RogueHeart

What about a page out of Final Fantasy Tactics' book? No defense stat, armor adds HP. Most characters start with 4-6 in atk stat, and most attack formulae goes something like attack * weapon dmg. Single digit growth HP, less MP, and about 6-10 points of atk growth by LV99. Taking out defense makes formula less complicated and gives you naturally lower numbers. Armor catagories can be differentiated by making them specialse in certain things. Eg, in FFT robes and such give less HP but have major MP boosts. Heavy armor generally gave very good HP but little anything else, while light armor gave decent HP but many have boost to stats (atk, spd etc), or permanent positive status.

I think you've hit the nail on the head. I think this is what I will do, thank you. I find it hard to picture the characters in my head without some concrete character art as my muse. It's like I can "feel" the characters, but can't "see" them in my head. So once I have the event flow story board I'm going to try to create some character art. I feel like not being able to see them is really putting a damper on my creativity. I've browsed through some portrait art in this forum and none of them seem to capture the characters, so I'll try to see what I can come up with. I've been able to work out a motivation for the main character now, I think I've seen the light. I am getting really excited about my story. I love it!!

Wow everyone's got a different process. I think what I'll do is first develop the storyboard and the major characters, and then how the story and events flow. I think above all else, it's the story that I want to tell and I would rather have that completed. So I may be able to release an alpha with the story and dialogue all completed, using stock character art, music and battle system (or even no battle at the start). It just seem so overwhelming to be thinking about everything else. Thank you. I would like to think I've got an interesting tale to tell, and many plot twists. However I am a little stuck on how to conclude the storyline. I don't really want the end villain that wants to destroy or rule the world, and don't want the end quest to be saving the world either, yet I don't want a fizzer ending especially considering my start and the middle of the story are quite strong. I've got 2 main antagonists in mind, but they're not traditional villains and their ambitions don't directly impact the heroes, and the main hero doesn't really care, so it seems like I've sorta dug myself into a hole lol!! I'm going to write down the story board, and really look at the perspectives of the main characters on what Im stuck on and see if I can create any catalysts to a somewhat satisfying ending. I have checked out your game and must say, your screenshots look really good!! It really does seem that our skill systems seem similar, but it's good to know there's already a script out there that handles this type of skills, so it's one less thing i need to worry about. However I might put the combat on the back burner for the time being and just concentrate on the story, since I think that's my main selling point. Interesting combat just give more incentive to move to the next scene. I think I'll shorten the prologue bit, because it seems currently I could make a whole game just for the prologue, and the cliche-ness might make people turn off before the good part starts and I definitely don't want to sell myself short. So I might start the prologue at the final dungeon (volcano), and have the prologue story told through some dialogue, and some flashback scenes later on.

Thank you for reading and the feedback. I think I would like to try to make an interesting combat system. Dragon Quest-clones make me fall sleep, probably why I've never finished any of them, so the default system goes right out the window. Reason why Breath of Fire 4 is a big influence is because whenever I close my eyes and imagine the combat in this game, I see BoF4's fighting engine. Turn based, but able to pick 3 out of 6 characters on the fly. I would imagine this would involve some heavy scripting to implement. I would also like to include a combo system, that's more similar to Wild Arms 4 and Wizardry: Tales of the Forsaken Land. As in, 2 characters will form a combo to do something unique (like Wizardry). I think combos where you combine 2 characters 250 damage attacks to make a 600 attack is a bit lame. I want my combos to have unique effect that can't be substituted by other skills, e.g., like Wizardry, where it stops all enemy spell casting with a counter. Cuz the trade off would be, do you sacrifice 2 characters turns in hope the enemies will use magic? If they don't, you've wasted those turns. Another ideal is to add a 4th character slot, with some Ar Tonelico flavour, where only 3 characters can actively participate, with a 4th "enchanter" character that cannot act. Each character have a unique enchant skill, but will only work if placed in the enchanter slot, where they can't take any other action, and all character's positions can be shuffled between rounds. And the enchant powers are very powerful because I am a little sick of useless abilities or stuff that goes like "increase atk by 10%". So the enchants would be more like make all team attacks double hits, reflect all damage of a single element, etc. As for skills I am thinking of a gem system that's somewhat materia like, but has more in common with the crests in Shadow Hearts: Covenant. Each gem is unique and offers a single skill, or passive boost, and ranks up. I don't really like multiple ranks of same spell (e.g., Fire 1, 2 and 3, because the lower ranks would be useless later in the game. Like I said, my game has no useless skills) so the idea is a fire spell would get stronger as the gem ranks up, without any negatives. Them being unique is the balance, unlike FF7 you can't give everyone Fire to get through a fire weak boss. The you can only give it to one character. Everyone would have say, 2-6 slots (unlocks more slots later on) and some slots are for different purposes, e.g., everyone has an enchant slot and by placing gems in this slot varies their enchant effect, e.g., place a fire gem in there to reflect all ice spells. So here's the dilemma. You're up against an ice boss that uses ice attacks and weak to fire. Do you use your fire gem on the enchanter to reflect all of his ice spells? Or do you give it to one of your active characters to abuse his weakness, but suffer the full wrath of his ice attacks? I think I would make battles fewer, but challenging and strategic, with few but unique and non-useless skills to encourage strategy, as opposed to 100 varying damage attacks that cause different elemental damage, status effect, or both. (I am looking at you FFX-2), and the general strategy is "wear it down and heal". As a matter of fact, I am looking at ways where healing is not always needed, cuz I think being reliant on healing is a coward's way out. I love games like Valkyrie Profile and Shadow Hearts: From the New World where most bosses can be taken out in a single turn, or the SaGa games where healing is hard to come by and ineffective. I don't mind if certain bosses are made a breeze by using certain skill combos, but tough if you fight it via conventional means. Also thinking of doing away with equipment. Thought about an alternative to EXP and levels, but I think I might leave it. No need to overcomplicate everything, and would let be showcase the gem/battle system better without the additional distractions. Anyway, originally I was thinking about 6 playable characters. But the 2 other (female) characters that I envisioned before were a bit stereotypical and I don't want no Weeping Wandas or Nagging Nancys in my story. Might just stop it at 4.

Hi there. I have just recently purchased RPG Maker VX Ace and there's a rough story that I created in my head a few years ago that I want to try to make a game. First of all, I'm not sure where to start, because there are so many things to sort out. Where should I begin? A rough sketch of the storyline from beginning to end? Characters? Battle/skill system? Artwork or music? Maps? Scripts? Does anyone have any tips on the order these things should worked on? Anyway, I want to make an RPG that is a bit of a send up, a light parody, or a figurative "middle finger" to the stereotypical RPG cliches, but of course, it will be mostly tasteful, and (hopefully) not vulgar nor crass about it. I've been playing RPGs since I was in the womb and I'm sick to death of the cliches, so I wanna do something a little different. It deals with slightly mature themes. So the first part, or "prologue" of the game will be deceptively cliche. I'm going to include as many RPG cliches as possible. The main character (I'll call him "Adam" for now, have not settled on a name yet) is just an average unassuming young man (about 16. I normally hate teenager heroes but there's a point to this). Has a childhood best friend Chester (purposely cliche name). There is a prophecy says the end of the world is coming and during troubled times the "fated chosen one" will come forth and bring salvation to the world. The end of the world is imminent and natural disasters and other weird things are happening. The world is Earth-esque, with a mixed setting of modern technology (TV, computers, video games) with some fantasy stuff. Think Breath of Fire 3, or somewhat FF7ish. One day a meteor strikes town, Adam is in its direct impact zone and the meteor smashes a crater in the town. Everyone else in the hit zone dies, except for Adam. He develops magic powers (magic doesn't exist in the world) and is heralded as the "chosen one". Anyway, as the chosen one he is told to go to so and so as per the prophecy to save the world. During his travels he meets (read: rescues) an amnesiac girl named Sarah (deliberate cliche name) whom is a priest/healing ho, whom shortly recovers her memory and (among being a runaway princess) is a priest of the local church sent to escort you to your mission blah blah. Anyway, the ritual is to take place on Mt so-and-so and is an extinct volcano. Upon reaching the mountain top and defeating the demon king or whatever (like a supposed final boss) he will get to save the world. This is where he learns to save the world he will need to sacrifice himself, conveniently by tossing himself into the volcano crater. At this point Adam refuses, saying the world is not worth saving (before this point he sees various scenes about the selfish, corrupt and evil act by humans during his travels). At this point, the end of the world has started, the volcano starts erupting, sky turns red, etc etc. Chester and Sarah tries to give him encouragement and he still refuses. Chester and Sarah now both turn on him, saying the mission must succeed at all costs and the end of the world must be stopped, if Adam doesn't jump they're going to make him. They both rush at Adam, and all 3 tumble into the volcano. The world then gets destroyed. The next scene is inside a harem/tent. An Arabian sultan-esque merchant is drinking his wine sitting down, talking to someone off screen, whom is responding back seductively. After a little innuendo filled banter, with suggestion that the unseen person has removed items of clothing, a girl bursts through the tent door with a pair of guns, demanding the merchant hand over the gems. The camera then pans outwards and you see the person the merchant was talking to was Adam, stark naked (but standing with his back to the camera, we're being tasteful here, people!) and unfazed by what's happening. After the girl grabs the gems she yells out to Adam to grab his gear and get out. Turns out they're working together. Next scene they're riding on camels through desert-esque landscape.The girl's name is Lilith and she's Adam's partners in crime and they're not above stooping low as per the merchant incident. Through their banter we learn its been 2 years since "end of the world" (no fancy name for it yet) and they make a living through robbing/stealing. 95% of the population have been wiped out, and weird things have been happening with the terrains. They walk past some walls have that a wanted poster of Adam. He goes and rips it off. They get ambushed by bandits, wanting to collect the bounty on Adam's head. This would be a tutorial fight I guess. Turns out he has made many enemies since his refusal to save the world and everyone wants him dead, hoping it would restore the world. After they rescue a farmer (or something) that was getting robbed before the bandits spotted Adam. He mistakes Adam for someone else. And when he realises he's not whom he thought he was, says there's a millionaire (or whatever the post-apocalyptic equivalent) in the next town trying to find his long lost son and Adam apparently looks just like him. Lilith gets an idea for Adam to pretend to be his son so they can get inside his mansion and rob him blind. So that's basically the intro, captured in cinematic detail lol. As for the characters: Main character "Adam" (name not set): About 18. It's not so much he's shy or introverted or antisocial, he's just very internalised and keeps most things in his head. He doesn't usually talk much, not that he don't have the social skills, he just doesn't like socialising with strangers, unless a mission requires him to (e.g., spy work) where he'll just turn on the charm, and then afterwards say "glad that's over". You'll also get to see his internal voice (think Squall but less broody and less of a loser), where he is very intelligent and very witty. His internal voice often breaks the 4th wall, yet does it subtly, as it won't directly communicate with the player but you've got to read between the lines. For example, in one event somebody will say he's broody, angst and antisocial, and his internal voice will say something like "Where did you get that idea from? Do I go around saying '...' or '...whatever' every 5 minutes? Oh, wait..." His internal voice will be used to voice something that everyone's thinking yet no one says anything, and he will take the piss out of cliche situations. Eg, in games/TV/films/everything when a bad guy got you cornered with a gun (for example), instead of killing you they always take their time and prattle on about something, most often divulging their plans. Adam will take advantage of cliches like these. He's not much of a hero, but not broody like Cloud or Squall. He comes off as selfish to others, but he believes in survival of the fittest and always looking out for number 1. Possibly bi, but not interested in romance. He's not fighting for anything in particular, as he's indifferent to most things. He is public enemy number 1, but his survival skills are second to none (being the "chosen one" makes you a cut above everyone else) and his favourite saying is something like "I just want to live a little longer". He never makes the mistake of misplanning, e.g., talking with someone about sensitive information while someone eavesdrop at the door (like many game/TV/movies) and call anyone that fail to be discrete or try to spy/eavesdrop on him "amateurs". His angle changes little later in the game, his motivation not so much, he just wants to be free, "true neutral" if you will, and don't go out of his way to stop villains unless he's personally adversely affected by their plans. Lilith (goes by Lil): Adam's side kick and about the same age. Most people will think she is loud and annoying. She is the opposite of Adam, she has no filter from her brain and verbalises everything she thinks. Her mouth gets her in trouble sometimes like accidentally giving away their plans (so Adam sometimes keep the mission intel with her on a "need to know" basis). It's not that she is ditzy, she's actually really smart and sometimes will just blab out a solution to the problem on a whim and realises it a few seconds later. She gets on well with Adam cuz he just switches off and sorta hears a muffled "mwwoooo mwwoooo mwwoooo". They have colourful banter, think Rose, Dorothy and Sophia (with Sophia being Adam's inner voice of course) from the Golden Girls. She loves jewels and is her motivation for everything. (And I'm thinking of using a gem-esque magic/skill system in game so that works out). There's no sexual tension with Adam cuz he's not interested, but she prefers jewels to men anyway. "Dad" (no name yet): The millionaire old man is the third party member. "Old" is relative, but he's about 45 and really good looking with a good bod, a DILF if you will. (This is the reason Adam had to be young else the "dad" storyline wouldn't be convincing). He's calm and collected. Adam and Lil manages to pull off the bluff (after much hilarity of course) and he accepts Adam as his long lost son. And after saying goodnight on the first night, he retires to his quarters and speaks to a mystery someone on the phone saying "target acquired". Ooooooooooh. The plot thickens. His mansion (rebuilt after the end of the world) is located on a plateau of sort, and the only entrance is through a monster infested underground channel, which serves as a natural deterrent for thieves. How is he able to live a luxury lifestyle after the end of the world? Think the great depression. While 99% of people suffered, those with extraordinary influence and wealth were still able to live an affluent lifestyle, and he's one of them. Is he really Adam's dad? Is he up to no good? Is he the end boss? All will be revealed hehe. Genesis: He looks just like Adam except blonde instead of orange hair (yes, Im making Adam a ranga!) Who is he? Is he the real son of "dad"? Anyway, influences for this game includes, Breath of Fire 3 and 4, and Xenogears, particularly the scene where *SPOILERS for Xenogears* Fei and Citan travels through a factory in Solaris where they produce canned meat. Fei was hungry so ate some, and Citan declined the offer. And afterwards Fei discover the factory used human flesh as the ingredient, and Citan knew it all along! I love how on the surface it looks seemingly normal and uneventful, yet hides a macabre secret. This is the feeling I want to capture in some of the events.