Questions for a gladiator game

[Darek Angel5]

I have started making the characters for my latest RPG. The basic layout of the game will be maybe a town with a few shops that require keys. you get those keys by going through dungeons, or what I want to make them, Coliseums. I would suppose I can make them people standing in your way or invisible events and battles with characters. The boss battles will be with giant beasts ^^. Those beasts hold the keys and the shops have better equipment each time. So my questions are if anyone has any better way to make a game based on fighting. I might need help with balancing battles if my brother can't help me, with the skills versus the strength and weapons. I know when I made the skills I based their power on a little above your strength on the next level, but I have to change that. I plan on making it PC-choosable from a four or five character list at the moment, but I'm trying to fit that into the conversations. If anyone has an idea any better than my generic plans, (which you probably do, since I don't even know ow I'll do it all just yet) I am open to any ideas and I'll try my best not to be a nuisance.

[Wavelength]

Re: Questions for a gladiator game

Welcome to the Pav! I've got an idea or two for you but don't have the time to write it up at the moment. Look for it in the next day or so.

[Darek Angel5]

Re: Questions for a gladiator game

Okay, I've seen some of your posts and I can't wait to hear your ideas. Thank you for welcoming me. Sorry I couldn't wright more specific information on my game so you could help me more, but I'm just starting that game, and I'm not quite used to the game. All of my past games I rushed into and got bored of making them or found another game I played mostly instead of rpgmaker3. I'm trying to make a game like this to get acquainted with the specifics of events and balancing battles before I start making a real RPG. Then I can focus on the story and not trying to figure out how this event is going to work in specified values and event modes I'm not used to yet.

[Wavelength]

Re: Questions for a gladiator game

Cool. Assuming you want to create a game that'll be fun in addition to being a good learning experience for you as a creator, the best advice I can give is to make sure that the player has something to feel he's playing for, and something that he's accomplishing, outside of just unlocking the next segment of your game.

What came to mind for me would be to flesh out some sort of "League" or "Society" that runs the Arenas and governs and rewards the Gladiators. This doesn't need to be developed with any plot per se (other than "you want to be number one" or "you want to explore all the arenas the world has to offer"), but it allows you to create some NPCs that are also in this league (or at least interested in what you're doing), and will allow for some interesting diversions.

For example, you could have different tournaments in certain arena only once every seven game days (Auto Events that trigger during Time-of-Day changes can help you track this), or a secret Coliseum that's only open at night.

You could have a "Rank" or "Leaderboard" which will increase each time you clear all the beasts in an Arena (not too hard to track using a variable), and maybe drops slowly over time. You start low and move up over time, and maybe once your Rank gets high enough you can enter an "Arena of Champions" where you fight against truly mythical beasts or even other champions. Or, as your rank increases and you become more well-known, you can start accepting more and more special missions from a bulletin board that you can complete for rewards.

I think you've got a good idea with having character models stand in your way and trigger event battles as you trek through each dungeon/arena. Don't forget that you can also set a convincing scene using Storytellers. It's not that hard to have a battle go away forever once you beat it and then "respawn" once you leave the dungeon, if you want to do that - just let me know if you need hints on the implementation.

Furthermore, if you're patient and aren't running up against your Data Usage limits, you should be able to make some cool outdoor arenas using the Field Editor. Pagerron or Lausen could probably give you some good advice about how to make it look convincing.

As far as balancing the battles, it's very hard to do without actually playing the game, especially if you're going to give the player the freedom to visit any Arena in any order. So my advice is to just test it yourself a lot, have your brother test it, and ask some other people to test it for you. It's never a bad idea to launch a Demo version of your game, even for that reason alone. In a game like this you'll probably want to keep the stat increases small (compared to your starting stats), but don't avoid them entirely, and don't railroad the player into a set stat progression.

I think the Shop Keys will work as you described them. I've posted some stuff in the past about choosing a Class or a Party, so I can dig those up if you get stymied in that area.

Keep us up to speed because this sounds like it could be a fun game!

[Darek Angel5]

Re: Questions for a gladiator game

Okay, that's some great thinking man. My bro is a lot better at testing and can probably help me apply your ideas better than I can. I had thoughts on some of those things you said. What I wanna do is make it like Colossus, not very much plot until like 3/4 through. But the main has some item that does something I haven't thought of yet, and that allows him to beat some bosses Ima make that normal people never could, and bodybuilders only got close. I made some stats that I don't want. I has thought that they were too high, but when you said it I thought more. There's gonna be a LOT of fighting the other pit dogs, so a 5-7 stat increase depending on whether the character chooses a mage or dwarf is way op. Maybe 1-3. I might need a little help making a field, so I'll search for that. I also want some high rank enemies to have equipment the PC can't, but I can't think of a way to do it without them joining your party and them saying "let me put on my armour", making a text telling you to equip it before you move a muscle, and then making the event code change for a battle and them leave your party. And I doubt this will help at all, but someone might come up with ideas or discuss with me and I think of new ideas based on this. The story so far is you were a kid in a mountain village where no one talked because they didn't need to. Your village was attacked by Ceasar (pronounced Kaizar) and they took anything of value to build their army and fortress. You were enslaved because you have that one item and when people watch you they pay more. You move up the ranks, and soon get into Ceasar's palace. You become an elite guard (he needs the best men for his throne-side guards, and he makes the champions them so he knows he's in good hands). You become friends with him and become his #1 guard, though you understand little of what he says, you sense a bond. You go into war and that's when you see the real situation. You begin to realize the Evil of Nobaly. You see a boy that will suffer the same fate as you, growing up fightig to live with no one to trust, your enemies are your meals, and no one cares if you die. You raid a few more cities until it sinks in, and you start a revolt. You use the item to ready your army, but that leaves it with no more power for you to use. Your few elite guards and a malitia of the would-be raided town fight against the strongest army in the world. In the end, Ceasar wins with half his army left and only you opposing him. Everyone that did not see your wisdom thought he was the perfect king, and after you're gone everyone will again. You battle Caesar and use every battle technique you learned in the arenas. He beats you in battle, but decides not to kill you just yet. He shows you why he raided so many cities to expand his borders. He didn't want the power of the item, but itwas a key he needed. He uses it for something to do with space, which I am still trying to figure out. sorry if it's too long and I annoy anyone, but I want as much help as I can get, so if anyone has any ideas on how to make my story better, they know all my ideas