I've started making my own roleplaying game as my first c++ / allegro game. I've gotten pretty far imo.. I have made a map/layer2 editor that saves into txt files, and the game system has an ok self-made collision detection, AI enemies etc..

Right now, I'm looking for game ideas and concepts, not specific programming help, so bear with me

I haven't decided whether the game should have a main plot or story you follow (FF series) or if it's more individual quest-driven (Daggerfall, Morrowind) with more freedom. By that I mean you can get missions from specific people in the game, and can complete them as you wish with maximal freedom.

Item interaction I'm not sure I know how to code as well as I'd like, so I'll probably limit the types of weapons and armor. ATM the hero has only an attack power and defence power, that depend on the weapon and armor he is wearing at the time. How else could this be done? Should he have some kind of inventory? If so, what kind?

My battles are arranged sort of Zelda-style. No random battles like in the FF's. The hero's hits all land, no missing. Should this be altered? On what would hitting and missing depend? Enemies currently have a min/max damage for each, eg -5 and 7. If the randomized value between -5 and 7 is bigger than 0, it's a hit. E.g. a value 3 would be a hit worth 3 damage. From the base damage, the hero's defence power is substracted, so with a 2 defence power, only 1HP damage will be suffered. Enemies have no such thing atm, but should they?

What do you think of magic, should it be done? If so, how? Learning spells that require mana, scrolls/potions?

Thanks a lot for any ideas/comments/suggestions
Hazul

-- i've attached a screenshot too

more layers would be nice about 4-5 you mite not need as many because of your spite size layers help with the flashyness of a game

As for enemies: I think they should be described with the same stats as player`s characters.
Reasons:
- easier balancing: enemy with the same equipment and stats as player will have 50% chance to win (assuming good AI)
- NPC inventory: if it`s not done at early stage it`s hard to do it later
- enemy can change into player team member without need of recalculating stats (and the other way: member becoming an enemy)
- simpler battle system in case you`d like to go MP or have enemy vs enemy battles: just one attack case (char vs char) instead of three (char vs enemy, enemy vs enemy, char vs char)

NPC inventory::o thats a realy good one
i am also making a rpg i know i will be use the NPC inventory:;D

This is really up to you. I think either way you go, you should decide early on so then you can base the rest of the game off of this decision. This is a big thing to decide and it will affect how your game will operate, feel, be to program, etc. I think this one decision will change a lot of how your game works after you've build the main engine, which you seem to have done. This is one of those questions we can't really help you with. That's something you have to decide on your own because, in fact, it is your game. What were you originally intending to do? I would say go with that unless you have more substantial reasons for picking one style over the other. Maybe that wasn't even a question and you were just stating you don't know which way the game is going to go, but that's ok if I answered anyways, right?:P

Again, this is really up to you whether you want the user to be able to wield more than just armor and a sword. One fun aspect of a good RPG is being able to actually equip your player through any kind of interactive GUI. Sometimes more equipment peices is better, because they allow for more of a "custom" feel to your player; as you get to do all the equipping and use the peices you enjoy to use and think work the best. I think having an inventory would be a really good idea, but that would include more work; like figuring out how many items the player can hold at a time; whether armor/weapons count towards that total number of items. You may also decide that each item the player may have will weigh a certain amount, and the player cannot carry more than their "max weight capacity." This question is very closely tied with your next comment, as your battle system may effect how you want to be able to equip the player.

As was already mentioned, keep the player/enemies the same. If the player's attacks always hit, the enemies attacks should always hit as well (unless there is some kind of "blocking" mechanism the player could use: pressing a key to pull out a sheild, etc).

I would say hitting and missing should depend on some factors. To me, I believe in your situation, if the enemy hits the player for < 0; that would be considered a 0 Damage hit, since the players armor rating and the damage value of the enemy cancel eachother out. This is really up to speculation and however you want to read it, though. For hitting and missing I would generally think of some kind of stat attribute like Agility, and this stat would determine how probably the cause of dodging and attack would be. For your type of battle system, however, I don't think there should be any missing allowed at all. I think a better idea is to allow the player to wield a shield or some other blocking device which can block the enemie's hits. I think this is more suitable for a real-time combat system where you have to physically walk up to the enemy and be close enough to hit them. If you're not then they miss, right? Same goes for the enemies. If they are close enough and the player physically sees their weapon hit him, it should take damage (even 0, if armor cancels it out). If you really like the idea of hitting/missing, then of course it can be implemented. I think no missing is more suited to a Zelda style combat system, though. Instead of the enemy just missing, the player has to make them miss by moving out of the way, which fits nicer into this style of battling.

This is a tough one. Do you want to put magic into your game? Will it fit effectively into the atmosphere and storyline? It seems like your game looks like it is a fantasy-style game where magic wouldn't have a problem fitting into the overall gameplay. It could be that you're just using those kind of fantasy-feeling graphics and the game may completely change. Also, how effective would being able to use magic be in the game? Will there be enemies that only take damage from magic (or physical)? Will magic casting be effective, or just annoying; so much that the player won't even use it? I, personally, think magic is always fun to have in a game because it gives you a break from repeatedly tapping the attack button on every single enemy you encounter. I think magic would be very useful in a situation where you sneak up on an enemy and just blast it with magic before you engage in melee combat.

I've said a lot so I'll give you some time if you'd like to reply to anything I've said before I write a novel, here. I think most of these thing are really up to your decision. This is something you're going to have to spend a lot of time on: developing the actual framework of your game and how all of the rules, and that stuff is going to work. If you like magic, and it makes sense in your game: put it in if you have time. [edit]Designing[/edit] is the hardest part.

Good luck.
(I love threads like these. I wish there were more);D

Thanks for some great responses!

First off Mr. Kluczek.. the same stat system for enemies and the player seems like a very good idea... Also it means I need to give an NPC just the equipment, not e.g. an attack value. Also you mentioned team members, that hadn't even come to my mind. I think that's a great idea, like hiring mercenaries etc..

On to Ultio. The plot/mission driving system I haven't decided, I've been working on gfx and gameplay. I'm beginning to think the mission-driven system is better, as I personally like freedom in games. What I'd love is e.g. a possibility to build houses if you have the necessary skill/money

After I read your bit about equipment and inventory I saw in the back of my head an image of the inventory screen with slots for equipped pieces or armor, a shield, and a weapon so they're definately in. I think i might go for the max weight capacity, defined by your strength stat. And yes, weps/armor should definately count as weight.

So okay, enemies should hit always too. The shield idea you gave is very interesting though, i thought holding up the shield when you're hit would give you a chance of blocking based on your agility stat. Definately better than the current idea.

Sure, magic fits the game atmosphere very well imo, not just sure how to do it. Use some kind of wisdom stat to determine spell success chance? and how do you learn spells, at levels like DnD or some other way?

Thanks again for all your ideas

Assigning mimimal caster level to a spell is good idea IMHO. It also helps balancing the game (low level PC can`t get most destructive spells).

And for spell casting cost: mana is the best way IMHO. You could also implement colorful mana system with more types of mana (eg. element-based, etc). A spell can also require more than one type of mana.

I also think that player should have a main quest in the game as well as large number of side quests. The main quest of course don`t have to be known at the beginning and could be a bit randomized or depending on player behavior (eg. completed side quests). I just like to have something big to do, not just solving side quest (which of course I like very much). I think that to become a hero (which most RPGs are about) you should do something really great.

True.

If there is a mana system, I'll want to keep it simple, so just a single type of mana should be enough

About being a hero -- I'm not really sure. Does the player necessarily have to be one? The game could be realistic or even naturalistic in that aspect. Maybe the player is just like any other guy, until if he wants, he can accomplish something in missions e.g. for the king. The "main quest" would simply be the thread of missions from a particular important person. I like the idea of this since it gives a lot of freedom. Bear in mind, I'm not making a FF copy, neither am I trying to capture the idea of Zelda.

PS Another screenshot attached

This way it should be more fun. I haven`t said that main quest have to be single mission.

Saving world/somebody or helping others is IMHO part of being a hero. He can be an usual guy at start doing his usual work but sooner or later he`d want to do something else, something important and become a hero in some way.

Maybe you could do something similar to what I'm going to use in my game when it comes to the magic system...

There you sometimes learn a new spell when leveling up, but you can also learn spells in other ways, like reading books. If you use a spell alot, it will level up and become stronger. Then there is going to be a global magic strenght modifier that sometimes increases when leveling up. Using magic reduces the MP level. Quite simple, but I dont need anything super-advanced for my game. If the status system becomes too complicated, the game easily gets boring...

Don't be afraid to overpower your magic a bit. I've seen games where just plain whacking things with a sword is just as effective as casting a fireball, or games where physical attacks are superior to magic (*cough*FF VIII*cough*).

This should make it so that the fighter types would have an easier time in the beginning (beginning players would probaly choose a fighter character) but as the player gets a feel for the game and he fights more complex creatures, he'll have a harder time than a wizard would in some situations.

As for how the character gains magic: It's up to you.

Balance is important. Don't make the game too easy. Don't make the game too hard. If I had to step over the boundary line a bit, then I would go to the more difficult side.

As for the storyline. Let the player do what quests he wants. Lots of RPG storylines have the feel that you're already the hero, but usually committing a heroic act should make the player the hero more than just being the main character.

Stats. Your game is a bit on the Zelda side, so don't go with too many stats. Str., Con., Int., and Luck are probably the ones necessary.

Str is the base stat of your strength (without weapons)
Con is the base stat of your defense (without armor)
Int is the base stat of your magic power (without added effects of a magic spell, say a fireball might have +23 power)
Luck helps determine how often items drop when you kill an enemy and such.

Okay, I stole those stats from Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, but they should work.

The real question is: What can magic do, and why do you need / want it?

If the "main magic" source is an alchemist or enchanter, you could have only a few magic items and the role of the wizard is to make these items.

This also provides a lot of quest ideas (getting rare stuff so you can create new magic items).

You can supplement this with support magic (like healing and increasing some stats of friends for a certain time). A priest could "bless" the group thus increasing their defense or chance to hit.
He could also lower the defense of the enemies, etc.

That way you have clear distinctions between offense (fighter), support (mage) and healing (cleric).
If you now add Paladins into the mix (mainly offense, but some healing) you already have a nice mix.

If you want flashy magic spells, you'll need some offense magic as well, I guess.
But then you need to decide why magic is different. Why should I use a spell if I can use a club?
Maybe a mage can target multiple enemies doing some damage to each ... or maybe he can confuse them (so they won't attack or attack another monster).

If you just do the "magic is a normal attack" thing it does get boring quickly. Once you know the spell animation the flair is gone.
If magic is different, you also need some tactic.

I don't like this attitude to skills, because then I end up staying for a quarter of an hour just casting magic and sleeping to recover mana.
I'd rather base it all on exps.

The problem with doing this is that, if you come to a situation where you need Spell X, but you haven't practiced with it (since you haven't needed it before), you're in trouble. Basically, if it is a fight, you have to die, reload your game, and spend some (boring) time practicing Spell X until it is strong enough to be useful.

Korval brings up an interesting point but one that can be avoided with careful game design

Think about it. Should you ever need spell x if you haven't practiced with it? I would say no... if you're in an ice cavern, fighting ice monsters and you pick up fire while you're there don't you think that a good gamer will put it to use almost immediately? Along those same lines... you could have one of your other characters suggest to a magic user that just picked up fire to start melting monsters.

My point is... if you design your game properly, all elements will be cohesive such that the game becomes a well orchestrated RPG. The Wind Waker was a great example of this. You would pick up a new ability, be given the opportunity to practice it a bunch, then you'd need it for the bad guy at the end. It always seemed to work out flawlessly and by the end of the game you had all these cool moves.

Just my 2c.

You go to the ice cavern. Quickly you figure out that using fire might be a good idea. So you use fire, and it turns out to be effective. Once you've cleaned out the ice cavern, your fire spells are much stronger than any other spells. So you keep using them to fight other monsters, out in the forest, the lost temples, et cetera. And then you come upon a fire cavern.

Now you're screwed. Your arsenal consists almost entirely of fire spells, since those were the most powerful ones you had, and you never had to switch around.

Cue boring levelup of ice spells.

X-G: If that occur's, it'd probably be the player's fault. They should know not to focus on one element entirely like that. If they don't, then your illustration is an excellent method of teaching them that valuable lesson.

As Joe said, it's about game design too. You can work around that. One way could be to have requirements for different levels. So, for example, once you get your fire spell up to level 20, you'll need to get a Fire Gem to bring it any higher. Of course, you'll get the Fire Gem from the fire cavern. In the mean time, might as well level up ice, seeing as you just got the Icicle from the Ice Cavern which allows you to bring your ice spell up past 20.

Regardless of whose fault it is, it is not fun to play that way. That's the task of the game designer; to make sure that such things do not happen. The player doesn't care whose fault it is, he just wants to have fun. Basically, the player will not have an incentive to use anything else than fire spells, simply because they are so much powerful than anything else in his arsenal.

I think you're missing the point... the point is that the ultimate design of the RPG has to carefully equate the balance of power and introduce those elements when appropriate as well as diminishing the returns of those results when necessary. It's all about how well you craft your areas, game flow and elements to make a well-rounded world for the player to explore.

If the focus of the game is boring level-up activities someone will play it. Why do you think we have Dragon Warrior 8 on the horizon? If that's not what your designing for then you're just going to have to dig into the details quite a bit more to flesh out the potential exploits for power balance. We are talking game design here and one of the most prevelant pitfalls of independant RPG's is the lack of cohesion among the elements in the RPG's world.

[edit: MAN YOU GUYS POST FAST! ]

Then I guess I just disagree

If this were a game for the mentally challenged, I would agree with you. Everything should be laid out for them, and they shouldn't be able to make mistakes.

What about having another skill other than fire? Obviously he's going to need more than that... or, as I keep repeating myself, this is a very stupid player.

If the player is going to use his strongest spell, while keeping his other spells weak, then he's just plain stupid. Remember, this is the object of the game we're talking about here. If mario runs through Mario World skipping all the mushrooms, power flowers, etc.. he's going to have a tough time finding the princess. Poor game design? No.. just a brain dead gamer.

In the example I gave, he would no longer be gaining experience in the fire spell unless he got the fire gem. So he's wasting his time using fire spells.

Just because the player can level up his skills doesn't mean he's stupid enough to use the first one he gets until the end of the game.

Why is he supposed to level up other spells? They pose a significant disadvantage to the player, and he has no way of knowing if he's going to have to use them later or not.

Either he ends up gimped, i.e. with only one spell that doesn't work against something further on, or annoyed because he spent time leveling every spell to a mediocre level without getting any use out of most of them.

Why can't he just level up the ice spells the same way he leveled up the fire spells?

23: He can, but that's extremely boring. See Korval's post above.

Yes, I agree with Korval and X-G. Any point in a game where the player is forced to walk around just 'leveling up' is a point where the game design has failed. When the focus becomes gaining levels, especially when gaining levels means repetitive, simplistic battles that are not entertaining in themselves and do not even contain a real threat of death like a boss / high-level battle would, you really start to approach a progress quest with occassional button presses, and not a game.
I see two major ways around this:
1) Group magic into one category that increases in power as you use it, so everything is ready at the same time, or
2) Put the fire region immediately after the ice region, so that the player can act logically and not be punished for it later in the game.

Edit: Or 3) Don't give the spells until they're useful -- ice spells come right before the fire cavern, and fire spells come right before the ice cavern, and the player is not expected to have any experience using either until they are useful.

Edit: As to the whole brain-dead player argument, I don't buy it. It sounds like the mentality that lead to early adventure games in which the player could forget to do something in the beginning of the game and not die for it until the mid to late game ... at which point they'd have to waste a lot of time replaying stuff that isn't that interesting to replay. If a player does something dumb, let them feel it a bit right away. If mario goes through levels not picking up mushrooms / whatever, he should have trouble beating the next level(s), and not some level 20 hours later.

Missing the point. The ice spells get leveled up in the fire dungeon. You could even set it up so the ice spells are only accessible shortly before said dungeon. So by the later levels, every spell has at least some oomph. Takes some smart design, but it can be done.

You can also sell one-time elemental attack items in the shops (a few games do something like that) in case you need them. So anyone neglecting certian spells will learn quickly not to, and they'll stil have options beyond spending an extra four hours leveling.

I'm not sold entirely on the idea of individually leveling spells, mind you. Just saying it can work.

Very specific game play we're talking about here. One in which you cannot use all spells efficiently? That's poor game design, and is not related to how you aquire the abilities.

Agreed.

The best way around it is to have limitations, imo.
Once you hit a certain barrier, you simply cannot raise it anymore. You require more knowledge, or an artifact of some type. At this point, the other spells should be weaker, and it's the players job to bring them up to par with his higher spells if he chooses to use them.

Or, who knows, he could just use some sort of non-elemental attack that is useful for the majority of situations. At least he has the choice.

Ok. Here's the scenario that I put out above.
We'll say you've got 3 generic spells.
Fire, Ice and Lightning.
The point of killing is to raise your stats. Fire is your highest spell, but it cannot be leveled any further at this point. X-G says he should still use fire, because it's the strongest, regardless of the fact that he doesn't gain anything from using it. I say he should use ice or lightning, because he will gain strength for those skills in preparation for what's to come. So, in my humble opinion, X-G is a defect.
Why would you assume that fire is going to kill everything? Even after the old man in town warned you about the fire cavern.

There's a million ways to warn the player.
A map, showing what's ahead of the player.
An NPC to tell the player what's coming: "Beyond the ice cavern is Crystal Lake. At the mouth of the Hylan River, is the Fire Cavern of Doom!"

You can't assume the rest of the gameplay is bad just because you need to use your abilities to strengthen them. Which, to me, it sounds like everyone's been doing. You might not ALWAYS know what's to come, but by the time you don't you should already have a grasp of how the system works.

Anyway. I guess some like it, and some don't.
Personally, I think most of your gripes are with other aspects of the gameplay and have nothing to do with skills or spells at all.

Game design is a holistic process, and you must think of it that way.

My Scenario Of Doom doesn't include the ability to "max out" spells. Nor does it include someone TELLING YOU beforehand what you're going to face. It does, however, include stronger monsters that your low-level spells simply can't kill, because they're too weak - only your powerful fire spell can. Given those, it's no surprise if the player is annoyed.

Agreed. Poor game design there.
The player needs some type of warning about what's ahead in the beginning. Until he has a decent grasp of his spells. Otherwise, he's going to get bored if he chooses the wrong skills.

Eventually he'll get balanced in the area of his choice. So later in the game, this issue wont arise.

Having all your spells handed to you, or an unlimited amount of power, just leads to easy games. If you don't need to even think about what spells you'd like to learn, it takes away one aspect of game play. Character customization, to me, is very important.

So is freedom of choice and nonlinearity. A person should be able to specialize in fire spells and still have a shot at beating the game.

Sure, I don't see why not... but, if you plan on having multiple elements, that's not going to be possible under any skill situation. If all you have is fire, and you're up against fire opponents, then it's simply not going to work out for you.

Doesn't seem very intelligent to me though, as a player, to focus on one element entirely. I could not see a benefit. Eventually your fire spell is going to get to the point where it's good against most enemies. Yet you're still never going to be able to kill fire opponents with it.

It might work in a very large MMORPG or something like that, but not in a single player game.

People don't do something unless there is an incentive for it.

No, no, no! You're already going down the wrong road. The point of killing, indeed, of any activity in the game, should be to have fun. If it isn't, then the game design is broken.

He's having fun because he isn't using nearly as many resources to kill stuff. Things die in 1 cast rather than 4 from weaker spells.

To me, the actual way to correct it is as follows.

The player shows up in the Ice Dungeon. Naturally, he let's loose with fire spells, leveling them up as a consequence of getting through the dungeon faster. So, his fire spells have good levels on them. In the next area, between Ice and Fire, he uses his fire spells. When he gets to the Fire dungeon, his finds his fire spells completely ineffective. His ice spells, however, are just as good for this dungeon has his fire spells were at the beginning of the last dungeon. That is, if there was an Ice Sloth creature in that dungeon with certain states, his Fire Sloth counterpart should have the exact same stats, except he is weak to ice.

I still don't like the idea of building each up in turn, however. If the player has Fire 1 and Ice 1, and the only real times that these ever come into play is in certain dungeons, where it is completely obvious which one to use, why not just have KillTheThing 1 instead of elemental spells? And if you do the intelligent thing and have various elemental creatures roaming with strengths and weaknesses outside of their native dungeon, then you have to design the game such that the player already has the proper spell leveled up to a decent degree. At which point, you may as well be using KillTheThing 1 at that level.

It just doesn't add anything to the game.

[edit]

But they have the choice under you system. Why give the player a choice and then tell them that one way is right and one is wrong? A player should be able to focus on one path to the exclusion of all else and still be able to win. Choosing between A and Death is not a choice, so don't confuse the player by making him/her think it is.

Korval: I agree with you on most things. Your solution, however, lacks one thing - it assumes that the ice and fire dungeons are of equal difficulty. This won't be true; regardless of which the player does first, he will be of a high power level when he reaches the next, so the monster will have to be harder in order to still pose a challenge. Thus, you can't have identical creatures save for their weaknesses in different dungeons.

That's implied. The point, statistically, is to raise your stats.

Your explanation of how it unfolds is what I thought of originally... but, by the time you get to the fire cavern, the enemies would be expected to be a little stronger than when you first arrived at the ice cavern. So, naturally, it is going to be at least a little more difficult.

That's why I mentioned that It's not all about elements. However, elements will always show an advantage over non-elementals when used properly. If the player focuses on one element, obviously he's SOL.

I disagree. The player can make all of his descisions on his own. He doesn't need to be hand fed skills.. "You are now level 20! You gain fire level 3!".
Other methods can be equally good, such as point distribution like in Final Fantasy 5 / Tactics... or a grid-style system like that of Final Fantasy X (though, more freedom was needed).

[edit]
X-G: It can still be worked around though.
Because the fire enemies are more difficult, you gain more experience in your ice spell. So it will go up faster than normal.. so it wouldn't be all that bad.

That workaround seems flawed - in that case you can just go up to a big enemy you can't possibly beat, cast one low-level spell on it, watch it soar to unimaginable levels, then flee.

All decisions must be viable ones. Otherwise, it's just a red herring. It's fundamentally no different than having an NPC tell the player, "Hey, there's a dungeon on the other side of that mountain," only for the player to go there and find nothing.

Yeah, that could (obviously?) be worked in too.
The only problem I see is that the big enemy's magic defense is far too great for you to damage it.. and null damage means null experience.
Not to mention that he's on the other side of the fire cavern, and you haven't even gotten through there yet!

Derezo: If his magic defense is too great for you to damage it ... well, you're just going to have to backtrack to find some weaker enemies to blast six hundred times over to level your spell. And guess what? That's no fun.

Then don't allow it.
You're stretching this pretty far X-G. In case you didn't notice.

You're complaining about the big enemies giving you levels, but I didn't put them in there.. you made that design flaw, not me.

The point is that you wont need to backtrack. You'll just need to take extra care in this new area. If you're back tracking, then there was a design flaw. This isn't a built game we're talking about here. Not everything's been fleshed out.

[a few edits here and there]

No, I mean that you're not thinking holistically. And I don't think I'm stretching this too far. All of these are perfectly valid and likely things to happen, and if your players get a chance to do it, they WILL do it.

As for the big enemies giving you levels ... it's a logical implication that follows from "tougher enemies = more experience", which is something YOU said above.

My point was that these bigger enemies are not attainable at such a weak level. As mentioned, they're past the fire cavern

Anyhow. I'm not writting a design documentation on an entire game in this thread, if that's what you were thinking. I simply spoke about an ability system. How you make it work is up to you. If you don't think you can do it, then that's your choice too. If you don't think it's even possible, go play a game that does use it and then decide if you could improve upon it, or if the idea is not your cup of tea.

Personally, I enjoy it.

And my point is that you can't "simply speak out about an ability system" - game design is a holistic process, and you HAVE to consider EVERYTHING at once. You can't just plug together separate systems and expect them to work.

You do need to consider everything, but you can't until you have it all in front of you. That's what these suggestions are for, to bring up ideas. Just because you don't like one of them, you can't automatically assume that there are no other gameplay pieces that fit with it.

Anyway. A new and better suggestion is always welcome and encouraged. This thread isn't solely about that style of ability system.

And you brought up an idea, and I showed several classic concepts in which the idea would bomb.

I think you've missed one thing I've already mentioned. If spell gets better by using it, a lot of people will try to just cast it and sleep to get mana back to get it leveled up- it's stupid and boring, but a lot of people I know would do it - just to have the gameplay easier later, although it's also not such fun.
An other example: I played Morrowind with a friend of mine and we found out two things: there is always a probability to steal something, so we spent a lotta time just trying to steal things and loading, when it failed. And when buying, there is always a possibility, that the seller will sell something for you at nearly as low price as you want. So we tried to buy something for a VERY low price and then clicked very fast for a while on the offer button and we've always got it - same for selling for high prices. By this we also got our Merchandise level very high and we could get better prices. After not a long time, we were able to make profit by just selling and buying the same item with the merchant. And we spent approx hour and a half doing this and buying everything we could ever need...
Sad but true.

EDIT: Also a Diablo style learning spells is usefull I think. ( I mean the books and you need stats for being able to learn from them) This way you get rid of problems caused by player stupidity, cause you control his spell level-ups. Still the player can feel free.

So instead of having to practice a spell for a few hours, your entire character is doomed if you pick the wrong thing?

heh..
I rather like the Diablo II / Ragnarok style... but, you really need to pay attention. Otherwise you spend a very long and boring time catching up..

You could have different types of mana levels or something... a fire mana pool, an ice mana pool, wind, earth, whatever. That way, while their spell may gain more powerful forms, they might be kinda stupid to use it because it eats up every last bit of their mana pool for that particular spell type. (that way, players are forced to use various types of spells to begin with. Maybe later on you can introduce some items that allow you to specialize in a specific school of magic, but at least your character won't be royally screwed in the later levels).

Why not split up the damage-giving stats: one skill/ability/whatever that improves the potency of all spells, and then again having every spell have it's own experience that enhanced it additionally. That way you wouldn't really waste time practicing a fire spell, since it applies to the Ice spells too, and still you would improve your specific skills with fire(ball/wall/whatever). My $0.02

Carrus: That's a very good and awesome idea. I like it a lot.

Reminds me of FFI. You get a certian number of uses of Level 1 spells, a certian number of Level 2, etc.

Of course, now when you enter a fire level where you NEED to exclusively use Ice spells, you're fscked.

Thats not the way I intended it. A spell starts out good enough to be useful once you get it, and then level up as you use it through the game.

The change, however, wont be that big. Think of the levels as fine-tuning of the spells. You dont have one fire spell that you level up through the game, you have 3.

Each of them can level up and become stronger, but the first fire spell at level 10 (max) aint stronger than the second at level 1.

Then differnt spells of the same category will have different characteristics...

Heres an idea instead of unsin fire against fire if thats all you have in turms of spells, why not use melle attacks... Give both spell levels and character levels as gaining xp, so that the character and become more dexterious and gain strength to use better weapons to attack the npc's.

Because characters with high magic tend not to be as good at melee combat. Specialization, again.

Hmm.. One possibility is to add some kind of stamina value to each element. So every time you cast fire it does less and less damage while other elements stamina would return to normal.

This would mean the player would have to switch to using other elements ingame to recover stamina and thus level up more than one element.

Somewhat restrictive, but it could lead to some interesting battles.

And would make the ice cavern impossible to complete, because you'd run out of "fire" stamina really soon.

Nope, you'd switch to Earth for a while which would also do damage (just not as much as full fire).

And how fun would that be? Remember, we're trying to maximize fun, not force the player to do sub-optimal things for the sake of balance. He won't enjoy that.

I disagree. Casting the same spell over and over again gets boring very quickly for me personally. I would prefer a system where I had to be more involved with trying to cast the best spell each time by varying the spells I cast and anticipating casting a more powerful spell in x turns.

Really? For me it'd be more like, "Damn, my fire spells are too low now. Great, that means I have to cast five thousand Earth spells instead and wear THEM out, and I won't be able to kill anything as quickly any more. This game sucks."

Personally I'd prefer that to, "Hey! This is great I can cast five thousand fire spells and kill everything with only one spell. I'm a great RPG player!"

These are all theories, what we really need is a simple RPG battle engine to test these ideas out in. That would be a good way to judge the advantages and disadvantages of each idea.

Anyone up for making a quick and simple battle engine though?

Seems you know how to sell games!

As for making a battle engine - sure, if I didn't have seven billion projects going already, PLUS exams this week.

There is surely someone here with time on their hands to do a quick battle engine. Heck even one on the speedhack entries was a RPG with a battle engine..

Maybe I could try doing it? How should it look like?

FFX-2 style. 3D.

I much prefer ATB style battle engines, btw - the element of time means you have to be more strategic and prepared for battle.

Well, I`m not very familiar with console RPG`s since I have only PC. Is Final Fantasy: Endless Nova using the same battle system? I found it downloadable so maybe I`d be able to make something similar but customizable of course.

There's one big problem with maxing out one spell category: As soon as you encounter an enemy that is immune to that kind of damage (ice / fire / lightning / whatever) you're doomed.

If you're using just one spell / attack all of the time, the game becomes more like a shooter. That doesn't have to bad, though.
On the other hand, you don't need to wait until you run out of "specific mana" before you cast a spell of another type. Just mix the spells from the beginning. Cast a few fire balls, buff your defense using an earth spell, then continue to cast fireballs.

In that case you won't like many games
IMO there's no big difference between your example and the general "Oh, I've run out of mana. Now I can't cast any spell at all" and the example Rich proposed. Oh. There's one difference: Using a system like Rich proposed would allow you to continue playing

Another thing you need to keep in mind is that you don't start as an eliet wizard with 4000 fire spells ready. At the beginning you won't be able at to cast many spells of any kind.
So you'll get used to the spell switching while playing the game.

Now add some monsters which are immune to one particular spell effect and you'll need to plan your attacks more carefully. Which also allows you to add some nice stone-paper-scissors gameplay elements.

Some time ago I had a similar idea. But I planned to use one mana pool for all spells. Just the mana regeneration rate would vary. So, if you're a fire specialist mana you used for fire spells would refill faster.
My magic-theory behind this was that each player has a certain amount of mana potential which depends on the level of the character. If you cast a spell you create a mana difference between your potential and the elemental plane of the spell.. the more you're in "harmony" with that plane, the faster you can channel the mana back into your body.

I was also planning areas which are less atuned to a certain element. So, casting water spells while you're standing in lava deep inside a vulcane will work - but since the place is more atuned to fire and earth than water, you'll have problems regaining that mana you've just used.

By the sounds of it, X-G hasn't played any RPG's with fire monsters either. Always wants to go all fire.... what game can you do that in, anyways?

SC is absolutely right.
In many games it's not uncommon to fight a battle with more than one elemental monster. Take FFX for example. Fighting a Yellow Element(water) with Ragora(fire) and Lord Ochu(fire) in Kilika... In which case, you'd use both water and fire. Even in places with lots of fire monsters you could throw in non-elementals so that the user could practice up their other spells. You need to give them a chance to do it, but you can't just do it for them like in other systems. To me, that's not fun.

I rather like that idea though, SC... but...
Having spells of that element cost less mana would probably yeild similar results gameplay wise.

Derezo: I haven't played a single game where you can boost a single type of spell while gimping others - have you?

I've said many times (in other threads) that I played RagnarokOnline.

You gain one skill point to distribute each level. My mage is level 35ish, and he has only 3 elements. Each of which I have balanced out, because I'm no fool. Level 5 Cold Bolt, Level 5 Lightning Bolt, Level 6 Soul Strike.

See? No fire. I can still kill enemies that are weak against it.

Well, I don't read other threads.

And I never played RO either ...

Read my edit above and you'll probably understand it's skill system.

Off-topic; but; did RO drop from beta and is now pay-to-play? How are the servers? Still slow as all hell? Hmm. I know I shouldn't do this and I hate people who do it but you know.

And the solution to this magic problem is to have the person who introduces you to magic say something like "Remember, moderation is the key!" or something else that would warn the player that maxing out a single stat is retarded and will retard your fun-having process later on in the game.

Been pay to play since around May of 2003.
The servers are decent now. They get laggy on Tuesdays after they do maintainence.. but that's about it.

Ultio: We already went over warning the player. X-G still says he should be hand fed.

He should, because just being thrown in without warnings and advice is NO FUN FOR THE PLAYER, which is the main priority.

Having to level up spells mindlessly is no fun, regardless of whether it's the intelligent thing to do or not. You have to integrate it into the everyday hacking and slashing seamlessly, or the player WILL get bored.

It may not be fun, but I do think it's funny. Easy solution it to make weapons branded with elemental power which can be used to bypass the users magic which is at crappy level. Then again, using a spell on such a higher level monster should level it up dramatically anyways.

mEmO: idea of having every spell have it's own experience so as you use a spell it levels up all spell but at a slower rate of the spell being used and Richard Phipps idea of using stamina bars to get the play switch there attacks both of theses ideas would work well together you have to remember there is a 1st best and a 2nd best spell alway when fighting monsters
you don't beat all the monster with you most powerful spell or the most effective spell

Maybe you could add some additional incentives as to leveling up different schools of magic... Such as blue flame, for example, if you have ice and fire experience. The only real way to get around these problems is planning, which is really the only way to get around about any computer programming/gaming problem.

Warnings and advice, sure. In the beginning of the game, this is absolutely necessary.
Making the game easy is not necessary. Easy games suck.. and I don't think I'm the only one with that opinion. After about 5 hours of game progression, there should be very few warnings. The player needs to be kept on his feet, not sitting there expecting what's next.

In my example way above ("There's a fire cavern ahread!"), that would not be necessary later in the game. The player should expect elemental monsters, and should have a good grasp of what elements are in the game and their weaknesses at this point.

Being hand fed is too easy for the player, and will lead to a boring cinematic RPG and nothing more. If the only decisions the player makes are his class, his hair color, and which direction he should turn at the next junction, it's not a fun game. You haven't said what is fun, to be honest, which is what we're trying to accomplish in this thread.

I think I'd rather judge for myself. Being a player and all. Personally, I find character advancement the most fun when I'm the one making the choices. That is, afterall, what character customization is all about.
Not that other methods besides actually using the skills you gain can't be fun, but I enjoy it.

No offence X-G, but you haven't given any type of solution, additional idea, or anything. Just a bunch of negative comments. If you continue, I'm going to have to call you negative nancy from now on.
So, what ability system would be fun, X-G?

It's said that the player must succeed with at least 70% of his endeavours, and at no more than 80% of them, to be completely satisfied. Any less, and the game is too hard and it becomes frustrating. Any more, and it seems like a cakewalk and becomes boring.

And why should I have to come up with a solution? All I know is that I see numerous flaws that need to be addressed, but I don't know how to fix them, and I don't have to know them already.
Do you start out by finding the problem, or finding the solution?

Only, you're limiting choice for the player by forcing him to learn every element imaginable.

Seems like you two are going to have your own little elemental battle to me! Make sure you have plenty of tonics!

I'll be an Alchemist, because that means I get free access to unlimited X-Potions and Mega Phoenix! For FREE!

Ok, Nancy

This is one very small element of game design. All you've done is shown flaws in other remotely related ideas. For example, elements was not a part of the initial idea. Who knows if they exist in the game in which this idea is placed into? Whereas elements seem to be your primary 'problem'.

It's hardly forcing him to choose every element imaginable; assuming elements exist. Two elements would be perfectly fine if monsters only had one resistance. If not, then the player might need one more.
Some areas will simply be more difficult than others, and that's not a problem. Choosing many elements will just create a balance in difficulty from area to area. It'll be clear to the player that this is the best choice, like in any other game.
Choosing one element will make certain areas very near to impossible, but in my opinion that's how it should be. It's up to the player which he chooses. If he wants to play with 4 white wizards in Final Fantasy, he can. If he wants to bring fire as his primary attack in the fire cavern, he should be able to do that too. I'm not saying it's going to be easy, or intelligent.. but the option is open to him.

Who knows though. Maybe he also selected his race as a lizard, so he's weak against ice and resistant against fire. In which case, he has little reason to practice his ice spell - fire enemies shouldn't be a problem anyways.

If you really wanted to allow the player to use only one element, a spell could be added that would change the target and remove all weakness/resistance. For example, Polymorphism. It's going to drain a lot of mana, but the option is there, and would be a decent strategy.

You haven't mentioned many real flaws, in my opinion. Just that the player is going to dislike casting the same spell over and over again, just to find out it's not going to work on the monsters of that element. To that, I say duh.

There's many solutions that would allow that, but I wouldn't recommend actually using any of them. The player just shouldn't do that, or want to do that. Who does that, anyway?
One solution is completely non-linear game play. Don't want to go to fire areas? Then don't. Clearly if all you have is fire, it's not a place you'd want to be anyways. It's restrictive to the player in the sense that he can't get things from the fire cavern if he doesn't go there, but in my opinion that's not an issue, because he chose not to.

I know, you're not even trying.
If you ask me, you're not thinking your problems all the way through. If you did, you'd find some solutions.

Of course not. It doesn't interest me in the least.

Again, that's not what I'm here for. I'm here to point out the flaws you make so that YOU can address if them if it really bothers you that much. If you don't want to, fine, just don't post. I'm not making an RPG here.

Derezo hits X-G with Logical Melee for 16 hp damage!

X-G attacks Derezo with Evasive Sarcasm for 10 hp damage!

Red X-G is about to die!

Red fighter needs swordchucks badly

I can hardly believe this is still going.

I would agree with Derezo on giving the player choices, I think that every time a game ends it should only be the players fault. If you took your fire spells into your fire cavern only to find out that they heal monsters instead of hurt 'em... well... that's your problem.

I also think that it's fairly simple to craft a solution that merely suggests to a player - hey, you're in town here and the magic guy at the store sells fire spells at half off, and oh yeah... there's this cave and there's nothing but nasty ol' ice creatures in it. What's left is for the player to choose their own demise. If you want to be a moron knucklehead and do the opposite of what people tell you to do, please, do it but do it quickly - we hope to keep the genepool clean of those knuckleheads

Am I missing something? Is there more to this? Should we be talking on the level of ... aha! I just re-read the initial question.

Battle Engine stuff
You should check this site http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/psx/game/24831.html for the FF3 Algorithms. It's really a good basis for trying to understand the different possibilities in a battle engine and suggestions on how to compute 'em.

Flow
A lot of people will tell you linear games are no fun. This can be true but with a well-crafted game
world should not be the case. It requires a lot more work, IMO though.

I would try for a mission based flow. Something along the lines of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. Have some missions that are story based and the rest help you get to those missions. I'm really considering a mix of the two myself...

Items
Having an inventory is fine. You might want to consider equiping and unequiping items as well

Bottom-line
A lot of this is up to you. You should have a more clearly defined goal of your game before asking really general questions. (As I'm sure you can tell with the 4 pages of posts). If you said I'm thinking of a spell system A over spell system B. Can anyone help me hash out the pros and cons? - that would have worked wonders to stear the thread to what you're really after.

Just my 2c.

Thanks for a good on-topic post

One choice is no choice. Like I said, if it is merely a question of "pick the one right, obvious solution," then it isn't very interesting. If it's "use fire spells in the ice cave or die," how is that interesting? Since it is an uninteresting choice, what's the point of having the option at all?

All of these kinds of questions are questions you should answer yourself when you design the game. There's no right answer; it all depends on what kind of game you want to make.

Are you trying to make a Zelda-style adventure game, a Final-Fantasy-alike, or a modern PC-RPG-esque game? Or something else entirely.

Let's just say I'm going to try to take the best of all of those

At this point, thanks to all for good answers. Now I have a very good idea of what kind of a game I want