A present for Sala

[leaf]

Can you please stop trying to tell me what I'm thinking? I'm pretty sure I know what I'm thinking well enough, thanks. This is the third time you've reminded me not to think along some track or whatever, even when I haven't been thinking along that track at all. I'm not talking about completely removing elements. We would still have the four elemental affinities, but jump moves would be special attacks that work off of another stat in addition to attack. Hammers would be based off of the regular attack stat, and could have FP variants that work as elemental physicals, while jumps would use both the attack stat and this new stat to calculate their damage (thus, they're more powerful) but cost FP to execute even the basic version (thus, more expensive than hammers). Jumps would also be able to have an element, turning them into elemental physicals as well. Perhaps there could be a 0 FP version for jump that's stronger than the basic hammer but lacks the ability to crit, whereas the basic hammers have a decent chance to crit.

Of course this hammer/jump stuff only concerns the two bros, and the other characters would have their own specialties that use this stat.

As for a second party... yeah, if we were gonna go that route that'd be good. Perhaps instead of all joining at once, though, they should each join separately. If we're using two parties we could actually include bowser in the second group as a legit playable character.

[Salanewt]

As for not using Geno and Mallow, that's why I suggested we keep Peach and Yoshi, and add a second party entirely consisting of "partner characters" created specifically for this game. Partner character party would probably consist of:

a Goomba: Jump
one of those thundercloud enemies from Paper Mario: Shock
a Fairy, like the one in Super Paper Mario: Fire
a Penguin-enemy thing, whatever the Mario universe calls them: Ice

Um... This is how I see it. We should either have a full team of heros, or a full team of partners (or characters with multiple versions, like Toad). I can see where you are going with this idea though, so I have an idea for how we could technically have "partners". Remember Kraden? Well, partners could be like him, but they also unlock a special ability or something. Fairy? What the? Oh, you mean the Pixls? They are one time only occurences though. As for "Pengun-enemy thing", do you mean actual Penguins from Mario, or Bumpties (and are also from Yoshi's Island (pretty cute enemies actually))?

Have a nice day.

Also, Jump/Hammer would be fine as attack flags. Something like "Float" can be used as an alternative affinity, since this could include things like jumping or flying.

[Aile~♥]

@Sala: That's what I said, the entire second party consists of partner characters.

Main problem with having Yoshi as a party member is that then you have 1 Yoshi... and three (or Seven!) people riding him. Really, to be realistic, you'd need 4 Yoshis, one for each party member to ride. And once you get the second party, you'd need 8 Yoshis, and you wouldn't be able to have any as a party member.

Also, another idea for a partner character: Toadette. I mean come on, she looks cool. She'd probably either be Jump or Shock, despite the fact that Toads don't shock people. However, we don't have a Poison element, which I'd be inclined to give to a Toad. (I mean, they DO shoot spores at people.)

@leaf: Well, earlier you kept arguing that the characters shouldn't be only one element.

Also, Hammers are equip types, Jumps would end up being abilities, under your "psynergy" list, which the icon would probably be replaced with a flower with the initials "FP" written on it, and the "attack" option would probably show a hammer pounding stuff.

I'd be inclined to go the opposite way with attack types, though: Jumps have higher crit chance, as measured in Mario games by how easy it is to pull of the required Action Commands. Hammers have a lower crit chance, but are stronger. Keep in mind, however, (and I'm not trying to tell you how you're thinking) that we've got 1 universal attack animation, meaning that for Jumps, they'd have to be FP abilities, and we'd have to use the secondary effect "May cause double damage" and edit the chance of it happening.

@Role: I was the one to first come up with the idea for using the term "Flower Points" instead of Psynergy Points. I mean, I'm not trying to take all the credit or anything, but we can't use Bros. Points because there are more than just the Bros. involved, we can't use Psynergy Points because this isn't Golden Sun, and we can't use Mana Points because the Mario universe isn't really magic based as such. And since we had precedence for Flower Points, that's what I used.

You're also right that most attacks would be physicals. Are we going to follow on Mario RPG tradition with lower attack values and attacks doing like 1 damage at the start? I don't think that'd work well though, because the GS system wouldn't really support Action Commands.

[Salanewt]

Well, for partner characters, I did not mean that they would join you (or is that not what you said either?). I love the idea of 4 or more Yoshis, but then the plot would stagnate quickly. What could happen is that Yoshi calls some of his friends (who also travel with you), and each character rides one of those Yoshis. Alternatively, Yoshi could just convert everyone into eggs with one person riding him, and then the eggs hatch when you are not riding him. This could actually allow for some funny text to be said, like...

Lets go Yoshi!

Yoshi: Okay!

Luigi: Oh no! Not again!


They shoot spores at people?

There are SP points too, from the later Mario and Luigi games. However, I think Flower Points would definitely be better.

Now, what else... ? Considering how much space we have on the Weyard (and even near Prox as a second map), we could probably have a large Mushroom Kingdom, and Prox area can be changed to the Dark World, where Bowser lives.

Have a nice day.

[leaf]

Also, Hammers are equip types, Jumps would end up being abilities, under your "psynergy" list, which the icon would probably be replaced with a flower with the initials "FP" written on it, and the "attack" option would probably show a hammer pounding stuff.

I'd be inclined to go the opposite way with attack types, though: Jumps have higher crit chance, as measured in Mario games by how easy it is to pull of the required Action Commands. Hammers have a lower crit chance, but are stronger. Keep in mind, however, (and I'm not trying to tell you how you're thinking) that we've got 1 universal attack animation, meaning that for Jumps, they'd have to be FP abilities, and we'd have to use the secondary effect "May cause double damage" and edit the chance of it happening.

Hm... that works.

Also, I don't think it's very accurate to say we have a "universal" attack animation. Each character has a regular attacking animation, but afaik it's a unique anim for each character. So we could have the bros' default attack animation be a hammer swipe, while peach's could be something like a slap.

---

Now... if we're using golden sun's battle system, we're gonna need some sort of djinn/summon replacement... which is where things get tricky. Typically, mario games have two normal attacks (only exception is SMRPG afaik), an item command, a special meter (flower/bros/special points), sometimes a super meter (star power in paper mario), and a miscellaneous command menu that includes defend, run, and others. In the M&L games, the specials and supers more or less were merged. GS only has one normal attack command, splits the miscellaneous menu into multiple commands, and most importantly replaces the super meter with djinn and summons. Unless we're gonna completely rewrite the game's code, we would need to use something similar to that. Of course, what I have in mind still involves hacking this system to shreds... just not as much as completely rewriting the code... maybe. >_>

Regardless, this is what I had in mind:

Greatly limit the number of "djinn" in the game, down to something like four per character (so either 4 or 8 of each element depending on the number of chars in the party). Rename djinn to something having to do with stars (I'm kinda at a loss for names here, so I'll just call them "stars" for now >_>). Since only having 16 stars to collect (if it's a single party game) would have you finding stars only occasionally, you could make it so you have to find three or four matching "star fragments" in order to obtain them. It would probably also make sense if they were essential to completing the storyline. Regardless of how you get them, they act similar to djinn in how they're equipped to characters, altering stats and class. The class system would have to be somewhat simpler due to only being able to have up to four stars equipped, but that's probably for the better here. We shouldn't be making a carbon copy of the GS battle system with this. Therefore, I propose a slight change to the way stars/djinn work.

First off, what will be kept the same: Stars will grant stats and class changes to characters, and can be unleashed in battle for various effects. When in "standby," the stars will be able to be used to perform supers, the same way djinn are used to bring forth summons. After this, the stars will be placed in a form of "recovery" state where they cannot be used for anything.

Now, for the changes: Stars would always have their class changes in effect, even when in "standby" or "recovery." Classes in this system should in general not be good or bad, just different, so there's no reason to punish a player by changing their characters' class. However, the stat boosts given by stars would be far greater than those given by djinn, and those would be lost when placed in "standby" or "recovery."

Second, note the quotes placed around "standby" and "recovery." Obviously, these terms would not be kept, and neither would their original effects. The new "standby" would place the star on a three turn timer (where the turn the star is used counts as turn 1) in which it could be used for a "summon." If it is not used within those three turns, it's returned to "set" at the end of turn 3. A star in "standby" can still have its effect be used, which will reset the three turn timer, but its effect of unleash will be weaker than if it was used normally (note, however, they cannot be used for anything when in "recovery," except for class changes, which are always active). When a star is used for a "summon," it is then placed in "recovery" for twice as many turns as was remaining on its counter minus 2, before finally being placed back in "set." If more than one star is used in a "summon," the number of turns spent in "recovery" increases by 1 for each star used after the first. Stars that are used earlier in this timer will contribute more power to the "summon." A quick example of what I'm talking about (ratios are subject to change):
- On turn 1, a star is used. If this star is used for a "summon" this turn, it will have a power of 100 and will have to wait in "recovery" for 4 turns. Total turns spent is 5.
- On turn 1, a star is used. If this star is used for a "summon" the following turn, it will have a power of 75 and have to wait in "recovery" for 2 turns. Total turns spent is 4.
- On turn 1, a star is used. If this star is used for a "summon" two turns later, it will have a power of 50 and have to wait in "recovery" for 0 turns. Total turns spent is 3.
- On turn 1, a star is used. If this star is never used for a "summon," it will return to "set" after the end of turn 3. Total turns spent is 3.

Note that the "power" ratings are simply a percentage of their original power they would contribute, not necessarily the direct power of the "summon." Also note that if two stars were used on turn 1, and they were each used on the "summon," that each turn count would increase by 1, if three stars were used, the turn count would increase by 2, and if four were used (the maximum, of course), the turn count would increase by 3. Higher level "summons" would thusly be much more powerful, as they require much more set up. It may look like it would be dumb to not use a "summon" on turn 3 if you hadn't already used it, since you get the star back the next turn no matter what you do, but since it's only a level 1 "summon" and the damage has been scaled so harshly by that point, it may actually end up doing less than if you had just attacked, depending on the foe. If you were to use that star in a multi-star "summon" then its number of turns spent in "recovery" would increase.

I'm not sure how plausible this system would be to implement, or even how much I really like it (I'd have to think about it some more), but eh... may as well throw it out there.

edit: You wouldn't be able to set a star's status outside of battle with this system. Once battle ends, they're automatically placed back to "set" and cannot be changed to "standby," so you can't just rush in there with four lv4 summons on the first turn and win. Bosses would be designed with this in mind, and would be able to withstand several turns of assault.

[Salanewt]

Rename djinn to something having to do with stars (I'm kinda at a loss for names here, so I'll just call them "stars" for now >_>).

How do Star Spirits sound, or even Star Sprites (though they are more often around to help grant wishes). "Summon" could be renamed to "Wish" or something like that, and Star Spirits/Sprites could help with using different Wishes.

- On turn 1, a star is used. If this star is used for a "summon" this turn, it will have a power of 100 and will have to wait in "recovery" for 4 turns. Total turns spent is 5.
- On turn 1, a star is used. If this star is used for a "summon" the following turn, it will have a power of 75 and have to wait in "recovery" for 2 turns. Total turns spent is 4.
- On turn 1, a star is used. If this star is used for a "summon" two turns later, it will have a power of 50 and have to wait in "recovery" for 0 turns. Total turns spent is 3.
- On turn 1, a star is used. If this star is never used for a "summon," it will return to "set" after the end of turn 3. Total turns spent is 3.

Seems like a good idea, but then people will be encouraged to use them all near the start of battle. What if we reverse the order, so it is less powerful for about 3-4 turns (50 power), then the next 5-6 turns are a bit stronger (75 power), and then 8 or more turns have about 100 power. Of course, the power should be raised a bit more, or else people will just use regular abilities instead (maybe add 50 power to the first level, 75 to the second, and 100 to the third?). Of course, the values should range a little bit for different summons, as well as whether it increases or decreases with time. Your set-up will probably be more useful for combat summons, and this modified idea will be more useful for healing (though maybe without adding too much more power).

[leaf]

Ah, I knew I forgot something. You wouldn't be able to set a star's status outside of battle with this system. Once battle ends, they're automatically placed back to "set" and cannot be changed to "standby," so you can't just rush in there with four lv4 summons on the first turn and win. Bosses would be designed with this in mind, and would be able to withstand several turns of assault.

The reason it's more powerful the earlier you use it is because the wait time until you can use it again is made longer. Should you go for the more powerful versions earlier and have to wait longer before you can use the stars again? Or should you wait until the last moment to use it so that you spend as little time without the stars as possible? Star management is further emphasized by something I just edited into my previous post that allows you to use a star that has been put in "standby," but with a reduced effect, and doing so would reset the timer.

I'm not sure how much I like the sound of "wishes," although I'm sure we'll come up with something >_>

[Salanewt]

You wouldn't be able to set a star's status outside of battle with this system.

Perfect!

No Wishes? That is fine, but I can think of some more ideas.

Star Power, Special Power, Special Attack, Star Attack, Wish Power, Starshine... This is all that I can think about right now.

As for Yoshi's Island... I figure that we could mix several areas where Yoshis live together, like Yoshi's Island, Lavalava Island, and Yo'ster Isle. Of course, this should mostly be an optional area, although we could probably include something here related to the quest (and also where you unlock Yoshi as a character/mode of transportation?).

Have a nice day.

[leaf]

Hm... how about Star Crash? And the recovery state could be called Crashed.

[Aile~♥]

We already have a system (as proposed by Role):

Jump elemental powerups are Propeller Shrooms.
Fire elemental is Fire Flower.
Ice elemental is Ice Flower.
Shock elemental is Volt Shroom.

Using them in battle would still result in various effects, and we'd still have to name them individually.

A basic idea: Volt Shroom: Electro: Protects allies with a laser barricade.

And a basic "super" move: Jump type: Twin Tornado, cost: 2 Props Standby: Two allies (whoever were the ones to use the prop shrooms) team up for a doubled-up spin-jumping attack. If one person used both prop shrooms, the person in the party with the highest Jump affinity joins in.

In this case, we don't need Weapon combos anymore, because these moves would be the sort of combination attack supermoves I'd intended for weapon combos.

[leaf]

I'm gonna put this bluntly: I think a "jump" element is dumb. It isn't true to the mario games at all to have a "jump" element, and isn't something that can be ambiguously applied to both physical and non-physical attacks. "Jump" is just as much of an element as "hammer" is. And either can be given (other) elemental properties. This is why I suggested that the jump/hammer effects be attack flags instead of their own element. Admittedly, my idea for one of the elements was pretty dumb, too: "heart" elemental. But at least it stays with the general theme of the "element" being a secondary property of the attack, rather than the type of the attack it is.

[Atrius (He/They)]

For the purposes of this hack, I wouldn't think of them so much as elements since those don't play much of a role in the Mario universe anyway.  Representing types of attacks works well enough.

It's kinda like in Fire Emblem where you basically have Lances, Swords, Axes & Bows.

Swords are weak against Lances, Axes are weak against Swords, and Lances are weak against Axes.  Bows are kinda their own thing though, since they're ranged and the others don't get to counter attack since they're too far away.


EDIT:
Actually though, in Golden Sun's code "elements" don't have to be linked like Mars is weak against Mercury.  They could just be their own thing where resistance against one attack attribute is arbitrary compared to the others.

Basically you could have a Spiky enemy that has high resistance to jump style attacks, but weak against any other style of attack.  Maybe he's made of ice, and weak against fire, or made of fire and weak against Ice.  Even then you could have an ice enemy like a snow man that is weak against jump style attacks.

[Aile~♥]

That's the point Role was making as well. It's not so much an "element" as it is a "type". I mean, how is Bug an "element" in Pokemon? That's why they refer to them as "types". And in the GS system, as Atrius mentioned, type resistances are completely unrelated to what type you use. Think the Seabird enemies for instance. Hundred-and-something Wind power, and 25 Wind Resistance. Then there's also the Fire worm. Uses the Fire element, but is resistant to everything other than Fire, and is seriously weak against fire.

And having a mushroom with a propeller on it would make you better at jumping. I think for purposes of this hack we should change to the term "elemental power" to "type affinity", and "elemental resistance" to "type defence" (defence has an S in it for you American types).

[leaf]

@Atrius: Yeah, I think we already established that elemental resistances don't have to align with the opposing elements theory.

Although I think there's a rather large amount of confusion among... er... everyone, about how much we're going to be using this element system, or how we're going to be using it. I don't think any of us are on the same page right now, which is why there's so much arguing >_>

[Aile~♥]

I suspect many enemies will end up being type-less, as will several player attacks.

As for being on the same page, I'm basing my ideas mostly off what Role said. Most of her ideas were pretty good actually. But I do think that if we actually understood what everyone else was actually thinking, there would be a lot less fighting going on.

...Maybe everyone should just post a giant wall-of-text sort of thing where we state our entire idea, and then we compare?

[leaf]

Sounds like a good idea to me. I'll post my wall of text tomorrow probably. It's starting to get late here. And maybe I'll be able to get around to feeling like replying to role in the enemy topic by wednesday... which is gonna be another wall of text >_>

[Salanewt]

Well, Jump as a type is a good idea, but I can think of other things to go in there (later, since I just woke up). Anyway, I do not quite have a wall of text, because I agree with Role for the elements for the most part, although Ice could probably be used as an enemy only attribute (and replaced with wither Heart or Flower (and if Flower is done, we could probably have two characters, since there are not many Mario characters who are related to Ice, unless they are enemies)). However, Jump is a good idea, as was pointed out for jumping on certain enemies who should take less damage for Jump.

Oh, Atrius? Would it be possible to add a script to a specific type of enemy that damages you instead of the enemy if a specific attack flag is used (in case Jump and Hammer will be made into different attack flags)? I am thinking about this because in at least 6 of the RPG Mario games, you get damaged when jumping onto a Spiny enemy.

Have a nice day.

[Rolina]

@Leaf on Characters:  That's why I originally had Blue Toad and Yellow Toad, you know. Also, I think we should stick with Bowser being the bad guy, and Peach being the one you've gotta save.  The traditional Mario formula.  We should keep that.

@Leaf on Jump element:  First - we have precedent already.  We have no precedent for star.  Second - Hammers are not an element, they're a WEAPON type.  Look at mario games.  Notice how many different types of jumps they've come up with?  We've got plenty to work with.  Heart won't work as an element, because not only is there really only one person who'd be using it, there's no powerups for it.  For jump, we have:  Kuribo's Shoe, Racoon Leaf, Tanuki Suit, Propeller Shroom, Super Cape, Winged Cap, etc...

@Enemies:  Remember that Golden Sun's system allows us to make power and resistance independently, guys.  Nobody really has a focus other than the Main Characters.  Just as Atrius pointed out above, and I've mentioned many, many times.  Goombas should be WEAK TO JUMP.  Because, you know... GOOMBAS.  Flying enemies for the most part as well - Paratroopas, for example.  Meanwhile, you'd have things like Piranha Plants could be weak to fire.  Aquatic foes could be weak to Shock.  Fiery foes, obviously, are weak to water.  But then you've got guys like Shysters, which I doubt have a real weakness.  Others would be quite resistant to attacks - Spineys resist the crap out of Jump, for example.  But does this mean they're weak/strong to the opposite?  Not really.  For starters, there really isn't an opposite element for this.  Goombas are weak to jump, but they're not strong to anything else.  I mean... they're GOOMBAS.  Read:  Koopa canon fodder.

@Bowser is playable idea:  NO.  This has been done at least twice already.  Stop making the Bad guy a good guy.  I know you like the dood, but this really should just have Bowser as the big bad and the Princess as they damsel.  I've said this many times.  We don't want some crazy story, we want a traditional Mario story for this hack.

@Yoshi as playable:  Again, NO.  I said that he's transport for a reason that was pointed out - one person per yoshi.  You'll have the main one, then his buddies will carry the other 3.  OR, if y'all REALLY, REALLY hate the advice I gave to keep the party at 4 members, then 7 Yoshis.  But trust me, there's not enough mario characters to pull off an 8 member party.

@Attack types:  Well, we could have a different animation for "Attack", "Defend", "Cast", "Jump", "Shoot", "Hit", and "Downed".  Attack works just like in GS, and if you equip Gloves, it's unarmed, if you equip hammers, it uses the hammer sprite, etc...  "Defend" sets them up in a defensive pose, if we can do it.  "Cast" works like in SMRPG - they start their abilities with it. "Jump" is exactly what it says on the tin.  "Shoot" is for Fireballs, Iceballs, Beam attacks, etc... "Hit" is when they get hit, "Downed" is KO-ed.

@Leaf's Djinn idea:  WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK MY POWERUP IDEA WAS?!  Go back and read the first post, facepalm, and apologize for totally ignoring me.  Stop totally blowing my ideas off - they all have precedent, which is why I use them.  That 'star' idea of yours has none, while my powerup idea has a basis in RECENT Mario games.

@Summons:  ...That's gonna be a problem.  How can we put summons in a Mario game?  Anyone know how we can do this?  Or should we remove summons?  I think we should have them, but I'll need ideas on how to pull it off, since we'll have NO precedent here.  And Leaf... don't just come up with stuff on your own while totally ignoring other people's ideas.

I'm going to be making a couple of topics.  These are where we can decide certain things, such as what elements we use.

[Aile~♥]

Role, overdone plot is overdone. Screw tradition, this is an RPG. In an RPG, plot is the whole point. And "save the damsel" isn't really a "plot", it's a pointless excuse to send you on an adventure. Without discovering more of the plot as you go along, there would be no motive for cutscenes, meaning characters wouldn't have any personality. Personality is what makes people play RPGs.

For summons, we could use Bros. Attacks-style supermoves.

And Role, "Jump" isn't really an "element", just the same way "Bug" isn't an "element" in Pokemon, it's a "type". Remember we don't have water, we've got Ice. Piranha Plants would be weak to both Fire AND Ice, but near impervious to Jump and strong against Shock.

[Salanewt]

Some minor things...

Technically, we could pull of an 8 person party, but we would have to include some characters like Wario or Bowser, and they are better as opponents than they are as protagonists. Or, I could work on a list of 8 members, since I do know of some which could work (in fact, I can already think of about 6-7 if we were to include Yoshi, and not include Bowser, Wario, or Waluigi (I kind of hate the last two anyway, and Bowser turned Yoshi's Island into a book once)). Also, you are right about Heart...

@Yoshi as playable:

I have a nice suggestion, since I think we generally agree that Yoshi should not be usable (unless everyone changes their mind). Not only is he transport, but there could also be an item to summon him in battle, and attack. Of course, it would not be a super attack or anything, but it could be like using a Bramble Seed, except with the power of Kirin or something.

Princess as they damsel.

True, but thou mustn't forget about Super Mario RPG (though she is a good damsel in distress too). We also have at least two other princesses/princess-like characters to choose from if we wish, or we could use all of them at certain points of the game. We could throw Pauline in there, but she seems pretty outdated to me, and might not be the best idea.

@Leaf's Djinn idea:

Oops, sorry Role, it is just that so much has been said, I had forgotten some of the more important posts. I do agree that we should use items (and I am aware that you did not address me with this, but I did add to it).

Have a nice day.