How to Make Gameplay Interesting

[devonair320 6]

So I'm making your average JRPG, intensely story-based, but I'm really worried that there's no point in battles & gameplay. Oftentimes, when my friends play through it, they just want to skip the dungeons and battles and get to the next part of the story. I don't want to sacrifice story, but I want gameplay to be fun and interesting and rewarding.

 

I'm a big fan of Final Fantasy, and it has some really great leveling systems and gameplay. Bravely Default brought back the Job System (which, unfortunately, wouldn't work in my game even though it's a tried and true system -- my characters are kind of locked in their classes); FF2 had a cool leveling system which focused more on the weapons & ability to use them, etc. FF7 had materia, FF8 had GFs, FF10 had the Sphere Grid, etc. It all had interesting things that you had to work for. Right now my game is just "level up through exp, learn abilities at certain levels, buy weapons at stores, etc." Nothing new, nothing really exciting, really standard.

 

I've been thinking of doing something a little inspired by Final Fantasy: Record Keeper, the mobile game. It's obviously very addicting, and what makes it addicting is it's system of upgrading weapons & abilities. You get weapons by luck (which kind of sucks -- I'd prefer a store or some sort of synthesis system), but the orbs is what really sells it. You get orbs of different potency and elements, and once you get enough, you can make an ability. It's the whole "find things to fulfill the recipe" system, but it works. Trails in the Sky does something similar, as well.

 

I guess I'm just searching for ideas in general. I like the idea of weapon synthesis, but I'm not sure if I want to go full FF8 where you can only upgrade your original weapon like 4 times in the whole game, or if you can get a ton of different weapons, but you have to synthesize them. OR would that be too difficult? So far my players have gotten enjoyment out of just buying new weapons & equipment and getting stronger that way, but I want to have something to work toward, some amount of customizability. But I also can't have something totally free-for-all like the job system. Then there's also the FF9 system of learning abilities where you have to have a certain weapon equipped until you learn it.

 

Point is: there's a lot I can do, I just have no idea where to start, or what makes the most sense, or what will be the most engaging. I'm sorry if this is confusing, but I really do want to find something that will work and make the game fun to play, rather than just a visual novel with sprites.

 

If it helps, the style of the game is pretty similar to FF8 but a bit less modern. Only some people can use magic, most people are physical fighters, there's an emergence of technology but it's not big yet, etc. So synthesis could make sense, but it would be more like "3 bat wings, 3 beast fangs, 3 bird feathers = sword??" That kind of deal. Basically I'm just not sure where to even go, and just need some ideas. I appreciate any help at all! I just want gameplay to be fun, but not too intense that it takes away from the story, and makes sense within the world.

 

Thank you!!

[lonequeso 1,921]

That's a pretty broad subject. I'm just gonna throw a while bunch of stuff out there.

 

Classes may be set, but you can make a skill tree so the player can pick and choose what skills to unlock or upgrade. There could be passive abilities to give stat boosts or resistances, too.

 

I like the upgrading/synthesizing  weapons idea. I don't think it would be too difficult from a gameplay standpoint. Not sure how easily you'll be able to implement it. I'm fairly sure there's at least one script out there for it.

 

Crafting systems. Making potions or traps. That could add an extra layer of depth both in and out of battles.

 

Using gold to use abilities in battle. Not seen much, but it can provide an interesting twist. 

 

Lots of states and elements. The more of these, the more complex the battle system becomes. Just make sure they're all well-balanced.

 

Make the enemies unique and challenging. Enemies that can be beat by spamming skills are boring. Vary up troop types and enemy abilities and their elemental and state weaknesses and resistances. Make the player actually have to think about their next move.

 

To elaborate further, unique and challenging bosses. There tons and tons of boss types you can look up. Having bosses that require a strategy to defeat are always fun. For me anyway. To make things difficult, the boss should actively try to stop the player from executing that strategy.

 

Side quests and mini-games. If you don't already have some, add some. Side quests will give the player the option to take a break from the main story. They can be simple like "kill x enemies" (I wouldn't add a lot of them) or more complex. Each party member can have their own individual line of side-quests. The player can learn and unlock special abilities. Optional dungeons and/or bosses are fun, too. Mini-games are just fun distractions really. You can always put some rare equipment and items as rewards to spice things up.

 

Skill points. This ties into the skill tree. They can also be used to let the player decide what stats to increase when they level up.

 

Relationship system. Make it so the characters can like or dislike each other with varying consequences. Typically, the better characters the more bonuses the player gets in combat. Feel free to break that mold and provide benefits or rewards for negative interactions. 

 

There. A bunch of stuff to consider. There's really no right or wrong answer. They will all work well if implemented well. It's a matter of what you feel would work best for the story you want to tell and the game you want to create. Personally, I like games that are challenging. Make the enemies formidable opponents, and I'm sure people will react positively as long as it's balanced. There's a big difference between difficult and cheap or frustrating.

 

I hope all that helps.

[Deathcardinal 3]

My personal favorite RPG feature is Etrian Odessey's subclass system, which is more or less exactly as you expect it to be. However your game sounds like a better fit for DQ VIII's system which gives you skills points to assign to various skill. Each character has a unique skill and several weapon skills. For example, several characters have the sword skill, but only the Hero has the courage skill. You could do something similar that gives the player several options for progression without going with a job system.

[Cookie Ninja 374]

I second lonely cheese and Deathcardinal here.

 

Just wanted to add a few suggestions.

 

Give even "trash" mobs some attack patterns with special skills. This allow you to give character to different types of enemys making them memorable.

 

Make your equipment have more than stat boosting properties. Like give them a chance to apply state or elemental type. You could also make them have certain procs upon fulfilling some conditions. Ex. If actor has state poison them boost dmg or add said state to the attack. Putting some thaught into your equipment will allow the player to strategize when choosing the setup for the party.

 

Construct the skills so that the party actually cooperates. Ex. One actor apply state "weak to fire" and your mage can now capitalize on the opportunity, using buffs to add state/elemental proporties to the partys weapons or more in a direct way through "unison" attacks.

[devonair320 6]

Thank you all so much!! These are awesome ideas. I toyed with the Relationship System idea for a bit and I'd really love to implement it. There are some relationships that are a bit set in stone, but others are very much up to the player, so I can definitely tinker around and find a way to make that make sense.

 

I think I might tie it into an idea of Combo attacks? I'm sure there are scripts out there for it -- something like Chrono Trigger's Combo Skills where two party members use their skills in conjuction to perform a more powerful skill. I'd tone it down a bit, though; maybe more toward Steiner's Magic Sword abilities in FF9 and stuff, or they can start small and get more powerful depending on the strength of your relationship with the person using the skill. I'll have to poke around for some scripts for that.

 

As for the bosses and monsters, those are some excellent suggestions. I didn't really think about that -- I just kind of had them using certain movesets and being weak to elements, but I really like the idea of implementing serious strategy to beating them. For instance, I notice in Chrono Trigger that some enemies drop their shield when hit with Fire, or their defense weakens sharply when hit with Lightning, etc. That'd be a really cool boss/monster strategy, I think.

 

I've got a bit of a side quest system, but right now it's just "fetch me a shrubbery" type stuff. I think I can tie in the Relationship System with the quests -- maybe depending on your relationship with a character, you can unlock their quests? And get skills and weapons for them, etc. It's a really pretty character-centric game, based on how the whole team deals with situations and stuff, so this makes a lot of sense, and it's great for backstory, too, without a huge train of unskippable cutscenes.

 

I think I'll definitely go with a skill tree! I really want some system of customizability, so I think this will be great -- set skills they can learn, but you decide which to learn and when. I'll see what kind of points system I can figure out; if it ends up just being EXP, or if it becomes orb-based or something else physical.

 

Thank you all so much!! I really really appreciate your awesome responses and ideas. These are things I think everyone should consider when making a game here. Time to get to work! I know I've got a lot to figure out haha

[lonequeso 1,921]

Glad we could help 

If your game focuses heavily on character relationships, having a relationship system will definitely give it some depth. Same with

making character/relationship specific quests. Dragon Age does a great job with those. If you haven't played them, they'll make good research material. One suggestion from those is gifts. In Dragon Age your main character could find certain items during the game and give them to the other characters as gifts. Sometimes they'd unlock quests Just something to consider.

 

Good luck!

[devonair320 6]

That's a great idea! I'll definitely think about that. It seems like it would be an easy thing to implement. I'll do the Relationships System through variables, and I've found a couple Skill Tree scripts to try.

 

I do have a question, though -- do any of you know any scripts or ways to go about getting more than just EXP after battles? Basically I want to have 3 things -- EXP for leveling up base stats, Skill Points for leveling up skills, and Combo Points for learning combos between party members. How do I make sure the party gets all three of those things after battles? I can't seem to find what I'm looking for, but I'm probably just not searching for the right things. I'd love it if it were not available to "reserve" party members, either, only the people in battle. Thank you so much!

 

EDIT: I suppose I'll ask this here as well -- do you guys have any tips for dungeon building? My beginning ones are really basic, just make your way through caves and fight monsters, but I want it to escalate as the game progresses. I've got an ice mountain dungeon where you have to activate ice crystals to open up the exit and face the final boss, and I've got ideas for element-based dungeons, but I would love to hear some suggestions to consider when making them. What works for you? And what do you like the most when you play a dungeon? What constitutes a "good" dungeon to you? Any help is hugely appreciated!

Edited November 11, 2015 by devonair320

[lonequeso 1,921]

I found a couple scripts for stat distribution. I've never tried any of these scripts, but this one looks very promising:

 

http://rpgmaker.net/scripts/225/

 

The other script I found allows you to create your own custom attributes. It looks a bit more complex. Idk if you it would be ideal for making stat points for the default attributes, but if you want to add some extras, it's something to consider.

 

http://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?/topic/32767-custom-attributes-v131/

 

For the skill tree, I found this: http://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?/topic/13212-lune-skill-tree/ It looks like it allows skill points to be obtained. Idk if you can do award XP for the skill points per battle with it. You should at least be able to do it via level up. Are you looking for something more like AP in Final Fantasy 7? I'm your unfamiliar, skills are obtianed through items called materia. Every battle grants AP. When you reach certain thresholds, the skill will level up i.e. Ice becomes Ice2

 

I found a couple scripts for combo attacks: https://yanflychannel.wordpress.com/rmvxa/gameplay-scripts/input-combo-skills/

                                                                    http://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?/topic/24135-basic-combo-attacks/

 

Idk if they allow for combo points or not. You can set up combo attacks though common events and damage formulas, too. It can get pretty complicated though. One simple one-two combo I like to use is having attacks deal extra damage if a state is inflicted on an enemy.

 

It looks like this in the damage formula:

 

if b.state?(26) ; 150 + a.atk * 3 - b.def * 2 else 100 + a.atk * 3 - b.def * 2 ; end

 

It's a simple conditional branch. If the enemy has, in this case Bleed, the attack deals 150 damage + a.atk * 3 - b.def * 2. If not, the 100 is lowered to 100. There's a tutorial somewhere on here that goes into detail about the various formulas you can use. There's a lot to say the least

 

Now onto dungeons. The dungeons in my game start basic and get harder, too. Personally, I like puzzle dungeons. A lot of my ideas come from Legend of Zelda. A good dungeon to me is one that's challenging, but not to the point of frustration. If you use puzzles or traps, give the player some indication of what they're supposed to do. It's really annoying when you're expected to solve a puzzle, but you;re not given a single clue how to do so. With enemies be sure to vary up the Troops. The longer the dungeon is, the more varied the enemies and troops should be. Otherwise, it can get boring fighting the same battles over and over again. For my larger dungeons I make Troop Encounters happen less often, too. Especially in the more puzzle based ones. The default is 30 steps. My biggest dungeon is set to 60 steps. That felt about right when I played through it. For some area, I also make it so there's no encounters. For example, a couple rooms have rows of spike traps that periodically shoot from the floor. I made it so there were no enemy encounters while in that area. That way a battle can;t start while the player is on a spike tile. It would suck if you won a battle, then got immediately skewered by some spikes.

 

You can also make dungeon crawls where the focus is defeating mobs of enemies. You can play around with respawing them after "x" minutes or if the player leaves the dungeon. If you go that route, make the battles interesting.Make the player actually have to strategize to make their way through. 

 

For ideas about puzzles, enemies, and bosses, here's some helpful threads:

 

Bosses: http://www.rpgmakervxace.net/topic/34096-boss-battle-design/

             http://www.rpgmakervxace.net/topic/34736-unique-bosses/

 

Enemies: http://www.rpgmakervxace.net/topic/35297-creatureenemy-families/

 

Puzzles: http://www.rpgmakervxace.net/topic/34542-puzzles/

Edited November 11, 2015 by lonequeso

[devonair320 6]

Thank you so much! These are wonderful!

[lonequeso 1,921]

I somehow managed to post well before i was finished. There's even more stuff now 

[TheManlyFairy 51]

Unique game mechanics are always troubling, since there are so many ways to make game mechanics fresh and interesting, you just need to find the one that is coherent with the world your created (I'm assuming you've already got a general game design going on). On the matter of item synthesis and upgrading, consider this:

 

1) What are the available resources?

And by resources I don't mean just goblin sticks and harpy feathers. You need to consider anything as a possible resource, like your current weapon and gold investments.

 

2) How are resources obtained?

This could be anything from farming rare monsters drops to buying blueprints/recipes to unlock new weapons. I think an interesting idea is to combine having both a blueprint/recipe and obtaining a certain piece of gear that acts as a sort of template upon which you add the upgrades with the items your acquired. You could make it interesting by making the template item obtainable only once and having multiple upgrade variations with different effects for the players to choose from. Farming monster drops is probably a bad idea for you, since you want your game to be story-intense.

 

3) Who gets the job done?

Would it make sense that your character, without ever so much as holding a hammer in it's lifetime, know how to make weapons and reinforce them? Do they have the knowledge to infuse their gear with new properties using the items your collected? Or maybe the job is done by the local blacksmith for a certain amount of pay? Or maybe you have a sort of magical furnace that automatically assembles materials into something new? Whatever you choose, it should match the theme of your game.

 

On the subject of learning skills, it kinda depends on your opinion. Some people like the idea that characters are able to learn skills automatically, because it is a certain indication of growth and most importantly, it's free. Other players like the idea of having to buy skills because while it may cost them that shiny new blue eyed white dragon scales supernova extreme heavy plate armor, it gives them a unique experience of mixing and matching skills wherein you can learn and create unique combinations. This was something I especially enjoyed in FF 2, where I made Guy an Unarmed Brawler/Healer, Maria an Archer/Black Mage and Firion a Two Handed Warrior/Buffer/Debuffer.

 

How skills are raised is, again, entirely up to you. Since you want your game to be more story than action, I would not recommend FF 2's leveling mechanic, which requires massive grinding to raise at a certain point. Otherwise, you could just buy new skills of a higher tier, if gold is readily available after just a few battles. If not, maybe you could create a skill management NPC in towns that will exchange your gold into upgrading skills. Or maybe you could earn skill points while leveling, which again will be managed by the town NPC or from your UI.

 

I hope this input helped you come to a decision, and good luck with the rest of your game development.

Edited November 11, 2015 by TheManlyFairy

[StripelessTiger 4]

I've always had a beef with games when it comes to battles that were redundant, boring, and served no purpose but to progress the story.

 

For the type of game you have pitched, it would be immensely interesting for each character to have a special stat that factors into combat in a unique way, diversifying the characters and making them more fun to play. In addition, if the stats were manipulated by story elements, by your decision and choices, then the impact on the difficulty to the battles would reflect how you play.

 

Also, for the Fallout gamer in all of us, offer some non-combat alternatives to bypass fights. Still award the player whatever they need to "level up" whether this be EXP or Items, so that they aren't punished for choosing a non-violent way to resolve conflict. This really only works with boss fights, in general, but some games even allow you to avoid encounters with normal mobs by playing sneaky, safe, or by directly influencing the impending fights beforehand with traps and such.

 

To me, if the game is already intensive on story and relationships, then abusing quests as a way to give fighting meaning is droll. Rather than have the player completing objectives on a list by *shudder* collection quests, you could make the events multi-faceted.

 

Perhaps completion impacts future endeavors, like making shop prices rise or fall. If you keep it simple, it can be done well, and doesn't have to be super complex. You could make a quest tree. Each quest chains into another one. They branch, potentially multiple, or locking off other quests. It would give tracking and defeating certain monsters a conscious decision for the player.

 

Just my two cents.

[devonair320 6]

You guys are wonderful! Thank you so much for all your ideas and input!

 

@lonequeso: I'm definitely going to be reading all of those threads. They seem hugely helpful! And the ideas for dungeons are great! I think I'll definitely do some research on Legend of Zelda's dungeons to get some ideas, since they're so widely regarded as awesome. The steps thing is really handy, too -- sometimes I struggle with making my encounters too frequent and vice versa. I'm definitely going to go for a more puzzle aspect as my dungeons go along, so I'll try to figure that out and make it fun and engaging. You've been super helpful! Thanks so much!

 

@TheManlyFairy: Those are some really great suggestions, and they totally make sense! That's probably what I'm most concerned about when it comes to synthesis. I think I'll go with something with both beast parts and elemental things, like beast parts are more for strength stuff but elemental essences come from magical fiends and can be used to infuse weapons/armor with elements. I'm hoping to go for a Synthesis Shop thing, but there are engineers in the party as the game goes on, so I think that could be a cool option to have that unlocked if they're in your party so you can do it whenever you want. And you're definitely right with the FF2 system -- it wouldn't quite work with my game, but I think I'm going to go with a Skill Tree, where you spend Skill Points (that you get along with EXP) and spend them on skills and combo attacks, so you can decide which skills each character learns out of the ones they're able to. It's open enough but still keeps their classes.

 

@StripelessTiger: Yes! That's exactly what I'm trying to avoid. I'd hate for my game to be boring to play -- not even a great story can save that. I really like your idea on being able to avoid fights! I'll have to play around with it to see how I can keep leveling even without defeating certain bosses, etc, but that'd be a really cool dynamic to have, especially when it comes to human enemies -- it could play into the morality of "do I take a human life?"

[Yuugami 252]

Bravely Default's way of avoiding fights is pretty novel. You can just change the encounter rate manually, between 0% when you don't want to grind, and 100% when you need to start grabbing levels. Of course, I'm not sure if it's possible in RPG Maker.

 

On the note of human enemies and choice dynamics, I think a simple way to really set up those dynamics would be to balance EXP around the enemy types, not their difficulty. Like, for example, maybe human type enemies should give more EXP than a monster type enemy. Dangle the rewards in front of your player, and then set up a suitable punishment for that large experience reward - perhaps services run by humans, which could be cheaper than monster-run services, begin to close out because you're now a murderer. But at least you get to grind less.

 

Creative mechanics is what catches my interest, at least.

[devonair320 6]

That's a really awesome idea, honestly. A lot of the characters are really moral and definitely have to deal with what that means, so it'd be really interesting to have the player have to pick their morality in there. I'm a huge fan of Bravely Default and I really did love that mechanic -- it was hugely useful.

 

I do have a question regarding Combo abilities -- I haven't quite found what I'm needing. Really all I'm looking to do is make a skill only useable if another character is in your party. Basically like, Elina is an Archer and Cella is a Mage, and one of their combos is Arcane Fire Arrow. So I want Elina to only be able to use that ability when Cella is in battle, and I'm not sure how to go about that. I have Yanfly's Party System as well, so it would be weird to use switches since you can switch people out at will after a certain point in the game. Any ideas?

[Kayzee 4,033]

It really helps if you can script stuff yourself. I am always coming up with wacky ideas and making widdle scripts, most of them not very important.

 

Here are some ideas I have tried to mess with:

1. I kinda think the whole exp/level system is kinda boring. I like to try alternative leveling systems like stat-grinding systems (warning: TV Tropes link).
2. I like dynamic systems you can experiment with. Like for example, I prefer crafting systems without recipes, like tagging all the possible ingredients with things and having a system to calculate what item you would make, or having a combo system that figures out combinations or you.
3. It's fun to have special NPC or enemy interaction, conversation topics or negotiation skills, that kind of thing.

[devonm0 37]

Whenever someone asks for help designing a game, the first game that always comes to mind is the SNES JRPG Lufia 2: Rise of the SInistrals.  Ever heard of it?  No?  Okay, well the story is actually pretty cliche as a whole, but in this case, the whole is lesser than the sum of its parts.  There are so many localized aspects of the game, from story, to combat, even the fact that this game, in a way, did Pokemon before there was Pokemon.  I'm going to list some of them, but they are merely for potential inspiration.

 

So, first off there was the Ikari system, which actually combined strategic elements that could only be implemented outside of battle with the flow of battle itself.  Most, but not all equipment in the game have special skills tied to them that could only be utilized in exchange for a percentage of a meter that appeared in battle, and filled as a character took damage.  The percentage used varied from skill to skill, but it just added some depth to an otherwise standard battle system.

 

Lufia 2 was also one of the first games to do the hopeless boss trope, and they actually did it differently, because you could beat the boss if you leveled enough and got the right gear (Kinda hard when he's boss #7, huh?)  Beating him didn't do anything like a branched story, but the boss did drop his sword in that case, a powerful weapon with a killer Ikari.

 

I don't know how many games had dungeons like Lufia 2's Ancient Cave, but that was an optional 99 basement behemoth of a randomly generated dungeon where upon entry you revert to level 1 and have to leave everything you own at the door.  You start the ancient cave the way you start the game, except that you have a full party.  Also there are special chests in the cave that contain equipment not found anywhere else.  Said equipment is the strongest in the game by any standard, and the only equipment you can take out of the cave with you.  However, if you die, then it's a drop everything and run scenario.

 

The 'pokemon' system I mentioned were called capsule monsters.  They start off wimpy and grow when you feed them.  What do you feed them?  Anything.  Fruits, vegetables, weapons, armor...I kid you not.  And the more they grow, the more refined their taste buds become.  And the thing is, they have to like the taste of what you feed them for it to help them grow.

 

Lufia 2 also had a spell shop where, instead of buying tomes that would be stored as items until you use them like what happens in Final Fantasy II for example; you buy them, select the character, and they use the tome right there on the shop screen.  Not sure how important that would be to whoever, but I also don't know how to accomplish that one.

 

Then there's also the difficult bosses mod for that game that someone made.  You know, since we're talking about bosses too.  There were a couple of interesting boss strategies in there, like a boss that used an attack that varied in strength depending on whether the boss was attacked while charging the attack, and a boss that increased its moves per turn in response to an increase in pc aggression (you had to attack that boss only once per round to survive), and there was also a boss that, if you dealt too much damage in one round (>666) the boss would wipe the floor with you because that's how it rolls.  If you know what you're doing, there are some really inventive strategies you can make on the RPG Maker too.

Edited November 12, 2015 by devonm0

[devonair320 6]

Wow! I'm really going to have to check out Lufia II then! Those are some really awesome ideas. I do actually use scrolls/tomes to learn spells for the Mage, so that would be really cool if they can learn them in the shop! I'll have to tinker around with the whole system, though, since I implemented the Skill Tree.

 

And learning to script honestly sounds really helpful right about now. I've toyed around with the idea but I think it's about time I really buckle down and learn it. Especially when it comes to the Damage Formula in skills -- I'm running into stuff that I know can be done but I don't know how to do it, and I think a lot of that can be fixed just by learning how to finagle the damage formula. I'll see what I can find in terms of learning scripts -- RMVXA uses something called ruby, right?

[Cookie Ninja 374]

We actually have a pretty substantial tutorial avaliable in this forum. I suggest checking it out if you want to learn Ruby, it helped me out alot when i got started. Although I never really got really good at it, a little knowledge can get you far.  Just hope there will be something like this for JS soon!

Edited November 13, 2015 by Cookie Ninja