I'm looking for general agree/disagree type feedback here. If you have something to add and I incorporate it into my design I will give you credit.
Without further ado:
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Three Heroes: Melee, Magic, and Healer.
Melee: Uses direct hit weapons and can equip armors and shields.
- The typical damage and soak character, able to equip all of the best melee weapons and armors.
High defense stat and needs healing less often than the cleric or the 'squishy' mage. Possible
'defend' option to soak damage from another teammate. Can be used to protect the magic user.
Magic: Uses offensive and support/defensive magic abilities. Cannot wear armors or use shields or weapons.
- The obvious 'squishy' character, will need to heal often and ration magic. Will not be able to perform
physical attacks on the enemy and must use only magic. Only option when out of magic is to defend.
Utilizes elements for best effect on enemy.
Healer: Weaker attack power than melee, but healing abilites. Can use armor and specific weapons only.
- Healer able to use armor to ballance gameplay. Having two 'squishy' characters will make keeping
the party alive too dificult. When you think of the healer think of a cleric from D&D, not a frail robed
weakling but capable of defending themself. Will double as a secondary attacker when not busy healing.
Gameplay Specifics: Extreme focus on correcting annoyances and issues with traditional turn based RPGs.
- Battle entry and exit needs to be quick. Long noisy battle intro or waiting more than one second is
absolutely NOT acceptable in a 2D game on modern hardware.
GOOD:
Phantasy Star Series
Dragon Warrior Series
- Phantasy Star 2 is slighly slower than the rest, but these games snap you into battle instantly.
No fancy dragged out screen fade effect. Most of these could do this because of cartridge
load times.
BAD:
Final Fantasy 9
- Seriously, it must take 5-6 full seconds for battle to begin each and every time. After that
you have to wait 1-2 seconds for the first party member's ATB gauge to fill. This sounds like
a nitpick, but coupled with a high encounter rate when you are trying to get somewhere is
absolutely ludicrous. Understandibly, cart games have an advantage on loading times
but there are a few PSX RPGs that do this right even with loading considered.
Pokemon Black/White
- Battle enters with a noisy intro, then introdocues the enemy, then each trainer throws a
pokeball with complete animations, as a pokemon pops out and makes more animations and
sound. 20 seconds later you can actually start doing something... This is more of a problem with
trainer battles, wild pokemon battles are a bit quicker but not by much.
- Attacks and animations can have style but need to be quick enough to keep the battle flowing.
GOOD:
Phantasy Star 4
Final Fantasy 8 (Normal Attacks Only)
- Phantasy Star 4 does an excellent job with fast flashy attacksn none of them take more
than a single second. Final Fantasy 8 allows one party member to start a normal attack while
the last one finishes, speeding up the flow of battle.
BAD:
Final Fantasy 8 (GF Attacks)
- GF attacks are your strongest attacks and use no skill points or MP, however each is
accompanied by a 10-20 second unkippable video clip EVERY SINGLE TIME YOU USE IT.
There's a reason boss fights can take 20-30 mintues...
- Eliminate neccessary level or skill grinding. Do not make it necessary to grind up 10 levels to beat that next boss.
GOOD:
Wild Arms (Original for PSX)
- If you do not excessively run from battles, there is never a need to go slay monsters for an
hour or two to prepare for the next dungeon or boss. All of the expereince and money you
need can be obtained through normal dungeon crawling while advancing the plot.
BAD:
Phantasy Star 2
- It is necessary to grind quite often after completing a dungeon to afford the ridiculous prices
of new equipment and levels for the next dungeon. Coupled with the fact that every new party
member has to be equipped and they all start at level one, unless you keep one party throughout
the entire game you inevitably have to grind a new member up to the party's level.
- ELIMINATE SAVE POINTS. An archaic leftover from poor hardware support or an artificial 'challenge' enhancer
GOOD:
Pokemon (ALL)
Tactics Ogre
- Pokemon lets you save anywhere when you aren't in battle, and battles are not long enough
to be of concern. Tactics Ogre lets you save even in battle, however battles can extend for an
hour or more and this is a major convenience.
BAD:
Phantasy Star Online
- No in-game save whatsoever, only save and quit. PSO has dungeons that take roughly an hour
to an hour and a half to complete, and since they are randomly generated they change when you
reload from a save forcing you to start all over again every time you play. This is really annoying
if you are on the last level of the dungeon you have been playing for over an hour and suddently
you have to step away for a lenght of time. You keep levels and loot but do not advance the plot until
the dungeon is actually completed (not that PSO really has a compelling plot).
- Show eqipment on player in game, or at the very least in battle.
GOOD:
Most MMOs
Morrowind
- I like the feeling of growth and accomplishment when I see my character's equipent evolving
I note the difference between wearing a rusty bucket for a hat and a finely crafted and polished
steel helm. In Morrowind the clothing you wear can have a vastly different visual appeal depending
on what you choose.
BAD:
Avernum
- Avernum is a small indie RPG for the PC spanning multiple games. Granted most characters are
only a few pixels tall in game, however even the Diablo series managed to pull if off. The inventory
screen in Avernum has a full body shot of each party member, but it's just a stock image that never
changes. Why bother if you will never see it in gameplay?
EDIT: Bah, formatting still fudged a bit. Better than nothing.
