Thanks again knightmarish_Games , one for bugs and balance:
Bugs:
- Soft-lock: There's a mid-game manillo shop that's accessible via Jean's Frog. Its also accessible overland on the tile just above it (south of the ranger's house). Problem is, if you accidentally enter from above, when you leave the shop, you end up on the reef tile below and cannot get back onto the land tile behind the cave entrance.
- Soft-lock: Colosseum. Doing bare-minimum grinding/upgrading, I got to the R-66Y fight in in the tournament of champions. Couldn't damage the knight/robot and had no debuff at that point. When I lost, autosave takes me right back to the start of the match. I had to reload an earlier save and got a couple skill points to learn 'Sunder'. With that debuff, no problem afterwards.
- In hometown, the bottom right home does not have any enemies to fight if you're set to 'modern encounters'. I know you use the zombie as your main dungeon sprite, any thoughts to diversifying these later to things like the cockroaches from Simafort dungeon, gongheads from hunting grounds, moving statues from Windia basement, or creatures from below the well? Maybe the Goblin that appears in the hunting ground can be an encounter that comes in and out of the trees/rocks?
- Rand's SacredHeart command - you've explained in-game what it does, but I don't seem to observe any effect when he uses it. If its supposed to act like a 'scan' ability, should it to reveal the enemy elemental characteristics (the ones that are revealed below them when they are hit with the right element)?
- Monsters with buffs, tend to reapply these liberally (vanish & stealth) - is there a '%' chance to activate certain commands in their AI script? Certainly the difficulty of some fights (bandits) would increase if they were balanced more towards applying pressure to the party. I note enemies like Bugbear have a changed sprite when they are at low HP - does that prompt any stat/script change? It would be interesting to see them get a spike in speed/strength when under threat "Bugbear is enraged!".
Balance:
- As you get closer to final release, you'll probably find that its easier to balance the game around one set of 'encounter style', as opposed to giving the player too much choice. Less work for you to focus on tweaking balance against one, and the player can always 'grind' the modern encounters by exit-reentering. Alternatively, 'random encounters' could have a 'max encounter per area instance' to reflect the system BOFII had with Queen Tunlan's body or Mt Fuji.
- Is there a 'wait' or 'guard' command in the fight menu? This would allow for some strategic Lore learning (Spar) once you're overpowered against enemies, or at least plan against enemy high-counter rates. If I want to experiment with other characters, this can help to allow me to play around with Mixie or Jean's elemental attacks. Maybe wait helps to charge CP, and Bow's Auto-Crossbow requires an extra wait charge to 'reload'?
- Overall reduction of EXP. I've tried to progress very modestly to Capitan, and I think by the time I got to upgrade my village, I was levelled to late 40s.
- Boss HP/stats would benefit from significant buffing. Argus was easier than the Colosseum matches (solo Ryu) immediately preceding him solo. Joker who? - Nina wasted him. The way the natural progression flows, the earlier, the tougher. I.e. the first gang fight in the Cave was the most challenging part of Joker's dungeon, just as the first group of zombies in Mt Fuji.
- This one is really hard if you're planning for both full-party and SOLO adventuring. Maybe Ryu has a skill set that is overpowered, but damages all targets on the field (including party members)? Could a Dark Dragon skill tree be tailored to fit the SOLO story experience? (the quicker route to power/victory, but at a cost, as like BOF:DQ?) I remember Rei in BOFIII refused to use the Weretiger form with Teepo/Ryu in the child story because of its chaotic nature. This allows for buffed bosses, while making party/non-party adventures feasible? Perhaps to allow further integration into a party dynamic, there's an ability that siphons the HP/MP of any party members (contributing to a cost/benefit dichotomy)?
- You mentioned Mixie's HEX ability, and its an interesting mechanic. Do any boss have self-regeneration where this would be a viable strategy? I wonder if the 'bubbles' that are locked behind an element/attack type - could serve a greater strategic role here. Like the Joker can only initially be damaged by poison. Once that bubble is burst, he takes on all types damage? Nina has certain bubble spells like this, but Kirin trumps most fight options for her, and boss' aren't aggressive enough to employ that defensive style. Perhaps Dies/Mixie can act by changing/manipulating enemy elemental weaknesses.
- More buffing/debuffing strategies. <-- I think this would help support a wider pool of characters and abilities. BoFIII/IV teased this a bit where Eye-Goos were blinded for extra experience, or Treans could be lit on fire, changing their attack pattern. Maybe the boss Argus has to be blinded/slowed in order to slow down a barrage of attacks? He's got multiple heads, in his case, are three heads any better than one? If you're playing SOLO Ryu - maybe hunting ingredients can offer weapon oils/poisons or consumables to achieve this? The would add a richer purpose to the cooking mechanic, and play into Ryu and Bow's "ranger/monster hunter" theme .
- I guess I'm thinking this because you've already presented an interesting elemental affinity system with each of your monsters (Rand can supposedly identify them, Jean can reliably hit any of them), you've also got this interesting 'bubble'/HP elemental sponge' mechanic <-- as a result, I think it could be expanded so I am forced to problem solve my encounters a bit more. Is there a way to code [Check: IF not FIRE element, COUNTER with SUNDAR?] Probably a massive headache to code, however - but it would slow down boss encounters and force some strategic thinking.
Now, I think I've overwhelmed this bug report forum so I'll give it a rest. These are all easy suggestions to make, but totally different to actually try to implement!
All the best, and thanks again.