Hello everybody! This is the map I originally made for the "fire" contest. For some reason though, I worked extremely slowly on this and won't finish it in time to enter it in the contest. Maybe the thought of making something for a contest had some psychological impact on me because it's been more than a week since I started and it's about halfway done. Anyway, the map was originally called "Ashen Realms" which I changed to "Planar Realms" since it doesn't have to be about fire anymore (it's a re-make of an old map of mine which was pretty crappy but was similar in some ways). Here are the main features:

Battle

Battle is entirely ripped off the early iterations of the Final Fantasy series. By that, I mean it's nearly identical. Your party consists of up to four different characters and you fight up to four different enemies. Each unit's turn is randomly determined,though every unit plays once every round. Once it's one of your character's turn, you can choose one of the following options: Attack, Magic, Item and Flee (I don't think I have to explain what they do). Once you selected your action, you need to select the target by mind controlling a unit with a dark archon. You can choose to target an ally, an enemy, all allies or all enemies (attack and some spells and items cannot be used against more than one unit). Yes, you can even choose to heal an enemy or attack an enemy if you want (and wouldn't be a bad idea in some cases). Also, when you cast a spell or use an item on several targets, its potency will be increased proportionally to the amount of targets and equally divided among them.

The inner mechanics of starcraft are never used to determine anything (like dealing damage for instance) and a whole system was made from scratch. Thus, a unit's health will never be shown on its actual hit points, its damage won't be the damage shown, etc. Things like damage dealt or the HP of your unit is all shown on the score panel. That also means you can't see your enemy's stats.

Also, the disposition of units on the battlefield will matter. Units at the back cannot be attacked until the units at the front are incapacitated. You and your enemies can also use spells/items that will set "conditions"(poison, paralyzed, incapacitated) on a targeted unit. Those conditions will influence the unit's attributes and will only disappear upon using a specific potion or spell designed to cure that condition. Each condition is indicated by a beacon under each unit (the beacons are invisible at first and become visible once the unit in question gets the condition).

Thus, the only difference to Final Fantasy's system is the absence of an "action meter" (or whatever it's called) to determine when a unit can play.

Spells

I've currently made 8 spells but I could eventually make more. I wanted each spell to be completely different, not just a more powerful version of another (e.g. a spell that deals X damage, a spell that deals Y damage). Note that I will change their names.

• Blazing Bolts:Deals damage to one or more targets.
  
• Searing Steel:Increases the damage of one or more targets.
  
• Ardent Armor:Increases the armor of one or more targets.
  
• Healing Heat:Restores the HP of one or more targets.
  
• Brimstone Bane:Deals damage over time to one or more targets.
  
• Thought Tinder:Paralyzes a single target.
  
• Counter Conflagration:Cast on a single target. When that target receives damage, some damage is reflected onto a random enemy (that damage is doubled).
  
• Smoke Shell:Cast on one or more targets. Targets will have a chance to evade all damage.
  

Those were the only ones I could think of that could bring a good strategic side to battles. Note that items will have effects similar effects in addition to curing conditions or restoring attributes.

Items

Equipment will be the same as in DotD. I just love the idea of having tens of thousands of different items. Also, unique items will be added.

Potions and other non-equippable items are available and, as mentioned, produce effects similar to spells. They will be easily obtainable and essential to every battle.

Menus and dialog

Dialog will be very similar to DotD. You need to make units in a stargate to determine your choices. Also, the inventories, tutorials, quests, information about characters and their disposition on the battlefield will all be accessible through a virtual menu that can be used using your stargate. Make a carrier when you're outside of dialogs and cinematics and the game will "pause" and you'll be able to browse through your menu. The interface should be pretty simple.

Storyline

Like in Final Fantasy, there will be plenty of cinematics and the story will be very linear. Every character will have a background story even though you can choose from a variety of characters to include in your party.

Classes and attributes

Every time a character levels up, you get to increase of the following attributes: Might, Endurance, Magic and Energy. Might determines the damage dealt with attacks, endurance determines your HP, energy determines your MP(used to cast spells) and Magic allows you to raise of your spells. However, each class only has access to certain spells. Those classes are:

• Hero:This class is reserved to 2 characters. They are the protagonists of the story and you cannot dismiss or recruit them.
  Spells available: All.
  Initial attribute proportions: All attributes are in equal proportion.
  
• Warrior:The good old skull bashing, rough talking and ale drinking brawler.
  Spells available: Searing Steel and Ardent Armor.
  Initial attribute proportions: Might=3, Endurance=3, Magic=1, Energy=1
  
• Rogue:The sly thief. They fight from the shadows, dealing good physical damage but unable to bear it as well as the warrior.
  Spells available: Thought Tinder and Smoke Shell.
  Initial attribute proportions: Might=2, Endurance=2, Magic=2, Energy=2
  
• Cleric:The god-worshipping healer who dedicated his life to helping the unfortunate.
  Spells available: Healing Heat, Ardent Armor, Counter Conflagration and Smoke Shell.
  Initial attribute proportions: Might=1, Endurance=1, Magic=3, Energy=3
  
• Sorcerer:The master of the arcane, bent on discovering the truths of the world and harnessing power.
  Spells available: Blazing Bolts, Searing Steel, Thought Tinder and Brimstone Bane.
  Initial attribute proportions: Might=1, Endurance=1, Magic=3, Energy=3
  

Conclusion

For some reason, I have to include a screenshot even though it has no use whatsoever (because some people have a hard time reading words and prefer to skip straight to the shiny pictures?).

Anywho I hope I'll stop being slow and lazy now that I'm not making this for a contest anymore. Hopefully, a beta will come out in a few weeks. Also, I forgot to mention that it's single player only (but has to be played on bnet or lan, obviously!) I probably forgot more important features but I'll just edit the post if that's the case.

Let me know what you think and feel free to propose new ideas.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Mar 18 2010, 12:40 pm by chia-tyrant.

I've never played one of the early Final Fantasy games (or really any of them), so honestly, I've no clue what kind of gameplay your map has (other than the fact that it's a turn-based RPG). I'm sure I'm not the only member here who's like that. (Or perhaps I am?) Screenshots help get the gameplay across when words cannot. A screenshot can display multiple gameplay concepts simultaneously -- and people looking at a screenshot can comprehend and piece together these concepts at the same time -- whereas words cannot.

On a side note, you may want to take the hyperlink off of your screenshot, it kinda clashes with SEN's preview-on-click script. (The link opens in a new tab, stealing focus, distracting from this page, and messing with people who are used to seeing the fullview appear on the same page.)

EDIT: I will say, though, that your description is somewhat interesting.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Mar 18 2010, 2:24 am by DavidJCobb.

If you've never played FF you're missing out on an amazing game. You should get an emulator and the rom and play it; it's absolutely fantastic.
If you don't know how battles work in FF, here's a summary: you have several characters fighting several enemies. Each one of your character has a meter which fills up over time. Once it's filled up, that character can play. That character then selects one of many actions. The battle ends when all enemies are vanquished. Pretty simple. As I said, it's very similar to my own system so I don't see how you could be confused.
It's probably true for games like bounds, defenses or dodge a something but definitely not for my map.

Screenshots are LESS important for that kind of game, actually. RPGs sorta need them to show the mood and quality.

"Planar Realms, A Final Fantast style RPG"
SPELLING MISTAKE! Until it is fixed, I refuse to read moar.

Absolutely not. For some reason, people give more importance to the appearance of the map than the game itself. What defines the "mood" of such a game is its storyline, the personalities of the characters and so on. I played tons of RPGs with horrible graphics (the first Might and Magic, Wizardry and Ultima games and they were still better than those of text-based games) and they were just as good, if not better, than today's games that are all about style and no substance. Now, please, no more comments about this "screenshots or not" debate. Just give me feedback on the game.
Absolute waste of time. Oh, boohoo, I made a typo. I can't believe virtual trees were killed to print that comment.

I would reconsider your TB Battle mechanics to include the speed stat.

Also, Elements please? These are a huge factor in FF, and from what you described - would fit nicely and add a lot of strategy.

By speed you mean the rate at which the meter filled up? If so, I don't think I can do it without scrapping the whole system. However, if I did add it, it would be quite restricted (so that characters don't play after an instant) or each additionnal point in it would bring neglectable benefits. Also, it would be very complicated to implement and I don’t see how it could bring much more depth to battles.

You're right about elements. I tossed aside the idea at first because I thought it would be way too complicated to change the damage each spell does to every different unit. However, now that I've made a good part of the battle system, I'm starting to realize that it would be really easy to implement. I’ll have to scrap most of what I’ve done so far but it’s probably worth it.

Thanks for writing the first constructive comment!

Spells are fairly generic, not too awful though. Turn based systems have always seemed pretty blargh to me, at least in SC. Items sound good. What do you mean by DotD items? Dawn of the Dead? If so, please link to said map, I haven't ever played a decent DotD map

@screenshots, try to understand our point of view. We've seen hundreds of topics with great big ideas that never come to anything, or end up being a crap map. Having a decent screenshot or three gets our interest, and shows us whether you've put much effort into the map, how professional you are, etc. Without it, we just assume it'll be another average RPG with nothing interesting in it.

What turn based games did you play in sc before? Could you give me a link to one please because I've never played one before. By DotD I meant Dwellers of the Depths, my previous map. Here's a link http://www.staredit.net/files/1971/

@screenshots, I understand that most of the time, when a map looks bad (in terms of terrain), it is usually also bad but remember that terrain has strictly nothing to do with triggers, gameplay and everything that really matters. I’m sure you’ve played maps that looked awful but were still amazing.

There's diablo that Ahli made, otherwise I can't remember any specific maps. I haven't played enough to know whether you can make TB play well, maybe you'll pull it off.

This sounds really cool. I loved the original FFs. For a supposed speed stat, you could make it so that a particular unit could go first in combat. And definitely put elements.

Btw, screenshots are required just to prove that yoi actually did something and not just post what you would like to do.

I still don’t see how the speed stat would really influence the outcome of a battle. Would you be ready to sacrifice points in important spells, damage, MP and HP just so that one of your characters can play one turn ahead? Besides, that would make an odd number of attributes and it would no longer be symmetrical.

As for elements, I thought of making the following system: Before attacking or casting a spell on an enemy, you have to choose which element to imbue it with (elements being fire, water, earth and air). Each enemy intrinsically has resistances to each element. However, using a spell/attack imbued with a certain element on an enemy would increase its resistance to that element and decrease its resistance to the opposite element. Moreover, fire would be opposite to earth, earth to water, water to air and air to fire.

As far as I can remember, elements in Final Fantasy just meant that you had to figure out which one enemies were vulnerable to. I don’t think it went much further than that.

I would like to know what you think about this idea and if it would really add a good depth to battles. I’m also opened to other suggestions.

1. I don't know exactly how all of your items work, but using them to give stats / hp / elemental resist or boost to the characters is a very good idea.

2. Speed stat is useful and you can even have it be a point that cannot be invested in, but rather passively gained when leveling up with certain equipment (Think FF9 Style). The important thing is to not make turns randomly generated. Players like to have control over that kind of thing, and determining which items to have each character wear would add a lot of strategy if let's say they could use the +150hp earring or the Wind stone that adds +1 speed for every other time you level up wearing it.

3. Elements, if you are inspired by FF, then use their element system as it's effective and makes sense in a fantasy kind of way. Possible elemental pairs: Fire and Ice, Water and Lightning, Dark and Light, Wind and Earth. Normal enemy with no properties has 0% resistance to all elements. Then you can have elemental enemies for example fire elemental enemy would have 100% resistance to fire spell and -100% resistance (or any weakness amount you choose...) Don't make it more complicated than it has to be (unless you want cool boss mechanics for example a mech boss that switches to whatever element is casted on it would be cool) but it's a simple system.

Also, as far as elements go. Imbuing a spell or attack with an element is what having a certain weapon or accessory on your character is for. If you want damage spell of different elements, make them: Fire spell, Lightning spell, etc. Don't just have 1 offense spell. Have equipment that the player can put on his characters for example a shield that makes you immune to ice spells, a wizard staff that double the damage of wind spells and stuff like that.

1. Equipment will work the same way as it did in my previous game (there’s an url above). Items will emulate the effects of spells, restore HP/MP or cure conditions(poisoned, paralyzed,etc.).

2. An item that gives you something when you level up is out of the question. However, speed could be available only through enchantments on items. I’ll have to think about it. But I still don’t see how having random turns is so horrible; it forces you to change your strategy instead of always using the same sequence of actions.

Take the first civilization game for instance. Turns were randomly determined and thus played a humongous role in determining your course of actions. You couldn’t just plan your whole strategy in advance, which would have made the game very boring. Of course, there was a technology called “military” which could be researched (though it was quite expensive) that allowed you to play before those who didn’t have it. Thus, I could scrap the speed stat and include unique items that make a character play first in a round (though the rest would be randomly determined). Again, I’m still open to ideas.

3. Alright, if you don’t like the “imbuing” system then I’ll have to change the spells. I’ll only include 3 elements (ice, fire and lightning) and neutral damage since I’m limited in terms of variables. Also, +fire/ice/lighting damage and resistance will be added to the enchantments available in equipment along with +damage and +armor. Doubling elemental damage or multiplying it by a certain factor, along with immunities will be left to unique items. In that perspective, here are the new spells:
(Direct damage, Elemental)

• Fire Missiles
  
• Ice Missiles
  
• Lightning Missiles
  

(Increase Resistance)

• Fire Shield
  
• Ice shield
  
• Lightning shield
  

(Decrease Resistance)

• Fire Hex
  
• Ice Hex
  
• Lightning Hex
  

(Neutral Spells)

• Heal
  
• Stun
  
• Reflect
  
• Increase damage
  
• Increase armor
  
• Damage over time(neutral)
  
• Direct damage(neutral)
  

Here is a list of the enchantments available on regular equipment:

• +Fire/Ice/Lighting Damage
  
• +Fire/Ice/Lightning Resistance
  
• +Damage
  
• +Armor
  
• +HP
  
• +MP
  
• +Fire Spells
  
• +Ice Spells
  
• +Lightning Spells
  
• +All Spells
  

Feel free to comment or propose new ideas.