I like all your Response to Trieva's post, to get all Three Starters why not do it the like the Anime Series. The Starters are all Raised on a Breeding Ground from an Egg to Level 5 There was an Episode where Ash found the Breeding Ground that Mudkips were raised (Pokemon Advanced Generation Episode 25 / Pokemon Episode 299)
A playable part where you don't have your pokemon would only work at the Middle of the Story Say Team Cipher has Captured your Pokemon and you need to get them back solo, but if you go too long without them at the Start you're right People would likely rage quit.
I love the Direction you're heading Can't wait for the ALPHA.
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My Projects:
Sorted Multiplayer Leader Board
Card Shuffle Dialog Demo
Air Wars Mass
Blizzard Fan since Starcraft. The Single Player story is AMAZING IMO, I can't wait for the Expansions. In Warcraft 3 I only enjoy the Custom Maps scene (& Blizzards...
Alright, we're now one step closer to alpha! I just finished up the good-guy version of the last storyline quest for the alpha. That means the only story quest we have left is the bad-guy version of that same quest. Because this is the quest where the storyline actually splits, what happens either way is pretty similar, so we can reuse a lot of code. I won't be posting any screenshots of that (don't want to spoil things yet!) but I do have some screenshots of UI improvements we've made...
Maity threw together a cleaner looking UI for battle status frames. As a bonus, we have a few different versions of the UI for special starmon. Legendary starmon have a red panel, shiny starmon have a nice golden one, and normal starmon stick with the standard blue theme we've shown before. This should hopefully make shiny and legendary starmon feel that much more special.
Here's the new version of the "normal" frame:
Here's the legendary frame (this screenshot was from the enemy side of the screen, if you're using a legendary it'll be the same direction as the other ones):
OMG OMG OMG YES YES YES. I hope I'm awake and on here when you plan to have ALPHA, weather I am or not Can you PM me the MAP after you do the ALPHA so I can Replay SOLO as much as I want until the Full Release.
The Screenshots look great for the Battle UI, Question though do you think there can be an Option for different ways of how Lv is shown Example's of The Choices I'd like: Lv 20 (Current), Lv. 50, Lvl 75, Lvl. 37 (My Fav). I'd prefer the 2nd or 4th Option myself.
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My Projects:
Sorted Multiplayer Leader Board
Card Shuffle Dialog Demo
Air Wars Mass
Blizzard Fan since Starcraft. The Single Player story is AMAZING IMO, I can't wait for the Expansions. In Warcraft 3 I only enjoy the Custom Maps scene (& Blizzards...
OMG OMG OMG YES YES YES. I hope I'm awake and on here when you plan to have ALPHA, weather I am or not Can you PM me the MAP after you do the ALPHA so I can Replay SOLO as much as I want until the Full Release.
Well, we still have a little ways to go before we'll start the alpha (moz has to finish our terrain, I need to finish up the last quest, and a few smaller things here and there need to be set up for multiplayer to work). When we do start the alpha, we'll send you guys a PM with the information. We're probably not going to send the map file out, though. We haven't discussed it too much, but what we might do is publish the map publicly, but restrict it so only approved testers can play. That way, you guys would be able to play whenever you want, but random people won't stumble upon the map.
The Screenshots look great for the Battle UI, Question though do you think there can be an Option for different ways of how Lv is shown Example's of The Choices I'd like: Lv 20 (Current), Lv. 50, Lvl 75, Lvl. 37 (My Fav). I'd prefer the 2nd or 4th Option myself.
Now that I think about it, I do like "Lvl." better than just "Lv". Honestly, it was text I set up at the very beginning of development without thinking too much about it. It's easy enough to change- thanks for pointing that out :P
Zelda, I was totally unaware that Blizzard allowed you to publish maps with a white-list. Absolutely wonderful if you can.
I recall some sentence in their ToS for the editor, that it is not allowed to restrict access to the map and have users pay for full access or something, so a white-list for testing might be somewhat of a grey area.
Zelda, I was totally unaware that Blizzard allowed you to publish maps with a white-list. Absolutely wonderful if you can.
You can't do it via the bnet service, but you can whip it together with triggers. We already have an admin/ban system set up (just fyi, we don't plan on banning anybody, it's there for emergencies only ^.^), and the same sort of thing would work for a whitelist.
I recall some sentence in their ToS for the editor, that it is not allowed to restrict access to the map and have users pay for full access or something, so a white-list for testing might be somewhat of a grey area.
You recall correctly. But the way I see it, the only way something like that would ever be reported is if the map was popular, and people were being frustrated they couldn't play it. If we publish it with zero advertisement with a whitelist, it's not possible for it to get popular (you guys couldn't possibly play it enough to bump it up in popularity). So the only people who would be aware of it's existence would be the whitelisted people. It's a little tricky- I'll have to go over the ToS word-for-word again, but I don't forsee any issues.
To be safe, according to Kueken, why not just invite us to a privately published map?
If the whitelist doesn't work out, we can fall back on that. The problem would be that you guys would need to be invited by us every time you want to play. So you wouldn't be able to play on your own time. We'll have to see what we can do when we get there....
The engine should support up to 15 people at once, but we're not going to allow that many. The biggest issue is that we need to have enough space to give each player a little battle arena where they can fight. If every player is engaged in a fight simultaneously, we need a spot for them all to be battling. Right now we're thinking we should be able to fit in 6 players- maybe 1 or 2 more if we can fit it. It ultimately depends on which zones we decide to do, and how big/small moz wants to make them- is removing a planned zone worth increasing the player cap by 1? It's a tricky question. We're literally using all the map space here. And then there's the issue of actually being able to run everything for 6 people without lag- it's a lot.
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Feel free to Send me a PM if you have any questions/concerns!
Whitelist: Not sure, but before the Arcade you could play "vs AI" or something like that from the singleplayer menu, and it'd take about 5 minutes to load the list of maps, which would include all cached maps (i.e. everything you ever played on that computer, including Arcade maps), I used that to play Magicide before Eiviyn published it. Since the Arcade moved a lot of stuff around, I'm not sure whether that exists anymore :/
Also, one thing to point out: Chances are you don't get to keep your saves from the alpha. You might for a good amount of versions, but we might have to reset your progress to test something we added in earlier/fixes to quests, or simply because we changed something fundamental in the saving method. For example, you Stardex will most definitely be wiped - I haven't added in all Starmon yet, and Mei (The dark doll girl) for example will always be at the end of the list with the other legendaries, but if you guys see her, right now it would mark ID 81 as revealed, and if I added more Starmon and moved Mei to the back of the list again, you guys would have whatever starmon is now #81 is revealed again, without ever seeing it.
Looking at how fast we're working, that's a looooooooooooong time til we're done :p Also, had an idea how you could add eyes to the model you already sent me - Just make some indents, don't fill them. Maybe even indent a smile, or change its texture in a way that it roughly forms a smile. It'll be enough for people to see a friendly face, like when you look at some cars you can roughly make out a face with the headlights being the eyes, and some other machines/devices sometimes have faces as well.
Well, it depends on multiplayer features imo. If we can make parties bigger than 2 and do interesting team worky stuff then it's worth bribging in more players. I'm not sure if you guys are focusing more on a single playe or multiplayer map. Cmon, am I the only one who's dreamed of a coop pokemon? :P
Parties will stay 2 player. double battles already caused enough problems and delays, and tripple battles would probably require more cameras so that you can actually see everything, and possibly even force us to make the arenas larger.
You'll be able to play through everything together with another person, but storywise it'll be exactly the same as if you went alone. Quests are already enough work without us having to create mildly different versions for co-op.
For some reason I can't edit my last post of my ipad.
Anyways I was wondering if we get interesting effects to base stats from evolutions. Instead of upgrading all of them, some should be reduced to give us interesting decisions to make. For example stalkerchu has mor special attack and defense base than probichu but speed is lowered :P.
Don't think that's very practical for evolution lines consisting of only the base starmon and a single evolution. If it were something like Base -> Stage 1 via levelling -> Stage 2 via Trade, then Stage 2 could have significant stat changes. But the basic stage needs to have below average stats to match other low level starmon, which means the evolution will naturally be overall stronger. Yea, I can take away from a certain stat and put it into another if it makes sense thematically, but that isn't really what you're asking for - It's not really a choice, since the non-evolved form will be a lot weaker overall.
What you want is something like Scyther->Scizor. Due to Scyther having had 500 base stat total in Gen I (Which is pretty high), they just couldn't make his evolution more powerful when they added it in Gen II, so instead they cut his speed stat by 40 and shoved it into attack and defense.
The most obvious and best example on how to implement this is Eevee - You've got quite the choice to make. I'll be adding an Eevee in, probably very soon. I couldn't find a third model that fit, so I'll likely use the Predator from the SC2 campaign.
I'll see if I can find something which I can turn into a Scyther/Scizor type evolution, but I wouldn't get my hopes up :/ Evolution chains are already hard enough to find in the WoW model files, but finding similar yet different enough models where one doesn't look weaker than the other will be harder.
Looking at how fast we're working, that's a looooooooooooong time til we're done :p Also, had an idea how you could add eyes to the model you already sent me - Just make some indents, don't fill them. Maybe even indent a smile, or change its texture in a way that it roughly forms a smile. It'll be enough for people to see a friendly face, like when you look at some cars you can roughly make out a face with the headlights being the eyes, and some other machines/devices sometimes have faces as well.
I didn't mean to scare you but I wasn't thinking about 3v3+ or different story versions. For a split second I was wondering if you guys will include gameplay or ways to complete quests without battles. Something more rpg like in mass effect where you run errands or solve disputes between characters. I suppose there's no room for minigames?
Combat is pretty much what the entire game revolves around, it's what makes it what it is. I'm not saying we shouldn't make any non-combat part, but it needs to added smartly. In Mass Effect 1 you come to the citadel and I'm sure you remember just how much time you spent on there, going from character to character and doing stuff... There were a few short combat moments involved, but overall that stuff just took way too long for an action game. Oh, it was great for building up the story, teaching the player whats going on, but I got really annoyed that I couldn't just play the damn game because I was stuck in this incredibly long "running errands" period.
What I'm trying to say is that if we add non-combat stuff to Starmon, which I'm sure we will, we'll have to make sure it doesn't just break the flow of the game and the players just get locked into a long boring walk they possibly won't enjoy: I know a lot of people love lore and story in games, but I'm sure there's just as many, if not more, that don't really care much, and getting stuck in such a long "pause" would put them off.
Non-combat optional/Side quests would be a good way to add such content: As it's optional, you'll not get stuck doing something that bores you.
As for minigames: The only reason I can think of not to add any is time. So, if we have time, we might just add some if we get good ideas for them and how to implement into the game (Not only technically, but also story/gameplay-wise)
About evolutions, my 'choice' meant choosing whether to evolve a starmon or not based on their stronger base stats. I thought you were making the total EVs the same for all starmon so those like pidgey aren't useless. If you evolved and gained more EVs total then it might be op. That's why I suggested it be redistributed.
I hope I'm clearer now.
Not sure what you mean. EVs are gained by KO-ing pokemon/starmon and capped at 255 per stat / 512 total. Evolved starmon generally grant more EVs when KO's, which I think is only fair considering they're tougher. Pidgey being useless doesn't have anything to do with EVs, but base stats and the fact that he's unevolved (Which actually goes back to the point of base stats. Evolutions almost always just straight up have higher base stats)
I'm still fairly certain you're asking for something like the Scyther->Scizor evolution, where evolution is not mandatory and doesn't actually grant a stronger starmon, just redistributes the stats in a different way. I.E. evolve into a different set of stats instead of a stronger set of stats.
(also, for the record, we have no way to prevent happiness/level up evolutions at the moment, they will just happen with no way to stop them. This makes it a lot easier to set up move sets for me)
Will evolved versions have higher base stats totals than baby versions?
Would that make No-Evolution starmon OP in the early game, because their total base stats are above those of "baby" or "not-yet-evolved" starmon?
If total base stats change (+, -, or move) would there be an option to "push the B button" and abort the evolution, or have the guy hold an everstone?
If so, when I reach lvl 100, can I force an evolution, or is the guy stuck in he first form?
When you start writing triggers for the white listing program, I want to make sure that you guys inform the people who were curious about the game why they are not allowed to play. Something along the lines of the loading screen, and an in-game message saying something like "This game is still being developed. We would be quite embarrassed if someone we didn't know played this and found a bug. Contact us at [email protected] with questions. If you are interested in the development of our game, visit our thread on sc2mapster.com!" Maybe include a shortened version of the url in there too, because www.sc2mapster.com/forums/resources/project-workplace/41336 is terribly long, especially if you include the -starmon-a-pokemon-style-map part.
I've also wondered if there will be an item which will upgrade a starmon's energy limit. even just a one time +10 energy that costs 50,000 Starcoins.
Would that make No-Evolution starmon OP in the early game, because their total base stats are above those of "baby" or "not-yet-evolved" starmon?
Yes, and also the equialents of Caterpie->Metapod->Butterfree - They reached stage 3 incredibly quickly and are very powerful early game pokemon, but their base stats aren't comparable to other stage 3 pokemon that are evolved into 20-40 levels after them, so their OPness is short lived. It'll be the same in Starmon, although these starmon will have a less bad lategame (They'll still be the weakest evolved starmon in the game, the difference just won't be as large as in pokemon. On the other hand, there will be little to no other below-average starmon, so they'll kinda be the only ones with crappy base stats)
If total base stats change (+, -, or move) would there be an option to "push the B button" and abort the evolution, or have the guy hold an everstone?
If so, when I reach lvl 100, can I force an evolution, or is the guy stuck in he first form?
I actually mentioned this at the end of my previous post. Level and Happiness evolutions (which are the only evolutions that aren't entirely under the players control) can't be stopped. Pokemon made unevolved pokemon learn moves faster, and in some cases learn moves that their evolutions didn't. I'm not really a fan of that, partially because I just don't like that mechanic in the first place and partially because setting up move lists for starmon is already annoying enough if I don't have to write up the entire list three seperate times and don't have to change what levels the moves are learned at. (Currently the move lists for starmon only include moves they can learn before levelling up. Evolved starmon include the move list of the previous one + new moves until their next evolution or levels 55-65 in case of fully evolved starmon. Writing the previous move list into an evolution is already a quite annoying and time consuming process and pretty much the thing that takes the most time when adding in a new set of starmon.)
When you start writing triggers for the white listing program, I want to make sure that you guys inform the people who were curious about the game why they are not allowed to play. Something along the lines of the loading screen, and an in-game message saying something like "This game is still being developed. We would be quite embarrassed if someone we didn't know played this and found a bug. Contact us at [email protected] with questions. If you are interested in the development of our game, visit our thread on sc2mapster.com!" Maybe include a shortened version of the url in there too, because www.sc2mapster.com/forums/resources/project-workplace/41336 is terribly long, especially if you include the -starmon-a-pokemon-style-map part.
I'd prefer avoiding the White List altogether. As I mentioned earlier, there was an option that allowed you to play downloaded/cached maps "offline", but I'm not sure whether it still exists. I don't remember any patch notes saying it was removed, I'll just have to find it now that the Arcade and HotS restructured the menus. So once we do the alpha test, you guys will be able to play it on your own. If you want to play multiplayer we can probably just determine a time and Zelda or I (depending on who publishes the map) will come online and set up a lobby.
But if we do have to resort to a white list, we'll make sure to make it clear on the loading screen, and possibly even include a little demo gameplay for people not on the list. And yea, we already used URL shorteners for RuneCraft.
I've also wondered if there will be an item which will upgrade a starmon's energy limit. even just a one time +10 energy that costs 50,000 Starcoins.
Probably. Some Starmon might even have their passive ability increase their limit. And it's more likely to be +20-30 I think. +10 is barely 1-2 extra moves, getting an item that makes moves hit harder instead would be a far more efficient way to increase how long you are able to fight at a time.
Hey, it's me again, I know it's been really long since my last post, sorry about that, bla bla bla, more sarcasm, bla bla bla
Anyway, I did some work on the map today (very little, to be honest. Mostly testing and finding bugs for Zelda.)
Here's what I have done:
Ignore the back line in this image for now, and focus on the four starmon in the front.
On the left we have a little black fox called Eve. It's a cute little Dark-Type starmon that is incredibly rare. So rare that it's almost impossible to find in the wild. If you wanna get one, you'll have to find another way to get it. Some NPC might give one to you if you're lucky ;)
To it's right we've got Freeve, the Ice-Dark evolution of Eve. It's heart is as cold as its attacks, it aims to weaken its foe before killing it. The only way to get Eve to evolve into this creature is by exposing it to something very cold.
Next up we've got this horrible looking creature Helleve. Who needs muscles and organs when instead you can just watch the world burn? This Dark-Fire starmon will specialize in searing the flesh off of his enemies bones. Turning Eve into such a hellish creature requires immense heat.
Next up is Shockeve. It's the only Eve-olution that loses the Dark Type, and instead it gets Steel to complement its Electric type. While it won't match the sheer firepower of its fire counterpart (hehe he... puns) or even that of its frosty relative, you could argue that being unstoppable is far more dangerous.
The others in this picture serve as size references mostly. The four in the back are the four trade evolutions: Mortessus (Ghost Ice), Thangur (Fight), Shelob(Rock Ice) and Roknarr(Rock Fire)
Alright, now that I'm done with the descriptions, lets discuss. First of all I would've preferred "cute" models like with Eevee, but those aren't easy to come by :(
Not much has been planned about this thing. Three evolutions, perhaps more if I can find more (Actually have an idea for one more, but I want to make it at least five total then). Fire will be sheer damage, Ice will be control and Electric will be the tank/bruiser (Being a steel type already makes it very hard to kill, so I don't need to make its base defenses too high and can give it good offensive stats instead)
Haven't decided how to get Eve or evolve them yet. Either the stones, like in the original games, or location based like the Gen IV eevees. We've got a snow covered mountain zone, a volcano zone (planned) and the power plant. If we decide to not use stones, I'd do the same for other starmon as well (Probichu will evolve the same way as Eve->Shockeve then, for example)
For acquiring Eve, I think the professor giving it to you might be a good idea - You're a decent trainer that already helps him by using the Stardex, what better way is there to get info on a genetically unstable starmon than giving it to such a trainer?
Not sure about their abilities yet, but I want to make them something unique. Here are the first three ideas that popped into my head: Ice: Being faster than the opponent amplifies damage dealt. (Encourages usage of slows) Fire: +5 or 10% additional burn chance on all damaging moves (even if the moves themselves can't cause burn), (+10% damage to burnt enemies as well maybe?) Electric: Ok, this one is more complex. Using or being hit by electric moves gives 1 shock charge. When you have 4, you get a Shock Shield that prevents the damage from the next damaging attack. If that attack was a contact move (Melee, practically), the attacker takes damage and has a chance to be paralyzed. If it wasn't, you immediately get another shock charge.
This passive would make it tankier and make it a good starmon vs melee starmon (If you have Static Field up, getting hit by a melee/contact attack deals damage to the attacker, so you get a charge)
Eve sounds pretty great, and I like the evolutions. I think you should do the stones idea. They can be found in the wild or bought at a very high price.
A few questions/suggestions.
1. Will the pokedex give Pokemon locations? Like it does in the game.
2. When trading there should be an option for immediate trade back so assholes don't walk away with your Pokemon, and you can either evolve your Pokemon or get Pokedex info safely.
Eve sounds pretty great, and I like the evolutions. I think you should do the stones idea. They can be found in the wild or bought at a very high price.
A few questions/suggestions.
1. Will the pokedex give Pokemon locations? Like it does in the game.
Yes, it already does. I believe Zelda was planning to implement rarity as well (Common, uncommon, rare)
2. When trading there should be an option for immediate trade back so assholes don't walk away with your Pokemon, and you can either evolve your Pokemon or get Pokedex info safely.
Maybe. Will see. Reason I don't like it is because it practically just turns into "Find other player, click button to evolve starmon" and it sorta removes the "difficulty" from trade evolutions. On the other hand, the "difficulty" in trade evolutions comes mostly from people being dicks... I guess we probably will add it, but no promises on this one.
Not saying there won't be non-combat stuff in the story, just that as combat is the main point of the game I think we should avoid large gaps and/or have the non-combat stuff be optional content. If you grab a couple of Repels to stop wild starmon from attacking you, you could say that we already have a few non-combat quests (If you manage to avoid the random trainers as well :p )
Anything that is 100% non-combat (So no wilds or random trainers either) would pretty much have to take place in only the city or be some sort of minigame or something else that keeps the player stationary.
I think the beach may be a good place for some minigames though.
We won't remove any of the pokemon features like EV or happiness - They're already fully implemented anyway, wouldn't make it any easier for us and would just remove depth from the game for people who really want to have the best of the best starmon. It's not like the features complicate things for the player - Most of those values are hidden in the pokemon games anyway. People play through the games without knowing that those mechanics even exist, and it doesn't hurt them.
I'll see if I can find some vids of that game later to see what you mean :)
I think all the starmon currently implemented were actually shown off in this thread in posts like my last one. Unfortunately, not too many electrics :( Shock-eve won't have amazing speed though. Probably good speed, but not crazy good. Considering it'll be able to paralyze people, it doesn't even need that much speed.
Current Electrics are Probichu->Zenchu (Sentry model), Galvamine->Galvadrone (Spidermine and PDD model, practically magnemite and magneton) and Shockeve. Got a "bird" line as well, but I either have to find other models or scrap it. It's using observer->phoenix->hero phoenix from SC2, and... Well, SC2 models suck for starmon :p
Current Electrics are Probichu->Zenchu (Sentry model), Galvamine->Galvadrone (Spidermine and PDD model, practically magnemite and magneton) and Shockeve. Got a "bird" line as well, but I either have to find other models or scrap it. It's using observer->phoenix->hero phoenix from SC2, and... Well, SC2 models suck for starmon :p
You can use critters. Check the critter pack in my models page, I converted some of the bird doodads into units. They only have basic animations, but may be better than the protoss ships for birds.
I'm fine with alternate types that are good with electric attacks. Maybe like a gengar equivalent with his awesome special attack and speed (that can learn thunderbolt). Hopefully sc2 models aren't too sucky so you make more. I saw Zolden show a mech zergling in his nth model thread which looked cool.
Haven't seen the mech zergling, will have to take a look. (Already using zergling and a zergling retexture, I guess this could be one of those optional evolutions that change stats instead of increasing :) )
Once we start setting up TMs and what moves starmon can learn through TMs (I should put that on my to-do list...) I'll get you a list with pictures of the starmon, their base stats and so on. Tbh, I don't think it'd be a bad thing to give milestone trainers one completely off-type starmon as long as it sorta fit in with the rest of the team (So if you're gonna go for a ton of high speed starmon, I can add another high speed starmon that isn't electric and doesn't know electric moves. Also, we can cheat and give it an electric move like Volt Switch anyway :P )
I'm avoiding sc2 models even if I can use them for good steel/mech starmon as I want this map to feel more "special". It'll just give a better impression if people come into this map and see unfamiliar models. Doesn't mean I'll avoid Sc2 models altogether, if I find really good ones I'll use em.
While that's true, it gives people with this knowledge an unfair advantage in competitive or pvp play :P. I'm ok with keeping as long as it's not too grindy EV training then maxing out starmon levels. I don't want to spend several hours fully training each starmon like pokemon :P. Also, TMs should have infinite uses. It's really punishing to not let players experiment with different move sets and pokemon made me 'save' TMs for particular types or not use them at all. Eggs helped a bit since you could carry over those moves but you guys aren't implementing that.
I don't really see why giving people with knowledge an advantage is a bad thing. Why reward people for being lazy? Why not reward them for doing some research and spending some time optimizing their starmon?
The advantage won't be too massive either. Your stats can differ by a maximum of 95 (Bigger difference for health as it uses a different formula, also not counting natures), but that's assuming the other guy has has zero IVs and EVs, and that just won't happen. If you don't know much about EV training/Don't give a crap, it just means they won't be focused on specific stats, not that you won't have EVs at all, and getting perfect IVs is pretty damn hard, even with rerolls. So in the end you'll end up with lets say 50 more points in a stat, which is at most going to be around 20-25% higher than your opponent, depending on the starmon. It's still a decent advantage, but I'm sure that can easily be overcome by using the right moves and type advantage to your favor.
Of course, EV training will be made a bit easier. Like in the normal games, we'll include ways to increase EV gains, like using held items and maybe even some consumables that give a timed bonus. And I already said I was going to have a place where you can pick fights based on EV rewards (So you can pick "Special Attack" and you'll fight a trainer that has only starmon with Special Attack as EV rewards), that way trainer randomization won't slow the process down and you won't even need to know what starmon gives what EVs.
The genetics Lab Zelda is working on allows you to view IVs and EVs, which was something that wasn't possible in pokemon (You could only get rough estimations from certain NPCs), and you can reroll your IVs and reduce your EVs (Which was possible by feeding pokemon certain berries). Zelda already implemented the vitamins that give you +10 to any EV (capped at 100)
As for TMs, I definitely don't want them limited to a single use for your entire playthrough. Not sure whether we should make them completely reusable, or to have them be single-use, but you can buy each TM at a special shop after you unlock it (Finding it, player level/progress or whatever) so they're not really that limited.
Talking about TMs, not sure whether we mentioned this before, so I'll just say it now (again, maybe):
Fly and Surf won't be HMs, they'll be TMs. No real point in making a distinction if you have an unlimited amount of them anyway (Either via unlimited uses or being able to buy em), and we can't be bothered to implement the "Can't overwrite this move" mechanic for HMs (It's annoying anyway)
Second of all, we've decided to not add Surf out of combat. I've run into issues setting up the animations for it (For some reason I can't have the damn trainer jump on the damn turtle. He always ends up just falling down the abyss and then suddenly appearing on it, which is not supposed to happen...), having a way to detect the edges of water might become performance intensive (might not, not sure, haven't tested) and might prove to be problematic when it comes to terraining, plus we might not have as much space as we'd hoped for the ocean zone.
We'll be replacing the ocean zone with some tropical islands, and we'll use shallow water the same way as tall grass there and in the beach zone as well. Will share more details as we plan them out :)
@TheAlmaity: Go
I like all your Response to Trieva's post, to get all Three Starters why not do it the like the Anime Series. The Starters are all Raised on a Breeding Ground from an Egg to Level 5 There was an Episode where Ash found the Breeding Ground that Mudkips were raised (Pokemon Advanced Generation Episode 25 / Pokemon Episode 299)
A playable part where you don't have your pokemon would only work at the Middle of the Story Say Team Cipher has Captured your Pokemon and you need to get them back solo, but if you go too long without them at the Start you're right People would likely rage quit.
I love the Direction you're heading Can't wait for the ALPHA.
Alright, we're now one step closer to alpha! I just finished up the good-guy version of the last storyline quest for the alpha. That means the only story quest we have left is the bad-guy version of that same quest. Because this is the quest where the storyline actually splits, what happens either way is pretty similar, so we can reuse a lot of code. I won't be posting any screenshots of that (don't want to spoil things yet!) but I do have some screenshots of UI improvements we've made...
Maity threw together a cleaner looking UI for battle status frames. As a bonus, we have a few different versions of the UI for special starmon. Legendary starmon have a red panel, shiny starmon have a nice golden one, and normal starmon stick with the standard blue theme we've shown before. This should hopefully make shiny and legendary starmon feel that much more special.
Here's the new version of the "normal" frame:
Here's the legendary frame (this screenshot was from the enemy side of the screen, if you're using a legendary it'll be the same direction as the other ones):
And here's the shiny frame:
@zeldarules28: Go
OMG OMG OMG YES YES YES. I hope I'm awake and on here when you plan to have ALPHA, weather I am or not Can you PM me the MAP after you do the ALPHA so I can Replay SOLO as much as I want until the Full Release.
The Screenshots look great for the Battle UI, Question though do you think there can be an Option for different ways of how Lv is shown Example's of The Choices I'd like: Lv 20 (Current), Lv. 50, Lvl 75, Lvl. 37 (My Fav). I'd prefer the 2nd or 4th Option myself.
Well, we still have a little ways to go before we'll start the alpha (moz has to finish our terrain, I need to finish up the last quest, and a few smaller things here and there need to be set up for multiplayer to work). When we do start the alpha, we'll send you guys a PM with the information. We're probably not going to send the map file out, though. We haven't discussed it too much, but what we might do is publish the map publicly, but restrict it so only approved testers can play. That way, you guys would be able to play whenever you want, but random people won't stumble upon the map.
Now that I think about it, I do like "Lvl." better than just "Lv". Honestly, it was text I set up at the very beginning of development without thinking too much about it. It's easy enough to change- thanks for pointing that out :P
@zeldarules28: Go
I'd be willing to test if you need.
New to the Editor? Need a tutorial? Click Here
Want data assets? Click Here
Zelda, I was totally unaware that Blizzard allowed you to publish maps with a white-list. Absolutely wonderful if you can.
I love what I'm seeing, wish I had something constructive to say!
I recall some sentence in their ToS for the editor, that it is not allowed to restrict access to the map and have users pay for full access or something, so a white-list for testing might be somewhat of a grey area.
You can't do it via the bnet service, but you can whip it together with triggers. We already have an admin/ban system set up (just fyi, we don't plan on banning anybody, it's there for emergencies only ^.^), and the same sort of thing would work for a whitelist.
You recall correctly. But the way I see it, the only way something like that would ever be reported is if the map was popular, and people were being frustrated they couldn't play it. If we publish it with zero advertisement with a whitelist, it's not possible for it to get popular (you guys couldn't possibly play it enough to bump it up in popularity). So the only people who would be aware of it's existence would be the whitelisted people. It's a little tricky- I'll have to go over the ToS word-for-word again, but I don't forsee any issues.
If the whitelist doesn't work out, we can fall back on that. The problem would be that you guys would need to be invited by us every time you want to play. So you wouldn't be able to play on your own time. We'll have to see what we can do when we get there....
The engine should support up to 15 people at once, but we're not going to allow that many. The biggest issue is that we need to have enough space to give each player a little battle arena where they can fight. If every player is engaged in a fight simultaneously, we need a spot for them all to be battling. Right now we're thinking we should be able to fit in 6 players- maybe 1 or 2 more if we can fit it. It ultimately depends on which zones we decide to do, and how big/small moz wants to make them- is removing a planned zone worth increasing the player cap by 1? It's a tricky question. We're literally using all the map space here. And then there's the issue of actually being able to run everything for 6 people without lag- it's a lot.
Count me in for testing... I wanna see dem doodads!
Ohhh and sorry Maity for the unfinished Starmons. But I assure you they will be ready before generation 2 comes out! ;-)
Agreed count me in as well.
Whitelist: Not sure, but before the Arcade you could play "vs AI" or something like that from the singleplayer menu, and it'd take about 5 minutes to load the list of maps, which would include all cached maps (i.e. everything you ever played on that computer, including Arcade maps), I used that to play Magicide before Eiviyn published it. Since the Arcade moved a lot of stuff around, I'm not sure whether that exists anymore :/
Also, one thing to point out: Chances are you don't get to keep your saves from the alpha. You might for a good amount of versions, but we might have to reset your progress to test something we added in earlier/fixes to quests, or simply because we changed something fundamental in the saving method. For example, you Stardex will most definitely be wiped - I haven't added in all Starmon yet, and Mei (The dark doll girl) for example will always be at the end of the list with the other legendaries, but if you guys see her, right now it would mark ID 81 as revealed, and if I added more Starmon and moved Mei to the back of the list again, you guys would have whatever starmon is now #81 is revealed again, without ever seeing it.
@SoulFilcher: Go
Looking at how fast we're working, that's a looooooooooooong time til we're done :p Also, had an idea how you could add eyes to the model you already sent me - Just make some indents, don't fill them. Maybe even indent a smile, or change its texture in a way that it roughly forms a smile. It'll be enough for people to see a friendly face, like when you look at some cars you can roughly make out a face with the headlights being the eyes, and some other machines/devices sometimes have faces as well.
Parties will stay 2 player. double battles already caused enough problems and delays, and tripple battles would probably require more cameras so that you can actually see everything, and possibly even force us to make the arenas larger.
You'll be able to play through everything together with another person, but storywise it'll be exactly the same as if you went alone. Quests are already enough work without us having to create mildly different versions for co-op.
Don't think that's very practical for evolution lines consisting of only the base starmon and a single evolution. If it were something like Base -> Stage 1 via levelling -> Stage 2 via Trade, then Stage 2 could have significant stat changes. But the basic stage needs to have below average stats to match other low level starmon, which means the evolution will naturally be overall stronger. Yea, I can take away from a certain stat and put it into another if it makes sense thematically, but that isn't really what you're asking for - It's not really a choice, since the non-evolved form will be a lot weaker overall.
What you want is something like Scyther->Scizor. Due to Scyther having had 500 base stat total in Gen I (Which is pretty high), they just couldn't make his evolution more powerful when they added it in Gen II, so instead they cut his speed stat by 40 and shoved it into attack and defense.
The most obvious and best example on how to implement this is Eevee - You've got quite the choice to make. I'll be adding an Eevee in, probably very soon. I couldn't find a third model that fit, so I'll likely use the Predator from the SC2 campaign.
I'll see if I can find something which I can turn into a Scyther/Scizor type evolution, but I wouldn't get my hopes up :/ Evolution chains are already hard enough to find in the WoW model files, but finding similar yet different enough models where one doesn't look weaker than the other will be harder.
That could work, I'll give it a try.
Combat is pretty much what the entire game revolves around, it's what makes it what it is. I'm not saying we shouldn't make any non-combat part, but it needs to added smartly. In Mass Effect 1 you come to the citadel and I'm sure you remember just how much time you spent on there, going from character to character and doing stuff... There were a few short combat moments involved, but overall that stuff just took way too long for an action game. Oh, it was great for building up the story, teaching the player whats going on, but I got really annoyed that I couldn't just play the damn game because I was stuck in this incredibly long "running errands" period.
What I'm trying to say is that if we add non-combat stuff to Starmon, which I'm sure we will, we'll have to make sure it doesn't just break the flow of the game and the players just get locked into a long boring walk they possibly won't enjoy: I know a lot of people love lore and story in games, but I'm sure there's just as many, if not more, that don't really care much, and getting stuck in such a long "pause" would put them off.
Non-combat optional/Side quests would be a good way to add such content: As it's optional, you'll not get stuck doing something that bores you.
As for minigames: The only reason I can think of not to add any is time. So, if we have time, we might just add some if we get good ideas for them and how to implement into the game (Not only technically, but also story/gameplay-wise)
Not sure what you mean. EVs are gained by KO-ing pokemon/starmon and capped at 255 per stat / 512 total. Evolved starmon generally grant more EVs when KO's, which I think is only fair considering they're tougher. Pidgey being useless doesn't have anything to do with EVs, but base stats and the fact that he's unevolved (Which actually goes back to the point of base stats. Evolutions almost always just straight up have higher base stats)
I'm still fairly certain you're asking for something like the Scyther->Scizor evolution, where evolution is not mandatory and doesn't actually grant a stronger starmon, just redistributes the stats in a different way. I.E. evolve into a different set of stats instead of a stronger set of stats.
(also, for the record, we have no way to prevent happiness/level up evolutions at the moment, they will just happen with no way to stop them. This makes it a lot easier to set up move sets for me)
Will evolved versions have higher base stats totals than baby versions?
If total base stats change (+, -, or move) would there be an option to "push the B button" and abort the evolution, or have the guy hold an everstone?
When you start writing triggers for the white listing program, I want to make sure that you guys inform the people who were curious about the game why they are not allowed to play. Something along the lines of the loading screen, and an in-game message saying something like "This game is still being developed. We would be quite embarrassed if someone we didn't know played this and found a bug. Contact us at [email protected] with questions. If you are interested in the development of our game, visit our thread on sc2mapster.com!" Maybe include a shortened version of the url in there too, because www.sc2mapster.com/forums/resources/project-workplace/41336 is terribly long, especially if you include the -starmon-a-pokemon-style-map part.
I've also wondered if there will be an item which will upgrade a starmon's energy limit. even just a one time +10 energy that costs 50,000 Starcoins.
Yes, that's how it worked in all the pokemon games as well, save for a few specific cases, like Scyther->Scizor I keep mentioning.
Yes, and also the equialents of Caterpie->Metapod->Butterfree - They reached stage 3 incredibly quickly and are very powerful early game pokemon, but their base stats aren't comparable to other stage 3 pokemon that are evolved into 20-40 levels after them, so their OPness is short lived. It'll be the same in Starmon, although these starmon will have a less bad lategame (They'll still be the weakest evolved starmon in the game, the difference just won't be as large as in pokemon. On the other hand, there will be little to no other below-average starmon, so they'll kinda be the only ones with crappy base stats)
I actually mentioned this at the end of my previous post. Level and Happiness evolutions (which are the only evolutions that aren't entirely under the players control) can't be stopped. Pokemon made unevolved pokemon learn moves faster, and in some cases learn moves that their evolutions didn't. I'm not really a fan of that, partially because I just don't like that mechanic in the first place and partially because setting up move lists for starmon is already annoying enough if I don't have to write up the entire list three seperate times and don't have to change what levels the moves are learned at. (Currently the move lists for starmon only include moves they can learn before levelling up. Evolved starmon include the move list of the previous one + new moves until their next evolution or levels 55-65 in case of fully evolved starmon. Writing the previous move list into an evolution is already a quite annoying and time consuming process and pretty much the thing that takes the most time when adding in a new set of starmon.)
I'd prefer avoiding the White List altogether. As I mentioned earlier, there was an option that allowed you to play downloaded/cached maps "offline", but I'm not sure whether it still exists. I don't remember any patch notes saying it was removed, I'll just have to find it now that the Arcade and HotS restructured the menus. So once we do the alpha test, you guys will be able to play it on your own. If you want to play multiplayer we can probably just determine a time and Zelda or I (depending on who publishes the map) will come online and set up a lobby.
But if we do have to resort to a white list, we'll make sure to make it clear on the loading screen, and possibly even include a little demo gameplay for people not on the list. And yea, we already used URL shorteners for RuneCraft.
Probably. Some Starmon might even have their passive ability increase their limit. And it's more likely to be +20-30 I think. +10 is barely 1-2 extra moves, getting an item that makes moves hit harder instead would be a far more efficient way to increase how long you are able to fight at a time.
Hey, it's me again, I know it's been really long since my last post, sorry about that, bla bla bla, more sarcasm, bla bla bla
Anyway, I did some work on the map today (very little, to be honest. Mostly testing and finding bugs for Zelda.)
Here's what I have done:
Ignore the back line in this image for now, and focus on the four starmon in the front.
On the left we have a little black fox called Eve. It's a cute little Dark-Type starmon that is incredibly rare. So rare that it's almost impossible to find in the wild. If you wanna get one, you'll have to find another way to get it. Some NPC might give one to you if you're lucky ;)
To it's right we've got Freeve, the Ice-Dark evolution of Eve. It's heart is as cold as its attacks, it aims to weaken its foe before killing it. The only way to get Eve to evolve into this creature is by exposing it to something very cold.
Next up we've got this horrible looking creature Helleve. Who needs muscles and organs when instead you can just watch the world burn? This Dark-Fire starmon will specialize in searing the flesh off of his enemies bones. Turning Eve into such a hellish creature requires immense heat.
Next up is Shockeve. It's the only Eve-olution that loses the Dark Type, and instead it gets Steel to complement its Electric type. While it won't match the sheer firepower of its fire counterpart (hehe he... puns) or even that of its frosty relative, you could argue that being unstoppable is far more dangerous.
The others in this picture serve as size references mostly. The four in the back are the four trade evolutions: Mortessus (Ghost Ice), Thangur (Fight), Shelob(Rock Ice) and Roknarr(Rock Fire)
Alright, now that I'm done with the descriptions, lets discuss. First of all I would've preferred "cute" models like with Eevee, but those aren't easy to come by :(
Not much has been planned about this thing. Three evolutions, perhaps more if I can find more (Actually have an idea for one more, but I want to make it at least five total then). Fire will be sheer damage, Ice will be control and Electric will be the tank/bruiser (Being a steel type already makes it very hard to kill, so I don't need to make its base defenses too high and can give it good offensive stats instead)
Haven't decided how to get Eve or evolve them yet. Either the stones, like in the original games, or location based like the Gen IV eevees. We've got a snow covered mountain zone, a volcano zone (planned) and the power plant. If we decide to not use stones, I'd do the same for other starmon as well (Probichu will evolve the same way as Eve->Shockeve then, for example)
For acquiring Eve, I think the professor giving it to you might be a good idea - You're a decent trainer that already helps him by using the Stardex, what better way is there to get info on a genetically unstable starmon than giving it to such a trainer?
Not sure about their abilities yet, but I want to make them something unique. Here are the first three ideas that popped into my head:
Ice: Being faster than the opponent amplifies damage dealt. (Encourages usage of slows)
Fire: +5 or 10% additional burn chance on all damaging moves (even if the moves themselves can't cause burn), (+10% damage to burnt enemies as well maybe?)
Electric: Ok, this one is more complex. Using or being hit by electric moves gives 1 shock charge. When you have 4, you get a Shock Shield that prevents the damage from the next damaging attack. If that attack was a contact move (Melee, practically), the attacker takes damage and has a chance to be paralyzed. If it wasn't, you immediately get another shock charge.
This passive would make it tankier and make it a good starmon vs melee starmon (If you have Static Field up, getting hit by a melee/contact attack deals damage to the attacker, so you get a charge)
So, any comments or ideas?
Eve sounds pretty great, and I like the evolutions. I think you should do the stones idea. They can be found in the wild or bought at a very high price.
A few questions/suggestions.
1. Will the pokedex give Pokemon locations? Like it does in the game.
2. When trading there should be an option for immediate trade back so assholes don't walk away with your Pokemon, and you can either evolve your Pokemon or get Pokedex info safely.
Yes, it already does. I believe Zelda was planning to implement rarity as well (Common, uncommon, rare)
Maybe. Will see. Reason I don't like it is because it practically just turns into "Find other player, click button to evolve starmon" and it sorta removes the "difficulty" from trade evolutions. On the other hand, the "difficulty" in trade evolutions comes mostly from people being dicks... I guess we probably will add it, but no promises on this one.
@Trieva: Go
Not saying there won't be non-combat stuff in the story, just that as combat is the main point of the game I think we should avoid large gaps and/or have the non-combat stuff be optional content. If you grab a couple of Repels to stop wild starmon from attacking you, you could say that we already have a few non-combat quests (If you manage to avoid the random trainers as well :p )
Anything that is 100% non-combat (So no wilds or random trainers either) would pretty much have to take place in only the city or be some sort of minigame or something else that keeps the player stationary.
I think the beach may be a good place for some minigames though.
We won't remove any of the pokemon features like EV or happiness - They're already fully implemented anyway, wouldn't make it any easier for us and would just remove depth from the game for people who really want to have the best of the best starmon. It's not like the features complicate things for the player - Most of those values are hidden in the pokemon games anyway. People play through the games without knowing that those mechanics even exist, and it doesn't hurt them.
I'll see if I can find some vids of that game later to see what you mean :)
I think all the starmon currently implemented were actually shown off in this thread in posts like my last one. Unfortunately, not too many electrics :( Shock-eve won't have amazing speed though. Probably good speed, but not crazy good. Considering it'll be able to paralyze people, it doesn't even need that much speed.
Current Electrics are Probichu->Zenchu (Sentry model), Galvamine->Galvadrone (Spidermine and PDD model, practically magnemite and magneton) and Shockeve. Got a "bird" line as well, but I either have to find other models or scrap it. It's using observer->phoenix->hero phoenix from SC2, and... Well, SC2 models suck for starmon :p
You can use critters. Check the critter pack in my models page, I converted some of the bird doodads into units. They only have basic animations, but may be better than the protoss ships for birds.
Haven't seen the mech zergling, will have to take a look. (Already using zergling and a zergling retexture, I guess this could be one of those optional evolutions that change stats instead of increasing :) )
Once we start setting up TMs and what moves starmon can learn through TMs (I should put that on my to-do list...) I'll get you a list with pictures of the starmon, their base stats and so on. Tbh, I don't think it'd be a bad thing to give milestone trainers one completely off-type starmon as long as it sorta fit in with the rest of the team (So if you're gonna go for a ton of high speed starmon, I can add another high speed starmon that isn't electric and doesn't know electric moves. Also, we can cheat and give it an electric move like Volt Switch anyway :P )
I'm avoiding sc2 models even if I can use them for good steel/mech starmon as I want this map to feel more "special". It'll just give a better impression if people come into this map and see unfamiliar models. Doesn't mean I'll avoid Sc2 models altogether, if I find really good ones I'll use em.
I don't really see why giving people with knowledge an advantage is a bad thing. Why reward people for being lazy? Why not reward them for doing some research and spending some time optimizing their starmon?
The advantage won't be too massive either. Your stats can differ by a maximum of 95 (Bigger difference for health as it uses a different formula, also not counting natures), but that's assuming the other guy has has zero IVs and EVs, and that just won't happen. If you don't know much about EV training/Don't give a crap, it just means they won't be focused on specific stats, not that you won't have EVs at all, and getting perfect IVs is pretty damn hard, even with rerolls. So in the end you'll end up with lets say 50 more points in a stat, which is at most going to be around 20-25% higher than your opponent, depending on the starmon. It's still a decent advantage, but I'm sure that can easily be overcome by using the right moves and type advantage to your favor.
Of course, EV training will be made a bit easier. Like in the normal games, we'll include ways to increase EV gains, like using held items and maybe even some consumables that give a timed bonus. And I already said I was going to have a place where you can pick fights based on EV rewards (So you can pick "Special Attack" and you'll fight a trainer that has only starmon with Special Attack as EV rewards), that way trainer randomization won't slow the process down and you won't even need to know what starmon gives what EVs.
The genetics Lab Zelda is working on allows you to view IVs and EVs, which was something that wasn't possible in pokemon (You could only get rough estimations from certain NPCs), and you can reroll your IVs and reduce your EVs (Which was possible by feeding pokemon certain berries). Zelda already implemented the vitamins that give you +10 to any EV (capped at 100)
As for TMs, I definitely don't want them limited to a single use for your entire playthrough. Not sure whether we should make them completely reusable, or to have them be single-use, but you can buy each TM at a special shop after you unlock it (Finding it, player level/progress or whatever) so they're not really that limited.
Talking about TMs, not sure whether we mentioned this before, so I'll just say it now (again, maybe):
Fly and Surf won't be HMs, they'll be TMs. No real point in making a distinction if you have an unlimited amount of them anyway (Either via unlimited uses or being able to buy em), and we can't be bothered to implement the "Can't overwrite this move" mechanic for HMs (It's annoying anyway)
Second of all, we've decided to not add Surf out of combat. I've run into issues setting up the animations for it (For some reason I can't have the damn trainer jump on the damn turtle. He always ends up just falling down the abyss and then suddenly appearing on it, which is not supposed to happen...), having a way to detect the edges of water might become performance intensive (might not, not sure, haven't tested) and might prove to be problematic when it comes to terraining, plus we might not have as much space as we'd hoped for the ocean zone.
We'll be replacing the ocean zone with some tropical islands, and we'll use shallow water the same way as tall grass there and in the beach zone as well. Will share more details as we plan them out :)
EDIT: Will look at your models, SoulFilcher.