Combat System Discussion

[The Chartographer]

Okay, since this is a JRPG how should our combat system pan out? Should we keep it simple or try to go for something new and inventive?

[Silvergun1]

First off, I would say that we should have action commands, etc. for attacking and perhaps for dodging enemy attacks to keep fights interesting and add a certain focus on skill. I think we could definitely do that.

[Sir Spritefag]

Yeah, a simple 3-4 person party with action commands should be right. We should give this game a bit of a Nintendo RPG vibe.

[Silvergun1]

And remember, we're still up for the idea where you get a different party for the first few or so chapters, right? And I think there should be certain locations where you can switch between parties and/or swap party members (provided that they are compatible with party captains), such as hotels or taverns.

[Sir Spritefag]

You could change your party at savepoints

[SirSpritefag]

On the note of action commands, I came up with an Idea yesterday about how they should work. During the attack animation, the character will flash yellow for a few frames and then red for a shorter amount of frames.
If you press the confirm key druing the yellow frames, you'll do a regular action command, it'll show the regular animation and do regular damage.
If you press it during the red frames, it'll trigger a special animation, do more damage and activate any secondary abilites if the weapon has it (EG. If a weapon has poison properties, it'll only poison the enemy if you get off the red action command).
If you miss the action command, it'll either be weak, or the attack will fail completely, depending on the weapon.
Some weapons can have combos after the red action command, while some weapons won't have a red action command at all.
Here's a little something I quickly whipped up hoping it can describe it better than I have here.

Also, to add a bit more depth, every weapon would have its own timing, even if they use similar animations. Some might have the red before the yellow, some might have a large gap between the red and yellow adn stuff like that.
Just my idea.

[Silvergun1]

That is actually a very good idea in my opinion.

On the subject of status effects, do you think that maybe we can sort of take an Earthbound-like approach and make a variety of unconventional status effects? For example, what if Majora's Mask is an equippable item in the game that allows you to cast a "mindfuck" status effect on enemies, in reference to how bizarre the game was? Or maybe you can learn the spells Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Penumbra from Frictional Games, allowing you to affect enemies with a "visibly frightened" status effect?

[SirSpritefag]

That could work. Also, status effects could be themed after the game industry. Streamlined could be a temporary boost to speed, Casualized would be temporarily lowered attack, etc.
What kind of status would mindfuck be? Confusion?

[Silvergun1]

I suppose so. The enemy would be attacking themselves or other members on its party, or healing the enemy. I suppose the "visibly frightened" effect could cause an enemy to be too frightened at times to attack a particular member of your party, or in some cases, flee the battle altogether.

[SirSpritefag]

Sounds good. I'll make a topic about status effects for all further discussion.

[The Chartographer]

And remember, we're still up for the idea where you get a different party for the first few or so chapters, right? And I think there should be certain locations where you can switch between parties and/or swap party members (provided that they are compatible with party captains), such as hotels or taverns.

I was thinking we have the parties switch automatically at certain intervals in the story's progression. That way we can have more control over the flow of the story by switching to different points of view and seeing how each one of them is doing. Kind of like Baccano, or a Tarantino movie.

Say we have three parties in a certain chapter (Party A, Party B, Party C). Party A is on a mystical romp around the borders between the Pirate's Bay and the PC wastelands. Party B is off on a manhunt mystery caper in the Handheld Isles. And Party C is fighting in EA's campaign to conquer more lands across the entire console continent. With this we can do a lot of interesting things, like having each partiy's actions somehow affect someone else's story. Like we could have Party A inadvertantly help the crew of the SKIDROW expand their smuggling operation. This then affects Party C's campaign as EA is now pushing them to abandon a rescue mission in order to stop the increase in piracy by aiding in the Origin project. As they prepare to move out, a member of Party C requestions to have all ships inspected and their crews detained should any detail not be shown on record. As this is happening, Party B is hot on their man's trail and need to sail to the console continent on a passing trade ship. This last minute boarding does not get recorded and this makes everyone on the trade ship appear as pirates to the EA soldiers. Not wanting to have their work go to waste, Party B decides to kill the soldiers and sail away as fugitives.

Or something like that. I don't know. We don't really need to use those events in the final game if you don't want; I just wanted to illustrate how I thoguht we could use the party switching to our advantage in story telling.

[Sir Spritefag]

I think that idea could work for the final chapter where all the different groups from the previous chapters take on EA once and for all.
That said, i think those story ideas you came up with are pretty cool and should be implemented in some way.

[Sir Spritefag]

Quick little mockup I put together. Disregard the characters, I was just fucking around.

[Sir Spritefag]

New mockup with actual characters. Tell me what you think.

[Sponsored content]