Encounters 3.0

[Deeth Irteen]

I've decided to take my programming of encounters even further!

Since I've been rebuilding my FiFaTa game, I realized my field maps were huge. This gave me an Idea.....

In various places right outside towns, I placed a wooden pillar (or is it a tablet? whatever) "button" event. In the events, you can select different encounters with different enemies that relate to the area you're standing (I. E., bees in the swamp, ants in the forest, C.ockatrices in the grasslands, etc.)

As an added bonus, I've decided to implement a system where you can spend Bp (battle Points) to temporarily Buff characters' statistics for the fight. (I. E., 10 BP increases STR by 50, etc.)

[MagusMartovich]

Re: Encounters 3.0

Its sounds like a neat idea but how would these "posts" add to the playability of the game? It almost seems like it just takes the walk around and level up steps out of grinding your characters.

I was thinking you had some new/better warp idea from the start of the thread, or a way to suspend encounters in the field map at the player's discretion.

[Wavelength]

Re: Encounters 3.0

I sort of like the idea. If a player wants to only fight bees, I guess they could?

The nice thing is that if you're just doing it for fun, this makes the game more fun.

The bad thing is that this is probably going to be abusable. Let's say you need to collect "Bee Stingers" which only drop from Bees which are an uncommon enemy. Well, now you just walk up to the post and fight them 5 times and you don't need to fight anything in between.

The other bad thing is, let's say you have a certain spell that works really good against bees (as in, wipes the whole enemy party) but not against the other creatures in the area. This makes level-grinding ridiculously easy. Walk up to the pillar, keep fighting Bees, and walk back into Town and go to the Inn when you run out of MP.

[ErikaFuzzbottom]

Re: Encounters 3.0

The bad thing is that this is probably going to be abusable. Let's say you need to collect "Bee Stingers" which only drop from Bees which are an uncommon enemy. Well, now you just walk up to the post and fight them 5 times and you don't need to fight anything in between.

This would be a bad thing? :P

[MagusMartovich]

Re: Encounters 3.0

I sort of like the idea. If a player wants to only fight bees, I guess they could?

The nice thing is that if you're just doing it for fun, this makes the game more fun.

The bad thing is that this is probably going to be abusable. Let's say you need to collect "Bee Stingers" which only drop from Bees which are an uncommon enemy. Well, now you just walk up to the post and fight them 5 times and you don't need to fight anything in between.

The other bad thing is, let's say you have a certain spell that works really good against bees (as in, wipes the whole enemy party) but not against the other creatures in the area. This makes level-grinding ridiculously easy. Walk up to the pillar, keep fighting Bees, and walk back into Town and go to the Inn when you run out of MP.

OR, because the monster party would be set by the creator of the game, and not a choice of the player, "Bees" could be the ridiculously common junk enemy that give garbage exp/gold and "Bee Stingers" were the item that might have been somewhat usful in the begining but is now garbage. You can feel free to fight them time and time again, but why would you deny yourself (as a player) the opportunity to get into worthwhile fights?

Its still got potential as an idea, but I don't think we understand the original point of the idea or the reason we might want to have such a feature in our games.

[Wavelength]

Re: Encounters 3.0

OR, because the monster party would be set by the creator of the game, and not a choice of the player, "Bees" could be the ridiculously common junk enemy...You can feel free to fight them time and time again, but why would you deny yourself (as a player) the opportunity to get into worthwhile fights?

I was under the impression you got to choose any of the monster parties in the area, using a Decision Branch.

[MagusMartovich]

Re: Encounters 3.0

In various places right outside towns, I placed a wooden pillar (or is it a tablet? whatever) "button" event. In the events, you can select different encounters with different enemies that relate to the area you're standing (I. E., bees in the swamp, ants in the forest, C.ockatrices in the grasslands, etc.)

With the set up of "bees in the swamp, ants in the forest, C.ockatrices in the grasslands, etc" I figured it was limited to the choice of where you fight, not what.

[Wavelength]

Re: Encounters 3.0

With the set up of "bees in the swamp, ants in the forest, C.ockatrices in the grasslands, etc" I figured it was limited to the choice of where you fight, not what.

I figured it was like, if you're in the swamp, you can go to the "swamp post" and choose between fighting bees, slimes, or mud monsters. If you're in the forest, you can choose between ants, wyrms, and pixies. Etc.

[Deeth Irteen]

Re: Encounters 3.0

Here's how it works:

These encounters only appear on field maps. The story is played out in towns. You can (if you want) skip grinding for a while to advance the story. However, you'll soon reach a point where a boss fight will KICK YOUR ASS AND LEAVE YOU BLEEDING ON THE PLAYGROUND.

Also, After every battle, the party recovers all HP and MP. By instituting this "refill mechanic" I can make regular battles require strategy and tactics to defeat, instead of just pressing 1 button to make your party fight, over and over.

[Wavelength]

Re: Encounters 3.0

Here's how it works:

These encounters only appear on field maps. The story is played out in towns. You can (if you want) skip grinding for a while to advance the story. However, you'll soon reach a point where a boss fight will KICK YOUR ASS AND LEAVE YOU BLEEDING ON THE PLAYGROUND.

Also, After every battle, the party recovers all HP and MP. By instituting this "refill mechanic" I can make regular battles require strategy and tactics to defeat, instead of just pressing 1 button to make your party fight, over and over.

Wouldn't this allow (and actually encourage) you to use the same strategy over and over and over to grind a type of enemy?

In my game-in-progress the party recovers a small amount of HP after each fight, and their MP is set to a fixed, low value (which you can charge during battle). This allows the player to go all-out with skill and strategy each battle, while forcing them to be smart about resource management.

Also, you didn't answer whether the player is allowed to choose between any of the battles for that type of terrain, or whether there is only one choice per type of terrain.

I'm not trying to discredit your idea by any means; I'm merely concerned you're taking it down the wrong path here.

[MagusMartovich]

Re: Encounters 3.0

Right! Me too! Actually, it sounds like you are forcing players to spend time grinding just to be able to scrape through boss fights. The mechanic is a neat idea, but maybe have it be like a ladder style and if you get to the end you can get an item that will help defeat said boss, not be forced to repeatedly rape bees in order to gain levels.

[Deeth Irteen]

Re: Encounters 3.0

Okay, it's high time I clear things up. The above examples I gave above were just that: examples. There are actually several different types of monsters in each individual fight. heres a new example: 2 bees in the backmos row, an Ogre up front, and a Ghost between the bees. The Ogre will be resistant to magic, the Ghost will be resistant to physical attacks, and the Bees must be taken down with a long-range weapon. Oh, and said bees have instant death attacks, so if you don't hurry up and kill them, then they'll rape you.

Sorry I haven't been around for a while.

[MagusMartovich]

Re: Encounters 3.0

Okay, it's high time I clear things up. The above examples I gave above were just that: examples. There are actually several different types of monsters in each individual fight. heres a new example: 2 bees in the backmos row, an Ogre up front, and a Ghost between the bees. The Ogre will be resistant to magic, the Ghost will be resistant to physical attacks, and the Bees must be taken down with a long-range weapon. Oh, and said bees have instant death attacks, so if you don't hurry up and kill them, then they'll rape you.

Sorry I haven't been around for a while.

Uh, why not waste the whole group with magic right off the bat then have everyone beat don the ghost?

Also, again, rape bees to gain levels and scrape through boss fights.

[Deeth Irteen]

Re: Encounters 3.0

*Waits six months before responding*