im not sure if this is breaking the rules or not...

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but here goes. this is by no means an attempt to recruit, but if you deem it as such, just close/delete the thread.

ok so anyway im working on a project, and i want comments on the design brief, ie. what you think is good, bad, what you would change, why you would change it etc.

thanks :D

The Mod Plan.


What is the mod?

- the mod is a Multiplayer Team based ATB (active time battle), based in the combined final fantasy worlds, combining characters, hero's, villains, and infamous monsters from across the series, plus some characters from different games and genre's, but mainly focusing on FF.

What game are you modding?

- i am planning on taking advantage of the source engine in a way that people havent seen before.

How will the mod work as a multiplayer?

- Players will select a server, and join. to participate, they simply chose which character they wish to use, and join the fray. you may only join before a battle has started, or after it has finnished. the atb meter fills over time for each player, and when full, the player can activate any ability they can perform. this is also how the monster attacks, it has its own invisible atb meter. this way, players dont need to wait for each other to decide their activities, and hold up the game. people will have the freedom to wait untill a key moment to use an ability, or use it right away, its their own choice, but is all happening in realtime on the server. also, at some point i would like to have the option of a PVP challange where people can battle each other in this turn based environment, either alone, in teams, or in handicap battles.

How will the Characters balance out?

- Players will have individual strengths and weaknesses, these arent always going to be exactly oposite. a character may be skilled in both close quarter, and magical combat, but may be weak in ranged attacks, or have a lower health rating. there will also be a "point" system in place. whereby before joining a server, you set up your character. you have (for example only) 200 points, which can be spent on upgrading attributes, "learning" spells, upgrading weapons and armour etc. also, i have thought of adding bonus points to certain monster defeats, but not sure on implimenting this yet. so more updates to follow.

How will the monsters strength compare to the players?

- The monsters will each have 3 different dificulty levels, easy, medium, and hard. of course each monster will be easyer or harder than each other as well. the monsters difficulty will not change depending on the players or the amount of them, so if there are more players, it may well be too easy to win, so choose a tougher opponent ;)

animations

- each character will have 2 attack animations, which on the attack command, will be selected at random, this might help with the boredom effect of watching the same attack over and over.

for the initial release, we will need the following animations for each player character are as follows:

idle
wounded idle
sitting (afk = immune)
attack 1 (includes sprinting toward enemy or w/e is "characteristic")
attack 2 (as above, just make it different)
magic 1
magic 2 (different animation, for high level spells)
use item
block
wounded block
being hit
blocking taking hit
wounded taking hit
KO (maybe take advantage of the physics engine for some nifty ragdoll effects?)
revival

Special Attacks

- rather than having special attacks, the limit break system, similar to FF8, whereby, if your health is low, or you are affected by certain spells/items, you may have a chance to use a limit break/special attack for that round, this will be determined by a chance generated by the AI (the lower your hp, the more likely you will be able to use it, or the higher the effect of the spell/item).

Locations

- although the mod is based arround the FF world, and i would like very much to keep some of the origional settings, such as the deep sea research post, for the ultima battle. i would also like a lot of self designed maps, designed to be very scenic, as this isnt a first person mod, we can really go to town on map details, and making everything look very pretty. the most important map i can think of, is some kind of ruined coluseum of some form. but ill do design sketches of that later.

Heroes.

- list of currently planned characters playable by characters.

Gattsu - Berserk (not in first release)
Squall - FF8
Cloud - FF7
Locke - FF6
Shadow and Intercepter - FF6
Garnet - FF9
Tifa - FF7
Character list to expand with further releases and design plans.


Monsters.

- list of enemies currently to be utilised in order of easyest to most dificult.

Common soldier x3 |
|
common soldier x2 +Leader } sharing the same model.
|
Special troops x3 |

Cactaurs

tonberry

The following will be unlocked by password entry, which you obtain by defeating the previous monster (the baby dragon is open from the start).
Baby Dragon

Teenage Dragon (All dragons may be fought in groups of 1, 2, or 3.)

Adult Dragon

tonberry king

Seifer

Kuja

Sephiroth

Trance Kuja

Final form Kefka

Bizarro Sephiroth (final form in northern crater)

Emerald Weapon

Ruby Weapon

Ultima Weapon

Omega Weapon
Monster list to expand on further releases and design plans.


Summon monsters WILL be implimented at some point. but as of the first release, i very much doubt it.

(i copy pasted this from my notepad, and removed the "recruitment" part haha)
 
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Interesting stuff, looks like you've got quite a big project there, very ambitious but i'm sure you'll deliver. Should I assume you're doing all the models and skinning yourself? I saw your Gattsu model in the modelling forum so I guess it's for this.

Some questions:

1) Is the emphasis on getting kills/frags or character building? If the latter, will there be a way to save characters?

2) I'm a bit confused as to how the game works in terms of activating battles, is it like Final Fantasy Online with real time ATB or will there be no free movement like Final Fantasy Tactics?

3) You said the game was going to based in a world similar to the FF world, but each FF game (X-2 notwithstanding) has a different world, would it be one of the worlds or a collaboration?

4) Do the players form parties like Diablo II or does it assume that all the players are in one big party (Bearing in mind the maxplayers are 32).

5) Will you be keeping the same scale as HL2 (so maps can be made now :))

6) Are monster encounters random or will you see the monsters before the fight occurs?

7) Will there be a FF-style equipment system?
 
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1) Is the emphasis on getting kills/frags or character building? If the latter, will there be a way to save characters?


well, im hoping the latter, but i have yet to devise a way to do this, cucumba helped with a few suggestions on aim, but he was talking coderspiel and i couldnt decypher a word of it hahaha

2) I'm a bit confused as to how the game works in terms of activating battles, is it like Final Fantasy Online with real time ATB or will there be no free movement like Final Fantasy Tactics?

you cannot run arround, rather... think of grandia 2. where if you want to move to a strategic position behind an enemy, you can, but it will take up your turn, and the time bar for your character rebuilds after your action. but each players time bar is independant from each other, so no one really needs to wait for one another, but its still turn based.

3) You said the game was going to based in a world similar to the FF world, but each FF game (X-2 notwithstanding) has a different world, would it be one of the worlds or a collaboration?

it will be more of a collaboration, as i said id like it to be based on, but at the same time i would like to have a lot of origional sceneries as well.

4) Do the players form parties like Diablo II or does it assume that all the players are in one big party (Bearing in mind the maxplayers are 32).

well, basically (and this is a rough plan), you would set up a server, and wait for people to join, you can then choose between each other which creatures you wish to fight in some kind of pre-game chat window (kinda like DoW i guess?)

5) Will you be keeping the same scale as HL2 (so maps can be made now )

um...?

6) Are monster encounters random or will you see the monsters before the fight occurs?

answered above in q4

7) Will there be a FF-style equipment system?

still working on that im afraid >;o
 
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OK that clears up a lot of my queries, i'll rephrase 5.

You know how the ESF team scaled everything down, like player models shrunk from 72 units (HL default) to 8 units tall to allow bigger maps. Bearing in mind the HL2 maps are 4x4x4 bigger than the HL maps, will you be scaling down player size or keeping the default, if default then maps can be made with the HL2 scale now and then used when the mod is ready.

And I never played Grandia 2 :cry:
 
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You're in the green, Gir. You are neither recruiting or advertising. Sounds like an interesting idea. I don't have any questions really other than the ones of Ravendust's you've answered so all I've got to say is good luck!
 
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nice magus >;]

the scaling.. well as far as i can see, i dont think the full size of the map will be used unless some rediculous amount of players are involved, and even then it wouldnt be the full map, baring in mind you wont be running around the map, itll just be a "scene". so standard scaling all round o/
 
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I dunno, i woulda kinda like a Final Fantasy XI feel to it, scale chars down and make a big world map maybe? have the fighting system like that when you engage battle, able to party with others or go alone. buy, find items ect.

doing quests like this would be fun i think

could it be possible to have 2 maps in one server in hl2? what i mean is when you reach the end of one map its triggered to send you to another map(like extension of the map.)
 
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you mean the way they load maps in hl2 already? i dunno...could be difficult :p


your missing the idea.. this isnt gonna be an rpg, im not gonna write out loads of quests, and they arent gonna be free roaming worlds. i just dont have the power to design all of that. PLUS squeenix would probably take a huge exception to that, as they are pretty anal about anything of theirs in a mod to begin with.

the whole concept is on simplicity, and basically just joining some pals in a server, battling hard creatures, unlocking the next one, fighting that one etc... unlockable items and bonus points as rewards to make the next bosses easyer, but only if you use the items in the right way.
 
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I think it's a nice idea, pretty original in terms of what most mods are going for now days, good luck with it, i'll be watching :)
 

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