so im playing through black ribbon

[Karr Lord of Chaos]

Re: so im playing through black ribbon

its so hard and i really tried. i may pick it up again just cause i wana see the end. also id like the badge of the first to play through this living hell. i did play fairly far in edwards quest. i dled mine at the pav as the i thought the pavi might be older and i was getting an error that ended up not being one.

[Mcardy]

Re: so im playing through black ribbon

Hey man, I actually beat Edward's Quest. I'm sure you can make it through!

I really wanted to see some screenshots of this game, since I read about how terrible it was. I imagine the 200 hours of gameplay is 195 hours of grinding, eh?

[orius]

Re: so im playing through black ribbon

im also reminded of the distance rule between mages and knights. i had my knight naked with a weapon and he was taking no damage, and my mages had full sets and where getting clubed to death in two hits. the gap for def was just too wide. same with the attack. only two of my chars really did any attacking, the rest either used magic till they ran out in 10 shots or healed with items which was their usual roll. ironic they where the slowest of my members which made their healing abilities happen too late.

Now that sounds ridiculous.

I understand why there are combat differences between a tank and a caster in a typical RPG. I've even gladly used them. But of course the balance needs to be such that one doesn't completely overshadow the other. In a tabletop RPG, you can get away with very squishy wizards because the tanks can do a much better job of protecting them. The players aren't restricted by coding and you have a DM that can pull his punches if he sees the party needs to rest or retreat from the dungeon.

A video game can't do that. The AI running the encounters and combats is relentless, so you have to make the casters more surviveable. They don't have to be as strong as the fighters, but they need to have enough defense that they're not constantly getting killed. The enemies need to do less damage overall and have fewer HPs; about 2-3 rounds should be the max for a random encounter, at least that's how I prefer things to go.

Casters should also have a good mana pool and affordable spell costs; if they're going to be squishy or have crappy attacks, then they'll be relying on magic. They should be able to use that magic without running out after 3 or 4 fights or there should be a cheap way of recovering the mana pool. Same thing goes with healing. Healing spells that cost more a significant chunk of a mana pool yet recover only a small fraction of a target's HP aren't effective.

Also, experience gain/leveling/whatever shouldn't take forever or seem like a chore, although this is one area where I've had the most trouble in balancing my own games. The reason my games go into grind is because I balance things conservatively. I feel it's better to give a bit less than too much at once. But at least with RPG Maker, I do a lot of playtesting to make sure stuff works and doesn't take forever, I did quite a bit of fiddling on Demonslayers because I thought XP and money gain were going too slow.

It sounds like the game has balance issues or wasn't playtested very well. It sounds like the stat growth rates are a bit low from what you're saying. Maybe the person who designed the game either didn't play it enough and didn't realize how tough it was, or didn't bother to think of how the gameplay would feel to another player.

The pav and mag's versions of any games we share should be the same, after the PS1>PS3 conversion effort. I told ixzion that he could take any updated versions we had.

I can't speak for anyone else, but my games are the same. When I added them to the Mag the other day, I just downloaded them from the Pav because I didn't feel like digging around for the backups.

[Yeaster]

Re: so im playing through black ribbon

Hello all, this is the creator here, returning from the depths of obscurity...


I want to apologize for creating this catastrophe. It was 2003, I was 14 years old, I -- to be frank -- didn't know what the heck I was doing. But I thought I did and it sure was fun creating this hot mess. =)


Anyways, I found this thread because I was bored and started googling myself. It's funny that I would come across this, because in the summer of 2007, I actually played through this game for the heck of it and -- as frustrating as it was -- there WAS a good story and cast buried somewhere underneath all the crap, so I started to rewrite the game's storyline as I was playing it. No, it wasn't exactly the highlight of that summer, but at the very least I got a great script out of the deal that I can, perhaps, use again later.......

Side-note, Cecilia Woodman still remains one of my personal favorites<3 (especially in the rewrite)

It sounds like the game has balance issues or wasn't playtested very well. It sounds like the stat growth rates are a bit low from what you're saying. Maybe the person who designed the game either didn't play it enough and didn't realize how tough it was, or didn't bother to think of how the gameplay would feel to another player.

Or... the creator was just an idiot.

[Karr Lord of Chaos]

Re: so im playing through black ribbon

i have a deal for you.

if you can edit the battles to bring them more inline with rational expectations then i will play through your game entirely and review based on the new game. there is no reason that your story should go untold simply because the battles are too steep for anyone to overcome. dont change or touch anything other then the battles.

[Valkysas]

Re: so im playing through black ribbon

Hell, that could be fixed just by adjusting the base stats.

[Yeaster]

Re: so im playing through black ribbon

Hmmm, tempting offer, but I'm going to be honest with you. This game is so old, I just don't care about it anymore. If I do decide to go back and edit it, I'll probably just give every monster 1 HP, heh.

But all jokes aside, Black Ribbon did what I needed it to do at the time that I made it. If it weren't for BR, I wouldn't be making the projects that I'm making now, so I'm thankful for the learning experience it provided.

Besides, the unholy gameplay aside, the game still has other issues. For starters, it's WAY too long and the dialogue reads like it was written by a fourteen year old.

[orius]

Re: so im playing through black ribbon

Or... the creator was just an idiot.

I would say inexperienced.

For starters, it's WAY too long and the dialogue reads like it was written by a fourteen year old.

I thought you just said it was written by a 14 year old....

And too long, I've commented on this before. I think some players have made games that were too long because we all got the game and wanted to make a big sprawling game like something in the Final Fantasy series. Unfortunately, this game is designed to be more in line with an old Dragon Quest game. So some games get loaded with filler to make this big sprawling epic, and it drags on. I did that myself, as well as make a game that I made up as I went along, so it doesn't look that good.

[Karr Lord of Chaos]

Re: so im playing through black ribbon

fair enough i suppose.

the bigger problem with making epic length games is that it takes an ungodly amount of time to produce a quality one. anyone can turn out a 10 card monstrosity, but its a polished well made game that takes time. the level of polish you need for these kinds of games is extraordinarily high. you let one thing lag and player gives up without finishing. innovation at every bend, interaction sprinkled throughout, engaging story lines, believable characters, polished maps - all of this contributes to a successful epic.

very few games live up to this, most of which are smaller games build with a simple concept. this is why reviewing every game is important, to let the community know which games live up to the hype and which games they should avoid. the less time they waste on unsuccessful games means the more time they can be inspired by epic ones.

[ErikaFuzzbottom]

Re: so im playing through black ribbon

Also a good reason to do video commentaries on them... >_>

dont change or touch anything other then the battles.

I'd also hope that the game-breaking glitches would be fixed.

Besides, the unholy gameplay aside, the game still has other issues. For starters, it's WAY too long and the dialogue reads like it was written by a fourteen year old.

So? The Spiteful Dead is really long, and was written by a 15-year-old, and yet it became my favorite RPGM game.

[Karr Lord of Chaos]

Re: so im playing through black ribbon

the game breaking glitches can be avoided because you dont need to go back to that area again and it hasnt effected anything other then you suddenly get a char you shouldnt of gotten. id be satisfied if he fixed the battles and i could carry on. as he himself says he wont bother ill not play it further myself and move on to something else.

[Yeaster]

Re: so im playing through black ribbon

So? The Spiteful Dead is really long, and was written by a 15-year-old, and yet it became my favorite RPGM game.

Wonderful. But what does that have to do with me, though?

I am not trying to make excuses for BR's suckitude. However, I do believe that 90% of its problems came from my age and lack of experience with the program at that time.

Creatively-speaking (at least from my experience), a year's time of practice/life & work experience to can do wonders for your level of talent. I enjoy writing screenplays on the side, but I believe that my writing ability is currently the strongest its ever been -- much stronger than it was in 2009. My writing ability in (just) 2008, however....................is probably best unmentioned. Even if I'm not amazing and brilliant yet, I am still proud of my growth and I know I will get there soon.

[Karr Lord of Chaos]

Re: so im playing through black ribbon

writing maturity is very different from age maturity. the longer you polish and practice your writing the better it gets, but it takes time to develop good diction, complex story weaving, and interesting dialog. im satisfied with the writing in BR, its everything else that sucks.

ive been writing a book since 2003, and though ill never release it, what i learned from writing it ive applied to a few other projects including my game. my level of writing is a lot higher then when i started crystal shores back when i was far younger.

[Yeaster]

Re: so im playing through black ribbon

Okay, so, I caved and went back over the game this morning and changed the base stats of every monster, particularly focusing on their HP, attack power and speed.

Furthermore, I changed the stats of all of the mages. They still gain low HP, but to compensate, they're incredibly fast, and I increased a few extra stats for them as well.

Download link is here: http://www.mediafire.com/file/gnel3cumxp6wdxu/Black Ribbon.zip

[ErikaFuzzbottom]

Re: so im playing through black ribbon

That was a fast update. I can only assume you'll simply guessed at better stats and are hoping for the best.