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Thoughts on Tactics Games Design Elements.
a month ago
Clearly, there's been a mistake here:
I want to talk Game Design for a moment. I’ve got a lot of thoughts in my head, and my personal mental journal isn’t really for this. I thought I’d post this here, using another feature of FA, and maybe, hear some secondary, or tertiary thoughts.
I’ve been running a few people through 1-on-1 roleplay sessions, a scenario for a game idea I have. Traditionally, most people approach game design with “lets make a game” and then “lets make a story.” I’m kind of going backwards. I have a few stories I want to tell, and I believe that video games is a great medium for it. I guess I’m inspired by VALVe’s Half-Life, and how you felt as a player when you pushed the cart in the weird science doohickey, only to have it all break down in front of you. Or Signalis with a confusing descent in what could be considered a form of reality to fulfill a promise you’ve yet to understand. You can’t capture that same feeling with a book or a movie.
That brings me to Wren. Phantasy Star 4 is a pretty big inspiration for me, along with Mass Effect and XCOM: Enemy Within. Although I’ve never actually played Mass Effect 2, 3 or any of the off-shoots. I really liked the idea that they were pushing for. Especially with the “Suicide mission” section of Mass Effect 2. This is similar to the story I want to tell, five beyond emotionally broken characters regaining their strength to work together for a mission they might not come back from to save the known ‘verse.
Wren is a character in Phantasy Star 4. (Although there’s a Wren unit in Phantasy Star 3, it is not the same character. Also, we don’t talk about Generations of Doom.) He is an android who has a bit of a sense of humor, while maintaining a strong “can do” attitude. He believes it’s time to take responsibility because he was unable to take action as the solar system began to fall apart for reasons he doesn't fully understand. He’s overall a well written AI character, quickly dismissing the magical elements of the setting, while quickly able to explain the scientific elements, but what I found really interesting about him (And Demi, who is also an android.) was that the technique “Res” did not work on him.
Res, Gires, and Nares, along with Sar, Nasar, and Gisar are healing techniques. If you’re hurt, this is what you need to use. Conversely, techniques are the kind of “Magic” that characters have. Foi is your fireball spell. Wat is your water or ice attack spell. Characters in PS4 also have Battle Skills, which you can only use so many times before you need to rest at an inn. Cross Cut, being a perfect example, where one of the characters, Chaz, attacks twice in a cross pattern. But you can only use it so many times based on your level.
Again, Wren was unique. Because he’s an android, his strength stat is very high. He uses guns, instead of magic techniques, swords, quarterstaff’s, and claws, and he cannot be healed normally. Instead, he has to recover himself, or have another character use a repair kit on him. The Technique “Rever” which can bring characters back from the brink of death also cannot be used on him, and over time, Wren just heals himself outside of combat.
Wren is an absolute anomaly. Something the player has to work around, while utilizing his strengths. (So many boss battles have ended where three of the other party members are dead, and Wren is still standing.) Which is why I wanted to include a tribute to him in my own story. But... If I want to build a Tactical RPG, where there’s next to no “magic.” How do I achieve this?
In XCOM: Enemy Within, the aliens will typically target soldiers with reduced defence stats. If a soldier is in low cover, their defence stat is increased by 20, and in high cover, it’s up by 40. Flanked Soldiers are also easier to critically hit, and don’t have any cover bonuses, so aliens want that flank too. What would make an enemy target someone with a high defence, when an easier target is presented? Do we borrow from MEC Troopers, which have a high innate defence, but cannot take cover? They’re just as fragile as anyone else. What about other characters, such as one inspired by Dall from Tactical Breach Wizards? His shield is meant to be such a stand-in for enemies to attack, should the player choose to go down that road.
Should my Metaphorical Wren exist, much like the one from Phantasy Star... Players can’t use Slap-patches and Trauma kits to heal him. Would he become a hindrance? An annoyance the players are tired of dealing with? Can we achieve that unique tank what adds parts to himself with items found in the world? How would the BattleSkill “Burst Rockets” be interesting and uniquely exist in a world where anyone can get the cybernetic implant “Micro Missiles,” which allows them to launch rockets at up to four enemies at once with a high damage output?
Furthermore, the story calls for a character that is strangely calculating, and beyond knowledgeable. Wren, is also broken in his own way, holding memories of the personality that was used to create him. Wren is confused, reacting to stimuli he was never programmed to, longing for a wife he’s was never programmed to remember. That, all while coldly understanding the crisis the other player characters must face. The story is here, I believe it to be interesting... but what about the Gameplay? In Tactical RPG’s with guns, cover is generally the big be-all-end-all. More often than not, my characters in Tactical Breach Wizards are ducking down behind something, preventing enemies from causing them undue harm. Then again, does Tactical Breach Wizards’ elements really apply here if the game is based on the TTRPG book I’m building?
What about Final Fantasy Tactics? There’s guns, bows, swords too. But how much of Final Fantasy Tactics can we use here? Especially when the game relies more on positioning. Cover technically exists. It’s hard to shoot an arrow through a stone wall, but should my RPG resort so much on timings and positioning? Casting Magic, or using abilities in Final Fantasy Tactics relies so heavily on an entirely different system called “Recovery.” Under Recovery System, all characters have a time stat that increases until full. Once it’s full, it’s either their turn, or they perform the action they’re charging for. (Casting Fireball, or summoning Ifrit.) Tactical Breach Wizards, XCOM, and my future game should use the “Phase System.” Players move all of their characters on their turn, performing all of the necessary actions to achieve the player’s goals. Then, it becomes the enemies turn, who then punish the player for sub-optimal plays and presents a new challenge for the player to overcome on their next turn.
I’ve been wanting to go back to Godot, but I’m not feeling the next game I want to build as a method to learn. (Chinese Checkers) I can’t share it here, on Fur Affinity, due to the obvious fact that executables are not permitted for an upload. Furthermore, the heavy use of AI generated art (Say what you want about the evils of AI Art, but it makes for great concept. If artists prefer refsheets instead of writeups, then they shouldn’t have a problem with an AI generated picture and a short paragraph. AI will never replace the ingenuity of human artists, songwriters and programmers, though.) puts my programming projects squarely in the “learning” and “concept” stages. While I’m happy to show what I’ve done thus far, I wouldn’t be okay with putting my learning concepts somewhere so massively public.
If you’re a fan of XCOM: Enemy Within, or XCOM2: War of the Chosen... Why not ask yourself... How can characters like Wren from Phantasy Star 4, Dall from Tactical Breach Wizards, Harding from I Am Your Beast, and Admiral Idaho from Crying Suns act and function under that ruleset? Each of your four companion characters have a second discipline, new abilities and weapon preferences. Perhaps our Dall stand-in could drop the melee weapon in favour for a light machine gun? Our Admiral Idaho stand-in could be given a shotgun instead of battlefield controller abilities. What would you choose and prefer?
I’ve been running a few people through 1-on-1 roleplay sessions, a scenario for a game idea I have. Traditionally, most people approach game design with “lets make a game” and then “lets make a story.” I’m kind of going backwards. I have a few stories I want to tell, and I believe that video games is a great medium for it. I guess I’m inspired by VALVe’s Half-Life, and how you felt as a player when you pushed the cart in the weird science doohickey, only to have it all break down in front of you. Or Signalis with a confusing descent in what could be considered a form of reality to fulfill a promise you’ve yet to understand. You can’t capture that same feeling with a book or a movie.
That brings me to Wren. Phantasy Star 4 is a pretty big inspiration for me, along with Mass Effect and XCOM: Enemy Within. Although I’ve never actually played Mass Effect 2, 3 or any of the off-shoots. I really liked the idea that they were pushing for. Especially with the “Suicide mission” section of Mass Effect 2. This is similar to the story I want to tell, five beyond emotionally broken characters regaining their strength to work together for a mission they might not come back from to save the known ‘verse.
Wren is a character in Phantasy Star 4. (Although there’s a Wren unit in Phantasy Star 3, it is not the same character. Also, we don’t talk about Generations of Doom.) He is an android who has a bit of a sense of humor, while maintaining a strong “can do” attitude. He believes it’s time to take responsibility because he was unable to take action as the solar system began to fall apart for reasons he doesn't fully understand. He’s overall a well written AI character, quickly dismissing the magical elements of the setting, while quickly able to explain the scientific elements, but what I found really interesting about him (And Demi, who is also an android.) was that the technique “Res” did not work on him.
Res, Gires, and Nares, along with Sar, Nasar, and Gisar are healing techniques. If you’re hurt, this is what you need to use. Conversely, techniques are the kind of “Magic” that characters have. Foi is your fireball spell. Wat is your water or ice attack spell. Characters in PS4 also have Battle Skills, which you can only use so many times before you need to rest at an inn. Cross Cut, being a perfect example, where one of the characters, Chaz, attacks twice in a cross pattern. But you can only use it so many times based on your level.
Again, Wren was unique. Because he’s an android, his strength stat is very high. He uses guns, instead of magic techniques, swords, quarterstaff’s, and claws, and he cannot be healed normally. Instead, he has to recover himself, or have another character use a repair kit on him. The Technique “Rever” which can bring characters back from the brink of death also cannot be used on him, and over time, Wren just heals himself outside of combat.
Wren is an absolute anomaly. Something the player has to work around, while utilizing his strengths. (So many boss battles have ended where three of the other party members are dead, and Wren is still standing.) Which is why I wanted to include a tribute to him in my own story. But... If I want to build a Tactical RPG, where there’s next to no “magic.” How do I achieve this?
In XCOM: Enemy Within, the aliens will typically target soldiers with reduced defence stats. If a soldier is in low cover, their defence stat is increased by 20, and in high cover, it’s up by 40. Flanked Soldiers are also easier to critically hit, and don’t have any cover bonuses, so aliens want that flank too. What would make an enemy target someone with a high defence, when an easier target is presented? Do we borrow from MEC Troopers, which have a high innate defence, but cannot take cover? They’re just as fragile as anyone else. What about other characters, such as one inspired by Dall from Tactical Breach Wizards? His shield is meant to be such a stand-in for enemies to attack, should the player choose to go down that road.
Should my Metaphorical Wren exist, much like the one from Phantasy Star... Players can’t use Slap-patches and Trauma kits to heal him. Would he become a hindrance? An annoyance the players are tired of dealing with? Can we achieve that unique tank what adds parts to himself with items found in the world? How would the BattleSkill “Burst Rockets” be interesting and uniquely exist in a world where anyone can get the cybernetic implant “Micro Missiles,” which allows them to launch rockets at up to four enemies at once with a high damage output?
Furthermore, the story calls for a character that is strangely calculating, and beyond knowledgeable. Wren, is also broken in his own way, holding memories of the personality that was used to create him. Wren is confused, reacting to stimuli he was never programmed to, longing for a wife he’s was never programmed to remember. That, all while coldly understanding the crisis the other player characters must face. The story is here, I believe it to be interesting... but what about the Gameplay? In Tactical RPG’s with guns, cover is generally the big be-all-end-all. More often than not, my characters in Tactical Breach Wizards are ducking down behind something, preventing enemies from causing them undue harm. Then again, does Tactical Breach Wizards’ elements really apply here if the game is based on the TTRPG book I’m building?
What about Final Fantasy Tactics? There’s guns, bows, swords too. But how much of Final Fantasy Tactics can we use here? Especially when the game relies more on positioning. Cover technically exists. It’s hard to shoot an arrow through a stone wall, but should my RPG resort so much on timings and positioning? Casting Magic, or using abilities in Final Fantasy Tactics relies so heavily on an entirely different system called “Recovery.” Under Recovery System, all characters have a time stat that increases until full. Once it’s full, it’s either their turn, or they perform the action they’re charging for. (Casting Fireball, or summoning Ifrit.) Tactical Breach Wizards, XCOM, and my future game should use the “Phase System.” Players move all of their characters on their turn, performing all of the necessary actions to achieve the player’s goals. Then, it becomes the enemies turn, who then punish the player for sub-optimal plays and presents a new challenge for the player to overcome on their next turn.
I’ve been wanting to go back to Godot, but I’m not feeling the next game I want to build as a method to learn. (Chinese Checkers) I can’t share it here, on Fur Affinity, due to the obvious fact that executables are not permitted for an upload. Furthermore, the heavy use of AI generated art (Say what you want about the evils of AI Art, but it makes for great concept. If artists prefer refsheets instead of writeups, then they shouldn’t have a problem with an AI generated picture and a short paragraph. AI will never replace the ingenuity of human artists, songwriters and programmers, though.) puts my programming projects squarely in the “learning” and “concept” stages. While I’m happy to show what I’ve done thus far, I wouldn’t be okay with putting my learning concepts somewhere so massively public.
If you’re a fan of XCOM: Enemy Within, or XCOM2: War of the Chosen... Why not ask yourself... How can characters like Wren from Phantasy Star 4, Dall from Tactical Breach Wizards, Harding from I Am Your Beast, and Admiral Idaho from Crying Suns act and function under that ruleset? Each of your four companion characters have a second discipline, new abilities and weapon preferences. Perhaps our Dall stand-in could drop the melee weapon in favour for a light machine gun? Our Admiral Idaho stand-in could be given a shotgun instead of battlefield controller abilities. What would you choose and prefer?
