Galve

I think your idea has a lot going for it. Depending on how you want the player to experience the insanity, you can try different approaches. You might want to go slow with the hallucinations at first so that the player gets a sense of confusion. Maybe the player doesn't know the protagonist is crazy at first and discovers it through scenes and gameplay. As a player, I think I'd enjoy the experience of things seeming off for a while before I learn that the protagonist is actually suffering from psychosis because it adds drama and tension, which really hooks me in to the story. I think your approach sounds like a lot of fun and definitely an idea worth pursuing.

The point of bosses, in my mind, is to reward the player. How you reward the players is up to you. Some bosses provide a big story climax and others provide a challenge that is rewarding to overcome. The best bosses are a good mix of both or an extreme to either end. I like to introduce some boss mechanics early; maybe in the dungeon critters they're fighting. When the boss comes around, his mechanics are familiar, but they are introduced in a new way such that they have a little extra depth and take a little extra effort to figure out. Let's say that you have a really good idea for a boss that has an insta-kill mechanic and a poison mechanic. The monsters in the dungeon would then also have a poison mechanic and some kind of avoidable attack that won't necessarily kill the players but can be avoided in the same way as the boss's insta-kill move. When the player walks into this boss fight, they are going to be conditioned to scroll through their menu and use that poison healing spell; they know where it is and they are in the right mindset to use it. What they didn't know was that the boss counters all spells with a silence effect that has been hinted at throughout the dungeon because your players have been receiving recovery items that heal silence. That one extra silence effect is enough of a game changer to provide some tension and some fun, without overwhelming the players. Now they have to make the interesting decision of when to heal their poison so that they aren't silenced when the boss charges up his insta-kill move. In answer to your topic question, my favorite bosses are those that reward the players for making interesting decisions and that reinforce the things they have learned up to that point and doing it in such a way that the mechanics are seen in a different way.

Hello community, Galve here, I was wondering how some of you decide on abilities for classes to make them interesting in combat. Since combat takes almost 1/3 of the time in a typical RPG, I believe it should be rewarding and interesting. In some RPG's, especially the ones with random turn-based encounters, I found that some players want to skip combat entirely. However, the combat system is another forum post. For now, I would like to know how you make interesting abilities in a turn-based or time-based battle system. Here are some questions to consider: What are the thoughts that go into balancing abilities against each other? How do you go about determining resource cost? (mana, MP, whatever) How do you make an ability that won't be replaced by a more powerful ability? How do you decide which abilities a class gets so that it feels like a class. What are the thoughts you have about synergy between abilities? I have an example of a mage-style ability set that I am working on and it looks like this: Starting Spell ==> Follow Up Spell ==> Hard Hitter Spell==> Recovery Spell Starting Spell: Conflagrate This is a cheap spell with modest damage. It gives the enemy a powerful burn-style debuff that burns through their health. It also raises the target's agility. So when you cast this spell on a monster or player, they take damage and recieve a burning debuff and a boost to their agility. The player wants to cast this mostly for the burn debuff. Follow Up Spell: Smolder It grants a strength buff to the target. It does damage and it lowers the target's magic defense (spirit). The player wants to cast this for the spirit debuff. Hard Hitter Spell: Fire Storm This spell does massive damage costs a lot of mana and removes a magic defense (spirit) debuff. The player wants to cast this for the damage. Recovery Spell: Cinderspark This spell recovers the caster's mana, removes a strength buff and an agility buff on a target, and removes a burn debuff on the target. The player wants to cast this to recover mana. Each of these spells can be cast independently, but they are designed in such a way that the player will want to use them all at some point. The idea behind this ability set is that the mage character can do a lot of damage by delaying Cinderspark as the burn debuff is quite powerful, but they will quickly run out of mana using the other spells. Additionally, if they have another method of recovering mana, they can do extreme amounts of damage but the monster's strength and agility will be substantially buffed the entire time. I would like to know what you guys can come up with and any ideas you might have for interesting combat abilities. What do you all think about my example above? Go ahead and share some of your favorite mechanics from other games as well.

My name is Galve. I have been using RM as a hobby ever since RM2K, but this is my first time joining a community like this. I expect to be able to contribute in a meaningful way and to make some new friends. My strength is in storytelling but I would like to improve on system design. I am looking forward to being a part of this community.