Temporary Death

[Perang Cemen 188]

Deer! I mean Hi there! still remember me? that's right, It's me Perang Cemen.

I was change some system in my game called Temporary Death, it was death but death state will be removed after battle.

what? no! I haven't done! there still lot thing I want to add, so read til the end.

 

Temporary Death

When your actor die they will not only get Death state but also Weak state, that Weak State will remain until you rest at INN but Death state will be removed right after battle which mean you might can let your ally die and let them revived after battle but the Weak state will remain and make them weaker, Weak state will cut all stats from maxHp to Luk by half.

I just want to hear your opinion about my system is it bad, good, boring, challenging, difficult, easy, nothing special, or whatever.

I heard there a Rpg game use this system too but I forget what was that game. (RAM in my head is limited! I'll upgrade it later)

 

<In other forum they keep asking question and not giving their opinion>

( ") = Random people (" ) = Me/Perang Cemen

( ")Aren't in RM Ace when actor die, all state will be removed and changed with state Id 1?

(" )Yes, so what?

( ")Does it possible to make two state when actor die?

(" )Many Scripter around here just ask them, even tough I have super simple script I made myself for it.

( ")Then what about Item that used to revive actor? If actor can be revived after battle aren't they totally useless?

(" )Not totally useless, you can use it to avoid Weak status when they die, If you revived before battle over you won't get Weak status.

( ")Those who death in battle can gain Exp?

(" )Yes they will gain, they have fight so hard It's too cruel to not give them exp just because they beaten.

( ")Blablabla?

(" )Warawabawarawaba.

and so on...

 

be sure to leave best comment (^_^)

[Shiggy 630]

You asked for opinion but a mechanic is just a tool . A mechanic is good or bad only in the context of the goals you have for your game. If you want to make a narrative-driven game with minimal challenge, this is a terrible mechanic. Because I lack the context, I talked about the situations that I think, make this mechanic interesting.

I didn't really understand the point of the mechanic at first, it took me some thought to realise how it could be interesting

 

if a character dies in battle, it is a soft defeat. You can't continue the dungeon but you keep the rewards you get already  ( xp, gold, loot)

whereas if all characters die , you also lose the rewards.

 

Just a few notes:

I would call the state Crippled instead of Weak

I would add the state at the end of battle to any character that died during battle (I understand you don't want characters to get half-stats mid_battle but the point is to punish character death, not to punish character not revived at the end of battle. )

At the end of battle, I would put a message box warning the player that one of their character is crippled/weak and give the option to warp to town immediately so they understand better it is in fact a soft defeat.

 

 

Edited September 24, 2017 by Shiggy

[Tarq 746]

Those questions look pretty valid to me. Like Shiggy said, the others just want understand the system better before making a judgement.

The games you're thinking of could be the Souls series which 'transforms' (just easier to phrase it this way, sorry Souls fans) your character into a 'hollow' on death with reduced HP stat, disables online interactions and a couple of other quirks.It basically forces the player to choose between which state they prefer (maybe its preferable to sacrifice HP not to be interrupted by other players, for example), what items/equipment they're willing to sacrifice for that state, and provides equipment and mechanics that are lore-appropriate to each state.

So far your version lacks that depth. If you think of it logically, the player lost at max stats so keeping them alive with half stats so they just keep losing is kind of pointless as they drag themselves home (or even attempt to continue); its likely going to be a meandering timedump and no-one likes backtracking after all. Shiggy's suggestions somewhat resolve these issues but they make a system that makes a game easier even more easy. I wouldn't advocate that you imitate the Souls series (heck, even FromSoftware can't get it right anymore :3) but again I just want to reiterate how both of the 'hollow' and 'human' states are viable in their own way and add how the games are designed around the probability of players dying (whereas yours is designed around the keeping them alive as long as possible). 

[Perang Cemen 188]

I guess I'll do something about, anyway thanks.

[PhoenixSoul 1,404]

Hmmm...

 

I don't see this working too well as is, though the idea in general isn't a bad one.

 

As has been said, Death state must be the definitive loss state, and if that isn't so, then there must be a replacement. That is, of course, unless you intend to not have a definitive loss at all, which to me, this sounds like precisely.

[Kayzee 4,033]

@PhoenixSoul I think the intention is to have a death state for battle that goes away after the battle is over. I have seen plenty of RPGs that do that. Basically it means to have a game over all the party members need to be defeated in the same battle. After a battle usually any defeated party members are alive with 1 hp or something. There are also several RPGs where losing a battle doesn't result in a game over but just kicks you out of the dungeon or something. It's not an unusual thing to do. The 'weak' status is an idea I haven't seen much of, but isn't really all that unprecedented.

 

As to if it's a good idea? It really depends on how the game is balanced and the focus of the gameplay. It's a reasonable enough idea if done right.

Edited October 2, 2017 by Kayzee

[Rezanta 373]

Perma-death versus semi(?)-death, eh? Well, before I get into the mechanics, let me ask, is the weak state needed? Are there other ways you could implore on revival after battles, or have them weaker, etc?

 

The mechanism of being "weak" after a battle is already apparent with only having 1-3% of your HP given back after battles, in addition to 0% experience gain in most regards. While there are some games that do weaken/revive in the same instance, namely Monster Hunter Stories, that do this flawlessly. I'll explain the game's style in a bit.

Something else I should add, however, is you'll need to keep a difficulty curve in mind. While you're weakened, you don't need the player basically stuck in a loop of dying due to not being able to escape or flee battles. The other thing you need to keep into consideration, is how long of a distance is it to get from town to town? Coming back with 1HP is already difficult if low on resources, but adding a weaken state just smacks the player for making a bad decision if the hour long trek to the town gets somebody three party members downed in one fight.

 

Now, the example: In Monster Hunter Stories, instead of a "Three Cart" method like the usual MH style, each battle starts you off against a monster, you and your monstie (basically a child you steal from a nest) in a Pokémon esk approach, and whatever equipment you have on you. (It's a mix of styles that is done well, I must say.) You need to defeat the opposing enemies before they can drop you or your ally to 0 HP three* times, all the while always having more HP than you and being able to out damage you. If that's not difficult enough, late game throws attacks that can deal almost all of your HP if you don't follow the golden rpg rule of always upgrading your armor and weapons. Sleeping while restore your hearts* and all of your teams HP, and while you're on your monstie for special attacks and trying to level it up for massive damage, your ally's HP can't be reduced past 1. Good? Not really. Almost every enemy you fight after mid game hits both party members and/or attacks at least 2 times. It gets worse against the Kirin boss fight, but I won't mention specifics other than a rate of getting hit by 4 different attacks.

 

*You can restore your chances, resembled by hearts, by using certain items in the game, and also can gain a "fourth" heart by using a Moxie Gem. While restoring hearts is not a buff, the Moxie Gem can be canceled when buffs are removed.

*Hearts will fully recover you if you fall, but three deaths result in a loss and you're kicked back to the entrance of the boss fight or den. The final boss, however, while not too difficult as long as you keep yourself prepared and your 10 allowed items prepped, can kill your team every three turns on low health, and while having it's tail and head active, you can't stop 999 damage from taking one-two hearts every two-three turns, and if Capcom wasn't cruel enough to blind players, they give it the possibility of triple attacks, which means instant death for you and your ally. (This excludes Ride On.)

 

 

So basically, to wrap my long list up, all I'm saying is there's a lot to take into consideration when the game has that mechanic, and if your game is fully balanced where death is almost always certain, then I wouldn't do weakening. Vice Versa if the game isn't too brutal. Otherwise, Tarq and Shiggy both stated valid points, so I won't double up on what they mentioned.

[lonequeso 1,921]

Hmm... temporary death could work but it sounds tricky. I've played a few games that have temporary deaths. The most relevant would be the Dragon Age series. The first installment had something like what you're going for. It is an action RPG w/ on-screen enemies so the concept may not transfer over smoothly. If you're fighting a losing battle (excluding bosses) you can always run like hell and hope someone survives. Turn based you have to rely on the "Run" option and hope you get lucky which personally I find annoying. 

 

Allies would revive automatically after a successful battle, but with injuries. These were random and I believe also effected by difficulty level. Things like a concussion that would lower MAT or a broken leg that would lower AGL. There were healing items to alleviate these. A debuff here and there is much less severe than halving all stats. They can still pile up especially if you don't properly stock your items. Both are things to consider. Specific debuffs or making your penalty less severe. Enemies also didn't respawn so unlike random encounters you could retreat to a town without worrying about getting caught in an unwinnable battle. That could be a huge problem in your system. You may want to go with on-screen enemies the player has a chance to avoid. There's lots of ways temporary death can make the game far too difficult. 

 

The opposite is true, too. You can make it far too easy and defeat the purpose of the mechanic. In Dragon Age, there was limited healing. There was a cap on potions and healing/revive skills had cool downs. The third installment did away with healing skill all together so you only had potions. (Both sequels did away with the revive penalties, too.)

To make temporary deaths worthwhile, there has to be a real chance of having to deal with it. If a casual gamer and stroll through the game and rarely if ever lose a party member, there's not much point in temporary deaths. Limit healing items and skills. Make the player carefully consider when and where to heal. Make the enemies challenging enough that the player has to plan wisely or dealing with temporary deaths is a very likely punishment.

 

So for this system to work well, you need to have to make losing party members in battle a more present danger than in most RPG's. The vast majority I've played have had pretty easy battles even on hard mode. You also have to make it easy for the player to retreat back to town (or a safe location) if they find themselves in over their heads. Avoidable battles is one way. A teleport spell or item would be another. It will be a fine balance of making the battles challenging while minimizing the risk of putting the player in an survivable (or frustratingly close to) situation.