Puella Magi☆Suzuko Magica

[Misery]

Random witches? Now we're talking, lol.
If you can fight any number of witches, I think grief seeds as you described would work. But shouldn't it be a guaranteed drop? I mean, what if you get unlucky and fight five witches in a row without getting one? That really puts a damper on how difficult you can make them, if you have to account for the possibility that you're fighting them with a severely weakened party. Also, in that case I don't think there's any need for a party heal, nor should there be any MP restoring items. This could get quite interesting.
Btw, doing what you would just do anyway is a lame reward.

And yeah, like I said about the sprites, you're going to have to do quite a bit of animation editing. I'm not quite sure how complicated it would be.

[Rolina]

Well, that's what I said earlier.  That you may be able to find random witch barriers, but they stop showing up when you get too strong for that point in the story.  They're not guaranteed drops, as they're randomly generated and their barriers randomly placed in the world map.  The rules still apply, though - you can't leave when you enter.  I was thinking a 1/2 or 1/4 chance, depending on the witch itself.  Story witches are 1/1 of course.  However, they're NOT common, and very limited.  You'll want to use them if @#$% hits the fan, you know?  I imagine they'll see more use in harder difficulties as a result.

There will be party heals - it's unique to Maiko, though.  Also, just so we're clear, we will not have 'spell families'.  Each spell is unique, rather than being part of a line or set.

@Animation editing:  No @#$%.  We're even having different art directions... and when it comes to familiars and witches, well... they're unique to their barriers, so a wide variety of art designs there.  This is gonna be one hell of an undertaking, and I'll work on anything I think necessary to really get it to shine.  I've even been thinking about changing the view to isometric, upping the map sprite size for the characters, more frames per animation, etc...

@Lame Reward:  You got your reward when you made your wish.  Now go hunt witches and help extend the life of the universe.  

As for player rewards, you do it for the XP.  That's the whole point - a chance to train between story witches.  Other than that, your source of income will be more real-world, your purchases will reflect real-world things, and hopefully at real world prices.  It'll be a lower economy game, so lower rewards, but lower prices too, so we won't have to worry too much about stuff.  Instead of making things more and more expensive, it'd probably be a better idea to keep it reasonable, but just available at newer locations and what not.  Some familiars could drop items, if it makes sense for them.  In a food themed barrier, the familiars could have a chance to drop healing items.  In a barrier that has a bunch of crafts or sewing mechanics, ribbons or other accessories.  It's not a high chance, but without the 4x drop rate you get from djinn killing, it's not crazy painful either.  However, the drop MUST make sense for the creature and its appropriate witch, and not all of them will drop something.

Something else I had planned - in the beginning of the game, the very beginning, when Suzuko is dangerously low on magic power, she has a different version of "Suzuko" equipped until you take out the intro boss - one that changes her class in the same style as the Machete in the TBS intros did for Isaac and Garet.  It's the same as her base class, but without any spells at all, just like with them.  After purifying her soul gem, the game does an automatic hidden gear swap to her normal one, basically putting her back in her class, spells and all.  This way, it'd even have an effect in New Game+.  It is for this reason that the first boss doesn't drop a grief seed, despite being a story boss.  It did - but it was automatically used as part of the plot.

[Misery]

With party heal, I meant like staying at an inn to fully recover everyone, not the spells. It's a good idea to be able to restore HP by resting though. MP recovers slowly as you walk anyway, so having grief seeds as the only source for MP restoration should be fine. Speaking of grief seeds, I'd suggest you always make it a 1/1 chance, but weaker witches drop weaker seeds. Remember, there are plenty of item slots to use ;P

Well, I shouldn't tell you how to design your game, it's just that I personally think that if a game is too restrictive, it loses a lot of its appeal. In those cases, the same effect could be better achieved by a graphic novel or an animated movie; the more you lessen the impact of the player's actions, the more you lessen the significance of the interactivity itself. Losing the game doesn't count into this!

@Animation editing:  No @#$%.  We're even having different art directions... and when it comes to familiars and witches, well... they're unique to their barriers, so a wide variety of art designs there.  This is gonna be one hell of an undertaking, and I'll work on anything I think necessary to really get it to shine.  I've even been thinking about changing the view to isometric, upping the map sprite size for the characters, more frames per animation, etc...

Those things could work, I guess... there's some width space left on the character overworld sprites, and you can already move in 8 directions anyway... but you're moving towards non-GS territory.

[Griever]

A very nice and different hack.

Also just to be clear about this, from what i understood, Physical will be weak to Mystical while Technical and Compassion well i cannot see them as opposites .. so are you gonna have soul gem weaknesses and strengths or not?

Oh and I would like to say, Looking forward to actually playing this hack >_<

[Rolina]

With party heal, I meant like staying at an inn to fully recover everyone, not the spells. It's a good idea to be able to restore HP by resting though. MP recovers slowly as you walk anyway, so having grief seeds as the only source for MP restoration should be fine. Speaking of grief seeds, I'd suggest you always make it a 1/1 chance, but weaker witches drop weaker seeds. Remember, there are plenty of item slots to use ;P

Oh, definitely.  I want to try and stick with the source the best I can.  Problem with grief seed only is that, well, witches are treated as bosses.  This means you've got one seed, and only one person gets it.  That's why I'm leaning towards having comfort foods and snacks restore MP by a bit, though I may have it so it's out-of-battle only, and have grief seeds being the only in-battle method.  I'm also considering keeping the MP regen, with the justification of "the party supporting each other" or something.  It'll be toned down compared to GS, though.

Well, I shouldn't tell you how to design your game, it's just that I personally think that if a game is too restrictive, it loses a lot of its appeal. In those cases, the same effect could be better achieved by a graphic novel or an animated movie; the more you lessen the impact of the player's actions, the more you lessen the significance of the interactivity itself. Losing the game doesn't count into this!

Don't worry about that - the whole reason I'm discussing this stuff with y'all is to help give me ideas!  I know it's a bit restrictive, which is why I'm trying to group brainstorm.  After all, after talking with you, I got the idea to have random witch barriers.  So long as the ideas keep flowing, this should shape up nicely.

but you're moving towards non-GS territory.

Well, that is the general idea.

Nothing "seems" to thumb a game down more than a restrictive game, restrictions make games generally less enjoyable (unless they're for specific serious reasons) and won't be looked into very much. When it comes to Total conversions form what I've learned through experience with....The other case.....Flexibility should be exceptional.

There's a fine line between being unrestrictive and keeping true to the source material.  I'm trying to find the best balance between the two with this hack.

Also just to be clear about this, from what i understood, Physical will be weak to Mystical while Technical and Compassion well i cannot see them as opposites .. so are you gonna have soul gem weaknesses and strengths or not?

Not exactly - like in GS, everything has different strengths and weaknesses.  It's one of the things I absolutely love about GS's system - the elements don't have to oppose each other at all!

That being said, there is a bit of truth behind what you're saying, though not from an elemental standpoint.

Physical's weakness is the lower MP pool, while that's Mystical's strong point.  Conversely, the second mystical is out of MP, it's very weak, while physical can keep going strong.
Technical doesn't really have much durability to speak of, with average HP and MP at best, while Compassion tends to have the durability to last much longer.  On the other hand, Compassion's strength is moot compared to Technical's specialty - piercing through that defense.

So while they are not technically opposites, in terms of trends and behavior they may seem to act like it at times.

Will it be working as a Cycle between power and Speed and other various factors ?

I have no idea what the hell you're talking about.  Be more specific.

[Griever]

Not exactly - like in GS, everything has different strengths and weaknesses.  It's one of the things I absolutely love about GS's system - the elements don't have to oppose each other at all!

That being said, there is a bit of truth behind what you're saying, though not from an elemental standpoint.

Physical's weakness is the lower MP pool, while that's Mystical's strong point.  Conversely, the second mystical is out of MP, it's very weak, while physical can keep going strong.
Technical doesn't really have much durability to speak of, with average HP and MP at best, while Compassion tends to have the durability to last much longer.  On the other hand, Compassion's strength is moot compared to Technical's specialty - piercing through that defense.

So while they are not technically opposites, in terms of trends and behavior they may seem to act like it at times.

Interesting, so you are gonna have to remove the part of the code that deals with elemental weaknesses. Also how much of the hack can you do with the current version of the editor? And what about the sprites? You are gonna have to make them or ask spriters to do them right?

[Rolina]

...You clearly misunderstood me there.  In GS, elements are only opposed thematically - elemental power and resistance, however, are totally independent of that.  For example:  Nearly every flying enemy ever is strong in Jupiter.  You'd think it's weak to Venus then, right?  I mean, it uses Jupiter spells and attacks, and it's highest elemental power is Jupiter after all.  It just makes sense that it'd be weak to Venus, right?  Right?  WRONG.  It resists the crap out of venus, and is weak to Jupiter - arguably its own element!

That's the thing.  I don't have to change a thing!  That's the beauty of GS's element system - even in the original games, they were "opposites in name only" as far as the code was concerned.  Hell, the playable adepts weren't weak to their opposite element even - they were weak to their symbiotic element!

As for sprites - until I know for sure where I'm going with the art direction, spriters aren't going to do anything outside of ability and item sprites.  One thing is for certain, they won't be in the same style as GS - depending on how it goes, it may not be flattened 3D models, but rather a style that tries to look like it'd be something out of the anime.

[Shinigami]

@Real world, money related: OK, so you're going around with an inventory full of stuff such as chocolate, ribbons, etc. until you notice this rather gullible looking, randomly generated npc child walking around in town. Could it be that, for some sweets or a collectible or somesuch, they would be willing to part with some of their pocket money? *hands over bottle cap, stickers, etc. gained from appropriately themed witch or minion battles* *receives yen*.
Basically the idea of selling random crap to people roughly your own age...

[spoiler=Should probably ignore this...]@Experience: Would it be possible to lower the amount of exp gained after the first time battling a minion or witch of the same type?_{I know, really bad phrasing...}
Example:
You battle "MinionA"  and, after the battle is victoriously concluded, gain 1024 exp. (Game makes a note of the fact that you have fought enemy "MinionA")
*Continues to walk in maze...*
You are attacked by a "MinionA"!
*MinionA is killed...*
You gain 256 exp.

Or you could have a multiplier for the divider... so exp gained from a battle is equal to (base exp reward/number of times you have fought enemy(+1))

With the excuse: "I have learned all I can from fighting this creature..."[/spoiler]

@No shops inside boundaries: Other Puella Magi? Who says they can't trade/sell items amongst themselves?
This way you could also trade/purchase unusual items.

Sorry if none of this is logical...

[Rolina]

Kid?  No.  They'd likely be adults who offer a bit of pocket money to do an errand.  Like, a bakery who needs something delevered, but their delvery person just called in sick.  They don't want to close up shop, but they need something delievered.  Normally, they're not gonna trust a stranger to do it, but I can see the excuse of the character using a bit of magic to make them seem truthworthy.  After all, it's not the first time magic has been used for this - Kyoko actually got away with stealing by using magic.

@Experience:  Ideally, I'd like something similar to suikoden's setup, where you're rewarded based on the level difference between you and the enemies.  Fight mooks too low, and you'll only get 1 XP.  Fight stuff way over your level, and you'll shoot up.  This would eliminate the need to grind pretty much entirely.  Only problem, it makes for a boring game, since the whole point of the random witches is to give you something to train on, as well as something other than errands to do.

@Other Puella Magi:  I did plan on there being other Puella Magi... but in this, they act more like the djinn you fight.  These would be Puella Magi who don't like that you're in their turf, and would sooner kill you and be done with it - so you'd have to beat them.  You'd get a shard of their soul gem after beating them - and probably a scene between the team after the first time.  Kyoko, Oriko, Kirika, are known to attack other puella magi, and pretty much the whole plot of Kazumi Magica revolves around conflict between the puella magi.  After all, it has been specifically stated in the anime that teams of puella magi are an exception, not the rule, as are those like Mami.  This will show here, too - of the puella magi, only the new ones will speak up about seeing a familiar outside of a witches barrier.  Suzuko would remark that she'd rather fight a grown familiar than a fellow puella magi to survive, while Harumi would remark that it would be better for them only to go after fully developed witches, for similar reasons mentioned by Suzuko.

And yeah, don't worry about it - it's important this discussion happens.

[Misery]

but you're moving towards non-GS territory.

Well, that is the general idea.

No, what I meant is you're starting to move outside the scope of the base you're working on. While I don't see anything directly preventing this from being accomplished by hacking GS, when you're planning a project with this much original content and differences in game mechanics, you have to consider what you actually get from the original game, and if you could achieve a similar or better result by making a new game altogether.

And about something else, Shinigami brings up an interesting point in that the Puella Magi kind of does have a society among themselves, if you wanted to include some sort of trading system, maybe you could somehow use that as the basis for it.

[Rolina]

Umm, no, this isn't anything the community hack isn't doing.  Replacing graphics, tweaking and using new formulas, using new effects... Yeah, this is all stuff that's generally planned, though the formulas and effects will require someone skilled with ASM editing.

Well, I guess that'd work to an extent.  The problem with that, though, is that usually there's only one or two puella magi to a city.  That's why I don't think it'll work, and that it'd probably be a better idea to use them as the occasional fight, with a Soul Fragment as the end prize - either from killing them, or taking one they've found.

[Misery]

Technically, that's true. Practically, if you have all this new art, music and the whole script/story, you have the greater part of a game. At that point, you're not really getting anything unique from GS anymore. The community hack is different, it's meant to be in the same style as the original games, a lot of graphics can be reused and it makes sense to have the exact same user interface. I can see why you'd want to reuse the basic stuff from GS though, I'm sure it would fit quite well for something like this too, and all of what you're planning so far is entirely doable within the confines of the game. If this becomes a hack or a completely new game doesn't really make any difference to me, it's just something I think you should keep in mind. The difference between the two is very small.

[Rolina]

At that point, you're not really getting anything unique from GS anymore.

The main battle system, the djinn system, the class system, the amazing element system... there's a lot of things I'm getting out of it.  The whole point of the hack, though, is to make a very un-GS like game with the base Golden Sun system still in tact, and with the editor.

Basically, the goal is to make a whole new game with Golden Sun's system as the base.

As for player sprite size... Ever play Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories?  The original one, not the PS2 remake.  I was thinking something like Sora and Riku's sprites in terms of size on the world map.  Larger than GS's sprites, but nothing too terribly big.

[Misery]

The thing you're really getting from the base is animations. The "camera" in battle would be particularly hard to replicate, or at least I suspect it would. The things you mentioned is just a bunch of formulas that have already been written, there's no reason you couldn't use them for a different game.
Actually, changing stuff like damage formulas in the game is way harder than rewriting them in a conventional programming language, while the latter would also allow for additional attrubutes for characters and any kind of fine tuning you'd want to implement.

I hope it doesn't seem like I'm trying to convince you to switch to something else, I just want you to be aware of this.

Without bothering to check KH's sprite size, I'll just say that as long as you keep within the preset 32x32, you're fine. If not, you're in for a headache.

[Rolina]

I figured there'd be no reason to bother changing the battle camera, it works just fine.  The only thing about the battles themselves that'd change is the art style.  The MCs would have more of an anime-ish feel instead of the flattened 3D look.  As for the familiars and witches, their art style depends on them and their barriers, just as the anime.  But how the battles play out?  There's no point to using the GS system if I didn't keep the camera and way the battle plays out.

@Formulas:  We know.  We've already had this discussion for DCrisis.  We'd have to do a custom ASM job, something a bit outside what the editor itself will be able to do.  This is why we've got members looking into the ASM - both to get formula editing, one of the things we've asked for from the start, but we're also got them looking into it for the sake of new effects.

@Sprite size:  Yup, that's the idea.  It's a bit bigger than GS, and the layout will make it look like the camera is a bit closer, but most of it is just fudging it a bit.

[Rolina]

There's an entire set of threads dedicated to that, Jiten, please, just look them up or google it.

Also, there's never been big projects like this.  Most people keep quiet about their big stuff, I've been wanting to do something like this for a very long time now, but without any idea as to what it was.  I got hit by the inspiration train, got out of the hospital, then had the idea.



Okay, gonna talk about a couple things in this edit.  First, when doing a bit of research on the Puella Magi wiki, turns out that all of the skill names are in Italian, while before I'd thought they used different languages.  This means that all four characters, to match with the style of the series, will have skill names in italian.

Second is shout outs.  This game knows the roots of its code, and you'll see it from place to place.  Arguably the biggest example could be Harumi's magic style, which will be as close to pre-existing psynergy as I can get it in terms of animation.  I may have to tweak appearance a bit, but in terms of attack animations, even in my head I envision GS style animations there, with her attacks being the most obvious.

Second is the battle arena.  It's the exact same layout, though isometric and in the artistic style of the game.  NPC placement is exactly the same, though save for five of them they'll be generic puella magi sprites.  The five exceptions, though, are a bit notable - the music woman, who I hope to say the same lines as in TLA, and with the same "hold R and talk" thing.  As for the other four, while the three teammates will be standing where Piers, Garet, and Isaac are, at the table will be... the four squires from the golden sun games - Isaac, Felix, Matt, and... Amiti the Aqua Squire, recreated with sprites to match the art style of the game.  Talking to either of them will get a mini-scene where Isaac, Felix, and Matt will simply go , in that order, with Amiti making some kind of a remark about how they don't say anything.  They won't have face portraits, I don't think, but the joke should be very obvious to any GS player.

The game also knows the roots of the story, and there'll be remarks within the game about it, such as "There's no such thing as a selfless wish, we all made wishes that had something for us to gain out of it.  Those that don't believe it usually don't get the outcome they were expecting (reference to Sayaka).  I imagine that if someone did make such a wish, they'd truly be a goddess among the puella magi." (reference to Madoka)  Because they've also got Oriko in the background, there'll be obvious references to it.  As mentioned before, I plan to have Soul Fragments representing Mami, Kyoko, and Yuma, as well as both direct and indirect references to the events that occurred in the manga.

[Rolina]

...Just watch the anime.  The Oriko Manga is done, grab a scanlation and read it.  Also read up on Kazumi while you're at it.  I will NOT provide links, as I have already stated in the first post.

[Rolina]

Google.  Use it.

[Rolina]

Please do not just arbitrarily bump threads.  Instead, edit your post and simply mention something in the cbox.

Do I have anyone to make sprites?  No.  This is something I'd have to hunt down.  I don't think anyone here will be able to pull off the style I'm looking for.  Hell, many won't even want to work on it.  I do know Misery said they'd like to make some character art, but other than that I don't know if I'll have anyone assisting me.

[Knight of Purgatory]

@ role: could you please post an example of this style?