RPG Game Designing - the Penultimate Guide

[Annubis]

I believe most of us here have played hundreds of games. With such accumulated experience, let us reference the basics of good game designing (be it the 'do's or the 'don't's).

Article I: Party balancing in regards to gender

The cast of characters is something very prominent within a game. Although the story and setting can modify the common basic rules, one should try and stay as close as possible to them.

When designing the cast, there should be an equal number of men and women (unless as said above the setting does not permit it - ie: a Sailor Moon game). If the game features character classes or types of characters, there should be as much as possible a male and female character for each. This permits the player to create either a mixed gender party or a single gender party while retaining balance.
A common error is to split roles between sex. Many times have games put males into tank/physical damage roles while female were support/magical damage roles.
In reality, either a man or a woman can take about equal amounts of wounds before dying and so a physical female should not be a taboo nor should she be brittle as glass.

Examples of good party balancing:
Star Ocean 3
Although the game has an imbalance between male/female toughness, there is a female and male exception to balance it. An all male or all female party is still very balanced.
3 male tank characters, 1 female tank character
1 male light fighter, 3 female light fighters
1 male mage, 1 female mage

Dragon Age 2
1 hero (variable), 2 rogues (1 male, 1 female), 2 warriors (1 male, 1 female) 2 mages (1 male, 1 female) + extras (1 male sibling, 1 female sibling, 1 DLC male rogue)

Examples of bad party balancing:
Ogre Battle 64
Every male class are tough, mostly tanks or physical damagers. No male healers.
Every female class are fragile, mostly mages or supports. Not a single good front row class.

Valkyrie Profile 2
Every heavy warrior male, every light warrior female, every mage male, every archer (but one, but he uses a modified female model =/) female

[Starmongoose]

Let me bestow some sagely game design advice.


All boobs that go up, must come down.

[Dice]

Let me bestow some sagely game design advice.


All boobs that go up, must come down.

Lovely.

Haha anyhow.

I hate Tri-Ace games for attempting "mages" in their active time battle concepts.  Fighters were always more damaging.  lol, "waiting" to cast a spell in ATB systems, it's funny.

Valkyrie Profile 2 fell victim to having all unique, story characters being better than the rest of the lot that you can find.  While not surprising, it takes away the sort of element of surprise and customization of the whole deal.  Again though, mages generally weren't that good.  And oddly enough, fire protection was more useful than any other element...

The Tales series has been pretty good with party balances, Abyss being one of my favorite for this.  Only 6 members, but each with interesting strengths and play styles.  I think Radiant Historia covered this well too.  To the point, actually, where you ask "do I want 'x' power-up for the party, or 'y' power-down against the enemy? Or do I just wanna fuck up enemy with powerhouse attacks?"

Fails: Chrono Cross and Suikodens aren't good balancers, and can't be either.  Too many characters.

Baten Kaitos and Chrono Trigger (and Cross) did an interesting innate element thing with characters that made certain ones more valuable than others at certain times.  An interesting way to "balance" their uses.

[MeshGearFox]

I wanna see a game with a huge cast of characters that does this:

1. Each character has one ability. Things like "attacking" count as an ability.
2. You can freely every character around at the beginning of every round of combat, in terms of swapping people in and out of combat.
3. Characters die really easily but are restored to full health after every battle.

[Aeolus]

I'd rather see a game where you have multiple characters (somewhere between 8 to 16). Where each character has at least one or two defining traits, or in lieu of that, have each character possess a small collection of traits/skills that'll be shared between other characters but that particular combination of traits/skills as a whole is unique to a given character. And where the game will allow you to field multiple parties at once to tackle different scenarios at different locations but also make it possible to switch party members around in most cases. Secret party members are also nice, especially if they aren't completely overshadowed by the party members you're more likely to acquire.

Basically, I liked what FFVI did, but I think it could be done better (a lot more so than what FFXIII did).

[Alisha]

Let me bestow some sagely game design advice.


All boobs that go up, must come down.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xe2_JcgKXs&feature=related

[Starmongoose]

Let me bestow some sagely game design advice.


All boobs that go up, must come down.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xe2_JcgKXs&feature=related

What is that meant to be suggesting? Her bra is keeping her from fighting at the best of her ability? Her boob power grew so strong that her breastplate just disintegrated?

[Dice]

Let me bestow some sagely game design advice.


All boobs that go up, must come down.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xe2_JcgKXs&feature=related

What is that meant to be suggesting? Her bra is keeping her from fighting at the best of her ability? Her boob power grew so strong that her breastplate just disintegrated?

I hope someone is making a gif of something from that video...
I love Japanese boob physics; sorry boys - they jiggle, but nothing like that....  Hell, even the A cups on one of the girls had a bit of bounce.

And yeah, I liked how some cloth with go away to expose more.  Kos-Mos had it, and I think the green-haired broad.

[Alisha]

the green haired one is Aschen and she has an um interesting personality. at one point she says a giant tree looks like its molesting the planet.


anyways..........more games need to allow you to do this

[Dice]

Let me bestow some sagely game design advice.


All boobs that go up, must come down.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xe2_JcgKXs&feature=related

What is that meant to be suggesting? Her bra is keeping her from fighting at the best of her ability? Her boob power grew so strong that her breastplate just disintegrated?

Nevermind.  Found a bunch!!!
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/944506-super-robot-taisen-og-saga-endless-frontier/49432613


They must be packed in there pretty tight to bounce like that...

[Vanguard]

That game is so fun just for the boob-centered insults.

Mellon smuggler, or Were-cow, for example.

[Aeolus]

That game is so fun just for the boob-centered insults.

Mellon smuggler, or Were-cow, for example.

Well this thread sure turned into a wall of breasts in a hurry.

the green haired one is Aschen and she has an um interesting personality. at one point she says a giant tree looks like its molesting the planet.


anyways..........more games need to allow you to do this

Only if the choice means anything and the scenario wasn't designed solely for the male choice with the female protag tacked on (I don't care how much you try to dress it up Atlus, I know the GBA Summon Night games we got out here were not designed for the female character at all).

[MeshGearFox]

There's a literal wall of breasts in Tong Nou.

Also, 'penultimate'? Seriously?

[Vanguard]

Yeah, we're definitely not getting the last word on this. Makes sense, but it's still stupid.