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Castle Paradox
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Rya.Reisender
Snippy
Joined: 18 Jan 2008
Posts: 821
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 Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 2:22 am Post subject: |
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Okay I tried this now and played it up to the first town. I like it so far except that the first battles especially when the hero is alone are extremely boring. You can only attack, you don't even have items to use or a skill menu so no matter what you can just keep pressing enter or space. At the beginning the monsters need 5 hits to be killed, so especially the battle against the two rats is awfully long with no skill to use.
In the first town I encountered some problems:
- the boy says "swrod" instead of "sword", but that doesn't really matter too much
- sometimes the license-buy dialogue doesn't open and I can't talk to them manually
- I can't buy anything at the equip shop, even after I purchased a weapon license I still can't
What I like is that the story seems to be interesting and that the graphics are quite unique, especially the maptiles. The music is okay as well.
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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) |
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MADSOFT Games
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| Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 3:30 am Post subject: |
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Thanks for the report.
And the equip shop requires an armor/glove/helmet license. Not a weapon License. Weapon License is for the weapon shop 
I'll make sure to fix everything else too.
Also: I'm not sure how the hero is supposed to have abilities in the first part to make it less boring since he just got there and doesn't even know what's going on yet...
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Rya.Reisender
Snippy
Joined: 18 Jan 2008
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| Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 4:59 am Post subject: |
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Oh there's another shop in the first town? I guess I need to look around again.
About the abilities, even if I would be thrown into a world where I had to fight I could do different moves like stab, slash, kick and evade. It doesn't need to be skills in the sense of magic. Rather frequent critical hits could already make it a bit more interesting for example. Also if the battles actually required you to attack certain enemies first, it would already raise the tactic a lot even if there's only a generic attack at the beginning. The easiest solution would be to just raise the hero's attack power at the beginning so you don't need to slash for too long. Your stats seem to be generally a bit 'boring', all stats start at 10 and all stats go up by 3 on level up? Well okay, I guess it can work out...
Edit: Now I'm sure this is the weapon shop but I can still not buy anything! I click on buy but nothing happens...
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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) |
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Rya.Reisender
Snippy
Joined: 18 Jan 2008
Posts: 821
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| Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 5:45 am Post subject: |
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Okay I played a bit further, some more things:
- when loading there's no info about the content of the save state (level, characters, playing time? at least something...)
- when have the empty weapon equipped it looks weird when attacking (white mage has no weapon)
- you really should place walls at the beginning of a wall, otherwise it looks really strange and the wallmapping doesn't make too much sense often (like why can I walk right next to the wall except at the end of the wall or when a door comes), also because of this I can get past the guards to the east part of the town (I can't open the treasure chest there by the way)
- maybe you should try not to make the game look like Final Fantasy XII too much or is that intentionally an FFXII parody game?
- the frequency of battles is really high and usually there's always the same monster in the battle
- you set the speed stat maximum to 999 but that's crazy, already a speed of 30 is very very fast and I already reached that at level 5! lower the maximum stat from 999 to 99 at least
- try to set the default weapon to 'fist' or something similar and then equip the heroes by plotscript, otherwise you can't refine the starting weapons, although option is available at the refiner
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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) |
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Newbie_Power
Joined: 04 Sep 2006
Posts: 1762
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| Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 8:41 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | The easiest solution would be to just raise the hero's attack power at the beginning so you don't need to slash for too long. |
I was actually thinking to lower the rats' HP quite a bit so that they are much easier to kill, then when you get the prisoner simply add more rats (and other enemies, like snakes) into the battles.
| Quote: | | Also: I'm not sure how the hero is supposed to have abilities in the first part to make it less boring since he just got there and doesn't even know what's going on yet... |
There is a game mechanic in RPGs called "leveling up". Levels represent the skill level a character has.
So by giving Tyler some skills after a couple of level ups, is to explain that he learned those skills through actual combat experience. Leveling up essentially says "I was a boring, ordinary kid, but after learning to fight, I am no longer such".
EDIT: Also, your slime boss is pathetic and needs to act like a slime boss with some sort of tactic required to beat him.
Also, I want to talk about skill balance, even though I haven't seen a single skill in this game yet, I feel like it needs to be addressed.
Magic is usually best by using the optional spread in random battles to conserve MP and suppliment other attacks, or against bosses. It should be better than a normal attack to gain an advantage, not a replacement for normal attacks in battles (Magic costs MP afterall, and also, try not to make MP too plentiful a resource).
Most physical skills are designed to do something DIFFERENT than the normal attack. A physical-based character either has a moveset that suppliments his normal attack, or has skills that have different properties than his normal attack. Basically, physical skills try to be interesting in how they work.
- Jump
- Yang's Kick
- Minus Sword
- Spells that change the elemental attack of your normal attack
- Mug
- Etc...
Usually these skills have more unorthodox ways of dealing more damage or have side effects, while Magic is usually more straight forward (while still having separate schools of spells for different effects).
Normal attacks usually shouldn't out-damage magic (so it is okay to have battles have use of normal attacks, as long as Magic is still useful and sometimes necessary, especially for tougher random battles and bosses), but usually FF games manage to find a way to screw up, such as early FF games having multi-hit attacks for 16x damage modifiers, or later FF games having limit breaks with outclass Magic in every way.
I always felt that Magic was just as deserving of multi-hits in order to keep the balance intact, much like Tales of Symphonia does, where I always keep Genus in my party because his Magic is so invaluable thanks to the proper mindset in designing his spells.
If you add multi-hit physical skills to the game, make sure Magic can do the same, and better.
What I mostly said is how FF games try to do it, but also keep in mind that FF screws up a lot when it comes to balance, especially towards end game when game balance is usually extremely lopsided. FFIV might do it right, but I haven't gotten to the end of FFIV before, so I can't say for sure without someone clarifying.
| Quote: | | - you really should place walls at the beginning of a wall, otherwise it looks really strange and the wallmapping doesn't make too much sense often |
This. Your wallmapping is dumb.
| Quote: | | - maybe you should try not to make the game look like Final Fantasy XII too much or is that intentionally an FFXII parody game? |
It's a MADSOFT game, so it has to be as similar to a FF game as possible.
EDIT: Added thoughts about multi-hits skills in RPGs
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Rya.Reisender
Snippy
Joined: 18 Jan 2008
Posts: 821
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| Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 9:05 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | I was actually thinking to lower the rats' HP quite a bit so that they are much easier to kill, then when you get the prisoner simply add more rats (and other enemies, like snakes) into the battles. |
That'd work too yeah.
| Quote: | | So by giving Tyler some skills after a couple of level ups, is to explain that he learned those skills through actual combat experience. Leveling up essentially says "I was a boring, ordinary kid, but after learning to fight, I am no longer such". |
But that won't solve the problem that the beginning battles are boring. In my opinion the character should start with at least one alternative option that is useful against certain mobs or in certain situations. Even if it's only a "Bomb" item or something.
If the battles would be more improved it could also be done simply by giving the battles a tactic. For example the battle against the soldiers and commander, you could do the battle so that the commander has high defense and can hardly be damaged, but if you kill the soldiers first the defense of the commander decreases. This way the battle was some tactic, the player has to select the soldiers first to win it effectively. A lot less boring and that without the need of a skill. Add some kind of tactic to each battle and the game will gain a lot (I mean there can even be battles where you just need to press enter, if those battles aren't there more than 50% then attacking always the front mob first is still considered a tactic, after all it can also be a tactic to converse resources in a battle where you don't need them).
| Quote: | | Also, I want to talk about skill balance, even though I haven't seen a single skill in this game yet, I feel like it needs to be addressed. |
I don't get this and your following paragraphs, why do you suddenly feel like talking about skill balance although you haven't seen a single skill in the game? o.o
If you want to talk about skill balance in general, shouldn't you just make a game design thread about it?
By the way I think that there is no fixed rule for skills like that. Both ways "magic is rare but effective" and "magic can be used almost unlimited times without running out of MP but it's only effective if used smart" can work out.
| Quote: | | It's a MADSOFT game, so it has to be as similar to a FF game as possible. |
Oh didn't know "MADSOFT" is a "Squaresoft" parody group, sorry. :-)
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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) |
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Newbie_Power
Joined: 04 Sep 2006
Posts: 1762
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| Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 9:23 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Oh didn't know "MADSOFT" is a "Squaresoft" parody group, sorry. :-) |
The thing is, this is not a parody. Take that as you will.
| Quote: | | I don't get this and your following paragraphs, why do you suddenly feel like talking about skill balance although you haven't seen a single skill in the game? o.o |
Probably to help him design skills, so they won't end up being uninspired skills that have little purpose other than doing damage.
| Quote: | | By the way I think that there is no fixed rule for skills like that. Both ways "magic is rare but effective" and "magic can be used almost unlimited times without running out of MP but it's only effective if used smart" can work out. |
There are no rules in game design, only reasons. There are reasons I say what I said. I'm not laying out strict rules, I'm laying out reasons behind the madness, so that people will know what was done wrong, what was done right, and show what can be changed for those that want to deviate from the norm.
| Quote: | | But that won't solve the problem that the beginning battles are boring. In my opinion the character should start with at least one alternative option that is useful against certain mobs or in certain situations. Even if it's only a "Bomb" item or something. |
No it wouldn't, but I had to answer his question so he can avoid using the storyline as a reason for not doing things.
| Quote: | | If the battles would be more improved it could also be done simply by giving the battles a tactic. For example the battle against the soldiers and commander, you could do the battle so that the commander has high defense and can hardly be damaged, but if you kill the soldiers first the defense of the commander decreases. This way the battle was some tactic, the player has to select the soldiers first to win it effectively. |
That can work, though it wouldn't make much sense for the soldiers to be increasing the commander's defense somehow. You would likely have to tie the battle to the theme of things. The commander could do things such as give orders to use a certain attack, or call in reinforcements (don't allow up to 8 reinforcements like most games do), making it more difficult to finish the battle with him sitting around, constantly calling out stronger attacks and summoning new soldiers.
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LeRoy_Leo
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| Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 9:31 am Post subject: |
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Are we also reporting the bulk of these bugs on
www.XerionDevTrack.moonfruit.com ???
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Rya.Reisender
Snippy
Joined: 18 Jan 2008
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| Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 10:15 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | That can work, though it wouldn't make much sense for the soldiers to be increasing the commander's defense somehow. |
For me it makes sense. The guards protect their commander aka 'I got you covered'.
No. I'm certainly not registering / posting somewhere else only because someone wants the help to be somewhere else. MADSOFT members can add the bugs to their butracker themselves~
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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) |
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Newbie_Power
Joined: 04 Sep 2006
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| Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 10:20 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | The guards protect their commander aka 'I got you covered'.
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This is suggesting that the commander is still being attacked, yet the guards aren't being damaged by being meat shields. They would have to be casting a spell for this to make sense, and even when they die there would have to be a mechanism for the spell to turn off.
What would make more sense in this respect, is that the commander cannot be attacked until the guards are defeated.
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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? |
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LeRoy_Leo
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| Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 10:31 am Post subject: |
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Isn't there a new attack bitset called make unit untargetable? They could do that to their leader. I assume there is a counter for this bitset too.
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Newbie_Power
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| Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 10:34 am Post subject: |
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Yeah. Make the leader un-targetable, and when he's alone make him use an attack that summons a targetable, invisible enemy on top of the leader that is a boss. When that 'boss' dies, so does the leader.
If the boss thing doesn't work for some reason, just have that enemy spawn another when the boss dies and have that new enemy kill the leader and itself.
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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? |
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Rya.Reisender
Snippy
Joined: 18 Jan 2008
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| Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 10:47 am Post subject: |
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I don't think realism should stand above gameplay, but that's just a personal opinion. We might as well argue why 'Cactor' can throw 1000 needles unlimited times although he only has like 100 if you look at his sprite. Or why rats are bigger than humans. The most important thing is that the battles are fun, it doesn't really matter if they make sense. Most games play in an imaginary world anyways, completely different physics can exist there.
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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) |
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Newbie_Power
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| Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 10:57 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | I don't think realism should stand above gameplay, but that's just a personal opinion. |
I already suggested a battle tactic that was far less realistic.
Why does the commander have to tell the guards to use stronger attacks? Why aren't reinforcements constantly coming without the aid of the commander? My initial thought WAS gameplay over realism. This could at least be used for the forced encounters in the game while guards defending the leader could be used for random battles.
I wanted to suggest keeping the battle tactics thematic as well as fun, as to help mix up the gameplay for different areas and to save any good ideas for enemies that would better utilize it.
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Chenzi
User was banned for this post
Joined: 02 Aug 2003
Posts: 190
Location: Grand Rapids, MI
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| Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 1:23 pm Post subject: My review of Xerion |
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Well, I can't actually submit the review because CP is being retarded, but, once I can I will. Here's what I had:
Graphics
Though I don't believe most of the graphics were simply thrown together in a matter of seconds, a few of them could use some work. Maptiles were blocky (most noticably in the Dungeon) and some of them use the old OHR overlay tiles instead of layers, and it's noticable. NPCs looked fat (though, I know that it's a bitch to get proportions right in the OHR).
On the plus side, the formation of the slime boss was really awesome. Enemy pictures were well done.
Other than that, fix the weapon placement. For some heros they tend to have the 'throw the sword instead of attack with it' thing going on.
Storyline
General sumup, Tyler's a normal kid who hates normal life, some dude uses a warp device of some sort and sucks Tyler into some kind of unoriginal, blocky, mess of a world that is sucking resources from Final Fantasy XII and Final Fantasy Tactics advanced.
Also, Tyler = Vaan, Prisoner = Basch. Yes, I could tell.
Gameplay
I hated FFXII, and I wasn't the biggest fan of FFTA, therefor, I do not like the LP system. For those who are not informed, in order to use a weapon, not only must you actually find an item, but you actually have to buy a license for it in order to use it. This goes for spells, abilities, sometimes even items. I wasn't able to find in the 1 hour that I spent on this game a license that was usable.
A FFTA/FFXII style quest board was available in the Pub that offered quests, that I presume will dominate the entire game, just like in FFTA.
Battle
ARRRGGH!
TAKE THIS!
BIFF!
HAAAAA!
Hillarity aside, you have 3 options during combat: Hold Space, Ctrl, or Enter.
There's a Priest that you can hire in the town pub that has a heal spell, but when I used it it either missed, or instantly killed the ally that I used it on.
Map design
The maps were pretty average as far as design goes. You've got your dungeon, your town, your desert, and your forest.
When I was in town, I thought I saw what looked like a treasure chest in a place that was sort of a long walk around a river. I spent the time to go over there, and there wasn't anything in it.
Balance
Though I never actually got to raise any of my stats, I've heard from other playtesters that the SPD stat can be raised up to 999 without much effort at all. If that's the case, I'd love to see how the rest of the balance game is going to play out.
Music
All ripped from Final Fantasy Tactics, uncompressed, giving me a nice 23MB sized zip file. What's weird is even though the music was supposedly the culprit for the large file size, it still sounded like it was in midi quality. The victory music is from Wandering Hamster, and doesn't really fit in at all.
Enjoyment
I'll admit that I went into this game a bit biased (I _hate_ games that are over hyped), it wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be. I'd imagine if you loved FFTA or FFXII this game would be awesome for you.
Conclusion
This game is heavily inspired from two games that a lot of people probably didn't like. Only play it if you're into FFXII or FFTA.
Graphics notes
Primarily, fix the weapon placement. It's all goofed up.
Storyline notes
If you're going to steal an idea, atleast steal from something that's good to begin with.
Gameplay notes
Nix the license system, it wasn't fun in FFXII and it certainly isn't fun in an OHR game.
Music notes
I guess if you're going to be ripping off of FFT anyways, I guess it's fair to steal music from it. However, dear god, decrease that filesize. Hell, make them midis if you have to.
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