale of battles: As long as the system allows for more enemies than FF3DS, we're good. I'd like to see a system that supports anywhere from 1 to 10 enemies, at least.

presence and use of switching alongside active party size: mildly opposed

presence and effect of combo system:

presence or absence of combo attacks: if they can be added organically to the system, sure, but I don't really vote for designing a system around them (if we were, we'd probably use ATB or TB anyway).

[DjinnAndTonic]

And, to answer Djinn, a seamless mesh is generally result of a game being designed accounting those decisions. The way you handle random encounters changes the way an interface is made, and has aspects that seep even into the battle system if so desired (TWEWY's interface obviously acknowledges both these aspects. But then, TWEWY is lauded as a well-designed game in many, many fronts for a reason).

I suppose if you need someone to say these things to, I'm fine with taking that role. It's good to outright state this kind of self-evident principle. However... seriously, this is pretty self-evident. Obviously a game is defined by its system, and what major differences we intend to incorporate into our system are going to be what we balance the game around.

It's notable that if we don't have -any- major differences in our system, we might as well make Dragon Quest and concentrate on the writing.

[Excal]

Felt like the discussion on how to use the large cast was that we'd either have multiple parties or party switching.  Either one, if used, would prevent the other from being used.  As for speed, huh...  while it could be possible to do something different, it feels like the we're trying to get fancy enough with the character growth and how they act that trying to be fancy here isn't necessary.

As for the rest of it, the fact that the conversation was on how to deal with resources and how the characters are limited there felt like it was going to be the focus.  Well...  either that or the combo/movement system.  Honestly, the two feel like they can work well enough together if it's just agreed that that's what we're doing.  And whether we're aiming for a more Grandia style, or a WA 4/5 style.  As well as deciding on multiple parties vs. switching.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Oh, I want to applaud Nama for doing what I had intended to do once I got some time - gathering up the all the ideas and categorizing them. The more often this happens in this topic, the farther we'll get in making decisions. ...and faster.

Nama's list:
Presence of SRPG elements (movement, AoEs): I'm for this in some form. Even if it's something as simple as 'only certain battles have a movement element'. But I'm highly for having two or three battle systems types that the game uses in the main story, a la Suiko tactical battles and duels. Not thrilled with the idea of copying WA4's system, since I think it would become too much of a focal point to balance the game around it... and WA4 already did that.

impact of speed stat on actual speed: I didn't know this needed debate now? But I'm with NEB here. Linear.

resource limits: Really not a major factor in deciding the battle system. We should balance this with one of our bigger standout features.

expectation of PC durability: This sounds like a 'how long should battles last' question... or perhaps a 'how long can the PCs go without healing' question? Either way it's really a detail that can be adjusted with more important features.

scale of battles:

As long as the system allows for more enemies than FF3DS, we're good. I'd like to see a system that supports anywhere from 1 to 10 enemies, at least.

And if we go with multiple battle system modes, this is adjustable to larger enemy presence too.

presence and use of switching alongside active party size: This is one of those 'big features' I really want. Pretty much any game that has allowed me to switch party members mid-battle has been a game I've found worth playing. I hate it when party members get sidelined against my control, personally. Very much for this, and I wouldn't mind seeing some Mana Khemia/BoF4-esque options with it.

presence and effect of combo system: I guess there's a subtle difference between a combo 'system' and specific combo 'attacks'. I'm leaning more towards the latter.

presence or absence of combo attacks: I wouldn't want this to become a 'major feature', but I wouldn't mind seeing this implemented on a fairly large scale, with many characters having options to use combo attacks. But I feel it would be best used to help specialize characters rather than to define the system. Also gives us another big reason to implement character-switching.

On swtiching and multiple parties: There's no reason we can't implement both? Especially towards the end of the game where we will probably allow the parties to intermingle. We could leave out a switching mechanic until that point.

[Excal]

Mostly because if you're going to have multiple parties with tactical options, then you'll have a shortage of PCs to do the actual switching with.  Not to mention if you're going to be adding in something that's going to be major, then endgame is not the time to do it.  And if it's not going to be major, then why add it?

Finally, outside of Mana Khemia, I'd have to say that my experience is kinda the opposite of yours Djinn.  Most games with character switching I find that feature is either not worth noting, or outright detracts from the game.  Granted, the big poster child for getting me to dislike the system, FFX, does so pretty much entirely through the system of only people who're in the battle get rewards.  So, the mix of character swapping and rewarding use together is a toxic mix.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Well... if we're going to have like 20 PCs and about 3 main parties... that's more than enough to implement good party-switching mechanics depending on active party size... >.>;;

Even easier if some PCs are in multiple parties.

[Excal]

I had imagined it about 12 - 15 PCs myself.

[DjinnAndTonic]

I wouldn't even consider that a large-cast game. SO2 has like 12 PCs...

[Excal]

Of which you can only get 8, and can only use 4, so it doesn't feel as large as it is.  Though, honestly, I personally peg large cast as double digits, Medium cast as more than 5, and small cast as 5 or less.  Huge cast is a seperate ranking where inclusion is done on a case by case basis but includes all Suikodens and Chrono Cross.

SRPGs do not get ranked on this scale as they play fundamentally differently.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Just in the interest of keeping this fun and fair for everyone working on it, I recommend having at least the same number of PCs as people working on the IAQ. Because everyone's going to have ideas about specifics they would want for a PC, and it'll be much easier to please everyone if there's enough PCs to implement their ideas with. And then we tweak them for balance.


More on-topic... I think it would be good if everyone chimed in on what they personally would most like to see in the IAQ. We could take as many of those ideas into account as possible and then fine-tune the details to get something balanced and fun. Like... I already know some people are very pro-movement-system, and while I have an opinion there, I'm overall ambivalent towards what kind of movement we use. However, I strongly want to see character-switching and people seem to be overall ambivalent towards that. Let's try to get an idea (a consensus is probably impossible, but who knows?) of what people -want- to see and then see what we can do.

For me, my top three features I'd like to see in the IAQ:

1. Unique ability-gaining for each PC. There can be some overlap, but I'd like each character's method of attaining new skills and attributes to be relatively different. Think SH2 or SaGa Frontier.

2. Character-switching. I really enjoy this mechanic and find that it really adds to usability of large casts. Additionally, I think equal 'levelling' should go along with this, whatever form levelling takes.

3. Multiple battle modes. Having another recurring battle mode really spices things up in my opinion. XG did this well with its Gear battles. Suikoden has its war battles and duels. Even Pokemon mixes it up. TWEWY did this concurrently, somehow.

How we end up handling items, random encounters, the speed system, story paths, difficulty modes, and even the question of TB RPG vs. SRPG are less important to me, and I wouldn't mind seeing other people's ideas used over my own.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

3. Multiple battle modes. Having another recurring battle mode really spices things up in my opinion. XG did this well with its Gear battles.

XG did it horribly. Both gameplay systems were highly limited, poorly balanced and crudely designed. The transition was less than seamless as well, and Gear battles had too much focus in general, being the majority of the relevant boss fights in the game.

[Excal]

Hmm...  so far there's 16 people who've posted, 11-12 of whom have done so more than once.  Assuming everyone manages to keep interest the whole way through, that'll leave us at about a 12 person cast if every major contributor gets a PC.  Assuming major contributors wouldn't prefer to have a personal NPC or Boss.  In fact, given that we want the parties to have synergy, it would likely be better to not have personal PCs (especially since they tend to draw attention and focus away from other things like nothing else) and instead work on them should either be a team affair, or should be overseen by a Character Manager.  (Personal bosses on the other hand may be perfectly doable)

If there's a Top 3 thing going into effect...  I'd want to think a bit before I say whatever it is I'm interested in so that it's more than just a reaction.

[074]

Hmm...  so far there's 16 people who've posted, 11-12 of whom have done so more than once.  Assuming everyone manages to keep interest the whole way through, that'll leave us at about a 12 person cast if every major contributor gets a PC.  Assuming major contributors wouldn't prefer to have a personal NPC or Boss.  In fact, given that we want the parties to have synergy, it would likely be better to not have personal PCs (especially since they tend to draw attention and focus away from other things like nothing else) and instead work on them should either be a team affair, or should be overseen by a Character Manager.  (Personal bosses on the other hand may be perfectly doable)

If there's a Top 3 thing going into effect...  I'd want to think a bit before I say whatever it is I'm interested in so that it's more than just a reaction.

I'm in favor of the Character Manager idea myself--only in this case, to make two CMs.

Also to clarify because some people are confused:

COMBO SYSTEM: This is like in Tales, VP or...several other games.  Basic idea is that damage scales up by some degree with chained hits.  Hit count of a move would matter.

COMBO ATTACKS: This is like in CT or PS4.  Where characters have, well, combination attacks.

[dude789]

How unique do you want each characters method of obtaining their ability? SH:C had a smaller cast and even then there was some overlap for how abilities are learned. If we want a significantly larger cast then we have to consider how much of the gameplay we want to set aside for skillset collection because otherwise we run the risk of the game being nothing but sidequests.

[Yoshiken]

Gonna just run with Nama's list. Trying to make other arguments amongst everything here is just headache-inducing.

Presence of SRPG elements (movement, AoEs): If I could just decide any one aspect on this game now, I'd make it an SRPG. We're looking for lots of characters? Perfect. Forced randoms with the option of grinding? Disgaea-style level selections. Honestly, this is pretty much the ideal thing for me, and I really can't see any benefit of things like BoFV-style over this.

Impact of speed stat on actual speed: Should definitely be simple, yeah. I'd much rather go with just "Speed = Turn Order" - maybe make the average 100 just to really simplify things. >_>

Resource limits: If each battle were done separately, I'd make them individually challenging with an auto-regen of some kind after battles. I'm guessing items fall under this, which is a whole different story and should probably wait for a different topic, honestly.

Expectation of PC durability: NOT capable of being killed in one hit. I hate those fights that are just "Revive, Attack, Revive, Attack, Revive, etc." Otherwise, ehh, not that important.

Scale of battles: Uhh, what? I'm not really sure what this means, honestly. Generic battles should be quite challenging, a lot of variety, but with less tricks/interesting strategies than the bosses?

Presence and use of switching alongside active party size: Yup, sure. I like Djinn's idea of moving out of enemy range far enough to switch, but as for how to encourage this... Another one that'll take a little more work.

Presence and effect of combo system: Ehh. Irrelevant to me.

Presence or absence of combo attacks: If they're original, then sure. If they're pretty generic, then forget it. I hated Disgaea's combo system, and would much prefer something different depending on who you use.


As for the characters included, I'd say each person should pick a few characters. Maybe 3 per person, since that'd be a large cast with a lot of variety, each team of 3 would be designed to have synergy, and it would be a relatively small amount of work for each person. That said, I'm guessing some people don't like the idea of having 35-45 characters.
And Dude, I'd honestly not mind a game that's almost entirely sidequest. But, yeah, that depends on how the skills are obtained - if they're, say, gained through fighting a certain number of battles with a certain character present, then they'd not need any sidequest to obtain them. And, again, I think this is an issue for a different topic.

[074]

Yoshiken: By scale of battles, I mean "how large".  How many enemies, and so on.  This is one of the cases that would factor into switching, since if one was expecting battles to be large-scale (say, 6 vs. 10 or some crazy number)--well, you get the idea.


Regarding cast size: 3 per person leads to massive cast bloat, and thus a general inability to provide for plot focus.  It's at least possible, with a branching/merging storyline, to account for 1/person.  At the same time, explaining a previous statement, I am in favor of personal PCs (Albeit with a Character Manager or two to help keep things in line) for a couple of reasons.

1: Each person is likely to have some degree of variance in ideas.  Different ideas will equate to different characters, and likely more variety in the long run.

2: Partly for the fun of it; I imagine a lot of people partly were motivated to join on because they might have wanted to have a personal PC play a role.  (If not a personal boss.  Who knows, maybe it's possible for both, given the branching storylines.  Of course, we might also get 15 different takes on Hippopressor or somesuch, just because of the "BEST BOSS EVER" factor)

3: Group generation can get...iffy.  Especially if one or more people are overridden by the majority.

[AndrewRogue]

On cast size, once more: I think we should aim for approximately, at the upper end, X + 2 or 3 PCs, where X is the numbers of PCs usable in battle, per path. Smaller X, two is probably fine. Larger X, might want three. This is a fairly imposing number, but could generally be mitigated with some overlap and a temp here or there in certain segments.

On personal PCs: Against, for a variety of reasons that I'll go into when it matters more. This is not to say people should not submit ideas (as many as they want!), just that I'm not fond of guaranteeing a single PC per person or giving exclusive work on a PC to someone.

On The List: What we really should be focusing on! I'll address it on my lunch break.

[Cmdr_King]

You know, as I think of it, I like the idea of an aggression meter for randoms more.  Aside from being a good way to balance between having visible randoms too easy to dodge and an endless grindfest, there's some opportunity for gameplay/story integration there.  Peaceful forest?  Enemies are defaultly very passive and have no interest in attacking an armed party.  Raiding enemy stronghold?  Rigged to maximum aggression.  Plenty of room for variation.

While party switching can be a lot of fun, I'm not feeling a lot of strong support for it.  that said, at a minimum we should be looking at a system where the full party is always available, and can be switched freely out of battle, but not necessarily with an in-battle mechanic for it.  Another possible compromise is having the out-of-party group 'jump in' if the active party falls, but depending on how SRPG we take things that may be inelegant.

On the whole, I don't think anything more SRPG-influenced than WA5 is really desirable, but beyond that I'm pretty open to the precise level.  Whether we go with the full small-hex model, or eschew them altogether, anything can work.

If we're running with CTB (and I'm strongly in favor of that), I don't think a combo system of any flavor is the right move.  I remember Grandia III trying for one and... for me at least, it was just something that happened occasionally, not really worth the time or effort to really set it up.

[AndrewRogue]

Presence of SRPG elements: I support it. I generally prefer the idea of a light hex grid since I feel it'd keep things smooth and more fluid, which works with the system we seem to be aiming for here. I feel it would work best for the style of game we're going for, since positioning and movement can add a lot of strategy/challenge into a game that isn't about all the difficulty being in numbers. It also allows for a little more easy PC variation and would help immensely in working with distinctly different mechanics for as many characters as possible. I'm thinking just a bit more involved than WA5, but not out at the WA5 level. PCs/enemies should be able to share spaces with each other, but not with the opposite faction.

We're already working with a system that has AoE and movement built in. I think putting as much control in the hands of the player as possible is good.

Impact of speed stat on actual speed: See NEB. Mechanics should be straightforward, relatively simple and clear. Opaque or arcane mechanics are silly. Players should have a firm understanding of the system and how it works.

Resource Limits: I'm really thinking we should try to focus around HP (or something like it) as the big resource that needs managing, and concentrate on giving PCs resources that only need to be managed in battle. However, this is really, really, really dependent on the directions we go with random design and character design. This is really something that we can't get a decisive answer on yet (although we can initialize a direction), as it is too codependent on other things.

Also, I kind of wonder if it might be worth considering implementing death/critical wounding/etc as a serious status ailment again. Prevents the need of having a million revivers if we go the itemless in-battle route, forces you to manage your party a bit better and can help with making you use more PCs.

PC Durability: Reasonably solid because of the suggested no in-battle items and...

Scale of Battles: I'm thinking 4-5 PCs in battle at a time, with one to double the amount of randoms potentially. Lets different playstyles shine, different PCs have their niches, etc. Plays well into the system on the whole I feel (although I could be wrong) and also meshes well with the idea of some SRPG elements.

Switching Characters: Should always be available outside of battle. In-battle, as it stands, I can't really think of a way that meshes well with the current direction of the battle system. Larger cast forces you to deal with the "active party is dead" mess (or account for having to chip through a pile of PCs), the combat system doesn't seem to generally benefit much from it (unlike MK, which was built around this concept) and we already seem to be plotting around multiple "utilize as many PCs as possible without being forced to" safeguard measures. If someone can present a compelling idea on how to integrate in-battle character swapping of any sort, I'm all ears, but it just doesn't feel synergistic at the moment.

Presence and effect of a combo system/combo attacks: I think some thought on this might be worth it. A well implemented idea could well help set the combat system out. If there's no great ideas for it, however, we can pass, because a token "here it is" type one is stupid.

CK: Are you suggesting aggro meter and on-screen randoms?

[Cmdr_King]

Yes.

[Talaysen]

You know, as I think of it, I like the idea of an aggression meter for randoms more.  Aside from being a good way to balance between having visible randoms too easy to dodge and an endless grindfest, there's some opportunity for gameplay/story integration there.  Peaceful forest?  Enemies are defaultly very passive and have no interest in attacking an armed party.  Raiding enemy stronghold?  Rigged to maximum aggression.  Plenty of room for variation.

This is pretty much exactly how Atelier Iris 2 did it (the idea started there, not in the Ar tonelico series).  Forests had a meter that would empty quickly, but in the castle dungeon that thing never emptied ever.  Anyways, I'm in favor of it.

List because it's all the rage:

Presence of SRPG elements (movement, AoEs): I'm fine with it to some extent, it just needs to be implemented carefully.

impact of speed stat on actual speed: Needs to be important.  If we do linear, we need to make characters vary in it quite a bit.

resource limits: People need to be able to use skills and the like during even random battles.

expectation of PC durability: what.  This should depend on the PC and the enemy.  Some enemies may hit hard but are slower while some may hit fast but not as hard.  Some PCs are durable and some are not.  I don't see why this should be fixed in any manner.

scale of battles: As many enemies as PCs.  More enemies reeks of "bs enemies cheat", so make it fair.  Of course you can randomize this some.  (I can see more enemies for some boss fights or something, but yeah.)

presence and use of switching alongside active party size: I like switching, but if we do something else that makes more PCs viable to use then sure.  Hate having to choose which awesome characters to use.

presence and effect of combo system: Can have a small bonus for hitting an enemy multiple times before they get to act, but probably wouldn't do much more than that in a CTB system.  (For example, Wild Arms 5 gave a small bonus to damage as you hit an enemy multiple times before ANY enemy went.)

presence or absence of combo attacks: Eh, don't really care.  Adding in character specific combo attacks makes things harder to balance and don't really seem to add much.

I'd say letting people design a PC is fine and fun, just let everyone look over the PCs and point out issues with them.

[Excal]

Andy, I have to ask.  Are you thinking of something like a 19 Hex pattern instead of a 7 Hex?  (Two Ring as opposed to One Ring)

As for other ideas,

Encounter Meter - If we're going to be using invisible randoms then this work fine.  Seems less necessary if there's going to be onscreen randoms since those will need AI, and if there's going to be differing levels of aggression there, then it can be handled by different scripts which needs less in the way of meters.  Though, just a reminder, the more that's done with visible randoms, the more it will require in the way of programming AI in order to make them act in any manner other than random.

Resource Limits - I definately feel we had something more interesting going on here with the MP limits suggested earlier, and with HP being more fluid.  HP could work, but I know I find MP allocation to be generally more interesting than HP allocation.  Especially since it's not expected to have a random effect variance of criticals and misses.


Scale of Battles - Generally for there being a wide variety of these.  As for the comment on the enemies cheating, well, that's why they're the bad guys.  Hell, the PCs usually outnumber the poor bosses.  A more serious comment would be, I'm generally a fan of the PCs and NPCs working on completely different scales.  They're not supposed to the same, and the same limitations you put on the player so that they can have some freedom while still having challenge, is never really a similar concern for the designer.

PC Design - Honestly, I'm of the opinion that PCs should be designed with their team and role in the plot in mind first, and anything else secondary to that.  Which means, yeah.  One person is going to have to be in charge of this to get integration.  Leaning towards having people submit moves and ideas instead of PCs, but honestly don't care so much so long as it's in general agreement that one person is in charge.

This is probably the big sticking point for me if this is actually meant to be serious, because this is where the difference will be between a fun vanity project and theoretical exercise and a serious project that's actually meant to be completed.  Granted, they're both interesting in their own way, just.  Yeah.  Deciding this issue is probably where that decision is going to be made.