Quick Design Questions

DJTiKi said:

Im planning of adding a new feature to my game, known as Awakened Forms. These forms are Pokemon that have either changed stats, abilities, movepools, learnsets, or even types. For instance, an Awakened Arcanine, gets the Dragon typing, becoming Fire/Dragon. And also has some dragon type moves, as well as, Dragon Dance. Also, an Awakened Porygon-Z gets the ability Protean, and gets even more coverage moves, by leveling. These Pokemon are rarities that are found in Rustling Grass/Sand, and they have low catch rates, but are awesome to use. Ace Trainers and Veterans may even be found using some Awakened Pokemon, but these forms, are only found in final evolved Pokemon. Im still deciding whether this should replace any ideas for mega evolutions in my game.

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Very interesting concept, It sounds like an alternative to Mega-evolution, but a little bit more broken. perhaps you could look at the changes done through mega-evolution, and make the awakened forms have less changes, ie. the stat increase is less than a mega evolution. You could also make the awakened forms be brought about through max friendship and final evolution form.

The initial problem I have with it is that Mega-evolution, while a very powerful concept, has checks and balances to make it less cheap, your idea allows a team of 6, permanently awakened form pokemon, while mega-evo's exist only in battle, and only 1 pokemon can mega-evolve, and fainting negates it, and it can only be done with a mega-ring

Saving Raven said:

Very interesting concept, It sounds like an alternative to Mega-evolution, but a little bit more broken. perhaps you could look at the changes done through mega-evolution, and make the awakened forms have less changes, ie. the stat increase is less than a mega evolution. You could also make the awakened forms be brought about through max friendship and final evolution form.

The initial problem I have with it is that Mega-evolution, while a very powerful concept, has checks and balances to make it less cheap, your idea allows a team of 6, permanently awakened form pokemon, while mega-evo's exist only in battle, and only 1 pokemon can mega-evolve, and fainting negates it, and it can only be done with a mega-ring

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That was my main problem with it. Maybe i can just limit it to just a new ability, an altered learnset, and MAYBE add a new type. With the base stat increase, i only wanted maybe a 30 point difference but no more, or increase one while decreasing another, therefore it doesnt become broken.

I was also thinking of it just having it a rare encounter found ONLY in shaking grass, etc. maybe a 0.01% chance of finding one in shaking grass, etc. and a 0% chance when it is not.

And my other crazy idea for obtaining one, was getting a final evolved Pokemon and a special stone, taking it to a guru(lets call it an Awakened Sage) for happiness checking, if it has an Awakened form(since not all will have one), and if it is holding that special stone, and if it all checks out, he'll "evolve" it to uts Awakened form, but like mega stones, you can only find them in certain areas, let alone a specific one.

Or with your idea of happiness, I could just make getting max happiness on final evolved Pokemon, a very slow experience.

And my final idea, each Pokemon has specific requirements in order to "awaken" it. Some can just be caught, some need to level up while at max happiness, at a specific map. Or level up while holding a specific item. Or level up with a certain move. Anything could be possible. Therefore, awakening a Pokemon isnt just "tap a button, and watch the fireworks" and would be worth every little bit of trying to get it.

But in terms of balancing them out, thx :) you put a huge weight of my shoulders. Now i have a good idea of what i want to do.

Any thoughts on an unreal time system?
Originally I had been tossing around the idea, and then gave up on it, but now I'm thinking about it again. Pokemon games generally don't have them, but most people who play them don't have time to play at certain specific times for events, such as catching pokemon that appear only in the morning, or only at night. There's a lot of good that can come from it, but could be a little off-putting or take some time to get used to.

Anyway, what are our thoughts on it? and how should it be done? My original thought was having 3 unreal-day/night cycles in 1 real day. Is that good? not good enough?

Saving Raven said:

Any thoughts on an unreal time system?
Originally I had been tossing around the idea, and then gave up on it, but now I'm thinking about it again. Pokemon games generally don't have them, but most people who play them don't have time to play at certain specific times for events, such as catching pokemon that appear only in the morning, or only at night. There's a lot of good that can come from it, but could be a little off-putting or take some time to get used to.

Anyway, what are our thoughts on it? and how should it be done? My original thought was having 3 unreal-day/night cycles in 1 real day. Is that good? not good enough?

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In my opinion, for PC games this is better than Real Time system (specially when the user can change the clock). I suggest you to make a "bed" event that can be triggered once per day and make the time goes faster, because is boring to wait for catch or do a certain event and isn't good if the user do things like: Let the game active while watch a video for spend time.

I prefer a very quick day/night cicle, something like Zelda OoT. I suggest 1/2 minutes in real time be equivalent as 1 hour in game.

FL said:

In my opinion, for PC games this is better than Real Time system (specially when the user can change the clock). I suggest you to make a "bed" event that can be triggered once per day and make the time goes faster, because is boring to wait for catch or do a certain event and isn't good if the user do things like: Let the game active while watch a video for spend time.

I prefer a very quick day/night cicle, something like Zelda OoT. I suggest 1/2 minutes in real time be equivalent as 1 hour in game.

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I'll keep thinking about it, but I always felt zelda's time system was wonky, and a bit too drastic, maybe making it so you can "got to bed" and it make it night/day

Although I like the idea of it being faster but still working existing as a time system. But it's nice to know you agree that it should be unreal

What about advancing the in-game clock based on an action economy? (steps add 1 "minute", battles add 1 "hour", etc)

From there you could add a bed which you could sleep in to add a certain amount of time to the in-game clock.

Also, for your consideration, the simplest "unreal" time clock I've seen implemented is Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas's(That's my limited knowledge of the series, so maybe the other GTA games do it as well?), in which an in-game hour took a real life minute to pass. Considering it was a sandbox-oriented game, you might find that as a good starting point since it gives players only a 20-ish minute wait to revisit an area at the same time of day/night.

Java's Missingno. said:

What about advancing the in-game clock based on an action economy? (steps add 1 "minute", battles add 1 "hour", etc)

From there you could add a bed which you could sleep in to add a certain amount of time to the in-game clock.

Also, for your consideration, the simplest "unreal" time clock I've seen implemented is Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas's(That's my limited knowledge of the series, so maybe the other GTA games do it as well?), in which an in-game hour took a real life minute to pass. Considering it was a sandbox-oriented game, you might find that as a good starting point since it gives players only a 20-ish minute wait to revisit an area at the same time of day/night.

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That's a good idea with the steps and battles advancing time, I'll keep it in mind, but for now I'll try out 1 hour = 1 day

This is a problem regarding level curve. This haven't been a problem in the official games, as the highest levelled Pokemon for any gym leaders before E4 is <50 (barring gen 6). I'm having more than that in my game, so if I do nothing about the level curve the player would end up probably having half of their gameplay with final evolutions who wouldn't learn any new move at all, which isn't ideal.

I was thinking if my game would have many hours of gameplay (no idea how much at the moment), would it make sense to alter the level curve in the following way?
- EXP required for levelling up at very low levels remain somewhat the same (I don't want the player to spend an hour just to get one Poke to Level 10)
- EXP required for levelling up at levels like 15-35 would be increased somewhat substantially. (This would allow a larger part of gameplay with non-fully-evolved Pokemon)
- the increase in EXP required slowly converges to 0 as level goes up.

I mean, if I were to have 30 hours of gameplay, with the normal levelling curve the player would most likely have all fully evolved Pokemon, with little/no new moves to learn within 10 hours of gameplay (already with the assumption of no grinding), so for the remaining gameplay all the player gets are the storyline, sidequests with little satisfaction from their party getting stronger. I find this somewhat problematic; but I want to hear comments from you guys, as to how concerning this problem is?

I considered adding new moves, but I wouldn't say I'm confident that I can come up with enough non-broken legitimate moves to single-handedly save this problem.

Any comments is appreciated :) (but please don't make the comment of 'just downscale your game' - this is avoiding the problem not solving it). If you feel this is a legitimate problem, feel free to suggest alternative mechanisms for it!

I think it's a fine idea to have the Pokémon level up more slowly, but seeing as many Pokémon already level up really slow, I think the game might get a little too grindy, if you manage to "squeeze" by a Gym Leader and advance to a point where your team is underleveled. It'd require a lot more time to train your team up to an appropriate level again.

IMHO, I think altering the levels at which Pokémon evolve and learn moves is a wiser choice.

Maybe have the starters evolve at level 20-24/40-48 instead of 16-18/32-36?
And add more moves to be learned after the level 50-ish~ area where Pokémon usually stop learning or simply place the move learning levels more even.

Maybe even combine these with your EXP-idea, but on a lesser scale?
Artificial game lengthener aka grinding/copy-paste-sidemissions/etc. is generally bad for a game.
I prefer a short, but great, game more than a long and decent one.

As long as you provide more and more interesting and unique Pokémon for the player to catch and train, as the game progresses, the "evolving team"-part of the game won't stagnate.
Just give the player a REASON to change up their team, even though their team is fully evolved.

And last, but not least.
This has been a problem in all Pokémon games, but it's sort of part of the learning curve of the game.
When you reach the point where all your Pokémon are fully evolved is the part when the player has learned what kind of team they want to have, and they've started settling in and bonding with that team.
Artificially extending that time by making them level up slower won't change that, and it might just end up a nuiscance to train the Pokémon you want to learn a new move.

Good luck, whatever you decide to do. :)

myst013 said:

This is a problem regarding level curve. This haven't been a problem in the official games, as the highest levelled Pokemon for any gym leaders before E4 is <50 (barring gen 6). I'm having more than that in my game, so if I do nothing about the level curve the player would end up probably having half of their gameplay with final evolutions who wouldn't learn any new move at all, which isn't ideal.

I was thinking if my game would have many hours of gameplay (no idea how much at the moment), would it make sense to alter the level curve in the following way?
- EXP required for levelling up at very low levels remain somewhat the same (I don't want the player to spend an hour just to get one Poke to Level 10)
- EXP required for levelling up at levels like 15-35 would be increased somewhat substantially. (This would allow a larger part of gameplay with non-fully-evolved Pokemon)
- the increase in EXP required slowly converges to 0 as level goes up.

I mean, if I were to have 30 hours of gameplay, with the normal levelling curve the player would most likely have all fully evolved Pokemon, with little/no new moves to learn within 10 hours of gameplay (already with the assumption of no grinding), so for the remaining gameplay all the player gets are the storyline, sidequests with little satisfaction from their party getting stronger. I find this somewhat problematic; but I want to hear comments from you guys, as to how concerning this problem is?

I considered adding new moves, but I wouldn't say I'm confident that I can come up with enough non-broken legitimate moves to single-handedly save this problem.

Any comments is appreciated :) (but please don't make the comment of 'just downscale your game' - this is avoiding the problem not solving it). If you feel this is a legitimate problem, feel free to suggest alternative mechanisms for it!

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If you change the level for evolutions/pokémon, you break the pokémon balance, so, my favorite solution is to remove the Exp gain by 50/25% and reduces the level of everyone at your game using the new formula. Example: If a pokémon is level 30 (27000 total Exp) make it level 23 (12167 total Exp) or even less, since the pokémon battled with weaker ones that gives less Exp.

Let me just say, thanks both tImE and FL!!

My game is still at rather early stage of development, so I just wanted to hear how one thinks from a player's perspective. I do not have a preference in mind for this matter, so all I care is that what I change can make the players enjoy the game more. But yeah, FL your method would definitely be helpful on 'calibrating' the levels of Pokemon should things not work out..

I've considered changing the levels at which Pokemon learns certain moves, but I feel it would annoy the player too much (I mean, who wants to have to keep referring to a document while playing just to find out when their Pokemon learns a new move?). The only ones I might consider changing would be things like Gyarados, where good moves are bunched up at really low levels.

I never wanted the player to have to grind at all while playing barring perhaps when they need a new member in their team (I hate having to grind myself). So yeah, if I were to adapt my EXP solution I would only do it to a small extent.

I guess the problem could be helped if I carefully pick which Pokemon are available at each stage of the game. I'm currently providing rather weak ones before Gym 1, but that would make the starter seem disproportionately strong very soon, so yeah, I guess I would have to alter the evolving levels of starters.. I'd hope I can avoid changes other than that since, as FL says, I wouldn't want to mess up the balance completely. I'll see what's most appropriate to the later stages of the game..

I have another solution in mind that might help a bit, and perhaps less obvious/annoying to the players: normal trainers hold Pokemon that gives off less EXP. Now I don't know how much boring this will make the game, but my thought is that normal trainers aren't supposed to be challenging anyway. Thoughts? Please shout if I'm way off here (coz I might be..)

Hello, everyone!

Just wondering, does anyone have any ideas for starters that are... Different? You know, an actual theme for the starters instead of just being based by type. Any Ideas?

So I am going to start making weapon skins for Counter Strike: Global Offensive, you see, and I need some ideas on what kinds of designs I should make. I was already thinking of like winter and ice themed guns, but I kinda want to do something with a pokemon-like theme but isn't actually the whole design of a pokemon (Because can't make copyrighted stuff if we want they want to sell our design).

A whole 10 days woohoo and I have an actual project in the works. Right now it's going to be a free game on the steam workshop for GameMaker Studio. Here's some ideas I got right now:

Current title: Pumpkin Runners
Engine: GameMaker Studio
Type: 2D Mega Man/Metroid-like

Base idea: You are a pumpkin, who lives in the pumpkin world. [Situation] happens and [player] does [main goal]

Features:
-Different things to shoot enemies
-Flamethrower to light unlit torches and kill enemies
-Some levels with 2 different exits (like Super Mario World)

But I need suggestions for story and more elements to add. I want to try to keep the game as simple as possible but memorable and fun to play.

I'm working on developing what I intend to be an open world rpg in Essentials. Still in very early development, and I'm trying to come up with skills that can be given to the player. Staples like Strength, Charisma, etc are used as attributes, not skills. So far we've got

Barter: Pretty much a given in almost any RPG. Shops sell you stuff cheaper, and buy things for more if you have a high skill.
Thievery: Skilled used to break into stuff(locked buildings especially).
Speech: Skill used to pass certain conversation checks.
Healing: Potions can heal more
Mechanics: Can build your own special pokeballs, possibly other items. The higher this stat, the better they work.
Catching: Skill used to determine catch rate for balls
Knowledge/Analysis: TBD, but at the very least used to help get hints for quests.

Trying to come up with other skill areas. The skill areas won't directly affect battling, and need to be something that won't break the game (basically, they have to be something that can be formulaic, like a skill that makes the player more likely to encounter shinies. A bad example is a skill that raises evasion in battle. That would pretty much ruin all the fun in the game if enemies can't hit you.). Any additional ideas or thoughts on existing ones are appreciated.

mej71 said:

I'm working on developing what I intend to be an open world rpg in Essentials. Still in very early development, and I'm trying to come up with skills that can be given to the player. Staples like Strength, Charisma, etc are used as attributes, not skills. So far we've got

Barter: Pretty much a given in almost any RPG. Shops sell you stuff cheaper, and buy things for more if you have a high skill.
Thievery: Skilled used to break into stuff(locked buildings especially).
Speech: Skill used to pass certain conversation checks.
Healing: Potions can heal more
Mechanics: Can build your own special pokeballs, possibly other items. The higher this stat, the better they work.
Catching: Skill used to determine catch rate for balls
Knowledge/Analysis: TBD, but at the very least used to help get hints for quests.

Trying to come up with other skill areas. The skill areas won't directly affect battling, and need to be something that won't break the game (basically, they have to be something that can be formulaic, like a skill that makes the player more likely to encounter shinies. A bad example is a skill that raises evasion in battle. That would pretty much ruin all the fun in the game if enemies can't hit you.). Any additional ideas or thoughts on existing ones are appreciated.

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Maybe a tamer? sort of like the idea that this is a really good trainer, and they would get better ev's while training, and improve the stats of pokemon through breeding. That or you could only have the training aspect and make breeder a different category that also includes pokemon's happiness increasing at a faster rate

Minokun said:

Hello, everyone!

Just wondering, does anyone have any ideas for starters that are... Different? You know, an actual theme for the starters instead of just being based by type. Any Ideas?

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Well usually starters are based around a central "theme", if yoh can say. In the original games, the divide of Fire, Water, and Grass was meant to be a teaching tool, to how the Pokémon battle mechanics work. Since your rival always had the better starter, it allowed you to know "Hey, that is what Grass is weak to, it makes sense"

So when making a game, it is to note that we probably know the mechanics to begin with. That is when you can hook those starter options to be based off the central theming the game gives off. So if your game was built upon "Light vs. Darkness" maybe a Light-hearted Pokémon like let's say Meloetta(horrible choice) while on the other hand had Zoroark. Dependent on your choice, decides the other trainer's choice as well.

So you could make direct references to the game itself, BUT you could always have the starters, interbound with each other. For instance, Sneasel and Gligar both have the same base stat total and evolve using Razor Items at Night. So having counter-intuitive starters that are references to each other, is another way to add depth to the choices, other than Fire, Grass, or Water(which is still a great teaching tool for beginners)

For a while I've been bouncing around the idea of creating special gyms that involve different scenarios to obtain a badge rather than the prevalent "Show up, meander through the gimmick and beat the leader"
So I've come up with ideas of using a maximum of 4 pokemon, competing in contests, fighting in sky battles etc.

One idea I thought might be cool, is fighting a hacker. He would have broken unreal teams, like shedinja with sturdy and endeavor or a slaking with hugepower. The trick would cause the player to come up with interesting ideas and strategies to overcome the hax. Thoughts?

Saving Raven said:

For a while I've been bouncing around the idea of creating special gyms that involve different scenarios to obtain a badge rather than the prevalent "Show up, meander through the gimmick and beat the leader"
So I've come up with ideas of using a maximum of 4 pokemon, competing in contests, fighting in sky battles etc.

One idea I thought might be cool, is fighting a hacker. He would have broken unreal teams, like shedinja with sturdy and endeavor or a slaking with hugepower. The trick would cause the player to come up with interesting ideas and strategies to overcome the hax. Thoughts?

Click to expand...

I think that Gyms should be used to test the player's knowledge of type advantages/disadvantages as well as their playing ability and how well they've trained their Pokemon. The traditional Gym system does this well, and trains the player to improve their knowledge of Pokemon, whereas a gimmicky broken battle doesn't. I think that things like this, if implemented, should be done similarly to the inverse battle house in XY, or some kind of optional Challenge House.

Those things would also make nuzlocking ridiculously difficult to, since you never know whether you're going to need to obscure strategy to beat the next trainer you find.

I'm toying with putting a prototype out of a non-default battle system, where position is important as well as speed. Since faster pokemon will be taking more turns, should I just base movement speed on weight, or is there a different factor that someone can recommend for determining movement speed?

EDIT I could probably go the mystery dungeon route of 1 square per turn, but was hoping to find a way to differentiate similar speed but fundamentally different pokemon