If I get any better ideas for the conversation box/buttons I'll try and implement them. Not satisfied with how they look now, but they at least look decent enough to be presentable (Well, tbh, I like how the buttons look by themselves, just not how it all fits together ingame)
There will be 4 trade evolutions. The Stardex will tell you which ones they are. (Mortessus (Ghost/Ice. Lich), Shelob (Rock/Ice Spider) and I forgot the names of the last 2, one is a 2 headed giant brute (fighting) and the other is a rock+fire giant)
Stones: Not sure how we'll add em. Can make me rare drops or sold by the arena points vendor, or both. They should only be available after a certain level though, so that people can't get the evolutions too early (So between 20-30 is when you should end up with enough Arena Points or reach the zones where they can spawn. If you grind arena fights for the stones I think its only fair that you're allowed to get one early)
Probichu will definitely evolve via stone, as will our Eevee equivalent. I'll try and add in a few more.
Also, the items might not be called "stones", we'll see.
Probichu/Zenchu stats: When I added em to Starmon (they were planned from Day 1, but I had to wait til I made 24 other starmon. Yes, I even gave them the same ID numbers as pikachu and raichu) I checked the Pikachu and Raichu pages on serebii net to copy their base stats, but they were just so bad.
Remember when I said I wanted to keep all starmon "viable" by not having major differences in base stat totals, that I was bringing everything up to 520? Well, now you know when I decided to do that :P
These are the new images for our conversation box, which in the video had default protoss images. The "nope" button on the left is how it looks when its moused over, and the other one is obviously the not-moused-over version. It doesn't look flawless, but I had a really hard time coming up with buttons for this thing :(
You're probably somewhat familiar with the background image for a starmons health, name, energy, status ailment and so on (Its a blue/black thing with blue lines separating the sections and it likes to reside in the corners of the screen). I've just made a couple of extra images with different colors so that we can make Shinies and Legendaries stand out more (Shinies are gonna have yellow/gold+black instead of blue+black, and legendaries will be red+black)
What else do we have... Well, I tested all of Zelda's quests today, found a minimum of one bug in each of them, but they were all really good :) He actually did a pretty damn good job at using sounds and music, I'm pretty impressed :)
OH. I finally set up SoulFilchers models, the metal walls and umbrellas. I'll get you a screenie of the umbrellas right now, and Mozared will be using the metal walls really soon so I'll let him make a screenshot of them :)
Yea, we can definitely have such a character in there. I love writing that type of characters ;) Just need to figure out how exactly we're gonna add him in.
Also, the conversation/narration box seems to have a personality of its own (Or perhaps its a reflection of the players personality, who knows) and occasionally comments on some stuff. For example, when you grab those 3 crates of supplies for a quest, the conversation box will follow it up by saying "Good thing you've got such huge pockets!" ;)
Last but not least, we've got a special duo in the game you'll be meeting quite a lot. It's not the duo you're thinking of, but chances are they're based on it, if you're thinking of the right duo ;) You'll meet them in the alpha, and perhaps we'll even make a video of em before then :p I'll do my best to make them as amazing as possible :) Zelda's done a good job until now, but once I have my hands on the map again I'll go over things and see if I can improve anything. (Zelda is currently working on it)
It's easier to "control the player" if we have something like the arena: We know that the player has to pass by a certain place very regularly. Milestone trainers will have quests that are required to unlock them, etc. While it may not be part of the Cipher plot line, it ties it all nicely together. In the pokemon games you went from gym to gym, which is how you ran into all the story related quests. The gyms very rarely directly tied into the story of the game, and the Arena is going to work the same way.
And what would a pokemon game be without Gym Trainers and the elite 4? :p
That's ok to some degree but what if everyone looks a bruiser? :P. I prefer a more even variety which the original 150 had. Weezing is an awesome defender while starmie is fast and powerful.
I'll try and keep a lot of variety. If there end up being too many starmon with very similar base stats, I'll shift the focus of them a bit. (Using my giant 2 headed brute example, I can cut his defenses and focus more on attack, or vice versa, and it would still make sense.)
Interesting. I like how it's like a giant side quest :P. Too bad level scaling makes it less special because I'd like to build up money and exp in the arena if I wanted to then destroy every trainer in the main plot :P.
Eeeh... Well, can't say I really mind that that isn't possible :p Being able to outlevel stuff to make it easier is ok I guess, but only to a certain degree. Also, keep in mind that quests reward XP to your starmon, so they might end up being more efficient than just grinding arena battles.
Oh, and the milestone trainers are locked :p You need to do quests to get them to be available. (Reasons for locking will be different. Generally something keeps them from fighting, stuff like a lost Starmon or Cipher rolling into the city with tanks.)
Names of things are subject to copyright?! That's BS imo. So many games out there have common names for equipment and stuff. Will blizzard get sued for a map with 'axes' or 'swords' in it?
I don't know whether names themselves are copyrighted, and I'll keep the fairly generic stuff, but I think renaming things in general to reduce the overall similarities is a good idea.
EDIT: Could you guys do entering of small houses like the battlefield? Just reserve a small map space and reuse it. Also hav small buildings or huts layed around to create the village look.
The battle arenas already eat into our available map space. If we're going to reuse anything, we need one of them for each possible player. Stuff like that eats up map space really quickly.
Fairies: Ok, going with the no here ;) Wouldn't have been an issue for me adding them.
Base Stats: Mostly based on how the Starmon looks and what my first impression is of it. If I find a model of a massive 2 headed brutish looking giant, I'm going to give him a lot of health, good attack and defense but keep his specials and speed low.
Gameplay: Arena is an important part of it, but more like the Gyms in the pokemon games: They're not really part of the main plot, but something you do in between. We're gonna have a lot of stuff to do in the zones and will try to get as many quests in as possible so that the arena isn't the only thing you can do. The arena city will be the only one mostly due to map size restrictions - There just isn't enough space for us to put in towns and cities.
Copying Stuff / Barcraft situation: Copyright laws just gotta ruin everything, don't they? This is really getting absurd...
But anyway, I guess we're going to rename some stuff.
Moves = Attacks
Abilities = Passives
Nature = Personality
"(Poke)Balls" are already called called Capture Cores.
Things we need ideas for:
Evolutions
TMs
Can't think of more atm, will edit/post again if I do.
I guess we can also rename Poison and Steel types to Toxic and Metal.
Haahhhaaha, I like the name fatty :P. Why not call him big belly? :P.
But how will you make him epic after the elite four? You seem set on keeping them at level 100.
Fatty is the actual name of the model (Used to be the infestor, but then they created the model that is used now.), don't know what I will name the Starmon yet, but I'm not sure whether big belly would fit anyway :p
How to make him epic... Well, as I said, Red has that nostalgia factor. I don't think him being a higher level added nearly as much to the fight as just him being him.
We'll see how hard our highest AI level will really be at level 100. I want it to be really hard. If beating the Aren Champion won't be possible enough, we can just pump up Red's stats. +1-2k EVs will surely make a difference :p If that won't be good enough/too cheaty, custom moves can be made for him with high side effect chances that the AI should abuse really well. Considering it's a bonus fight and completely optional, I don't think making it unfair would be that much of an issue, unlike with the Arena Champion.
I mean the same set. The first time we fight them they scale to our levels (maybe with some offset to be higher) and the second time they're level 100. Sort of like a progression thing where during the time we train, they do too but much faster (because they defeat trainers on a regular basis).
That would imply that the Arena is really new and there simply aren't any powerful trainers in existence to take up the level 100 slots. They're supposed to top tier trainers, not future top tier trainers. That's the big issue with allowing people to fight them earlier - It goes against their primary purpose.
What could be done on the other hand is have one or more of the Elite 4 replaced by someone better than them at some point in the game, someone you run into and fight at some point. But that again wouldn't work with your idea of tricking the player of thinking he's actually doing the final battles long before them, as you wouldn't know that that guy would become one of he Elite 4 and it also wouldn't matter as he isn't one of them yet.
I dunno, I don't think the surprise not-ending is too feasible here.
Also, the RED fight didn't work that way either. You really beat the game, and then just got one special fight to top it off afterwards (Instead of the other way around: Getting a special fight with the Elite 4, and then beating the game). I think we can create something similar to that using a side character and the starmon backstory (So... The Wanderer), but it won't have the same awesomeness of the RED fight simply because pokemon is just... Old. There's nostalgia involved, there's--
...I'm absolutely fucking stupid.
Ok, listen, ok? So, you fight- You listening? OK, you fight a trainer - Right, a trainer, and you fight him - Still listening? Ok, good, so you fight a trainer, a trainer, that's wearing red, ok? And - Listen carefully - His name is Red as well, and, right, ok his team setup, right, listening, ok? Is Probichu, Venostalk, Blasturtle, Charragon, Fatty (yet unnamed snorlax equivalent), and another starmon based on an iconic pokemon.
It was in front of me this entire time, so fucking simple, and it took me this fucking long...
Will the Elite 4 be active in the story occasionally? Eg, one of them could show up to investigate a starmon that had been terrorizing travelers, one of them could help with protecting the civilians when a dragon starmon or when an angry starmon horde attacks a town, during one of the times when the player is battling that evil organization early in the story (taking on the uber powered evil boss character while the player handles the Team Cipher grunts, who knows, perhaps the number 5 trainer could be the evil boss character), etc.
It would build up their character(s) and may help illustrate why these people are elite and why everyone aspires to be one of the elites, etc. Basically, it would provide more juicy story content :P
Yea, they will most definitely be involved, but maybe less so than the Milestone Trainers (Gym leader equivalents), considering there's twice as many of them as there are of the Elite 4 :p
taking on the uber powered evil boss character while the player handles the Team Cipher grunts, who knows, perhaps the number 5 trainer could be the evil boss character
Btw do Cipher members have ranks? Is there a promotion system? Something like: grunt -> squad leader -> captain -> boss.
It would be interesting for a Cipher grunt that the player had fought before to be encountered later on and battle the player as a squad leader and later on as captain (with "gym leader" starmon - starmon that is superior and higher leveled than the grunt starmons).
We should definitely do something like that.
I did have an idea for something a bit more "funny" that's similar to that. A recurring Cipher grunt that just simply stays a grunt and is unimportant, with lines like "Hah, I'll get you this time!" at the start of a fight and "You don't remember me, do you? You know, from last time?" for defeat.
Eh, we could do that, but if you scroll down in the Arena list you will see they are all listed as the final level 100 fights. Also, I kind of want to have things make sense if possible (Which is why I want the elite 4/champ be level 100). I found it kinda illogical how gym leaders, who are supposed to be super awesome, had level 10-20 pokemon. So if someone who is clearly a powerful high level trainer is supposed to fight with low level starmon (Relative to what they are supposed to have), there should both be an explanation and good reason for them to have them.
Let's take the milestone trainers for example: It's their job to be a sort of checkpoint, obstacle or some form of "quality control", they are supposed to define a certain range of arena ranks. They make sure that arena rankings don't inflate by providing clear, static ranks. Without them, if you have enough trainers they can just fight each other to climb rankings which could easily lower the average level of those ranks. But by having to beat a specific trainer every 10 ranks this is prevented. They have a seperate lower level party of Starmon specifically for that purpose. You'll actually be able to fight all of them again as part of the last 20 arena battles with their real parties (Not sure what those 20 are going to consist of yet, but right now the plan is the 8 milestone trainers, rival, elite 4 and the champion, which is 14 trainers already. We'll probably throw in some other important characters.)
I can't think of a good reason why the elite four would keep a seperate set of lower level starmon :(
I really like the idea about the Dev Team as trainers, we'll see how and if we implement that. As Zelda said, we already had some small plans for this, but those can easily be changed.
Ello again :) I guess Zelda answered the rest already, but for Elemental model packs, I assume you mean elemental creatures? (Living tornadoes and stuff) Find the WoW model packs/requests thread(s) here on mapster, there might be some in there.
Those are good ideas :)
The second one can be easily used for the Rival
But just to expand on what I said - The map isn't going to be dark/horror themed, it just won't avoid it. Nasty stuff will happen, but that doesn't mean it has to happen all the time. If a massive dragon attacks a town, it'd be really bad at its job if somehow absolutely everyone got away unharmed, right? But that doesn't mean we can't have some funnier and less grim stuff :p We're probably going to have the Moz/Explorer quest chain include a good amount of sillyness ;)
When I said I wanted a longer story I didn't mean more or bigger delays. I meant have us believe the journey ends much sooner like getting all the badges and feeling pro. But, suddenly spring on us afterwards that there's more things to do.
Well, the Arena Champion/Elite 4 being level 100 doesn't really make that particularly easy :p Short of straight up making enemies have IVs/EVs/Levels that are above maximum, there's not much we can do to make the game more challenging at that point. Of course, we could still add a couple more quests, maybe related to the Wanderer/drop pods.
I would love it if beating the Champion was a challenge, even after making a team specifically to counter his/her team. Seeing as s/he will be the 5th guy with a team full of 100's that we fight.
Taken from our design/discussion document:
So... Those guys won't be messing around :P The conditions for using status ailments and defensive moves will probably have to be tweaked. If possible I'd like them to use specific combos as well (Like having a tank buff himself up and then baton pass out to something powerful. Or using a sustain-tank (two starmon (+their evolution chains) have a move set that will make them very good at tanking and healing themselves so that they can continue tanking), etc.
I want these guys to be really fucking hard. Beating the arena should be a big achievement, and not just something that is inevitably going to happen.
The Elite 4 will be themed as always, so it'll be a bit easier to counter them. The Champion will however have a powerful all-round team.
All I have to say is that the current "series" of Doctor Who had some tasty twists, with river song and the face of boe. ... Just want you two to keep those IPs in mind when writing the story. How hard can that be, they are a part of your identity on this forum.
I have a cat named after the Face of Boe... Just felt like sharing.
Also, I really miss Tennant and Barrowman :( (He's playing a somewhat important role in "Arrow" though =D)
Zelda and I have been going over ideas for potentially very interesting characters. One concept I came up with is currently just called "The Wanderer" (And honestly, I think I might keep it like that)
He's a character that will be very detached from the world and ongoing conflict between the good and bad guys, but you'll regularly find him and be able to talk to him.
He will tie in a lot into the backstory, he will be interested in finding out more about Starmon and their origins - Why did they crash on this planet, and more importantly, people only found escape pods, but where did the spaceship go?
He will recognize the player as someone who wants to become the best, and will offer to fight a "fair fight" against him to help him measure his skill. Not sure whether its feasible, but we can maybe analyse the fight and have him give useful feedback to the player.
The reason I put "Fair fight" into quotes was because I want him to really stand out, and will probably have him use different, unique moves and mechanics. Those will likely include a different way of releasing starmon (No capture cores/pokeballs), sending out level 100 starmon and then reducing their level to match the player, and having a unique unavailable starmon (Which I will try to tie into the previous two "mechanics" and his overall storyline)
We already mentioned that we want the player to visit a starmon drop pod site at some point, and I definitely want to somehow tie the character into that.
As for twists, we have what I think is a very interesting idea for the main antagonist (Cipher boss) and a situation with him that I can guarantee will hit people right in the feels. Also, we don't want the story to be too black and white, and Cipher will consist of people with varying motivations, some very noble while others aren't.
I'm also planning on a sidequest chain involving a mercenary you can team up with, and I can probably whip up a decent story for him as well.
Generally, for suggestions, I think a lot of random ideas can be incorporated. We haven't set much in stone yet. Also, "dark" ideas are acceptable - as we said a few times already, this won't be a game for little kids. I do a lot of writing in my spare time as a hobby (Can give links if anyone is interested) and generally dislike avoiding dark/bloody/deadly stuff just for the sake of avoiding it. But on the other hand I won't include it just for the sake of including it. If a situation makes casualties/injuries plausible/unavoidable, expect them.
Currently the Arena Champion, Elite Four, Milestone Trainers are pretty much blank slates. The Arena is a place of diplomatic immunity/peace (Nobody will ever be banned from participation or arrested during it. That doesn't stop the cops from standing outside its doors to catch criminals though.), which means those guys aren't good guys by default. The Arena champ is a good guy to some degree though (When it comes to the Arena, he is 100% neutral. In his free time/outside the Arena he will side with the good guys)
We don't have any plans for most NPCs yet (Doctors/Starcenter staff, main item shop dude(s), any other cool NPC that we can have, etc.)
Oh, and one small update on the rival stuff: We decided to drop my idea about having multiple different rival personalities. The rival will be the same for every player with the same alignment (So technically seen its 2 rivals, seeing as he will always play the opposite side of the quest chain than the player. So if the player goes dark side, the rival will be one of the good guys and vice versa)
ok, I got super distracted while writing this by discussing more and more ideas I got with Zelda :p
Thanks for the posts regarding this - They really made me think harder about this and I'm getting some amazing ideas ;)
EDIT: Dammit, someone posted while I was writing, and I didnt check to make sure my post went through >.>
The issue with a Red like character is that Red is a character from a previous game (and also sort of from the anime of said game :p ). There'd be very few people who'd recognize us and have the feeling that that character is special, so it wouldnt compare at all to RED. And I also dont wanna lower the level of the elite 4 and the champ - They are supposed to be some of the very best, the final challenge to overcome to become recognized as a true master. There may be better trainers than the Champion because they did not accept the full-time position of champion, but there aren't many.
I'm pretty sure you guys have set all your story elements or ideas in stone but I'd like to make some suggestions just in case. The game should end with something epic. I was really touched by how good soul silver so I'd like to see something similar. Please don't end the game with the elite four. Add more plot quests, have us fight a really relevant and interesting character (like red's epic return in soul silver), or randomise the regions enough and pretend we're in a new area with more badges to collect. I don't mind what's done but extend the game far more than what we expect to be the end. That stuff I love from good RPGs.
We already have the ending semi planned out (Since it relates to the big, main legendary), and... well... Let's just say it'll be quite... deadly ;)
I think we'll end the main story a good amount of time before the elite 4/champion - They're all level 100, and that takes really long to reach and the gaps between levels get longer and longer. I'd prefer to not have too long delays between story quests, and those are unavoidable past a certain level. I think we'll probably end it around level 70 or earlier.
The Elite 4 and Champion will just simply be the top of the Arena and not as super special as the pokemon league. There are two issue with making something like Red in gold/silver.
The first is that since the Elite 4 / Champion are level 100, you have no real way to progress past them, to make the game harder after them (They're supposed to be the best, aren't they?)
The second is that we just simply don't have anything like Red we can reference yet. (If that fight had been just a random trainer with random high level pokemon, it would've been pretty lame, wouldn't it?)
But that just got me thinking... We need to create a memorable character :p
If you guys have ideas for a big post-game event or such a character, tell me :p
EDIT: There also aren't that many things that are set in stone. We've got a beginning, a relatively vague ending that can change if we get a better idea, and we have a few small ideas for the middle but we'll definitely need more.
No solid plans yet, but there will definitely be some kind of limit. For levels, maybe the level of the next milestone trainer+5 (So that you don't accidentally outlevel him before fighting him and suddenly your best starmon becomes useless). Or we could disallow trading such high level starmon, but if you train a starmon past that level cap it won't become useless (Could tie it to the happiness value. If it's happy, it will still fight for you)
Cash and item trading shouldn't be limited I think - They can't directly win you the game. They can help, but the biggest factors are your starmon. Having a million potions or revives don't matter if you get one or two shot. Also, as with the pokemon games, what items are available in the store will be limited by your progression/level. I just don't think money/Items give a gamebreaking advantage if acquired earlier than normally possible.
If people think that having such an advantage would ruin their experience... Well, they can simply not trade such things :) This isn't LoL where any one of your friends can gift you teemo in cold blood without you being able to do anything about it.
As for hardcore: We'll see when we get there. Easiest solution to me is I think an option that would disallow trades with any non-hardcore players, and maybe more options like no money and no item trading.
There will be two starmon that attack the player if he reaches a certain amount of karma (One for good, one for bad). Each player can only get one of them. That is essentially it - Become super evil/good and you'll encounter a unique starmon.
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That looks pretty great :) Are those gonna be available for public use?
And yea, as SoulFilcher said, check out the community project: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hUHq6OtMb-RpA3P_iKGvwB7F7lcAhnhA3Rt4pa1T5vM/edit
Maybe there are some ideas in there that you might find useful.
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@OceanFlex: Go
If I get any better ideas for the conversation box/buttons I'll try and implement them. Not satisfied with how they look now, but they at least look decent enough to be presentable (Well, tbh, I like how the buttons look by themselves, just not how it all fits together ingame)
@Trieva: Go
There will be 4 trade evolutions. The Stardex will tell you which ones they are. (Mortessus (Ghost/Ice. Lich), Shelob (Rock/Ice Spider) and I forgot the names of the last 2, one is a 2 headed giant brute (fighting) and the other is a rock+fire giant)
Stones: Not sure how we'll add em. Can make me rare drops or sold by the arena points vendor, or both. They should only be available after a certain level though, so that people can't get the evolutions too early (So between 20-30 is when you should end up with enough Arena Points or reach the zones where they can spawn. If you grind arena fights for the stones I think its only fair that you're allowed to get one early)
Probichu will definitely evolve via stone, as will our Eevee equivalent. I'll try and add in a few more.
Also, the items might not be called "stones", we'll see.
Probichu/Zenchu stats: When I added em to Starmon (they were planned from Day 1, but I had to wait til I made 24 other starmon. Yes, I even gave them the same ID numbers as pikachu and raichu) I checked the Pikachu and Raichu pages on serebii net to copy their base stats, but they were just so bad.
Remember when I said I wanted to keep all starmon "viable" by not having major differences in base stat totals, that I was bringing everything up to 520? Well, now you know when I decided to do that :P
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I wanna do screenshots too D:
These are the new images for our conversation box, which in the video had default protoss images. The "nope" button on the left is how it looks when its moused over, and the other one is obviously the not-moused-over version. It doesn't look flawless, but I had a really hard time coming up with buttons for this thing :(
You're probably somewhat familiar with the background image for a starmons health, name, energy, status ailment and so on (Its a blue/black thing with blue lines separating the sections and it likes to reside in the corners of the screen). I've just made a couple of extra images with different colors so that we can make Shinies and Legendaries stand out more (Shinies are gonna have yellow/gold+black instead of blue+black, and legendaries will be red+black)
What else do we have... Well, I tested all of Zelda's quests today, found a minimum of one bug in each of them, but they were all really good :) He actually did a pretty damn good job at using sounds and music, I'm pretty impressed :)
OH. I finally set up SoulFilchers models, the metal walls and umbrellas. I'll get you a screenie of the umbrellas right now, and Mozared will be using the metal walls really soon so I'll let him make a screenshot of them :)
@OceanFlex: Go
Yea, we can definitely have such a character in there. I love writing that type of characters ;) Just need to figure out how exactly we're gonna add him in.
Also, the conversation/narration box seems to have a personality of its own (Or perhaps its a reflection of the players personality, who knows) and occasionally comments on some stuff. For example, when you grab those 3 crates of supplies for a quest, the conversation box will follow it up by saying "Good thing you've got such huge pockets!" ;)
Last but not least, we've got a special duo in the game you'll be meeting quite a lot. It's not the duo you're thinking of, but chances are they're based on it, if you're thinking of the right duo ;) You'll meet them in the alpha, and perhaps we'll even make a video of em before then :p I'll do my best to make them as amazing as possible :) Zelda's done a good job until now, but once I have my hands on the map again I'll go over things and see if I can improve anything. (Zelda is currently working on it)
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@Trieva: Go
It's easier to "control the player" if we have something like the arena: We know that the player has to pass by a certain place very regularly. Milestone trainers will have quests that are required to unlock them, etc. While it may not be part of the Cipher plot line, it ties it all nicely together. In the pokemon games you went from gym to gym, which is how you ran into all the story related quests. The gyms very rarely directly tied into the story of the game, and the Arena is going to work the same way.
And what would a pokemon game be without Gym Trainers and the elite 4? :p
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http://www.sc2mapster.com/forums/general/general-chat/54082-bar-craft-has-been-removed-from-star-craft-ii/#p1
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I'll try and keep a lot of variety. If there end up being too many starmon with very similar base stats, I'll shift the focus of them a bit. (Using my giant 2 headed brute example, I can cut his defenses and focus more on attack, or vice versa, and it would still make sense.)
Eeeh... Well, can't say I really mind that that isn't possible :p Being able to outlevel stuff to make it easier is ok I guess, but only to a certain degree. Also, keep in mind that quests reward XP to your starmon, so they might end up being more efficient than just grinding arena battles.
Oh, and the milestone trainers are locked :p You need to do quests to get them to be available. (Reasons for locking will be different. Generally something keeps them from fighting, stuff like a lost Starmon or Cipher rolling into the city with tanks.)
I don't know whether names themselves are copyrighted, and I'll keep the fairly generic stuff, but I think renaming things in general to reduce the overall similarities is a good idea.
The battle arenas already eat into our available map space. If we're going to reuse anything, we need one of them for each possible player. Stuff like that eats up map space really quickly.
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Fairies: Ok, going with the no here ;) Wouldn't have been an issue for me adding them.
Base Stats: Mostly based on how the Starmon looks and what my first impression is of it. If I find a model of a massive 2 headed brutish looking giant, I'm going to give him a lot of health, good attack and defense but keep his specials and speed low.
Gameplay: Arena is an important part of it, but more like the Gyms in the pokemon games: They're not really part of the main plot, but something you do in between. We're gonna have a lot of stuff to do in the zones and will try to get as many quests in as possible so that the arena isn't the only thing you can do. The arena city will be the only one mostly due to map size restrictions - There just isn't enough space for us to put in towns and cities.
Copying Stuff / Barcraft situation: Copyright laws just gotta ruin everything, don't they? This is really getting absurd...
But anyway, I guess we're going to rename some stuff.
Moves = Attacks
Abilities = Passives
Nature = Personality
"(Poke)Balls" are already called called Capture Cores.
Things we need ideas for:
Evolutions
TMs
Can't think of more atm, will edit/post again if I do.
I guess we can also rename Poison and Steel types to Toxic and Metal.
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Fatty is the actual name of the model (Used to be the infestor, but then they created the model that is used now.), don't know what I will name the Starmon yet, but I'm not sure whether big belly would fit anyway :p
How to make him epic... Well, as I said, Red has that nostalgia factor. I don't think him being a higher level added nearly as much to the fight as just him being him.
We'll see how hard our highest AI level will really be at level 100. I want it to be really hard. If beating the Aren Champion won't be possible enough, we can just pump up Red's stats. +1-2k EVs will surely make a difference :p If that won't be good enough/too cheaty, custom moves can be made for him with high side effect chances that the AI should abuse really well. Considering it's a bonus fight and completely optional, I don't think making it unfair would be that much of an issue, unlike with the Arena Champion.
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That would imply that the Arena is really new and there simply aren't any powerful trainers in existence to take up the level 100 slots. They're supposed to top tier trainers, not future top tier trainers. That's the big issue with allowing people to fight them earlier - It goes against their primary purpose.
What could be done on the other hand is have one or more of the Elite 4 replaced by someone better than them at some point in the game, someone you run into and fight at some point. But that again wouldn't work with your idea of tricking the player of thinking he's actually doing the final battles long before them, as you wouldn't know that that guy would become one of he Elite 4 and it also wouldn't matter as he isn't one of them yet.
I dunno, I don't think the surprise not-ending is too feasible here.
Also, the RED fight didn't work that way either. You really beat the game, and then just got one special fight to top it off afterwards (Instead of the other way around: Getting a special fight with the Elite 4, and then beating the game). I think we can create something similar to that using a side character and the starmon backstory (So... The Wanderer), but it won't have the same awesomeness of the RED fight simply because pokemon is just... Old. There's nostalgia involved, there's--
...I'm absolutely fucking stupid.
Ok, listen, ok? So, you fight- You listening? OK, you fight a trainer - Right, a trainer, and you fight him - Still listening? Ok, good, so you fight a trainer, a trainer, that's wearing red, ok? And - Listen carefully - His name is Red as well, and, right, ok his team setup, right, listening, ok? Is Probichu, Venostalk, Blasturtle, Charragon, Fatty (yet unnamed snorlax equivalent), and another starmon based on an iconic pokemon.
It was in front of me this entire time, so fucking simple, and it took me this fucking long...
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Yea, they will most definitely be involved, but maybe less so than the Milestone Trainers (Gym leader equivalents), considering there's twice as many of them as there are of the Elite 4 :p
HE KNOWS OUR PLANS! RUUUUUUUUUUUUN!
We should definitely do something like that.
I did have an idea for something a bit more "funny" that's similar to that. A recurring Cipher grunt that just simply stays a grunt and is unimportant, with lines like "Hah, I'll get you this time!" at the start of a fight and "You don't remember me, do you? You know, from last time?" for defeat.
Eh, we could do that, but if you scroll down in the Arena list you will see they are all listed as the final level 100 fights. Also, I kind of want to have things make sense if possible (Which is why I want the elite 4/champ be level 100). I found it kinda illogical how gym leaders, who are supposed to be super awesome, had level 10-20 pokemon. So if someone who is clearly a powerful high level trainer is supposed to fight with low level starmon (Relative to what they are supposed to have), there should both be an explanation and good reason for them to have them.
Let's take the milestone trainers for example: It's their job to be a sort of checkpoint, obstacle or some form of "quality control", they are supposed to define a certain range of arena ranks. They make sure that arena rankings don't inflate by providing clear, static ranks. Without them, if you have enough trainers they can just fight each other to climb rankings which could easily lower the average level of those ranks. But by having to beat a specific trainer every 10 ranks this is prevented. They have a seperate lower level party of Starmon specifically for that purpose. You'll actually be able to fight all of them again as part of the last 20 arena battles with their real parties (Not sure what those 20 are going to consist of yet, but right now the plan is the 8 milestone trainers, rival, elite 4 and the champion, which is 14 trainers already. We'll probably throw in some other important characters.)
I can't think of a good reason why the elite four would keep a seperate set of lower level starmon :(
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I really like the idea about the Dev Team as trainers, we'll see how and if we implement that. As Zelda said, we already had some small plans for this, but those can easily be changed.
"Hey, Zelda, have you seen my car keys?"
"You lost them again, didn't you?"
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
"Dude, where's my car? 2" in cinemas this fall.
Ok, thats it with lame jokes for this post.
@BladeOfAiur: Go
Ello again :) I guess Zelda answered the rest already, but for Elemental model packs, I assume you mean elemental creatures? (Living tornadoes and stuff) Find the WoW model packs/requests thread(s) here on mapster, there might be some in there.
@Trieva: Go
Those are good ideas :)
The second one can be easily used for the Rival
But just to expand on what I said - The map isn't going to be dark/horror themed, it just won't avoid it. Nasty stuff will happen, but that doesn't mean it has to happen all the time. If a massive dragon attacks a town, it'd be really bad at its job if somehow absolutely everyone got away unharmed, right? But that doesn't mean we can't have some funnier and less grim stuff :p We're probably going to have the Moz/Explorer quest chain include a good amount of sillyness ;)
Well, the Arena Champion/Elite 4 being level 100 doesn't really make that particularly easy :p Short of straight up making enemies have IVs/EVs/Levels that are above maximum, there's not much we can do to make the game more challenging at that point. Of course, we could still add a couple more quests, maybe related to the Wanderer/drop pods.
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Taken from our design/discussion document:
So... Those guys won't be messing around :P The conditions for using status ailments and defensive moves will probably have to be tweaked. If possible I'd like them to use specific combos as well (Like having a tank buff himself up and then baton pass out to something powerful. Or using a sustain-tank (two starmon (+their evolution chains) have a move set that will make them very good at tanking and healing themselves so that they can continue tanking), etc.
I want these guys to be really fucking hard. Beating the arena should be a big achievement, and not just something that is inevitably going to happen.
The Elite 4 will be themed as always, so it'll be a bit easier to counter them. The Champion will however have a powerful all-round team.
I have a cat named after the Face of Boe... Just felt like sharing.
Also, I really miss Tennant and Barrowman :( (He's playing a somewhat important role in "Arrow" though =D)
Zelda and I have been going over ideas for potentially very interesting characters. One concept I came up with is currently just called "The Wanderer" (And honestly, I think I might keep it like that)
He's a character that will be very detached from the world and ongoing conflict between the good and bad guys, but you'll regularly find him and be able to talk to him.
He will tie in a lot into the backstory, he will be interested in finding out more about Starmon and their origins - Why did they crash on this planet, and more importantly, people only found escape pods, but where did the spaceship go?
He will recognize the player as someone who wants to become the best, and will offer to fight a "fair fight" against him to help him measure his skill. Not sure whether its feasible, but we can maybe analyse the fight and have him give useful feedback to the player.
The reason I put "Fair fight" into quotes was because I want him to really stand out, and will probably have him use different, unique moves and mechanics. Those will likely include a different way of releasing starmon (No capture cores/pokeballs), sending out level 100 starmon and then reducing their level to match the player, and having a unique unavailable starmon (Which I will try to tie into the previous two "mechanics" and his overall storyline)
We already mentioned that we want the player to visit a starmon drop pod site at some point, and I definitely want to somehow tie the character into that.
As for twists, we have what I think is a very interesting idea for the main antagonist (Cipher boss) and a situation with him that I can guarantee will hit people right in the feels. Also, we don't want the story to be too black and white, and Cipher will consist of people with varying motivations, some very noble while others aren't.
I'm also planning on a sidequest chain involving a mercenary you can team up with, and I can probably whip up a decent story for him as well.
Generally, for suggestions, I think a lot of random ideas can be incorporated. We haven't set much in stone yet. Also, "dark" ideas are acceptable - as we said a few times already, this won't be a game for little kids. I do a lot of writing in my spare time as a hobby (Can give links if anyone is interested) and generally dislike avoiding dark/bloody/deadly stuff just for the sake of avoiding it. But on the other hand I won't include it just for the sake of including it. If a situation makes casualties/injuries plausible/unavoidable, expect them.
Currently the Arena Champion, Elite Four, Milestone Trainers are pretty much blank slates. The Arena is a place of diplomatic immunity/peace (Nobody will ever be banned from participation or arrested during it. That doesn't stop the cops from standing outside its doors to catch criminals though.), which means those guys aren't good guys by default. The Arena champ is a good guy to some degree though (When it comes to the Arena, he is 100% neutral. In his free time/outside the Arena he will side with the good guys)
We don't have any plans for most NPCs yet (Doctors/Starcenter staff, main item shop dude(s), any other cool NPC that we can have, etc.)
Oh, and one small update on the rival stuff: We decided to drop my idea about having multiple different rival personalities. The rival will be the same for every player with the same alignment (So technically seen its 2 rivals, seeing as he will always play the opposite side of the quest chain than the player. So if the player goes dark side, the rival will be one of the good guys and vice versa)
ok, I got super distracted while writing this by discussing more and more ideas I got with Zelda :p
Thanks for the posts regarding this - They really made me think harder about this and I'm getting some amazing ideas ;)
EDIT: Dammit, someone posted while I was writing, and I didnt check to make sure my post went through >.>
EDIT 2: @DaFunk86: Go
The issue with a Red like character is that Red is a character from a previous game (and also sort of from the anime of said game :p ). There'd be very few people who'd recognize us and have the feeling that that character is special, so it wouldnt compare at all to RED. And I also dont wanna lower the level of the elite 4 and the champ - They are supposed to be some of the very best, the final challenge to overcome to become recognized as a true master. There may be better trainers than the Champion because they did not accept the full-time position of champion, but there aren't many.
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We already have the ending semi planned out (Since it relates to the big, main legendary), and... well... Let's just say it'll be quite... deadly ;)
I think we'll end the main story a good amount of time before the elite 4/champion - They're all level 100, and that takes really long to reach and the gaps between levels get longer and longer. I'd prefer to not have too long delays between story quests, and those are unavoidable past a certain level. I think we'll probably end it around level 70 or earlier.
The Elite 4 and Champion will just simply be the top of the Arena and not as super special as the pokemon league. There are two issue with making something like Red in gold/silver.
The first is that since the Elite 4 / Champion are level 100, you have no real way to progress past them, to make the game harder after them (They're supposed to be the best, aren't they?)
The second is that we just simply don't have anything like Red we can reference yet. (If that fight had been just a random trainer with random high level pokemon, it would've been pretty lame, wouldn't it?)
But that just got me thinking... We need to create a memorable character :p
If you guys have ideas for a big post-game event or such a character, tell me :p
EDIT: There also aren't that many things that are set in stone. We've got a beginning, a relatively vague ending that can change if we get a better idea, and we have a few small ideas for the middle but we'll definitely need more.
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@OceanFlex: Go
No solid plans yet, but there will definitely be some kind of limit. For levels, maybe the level of the next milestone trainer+5 (So that you don't accidentally outlevel him before fighting him and suddenly your best starmon becomes useless). Or we could disallow trading such high level starmon, but if you train a starmon past that level cap it won't become useless (Could tie it to the happiness value. If it's happy, it will still fight for you)
Cash and item trading shouldn't be limited I think - They can't directly win you the game. They can help, but the biggest factors are your starmon. Having a million potions or revives don't matter if you get one or two shot. Also, as with the pokemon games, what items are available in the store will be limited by your progression/level. I just don't think money/Items give a gamebreaking advantage if acquired earlier than normally possible.
If people think that having such an advantage would ruin their experience... Well, they can simply not trade such things :) This isn't LoL where any one of your friends can gift you teemo in cold blood without you being able to do anything about it.
As for hardcore: We'll see when we get there. Easiest solution to me is I think an option that would disallow trades with any non-hardcore players, and maybe more options like no money and no item trading.
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If I said it that way I phrased it wrong.
There will be two starmon that attack the player if he reaches a certain amount of karma (One for good, one for bad). Each player can only get one of them. That is essentially it - Become super evil/good and you'll encounter a unique starmon.