Skills, skills, skills

Poll is closed early as it is obvious what the verdict is. Now it's time for a different discussion.

I was thinking about it was I was working on adding an element to Gunnar's strike chain. I saw the conditions for his 'Gamble' command skill and....I realized how useless it is. It's a rank 2 command skill in which you deliberately cut the damage you could be doing in order to have a random chance to MAYBE do more damage. No one is going to use that.

So the solution? Gunnar needs a new command skill! I discussed with dbace9aura and JIHAUS and now I bring this to you. Here is the current base idea, unedited.


New Rank 2 Skill: Convert
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* Change longbow into crossbow. Lasts 3-5 turns.
* Disables Burst Skill command, even with full BP. Also disables Sacred Will.
* Each step of Strike Chain costs 1 Ether. More hits, less damage.
* When an offensive Ether spell is cast, 10% of Power rating influences potency, but automatically reverts to the default longbow. Doesn't apply to elemental barrier-type Ether spells.
* Rank 1 Skill will appear in its place when in effect.
* Focus command will revert it back to the longbow. Reversion also takes place if the user is killed in battle.

I'm thinking that all these effects for one command may be a bit much. The Ether spell bit looks a bit out of place. In fact that COULD be another command! In fact, lets cut that out and do a bit of editing...

Rank 2 Command Skill: Barrage

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* Each step of Gunnar's Strike Chain has alternate animations with a different weapon and halved cost at 3 EP instead of 6.

* Disables the Burst and Ether commands, even with full BP. Also disables Sacred Will and Exceed Limit.

* Maximum hits are increased, but the damage modifier is even less than normal.

* Rank 1 Skill will appear in its place when Barrage is active. Allowing for dual effect.

* Lasts 5 turns. Once the turns are up, the Barrage's effect ends. 

OR

Rank 2 Command Skill 2: Arcane Boost
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* When an offensive Ether spell is cast, 50% of Knowledge rating influences spell potency on top of the normal damage algorithm routine,  Doesn't apply to elemental barrier-type Ether spells.

So, tell me. What do you think should be his new command? Feel free to comment on the matter in the cbox or on this entry. I will also put up a new poll. Looking forward to your opinions!

Have some screenshots to leave off!

Small Update

Hello people. I know I haven't touched this blog in a long while, but I am still working on this.

Bad news first, the completion of the base battle system has been halted indefinitely in anticipation of a tool called 'RPG Maker 20XX'. The features promised sound like just the thing I need to make production and completion of the battle system and the game overall that much smoother. But I HAVE done a little more tweaking to the numbers in the battle system in spite of that.

I noticed that early Burst Skills are actually WEAKER than Strike Chains. For example, Gunnar's Twilight Arrow is WEAKER than his Base Strike Chain. Amazing how I didn't notice this before! It was an easy fix though! Since the numbers of the battle system are easy to manipulate, it wasn't hard to readjust things. All skills have a certain multiplier that determines the level of damage regardless of what your attack is. So Skill X will always do more damage than Strike Chain. I just needed to give skills the multipliers they needed to be useful! Though, taking Elements into account, damage will greatly fluctuate regardless, so better watch out for that! Maybe I should give Strike Chains elements so that they also are governed by the elemental damage fluctuation.... POLL!

At Rank One, Gunnar's strike chain does about 60~70 damage. With a multiplier of 4 and a hit count of 3 at 79 PWR, Gunnar's Twilight Arrow does 93-103 damage. And when PWR increases, the damage done will still always be more than a Strike Chain. Easy, huh?

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On the story side of things, I'm actually progressing again! I had stopped to wait on the battle system completion that was taking forever to happen, so I went ahead and started plugging away at the story again. I am now working on the events of Day Two. I deviated from my initial plot outline to account for certain new mechanics, but I think it actually works better than before. Less wordy, and less event work while still getting character dialogue and objectives across.

I'll keep doing what I can do and hope that 20XX is worth it! In a meantime, you all enjoy your christmas, you fortunate people out there.

Have some art to leave off.

Not colored in because my BG skills are nonexistent. Sorry! ' ^ '