Castle Paradox

msw188 · Joined: 02 Jul 2003 Posts: 1041

Thank you for trying my game, Rya. I am really disappointed about the bug. I'm pretty sure that it is a bug in the OHR; I do not do any plotscripting to affect experience or levels, but I have seen something similar before somewhere else. I'm pretty sure it was reported, but I can't remember the details now.

To be fair, the dungeons in the first few Chapters are intentionally easier than many of the later ones. And the forest had some separate restrictions due to a story-related event that occurs there (much) later.

I really wish you could continue the game and see some of the later dungeons. Even the second chapter has a somewhat 'mazier' dungeon near its conclusion. The 4th has a tower that is probably closer to what you are looking for. The 6th and final chapter (nearly twice as long as the other five put together) has plenty of dungeons like this. However, I disagree with your suggestion about the encounter rate, and you will find that that does not change much throughout the game. The graphics improve a little bit here and there, but not by much. And the music also stays in the same vein (I don't like the techno-oriented music that seems to find its way into lots of independant video games). If you are interested, send me a copy of your .sav file and I will try to see if I can help James unravel this bug.
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My first completed OHR game, Tales of the New World:
http://castleparadox.com/gamelist-display.php?game=161

This website link is for my funk/rock band, Euphonic Brew:
www.euphonicbrew.com

Bob the Hamster · Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 10:42 am Post subject:

Rya.Reisender · **Snippy** Joined: 18 Jan 2008 Posts: 821

I used all the files provided in msw188's zip file. It already contained a game.exe.
When I start it it says:
OHRRPGCE wip 20070803 fb/native
What happened before the bug appeared:
I had a hero in spot 1 and spot 3. Both far from leveling if I recall correctly. Then a hero was added at spot 2 and the heroes at spot 1 and spot 3 got removed, my inventory got reset to empty, my money got reset to 61. After that the bug appears that it tell me after every battle that something unnamed levels up. I tried to have the hero into spot 1, but that didn't fix the problem.
James, if you want I can send you the files. The bug seems to be reproducable I just tried it again and the bug is still there.
It's basically as the bug described in your link just that I don't have any dead heroes in my party.

@msw188
That I stopped playing the game was not only because of the bug, though, it's also due to the other things I mentioned.

Bob the Hamster · Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 12:59 pm Post subject:

Newbie_Power · Joined: 04 Sep 2006 Posts: 1762

I haven't played Tales 1, but Tales 2, which probably already addresses a bunch of issues.

And even then, I wouldn't expect it game to be like Phantasy Star II, more like Dragon Warrior III/IV.
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TheGiz> Am I the only one who likes to imagine that Elijah Wood's character in Back to the Future 2, the kid at the Wild Gunman machine in the Cafe 80's, is some future descendant of the AVGN?

msw188 · Joined: 02 Jul 2003 Posts: 1041

I thank you, Rya, for your comments. I will answer them in my own defense, but please believe me that I fully understand your opinion on the issue.

I don't really see the point of decreasing the encounter rate and increasing the dungeon size. The number of battles will still be the same, except there will be longer walking times. I personally find the balance to already be about where I wanted it, and I don't think that it has been altered much for Tales II.

The 'speed depends on party size' idea is interesting, but it seems as though it would counter my intuition. I like getting a feeling for how long my characters, and various monsters, take to 'be ready' (or, in a turn-based battle system, what order they are likely to go in), and this would be disturbed by the variance of such a system, it seems to me. Over half of the game is played with a full four-person party, but this doesn't happen until about ten hours in or so.

As for monster visual variety, this is something that has never interested me at all. I remember thinking how odd it was when there were Blue Slimes and Red Slimes (AND plenty of other small critters) in Dragon Warrior with only minimal statistical differences. Why? Similarly, in many Final Fantasy games, there is a great variety of enemies who have attacks with different names and different graphics, but that all seem to have the same (or about the same) statistics and hurt your heroes the same. Why? It never really made much sense to me. It's not a bad thing, but I would hardly count it as necessary FOR ME. Now, having a variety of monsters with actual differences in damage and statistics, that would be very nice. But I found that very hard to do in the Chapter setup where the player was once again on level zero. There I will fully admit that my creativity failed me, and instead of taking the time to figure something out, I just kept on making the game because my enemies already felt balanced. Of course, once you reach the final chapter where all of the characters meet and move forward together, the monsters change continuously as the characters get more and more powerful.

Running away is a sore spot, I will admit. This has been fixed in Tales II with the Esc Ball now allowing the player to run away a limited number of times (limited by how many Esc Balls he has, and he can only carry eight items per hero). I have thought about trying to implement this into Tales I, but I don't think it will work well with the standard item system where the player can buy as many Esc Balls as he can afford. Meatballsub already pointed out to me how the balance fell apart later in the game when it was possible to buy 99 Magic Herbs and go about unleashing all of the most powerful attacks at will.
_________________
My first completed OHR game, Tales of the New World:
http://castleparadox.com/gamelist-display.php?game=161

This website link is for my funk/rock band, Euphonic Brew:
www.euphonicbrew.com

Newbie_Power · Joined: 04 Sep 2006 Posts: 1762

Actually, TMC, I thought there was a nice variety of enemies in the short amount of time Tales 2 had. In fact, your Blue Mage-type character manages to enforce more variety in the enemies than Rya even suggested to you.

But I also agree that it isn't absolutely necessary if there's really no reason. The only reason I'm making some new enemies or a part of my game is for locational reasons (it wouldn't make sense to have forest enemies in a castle or dungeon), but I'm finding it difficult to make them different than other enemies (they will be used alongside enemies that are actually new, as sort of filler).

I'll agree with msw that dungeon size doesn't have to be huge, it just has to have gameplay and balance (whatever that gameplay ends up being).
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TheGiz> Am I the only one who likes to imagine that Elijah Wood's character in Back to the Future 2, the kid at the Wild Gunman machine in the Cafe 80's, is some future descendant of the AVGN?

msw188 · Joined: 02 Jul 2003 Posts: 1041

Did you just refer to me as TMC? Or does that stand for something?

Tales II has a little more variety than Tales I, perhaps, but as you said NP, it comes through to the player mostly because of the existence of the Monster-morph. It also helps when there is no chapter setup, allowing a continual influx of new enemies as the player reaches new areas (although this makes my progress on making the game much slower).

By the way, I apologize for leading this topic so far astray. What were we originally talking about again? Dungeon design? Here is a question. Does anyone have any good reasons to use damaging tiles? I've never thought that they add anything meaningful to the gameplay.
_________________
My first completed OHR game, Tales of the New World:
http://castleparadox.com/gamelist-display.php?game=161

This website link is for my funk/rock band, Euphonic Brew:
www.euphonicbrew.com

Newbie_Power · Joined: 04 Sep 2006 Posts: 1762

TwinHamster · Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 5:09 pm Post subject:

Rya.Reisender · **Snippy** Joined: 18 Jan 2008 Posts: 821

@James
I don't really have a nightly build, but I can try it with the latest official release when I'm back home.

@msw188

Newbie_Power · Joined: 04 Sep 2006 Posts: 1762

Rya.Reisender · **Snippy** Joined: 18 Jan 2008 Posts: 821

Rya.Reisender · **Snippy** Joined: 18 Jan 2008 Posts: 821

Okay I guess this got dead, so I'll add some new content.

Dungeon psychology

Is it possible to determine which path most players will go by designing the dungeons in a certain way? Do you know any tricks?

Also please answer those two questions if you can:
1. Which path do you take first? Left or right?
2. If there are stairs and the path continues, do you continue the path or take the stairs first?
_________________
Snippy:
"curt or sharp, esp. in a condescending way" (Oxford American Dictionary)
"fault-finding, snappish, sharp" (Concise Oxford Dictionary, UK)
1. short-tempered, snappish, 2. unduly brief or curt (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

Newbie_Power · Joined: 04 Sep 2006 Posts: 1762

It's likely going to be different for each person. Just design based on your own methods and known experiences and use that as the basis for the psychology.
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TheGiz> Am I the only one who likes to imagine that Elijah Wood's character in Back to the Future 2, the kid at the Wild Gunman machine in the Cafe 80's, is some future descendant of the AVGN?