Good design choices- what makes a concept work?

[superaielman]

Design flaws are easier to put into groups than good design choices. While everyone hates bad load times, laggy menus and the game crashing, it's much harder to pin down something down positive. 

I am going to try, though.

1. Adjustable challenge levels.

Examples: SO2, ToG,  FE8

This is something that I find to be a bigger and bigger deal as time goes by.  RPGs are about planning and knowledge of mechanics. There is no physical skill involved with knowing clockticks in FFT, whereas you definitely need to have practice and good reflexes to beat Megaman 1. The age of FAQs mean that you can't really rely on puzzles to slow the player down either.   Challenge levels gives hardcore fans of the genre something to leap into, easy mode lets casual fans play the game and just enjoy it.  This is becoming more common as time goes by in RPGs, though some of the big flagship games of the series (FF and DQ) have not adopted this.  SO2 and FE8 had excellent hard modes- SO2's universe mode actually stands up to the twinking you can do in that game, and FE8's hard mode adds some much needed challenge to a fairly easy maingame.

Tales of Graces gets a gold star here. Not only did it have adjustable difficulty levels, but it let you do so from in game. IE if you have a hard fight or one that sucks (IE some of the sidequest duels) you can turn down the challenge level for a fight. Or turn it up if you want to see if hard mode is worth it. Also it was nice that the game increased drops and combo bonuses on hard!

Bad use of this idea: VP1, FE10, LoM

I haven't touched LoM in over a decade, and I still remember randoms having a million HP in no future mode. VP1's challenge modes aren't really challenge modes and are more confusing than anything else. FE10, fuck the loss of the weapon triangle and threat range.

2. Skits/dialog in dungeons/in battle dialog

Example: Tales series, FF13, WA4

This is pretty straightforward. Mix some character work in with your dungeon crawling. FF13 had no towns (So this was required), WA4 was pretty dungeon crawly as well.

Skits are obvious.  If you like them, view them. If not, you can skip. Either way, they are a way to break dungeons.

Bad use of this idea: FFT, BoF5

Gameplay overrides story in FFT, and that is perfectly fine. A lot of the later dialog is awkward due to Ramza not having anyone to bounce off of. The sluice really stands out here.  BoF5 ended up very plot light because a chunk of the game's story was NG+. Skimping on the maingame plot and then having a bunch of said plot in NG+ only scenes is not good.


3. Money matters

Examples: FF1,  DW4, FE7


Games where you get piles of cash thrown on you and it does no good gets boring.  FF1's elfland arc gives you a lot of interesting options. Do you pick up LIT2 and run to the Wizards? Do you level up a bunch and grab silver swords? It makes you think and plan around where you spend your money.  If play it smart, you can get through just fine with minimal or no leveling, or you can take it slow and grind the marsh cave into a fine paste.  This trails off after midgame (much like the game's challenge), but balancing resources before that is a constant worry.

DW4 is pretty similiar there; it is all about what gear you buy and when you buy it. Old school games that have some balance are able to pull off this type of balancing act well. FE7 gets props as well. (Do you sell promotion items or get shiny weapons?). I don't much care for promotion being tied to items, but FE7 did at least offer up something worth considering there.

Bad use: FM4, FF13, 7th Saga


Flipside, being too tight on money leads to failure. Fuck off forever 7S. FF13's entire money system is flawed; the amount of cash you have available varies hugely based on the randoms you're fighting thanks to enemies not dropping gil. (Of course the entire drop/IC system had all kinds of problems, but that is a different story). FM4 needs to drop a little more cash- you just don't have enough to keep your wanzers up to date without some sim farming, which is annoying.

4. Teamwork!

Examples: FM4, Brigandine,  SoA

This is mostly an SRPG concept. Team synergy may be a better term here than actual teamwork. It is about how well the team works together- do you need to use all available PC's for the best outcome? Does godmodding with one character (an N1 failing) happen much?

FM4's link system means that not only do you need to keep your team together for maps, but considreing AP/unit placement/weapons are pretty important. You don't just rush the enemies, you have to plan your attacks and take advantage of counter attacks and conserve high AP attacks like bazookas/sniper rifles while using shotguns and fists more often.  SoA's SP system encouraged teamwork fairly well. Your SP has to be managed by the entire group while you balance defense. It works.

The Rune Area system in Brig encourages a lot of teamwork as well. You can't just send a single Rune Knight to solo a map.  Unit placement, managing rune power, and making sure your units compliment each other is key. IE: While throwing out 12 zombies in a battle is dumb, so is throwing out six angels and nothing else. This breaks down at high level gameplay, but at that point you are steamrolling the game anyway.

Bad use: Ogre Battle, Kartia, Valkyria Chronicals

OB has some fairly deep mechanics for an SNES game and tried to make you use a variety of units and slowly advance through the stages by capturing enemy towns. That idea isn't bad until you realize you need two good units in the game at absolute most: A high alignment lord unit to liberate towns, and a MURDERDEATHKILL unit to kill everything else.  Making sure the lord is competent enough to hold the base is also good. Kartia has an subsection of monsters that are completely worthless; you are better off focusing on the couple of human PC's and getting them leveled up. VC sets up a WW1 style game with trench warfare and capture the flag to go with very distinct classes and- oh wait Alicia/your scout of choice just ignored 90% of the enemies on the map and cleared the level. VC2 fixed this at least.

[superaielman]

5. New Game +


Examples: Chrono Trigger, Front Mission 5, SaGa Frontier

This is becoming an increasingly normal part of RPGs. Chrono Trigger isn't the first RPG to use this (Lufia 1 had a NG+ mode), but it is the first really *big* JRPG to use it. They added enough content with the NG+ stuff to make it worthwhile.  Saga Frontier's NG+ isn't straight smashing. It just gives you slightly higher base stats and more moves to start with, along with eventually unlocking the developer's console when you beat all seven quests.  FM5 gives you the choice between a typical NG+ smash (Port items/money/gear) or a *seriously* nasty hard mode. It works.

Bad use of this: *cough*

I don't want to turn this topic into a BoF5 abuse session so I will abstain  here. <_< But seriously, I can't think of any RPGs that have a NG+ that detracts from things.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Honestly I felt Saga Frontier's detracted a bit. You need to do it (six times) in order to gain access to the kinda cool-sounding developer's room, but in exchange for this you make all six of those playthroughs feel... I dunno, fake. You should have been able to get the developer's room without that, just by having beaten the seven paths.

Forced or pseudo-forced NG+ always kinda bugs me, I shouldn't have to do it for sake of another carrot. See also: forcing you to do NG+ in order to access hard mode, as Devil May Cry does the first time you play said mode. Or of course, hiding significant amount of plot behind it. That's really the only way you can screw up the idea.


EDIT: Teamwork!

On a related note to this, I dislike when games make it the optimum strategy to use few or even just one unit, due to exp focusing into that unit. Don't make teamwork games and then reward players for not building teams! Pokemon is the worst offender of this for a game that is actually good, Hoshigami for one that is even more egregious. Fire Emblem and Disgaea have variations of this problem. Games should avoid this by making sure that a solo/small team does not benefit significantly more in terms of exp gain, if at all.

[Talaysen]

Really not a fan of your number 3 (money matters).  My biggest problem is that if you make the wrong choice on what to spend your cash on, your only option is to go grind more cash.  And that's bad.

There is a way to fix this but no RPGs actually do it.  Sure, make it so you can only buy a limited amount of stuff... but be able to sell it back at full price.  Then if you screw up, you can just trade out your stuff to try something else.

Also, hell no to SoA having good teamwork.  The fact that SP pool is shared hurts it more than helps.  The problem is that when you have a shared pool, whoever makes the optimal use of it will be the one who uses all of it and the others will just be there to fill it up.  Most of SoA I remember just using Vyse's damage skills to use up all the SP, or in some cases use Delta Shield if needed.  The other two characters basically did nothing because doing things would be less efficient.

PS: CHRONICLES goddamnit

[Meeplelard]

I think FF13 and XS2 should be added into "Good" examples of Team Work.  They're Non-SRPGs that actually need you to use your entire party as a unit rather than rely on each character doing individual things.

For example, FF13 is structured in such a way that roles compliment each other.  So while Commando does more damage than others, you scarcely are going to use more than one pre-Chain Breaking, as you want to set up around that then go into damage.  Similarly, XS2's break system and characters doing more damage off chaining from one another helps a lot.

[Fenrir]

I dislike skits. I don't want my dungeons getting broken up with plot all the time to maintain a better gameplay/story flow, and if I like a game plot I'd rather not want to skip parts of it.

I agree with the others. I love it when they go the extra mile with NG+ and rise enemy difficulty, otherwise I usually don't bother. Terrible hunholy examples are DDS and SMT Strange Journey, you have to play the game a second time in super easy mode to access the hardest optional battles in both cases.

[superaielman]

Tal: I think it's more about being careful with your money. FF1 has some obvious things to not spend money on (Namely most magic), DW4 is all about  being smart with your cash early on. The one exception to that is Taloon's chapter, which is a bit different from the rest of the game.


Re: SoA

SoA made you use everyone to some extent. Vyse is your damage dealer but has bad support moves. Aika is your healing battery thanks to the skill that restores her MP; Delta Shield is extremely useful as you noted.  Enrique is useful for Justice Shield alone- and he should tie himself down with that, halving all damage is excellent. Even if Fina's not especially strong, she can toss items and generate SP. Shared SP and max SP caps means that you can't just have a single PC go godmode and solo the game, which I found to be a good thing.

[Grefter]

So it is fine that games with a restrictive resource have traps for the uninformed player to piss money away on just because you are familiar with the game?  Traps are still traps and ones that punish with boring gameplay are what I would call bad design.

[Talaysen]

Tal: I think it's more about being careful with your money. FF1 has some obvious things to not spend money on (Namely most magic), DW4 is all about  being smart with your cash early on. The one exception to that is Taloon's chapter, which is a bit different from the rest of the game.

How is that stuff obvious?  FF1 tells you jack shit about anything, so how would you know not to spend money on certain spells unless you knew the game or FAQ'd it.  You wouldn't.  And then you'd buy spells and then have to go grind to get money for the stuff you should've bought because they sucked.  DW4 I had to grind to completely outfit my team at points.  Was I not supposed to do that?  How would I know which pieces are actually necessary?

You can't really be "smart" about your money unless you have foreknowledge of what's coming up.  If it was a resource you could get back and experiment with that would be okay, but it's not.

[Grefter]

This isn't to say you can't make tight money an interesting core piece of design.  I wouldn't say money is tight in stuff like Etrian Odyssey and you do have to grind for it a bit.  Why it works is because A) it is part of the setting and B) It isn't just grinding rando enemies for cash.  The way to make money in that is to take your secondary Farming party to gathering points and ransacking them for as much as you can over and over again to fuel the purchases for your primary team (who can progress further so you can gather stuff from further down and so on).

It is kind of grindy but it works for a few reasons. First up directly counter to DQ and FF1 examples there is no traps.  An upgrade is pretty directly an upgrade and normally a noticeable one at that because EO uses a small scale to large effect (Pretty sure they even use subtractive defense equations, but someone else can correct me on that).  Secondly because you aren't just grinding enemies for cash you aren't doubly impacting difficulty due to a mix of overlevelling as well as possibly over gearing (although normal killing randoms does supplement your income enough to pay for your basic upkeep unless you have a disastrous trip).  Thirdly and I can't stress enough how important this is to it, it fits the setting and the gameplay reinforces this.  You farm not just for cash, but to unlock gear because shop unlocks are tied to the items you sell them.  You normally end up with more than enough of the stuff to unlock all the stuff well before you are done gathering cash (there is some more exotic enemy drops sometimes that you need to do fancy things to get that you aren't guaranteed), so it isn't normally a particularly restrictive mechanic, but it reinforces the existing principles quite well.

Generally I would also note here that EO is an example of enemies only dropping items instead of cash AND limited inventory space actually working quite well.

[Talaysen]

I'm not sure I would consider it a GOOD design choice in EO, but it wasn't terrible I guess.  Mostly for the reasons you described.  From what I remember, you don't need to grind too much unless you want to get the overpriced stuff right away.

One thing that you didn't mention is quests.  Those do give you some cash, but you also have separate progress when doing those too.  They really needed to up the rewards though (and they did somewhat in later games), but you do get a bunch of money just in the process of completing them.

Also, for the record, EO1 does use a subtractive defense system, EO2 uses a divisive defense system, and EO3 uses a hybrid system (but the gear side is subtractive so it still counts).  EO is not a series that is consistent on formulas.  Ever.

The limited inventory space was not so bad because it gave you a good reason to go back to town and save!  If inventory was unlimited I'm sure I would've lost more progress.  But that's more of a psychological thing.

[Meeplelard]

I think money being a resource you have to care about really strives heavily on implementation.

I mean, in games where its just cause randoms give you jack shit for cash throughout the game is just a way of saying "GRIND MOAR!"  But in a game where randoms give you legitimate amounts of cash, and you can actually but stuff, but often not EVERYTHING?  Yeah.

Super's FF1 Example makes sense but only in the context of remakes, where they added modern conventions like skill descriptions and I think, at very least, FF6-style Up/Down arrows to indicate "is this equip better y/n?"  In those versions, now there's a legitimate decision making scenario.
Do I want that kick ass Mythril Sword that will obsolete many weapons for the next large part of the game?  Or do I want to buy Fira and Thundara for my Black Mage?  Please ignore versions of the game that decided to take away the Mythril Sword from Elfland (thereby making Red Mage cry because that was his only real claim to fame over Thief physically in that version and its gone...please ignore the Soul of Chaos dungeons too, tehy destroy any semblance of balance.)

I dunno if I'd call it a "good" design decision, but its one that can work but needs to be handled properly.  Its a lot easier to screw up that's for sure.

I guess I'd say money shouldn't be trivial, but it shouldn't be scarce either.  You should at least be able to buy enough stuff to keep your main team up to date, but not enough to keep all the characters on reserves up to date either.


If we're going to use an FF example that does it well, then FF10, mostly because all the weapon/armor upgrades are kind of neat, but you rarely can afford them all, so you basically have to pick and choose.  This is especially the case at Moonflow, where there's a lot of shops with different oddball items, and suddenly you're trying to decide who wants what most.  Unless you grind a lot, or do a lot of Blitzball to get cash (which is really just a different kind of grinding...), you won't be able to afford everything there, and there's a decent number of neat items. 

At the same time, FF10's equipment system is such that missing out some really good equips won't screw you over.  The game doesn't determine your stats based off of equips, they're more handy bonuses rather than integral "keep up with enemy stats" factors.  Having one of every element at Tidus' disposal is nice for helping insure he gets those Overkills, for example, but Overkills are a 2ndary goal, the primary is "Did he kill the enemy y/n?"

[Grefter]

EO example was less "Good" and more ways you can make money a restrictive resource without being full of giant gaping bullshit traps and requiring decent foreknowledge to work around.

You want an actual good one for here?  Animation skip in your turn based games.  Been discussed to death in the DL, but worth noting once again.

Just do it better than Pokemon. 

In a similar vein, short combat animations are a good idea as well.  Suikoden we love you for this.

[Meeplelard]

Animation skip should be in ARPGs too, frankly, for moves that actually pause the action of the fight.  Like pretty much any spell in Star Ocean 2 after a point (basically anything that is Ray or stronger), or Mystic Artes in a Tales game.  I understand watching the full animation in an active battle because, well, animation is part of the cool down rates and all that, but when the action is explicitly paused just because of an animation, that's a different story!