2009-06-12, 10:58 AM
I devised a very interesting design decision earlier today. I realized that HP and MP are doomed to be proportional based on whatever level up table you have. There is no builtin way to augment player max HP/MP basically. I really did not feel comfortable with this, because I think these values should reflect the players decision to favor weapons or magic...
So what I ended up doing is I just decided to fix max HP and MP at 100. As in 100% (I even changed the status menu to read 100% instead of 100/100)
I also decided earlier this week to limit the number of levels to 32. At that point the idea was to put a hard cap on HP/MP, but now there is a no progression at all
I even went further and decided no strength or magic bonus on level up (editing the level tables was actually very easy)
So now it's difficult to say what function the levels will actually have in this version of DoM. Though I'm sure they will have something. I'm thinking about reserving some counters for every level and tracking the players progress. Though how that would influence gameplay I have not decided.
Anyway, so what remains is the only way to grow your stats is the strength/magic up messages you get now and then that are independent of levels. I actually have no idea what factors lend to that happening, though I've done some playtesting to see if it would be feasible. I can track how often this happens between level to level and augment player stats accordingly. I would very much like to determine how SoM decides to grant the player that bonus boost :roll:
This play style actually feels a lot more involved and fun than traditional KF (for me at least) ...I've always favored action rpgs that favor action over the rpg elements.
One interesting side effect, is strength does not effect defense, and I doubt magic effects magic defense or anything. So the player actually takes the same damage from beginning to end. This forces the player to rely on best armor sets for the mission, and suggests playing a more stealth game until you think you have the right stats for the job. I've made sure that you can generally gauge the power of monsters visibly, and if you play it safe, escape from a monster that turned out to be more than you could handle.
Instead of defense, the player gets perks like hp regen, and the ability to move around a lot easier in heavy armor. Also killing becomes much easier with strength/magic, though it never feels as easy as Froms' games
Even at the top class you don't feel god like. But you do feel capable. Basically you still gotta keep up with your game, because you can die even from early enemies if they mob you and get in some lucky hits. Well that's if you're not wearing heavy armor... if you are, you're probably snug as a bug
Even if you're under the weight limit, a lot of things can knock your strength down which can put you in trouble. And the best thing about having a fixed 100hp, is I can do things like make you limp if you are down to 30hp or something (like throwing you a fast burst of slow/paralyze status)
I've also tied the MP stat to stamina. Most likely there will be no way to recover MP other than resting at a bed or in the field. Also your MP constantly drains, as if you're getting hungry. Some food might give you a boost in the field, but you will only get some from the game chefs at fixed intervals. Maybe the Witch Water item will be capable of restoring some "MP", but it can have a lot of bad side effects, and generally not be good for you at all (it's a random effect type item)
Another odd side effect, is you have enough MP to cast any spell in the game obviously. But if you blow your magic real quick you're basically shot until you go to sleep. And since the game is a race against time, that is something to avoid if possible. I'm unsure if I will develop a system to try to give players back some MP based on their magic stat. I will be forcing the player to have sufficient stats before being able to learn a spell or unlock sword magic. I'm also going to limit the spells considerably I think, and just have them level up for higher range/damage versions. There are a couple ways you could do that, with or without hacking the SoM.
I have new names for everything to be sure it doesn't feel like KF or anything else for that matter. I made my own guage graphic. I also realized the compass in the game doesn't work like a real compass at all
I don't think players will need a compass for this game, but I'm thinking about crafting a Diadem of Maunstraut (the crown) graphic to stick in there for the fun of it.
I did some other fun events tonight while the power was out. I setup the prayer system (just for the free prayer) and implemented the replacement for Tom's Icon of Life. The feather is now called Pluma Valkyrja, and lets you enable dash for about enough time to clear a map... which is useful when it's disabled, which can happen for a lot of reasons in the game.
Presently you actually move very fast in dash mode, and non-dash mode. It feels like a realistic pace, though not at all KF speeds (though many of the games seem a lot faster than I remember them -- I guess maybe it's the turn speed that always seemed slow) ...Any did this so the player can actually play in slow mode realistically. I'm seriously considering putting checkpoint events at various bottleneck portions of maps so I can track the speed the player is going and hit their MP/stamina stat harder if they're making a lot of ground. I'd like to be able to make them stop dashing for a while if they've been up to it for too long, but that would require some fancy hacking (and might be too complicated for this version)
By god, a long post I know, but felt like a little blogging would say more than some screenshots in this case.
So what I ended up doing is I just decided to fix max HP and MP at 100. As in 100% (I even changed the status menu to read 100% instead of 100/100)
I also decided earlier this week to limit the number of levels to 32. At that point the idea was to put a hard cap on HP/MP, but now there is a no progression at all
I even went further and decided no strength or magic bonus on level up (editing the level tables was actually very easy)
So now it's difficult to say what function the levels will actually have in this version of DoM. Though I'm sure they will have something. I'm thinking about reserving some counters for every level and tracking the players progress. Though how that would influence gameplay I have not decided.
Anyway, so what remains is the only way to grow your stats is the strength/magic up messages you get now and then that are independent of levels. I actually have no idea what factors lend to that happening, though I've done some playtesting to see if it would be feasible. I can track how often this happens between level to level and augment player stats accordingly. I would very much like to determine how SoM decides to grant the player that bonus boost :roll:
This play style actually feels a lot more involved and fun than traditional KF (for me at least) ...I've always favored action rpgs that favor action over the rpg elements.
One interesting side effect, is strength does not effect defense, and I doubt magic effects magic defense or anything. So the player actually takes the same damage from beginning to end. This forces the player to rely on best armor sets for the mission, and suggests playing a more stealth game until you think you have the right stats for the job. I've made sure that you can generally gauge the power of monsters visibly, and if you play it safe, escape from a monster that turned out to be more than you could handle.
Instead of defense, the player gets perks like hp regen, and the ability to move around a lot easier in heavy armor. Also killing becomes much easier with strength/magic, though it never feels as easy as Froms' games
Even at the top class you don't feel god like. But you do feel capable. Basically you still gotta keep up with your game, because you can die even from early enemies if they mob you and get in some lucky hits. Well that's if you're not wearing heavy armor... if you are, you're probably snug as a bug
Even if you're under the weight limit, a lot of things can knock your strength down which can put you in trouble. And the best thing about having a fixed 100hp, is I can do things like make you limp if you are down to 30hp or something (like throwing you a fast burst of slow/paralyze status)
I've also tied the MP stat to stamina. Most likely there will be no way to recover MP other than resting at a bed or in the field. Also your MP constantly drains, as if you're getting hungry. Some food might give you a boost in the field, but you will only get some from the game chefs at fixed intervals. Maybe the Witch Water item will be capable of restoring some "MP", but it can have a lot of bad side effects, and generally not be good for you at all (it's a random effect type item)
Another odd side effect, is you have enough MP to cast any spell in the game obviously. But if you blow your magic real quick you're basically shot until you go to sleep. And since the game is a race against time, that is something to avoid if possible. I'm unsure if I will develop a system to try to give players back some MP based on their magic stat. I will be forcing the player to have sufficient stats before being able to learn a spell or unlock sword magic. I'm also going to limit the spells considerably I think, and just have them level up for higher range/damage versions. There are a couple ways you could do that, with or without hacking the SoM.
I have new names for everything to be sure it doesn't feel like KF or anything else for that matter. I made my own guage graphic. I also realized the compass in the game doesn't work like a real compass at all
I don't think players will need a compass for this game, but I'm thinking about crafting a Diadem of Maunstraut (the crown) graphic to stick in there for the fun of it.
I did some other fun events tonight while the power was out. I setup the prayer system (just for the free prayer) and implemented the replacement for Tom's Icon of Life. The feather is now called Pluma Valkyrja, and lets you enable dash for about enough time to clear a map... which is useful when it's disabled, which can happen for a lot of reasons in the game.
Presently you actually move very fast in dash mode, and non-dash mode. It feels like a realistic pace, though not at all KF speeds (though many of the games seem a lot faster than I remember them -- I guess maybe it's the turn speed that always seemed slow) ...Any did this so the player can actually play in slow mode realistically. I'm seriously considering putting checkpoint events at various bottleneck portions of maps so I can track the speed the player is going and hit their MP/stamina stat harder if they're making a lot of ground. I'd like to be able to make them stop dashing for a while if they've been up to it for too long, but that would require some fancy hacking (and might be too complicated for this version)
By god, a long post I know, but felt like a little blogging would say more than some screenshots in this case.