Status Effects

Status effects like poisoned, blinded, asleep, and so-on have been a mainstay of the console RPG genre since it's earliest beginnings, and they can even trace their roots back to the Pen-and-Paper RPGs the genre grew out of. Yet, status effect spells have a history of being neglected and useless. In most RPGs that I have played, the opportunity cost of using a status effect spell is far too great compared to the benefit of the spell in order to make using the spell worth it.

The fundamental problem of status effect spells in console RPGs is that the most RPGs are built on the assumption that the player will fight a large number of battles, each of which takes a relatively short amount of time. However, status effects are generally designed to weaken and inconvenience enemies, not kill them quickly. For example, a status condition that gives an enemy a 50% chance of losing its turn is only useful if the enemy lives long enough to take two, three, or more turns. As a result, it is not worth using a status effect on most enemies, since they can easily be killed by one or two good attacks in most RPGs. That leaves only only two situations where status effects are useful: in unusually long regular battles, such as against a large group of enemies or particularly durable regular enemy, and boss battles. Unfortunately, this is where most RPGs drop the ball, since flat-out immunity to status effects are insanely common in RPGs. The average boss is immune or incredibly resistant to every status condition. While this is somewhat reasonable, considering that many status effects render an enemy completely powerless, the fact that even regular enemies are often given complete immunity to a wide range of status conditions, often for no discernible reason. Furthermore, status effect spells often are given a very low chance of taking effect. Because of this, using a status effect spell is a huge gamble, and is thus a pretty poor choice compared to just doing reliable damage.

I don't think there is any good justification to making status effect spells useless. If you are going to give the player an option, that option should at the very least be situationally useful. Thankfully, there are games out there where status effects are useful or even invaluable. Here are some of my observations and my advice to anyone designing status effect attacks for an RPG:

-Give the player information about the enemies' immunity to status effects.
Simply being uncertain about whether or not an enemy is susceptible to a status condition is often enough to prevent the player from using a status spell. This is why it is important to give the player at least some feedback about an enemy's resistances and vulnerabilities. For example, in Final Fantasy X it is possible to use the Scan spell to see what status effects an enemy is immune to. Furthermore, FFX would give an "Immune" message if you hit it with a status effect it was immune to, instead of "Miss". That is a very important distinction, particularly if status effect inducing attacks have a low chance of success. Without such an indicator, the player may not realize an enemy is immune to an effect and try using that effect over and over on that enemy, or just write off an enemy as being immune after a single miss. Giving the player at least some information and feedback gives the player the ability to make informed decisions.

-Status effects with a low activation rate have no value.
At one point, I considered pairing a status effect to a physical attack to be a good idea, since it meant that the attack would still do some damage, even if the status effect itself didn't take hold. However, I have since realized that there are some caveats on this principle. Let's say there is an attack called Paralyzing Strike which costs 2 MP and does damage equal to the player's basic attack with an added 20% chance of paralyzing an enemy. While it sounds like a good deal at first, the reality is the player can't afford to use this attack in lieu of a basic physical attack. Even at a low MP cost, using Paralyzing Strike every turn can quickly add up to hundreds of MP over the course of a dungeon. As a result, the player is likely to save Paralyzing Strike for use against specific targets that he specifically wants to paralyze. However, if the paralysis effect is not reliable, the player will grow frustrated with Paralyzing strike, and will switch to using more reliable strategies, such as using high MP cost, high damage attacks. As a result of this effect, status effect inducing attacks are only useful if they are either reliable or free, such as in the case of weapons that have some chance of causing a status effect with every hit (though even those generally have to compete with weapons with different effects).

-Useful status effect attacks come in two general categories:
a) Status effects that shut down the enemy's ability to do damage.
In Dragon Quest IV, I have run into enemy groups consisting of four or more enemies that both capable of dealing a lot of damage and tough enough to require the concentrated attack power of multiple characters to bring down. I have also discovered that the Snooze spell is very helpful against these enemies, since it is cheap, hits an entire group of enemies, and can shut down their attacks for several turns. When a status effect spell can swing an entire battle from very dangerous to well-under control, it becomes a very attractive option.

A similar example is with Iron Giants and Blind in Final Fantasy X-2. Even though Iron Giants are powerful attackers that can nearly flatten a character in one hit and can withstand several rounds worth of punishment, they are susceptible to the blind condition, which makes them miss almost every attack. So having a character use a blind-inducing attack on an enemy every turn is a sound strategy.

b) Status effects that allow the player to defeat enemies faster.
This should be where the poison status condition goes, but it is rarely useful, despite being in every RPG since the original Dragon Quest. In most cases, it does about 10% of an enemy's max HP in damage every turn, which is only useful if the player can only hit that enemy for a comparable amount of damage with each attack. So it is useless against most enemies, which will likely die in a turn or less of concentrated attacks, but it would be wildly overpowered against a boss which is expected to last a dozen or more rounds (thus, most bosses are immune to poison). The only time I have ever used poison as a serious combat strategy was in Final Fantasy X, where poison did one fourth of an character's max HP in damage every turn. That was powerful enough for me to use it as my primary means of killing certain enemies (such as the apes on Mt. Gagazet).

Perhaps a more interesting version of this kind of status condition are effects that increase the damage the player will do against enemies. For example, the oil condition in Final Fantasy XII caused the next Fire elemental attack to do double damage, which made it into one of my main boss-killing strategies. Better still is Persona 3's Distress condition, which makes every attack against the Distressed target into a critical hit. Because of the way criticals work in Persona 3, a spell that makes every enemy distressed can let the player mow down an entire enemy party with just basic attacks (if the condition actually connects, that is).

Status spells can be very useful, and open up more complex and interesting strategies to the player, if the developers of an RPG let them. However, unreliability is the bane of usefulness; there is no reason to give the player a skill that does not do its job. If you design status effects with particular uses in mind, then they will be useful. Far too often, it seems like status conditions are designed the monsters to use against the PCs, but then are given to the player with little though put into their usefulness.

Limited Inventory Space

Earlier today, Grandia's inventory system really ruined a game session for me. Grandia uses a limited inventory system, where each character in the party can only carry twelve items, not counting equipped weapons and armor, with no team reserve. I was exploring a section of what could be the final dungeon when I found a Spirit Helm: most likely the strongest helmet in the game. Unfortunately, all of my characters had full inventories, so I was asked what to do with the Helm I just picked up. In a tragic turn of events, I accidentally chose the "Discard Found Item" option instead of the "Discard Item in Inventory" option, and permanently lost out on one of the most powerful pieces of equipment in the game. Needless to say, I had no choice but to turn off my PS2 without saving, and now I am facing the prospect of not only retracing my steps up to that point, but trekking all of the way out of the dungeon just to drop some of the junk in my inventory into storage. This entire incident is a perfect example of some of the flaws in character limited inventory systems.

There is plenty of good reason in limiting the number of items a player has access to in an RPG. In a typical RPG, such as in most Final Fantasy games, every player-controlled character has access to a massive inventory with a potentially nigh-limitless number of healing items and possibly even attack items. With an inventory full of sufficiently powerful healing items, it becomes easy for a player to keep his characters healed during a long battle. So, limiting the player's usable inventory is a valid means of adjusting the difficulty of a game.

Unfortunately, limiting inventory space has a lot of other effects on gameplay. Most RPGs typically hand out a lot of treasure in dungeons: be it more potions, new and improved equipment, or items destined to be sold at the next shop. In a game where the player only has ready access to a limited inventory, the player has to budget a large part of his inventory space to store those items, or else start throwing old items away in order to make room. Thankfully, most games with limited inventory have some means of storing unneeded items, but such games rarely let the player send things into that storage space from inside the dungeon, causing the player to still have to make tough decisions about what to keep and what to throw away. I remember having to throw away a lot of unidentified weapons and armor in Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter because of that games' limited inventory. Having to throw items away like that is frustrating, since it feels so wasteful.

A particular problem of Grandia's system is that characters keep all of their items when they leave the party temporarily. So, I have been put in situations where one character leaves for a dungeon, and takes the main character's only axe with him, limiting my weapon choices. This particular problem could have been avoided if the player was given the chance to redistribute items between characters when someone leaves the party, or at the very least the character's items were dumped into storage (as is the case for characters who leave permanently).

Another effect of limited inventories is that it usually limits what items the player will actually use to just the bare essentials. Grandia's shops are full of various non-healing battle items, such as bombs that are effective on certain types of enemies, items that boost various stats, and items that drop various enemy stats. Unfortunately, I never could justify bringing those items with me into a dungeon. I could only ever afford to bring four or five items per character into a new area; any more and I risked having to start throwing stuff away. Since that included one or two spare weapons per character, I had to prioritize bringing the most essential items: revival potion and only my most powerful all-character HP and MP restoration items. I simply had no room to bring anything else, which left 70% of the items in the game a waste of inventory space. It is a real shame.

My favorite inventory system of all time has to be Kingdom Hearts' hybrid inventory system. In Kingdom Hearts, each character keeps their own inventory of items, and each character is differentiated by the maximum number of items they can carry. At the same time, there is a shared party inventory that can carry the typical large number of items, with the exception that it can't be accessed during battle. In addition, items in a character's inventory can be set to be automatically restocked from the party inventory after a battle, which helps cut down on the number of minor tasks the player has to worry about. So all told, the Kingdom Hearts inventory system has the advantage of limiting the player's inventory for balance purposes, but at the same time it helps distinguish different characters' strengths, limits needless hassle, and prevents the problem of having to worry about throwing stuff away to make room for new items. If a game designer wants to implement a limited inventory system, that is the example I would recommend looking at.

Equipment vs. Accessories

In my last post I condemned the "equipment tax" in RPGs, the situation where most of the wealth acquired by the player is spent on maintaining the status quo, so now it is time for me to praise the exact opposite situation, where most of the wealth acquired by the player is spent on resources that change the status quo, particularly things that give the player new abilities and add new strategies to the game. This kind of situation is relatively rare in RPGs, but it is not unheard of.

To start thing off, I want to say that I have always been incredibly fond of the stereotypical "Accessory" equipment slot seen in many RPGs. Accessories are classically the one kind of equipment that gives you cool things, rather than just add to numbers. Even if it is something as simple as giving a character immunity to a status effect, accessories actually have the potential to change the way you fight battles. What is more, their value tends to be much more even across the length of a game than equipment that exists only to modify math. Even the cheapest status effect immunity accessory found in the first shop in the game can be invaluable at the end if there is an enemy who uses that status effect. Accessories only become more valuable in the rare case where you can equip multiple, allowing you to combine their effects in any number of possible ways, such as with the great Final Fantasy VI "Relic" system.

Usually, the kind of equipment that modifies numbers only becomes interesting when it also has the kind of effect you usually see with accessories. For example, while the equipment in Persona 3 is otherwise a textbook example of the "equipment tax" at work, most items in that game have additional effects that boost evasion against certain elements, improve stats, give resistance to certain elements, or let you add status effects to your attacks, and these side benefits tend to become more common and powerful as you rise in level. The equipment tax effect limits the potential of this system, since ultimately you need to replace items with good effects with items that have higher mathematical power, but it still has some advantages. Even though the mathematical strength of the highest-level items is just one more iteration of a geometric progression, they are none-the-less more interesting because they have new, flashy, and powerful abilities attached to them, such as the ability to inflict every status condition at once or a large bonus to every stat. Some rare weapons even replace their usual physical damage with elemental magic damage. Because these effects are powerful and rare, it makes these weapons feel unique and interesting, even if their stats are nothing special.

Actually, I think just about every really good "ultimate weapon" in RPGs has some effect like those in Persona 3. The Atma/Ultima Weapon from the Final Fantasy series often breaks the normal math and bases damage on level and how injured the wielder is. The Ragnarok and Illumina swords of Final Fantasy VI add all kinds of special properties to attacks in addition to giving large stat boosts and having high attack power in order to secure the "ultimate weapon" position. The ultimate weapons of Final Fantasy VII are unique in having a full set of 8 paired Materia slots, in addition to possessing abilities that modify damage based on HP and MP totals. Even something as simple as the Rainbow's base 70% critical hit rate in Chrono Trigger can mean a lot. It is things like this that make "ultimate weapons" into something more than being merely the last weapons you acquire.

I really think that RPGs would be a lot better off if they simply replace the "iterative mathematical improvement" scheme with something much more valuable, where equipment provides interesting effects rather than large numbers. After all, Final Fantasy X used just that kind of system, and it worked incredibly well in that game. That game has all of the same properties as an "equipment tax" RPG, where new weapons are available at every stop and you progress from weak beginning weapons (those without any properties) to ultimate "Celestial Weapons" (that have incredibly strong abilities), but it works entirely on providing the player with different options and encouraging the player to buy things because he thinks they are worthwhile, not because they are strictly necessary. It is an excellent example of how well that kind of scheme can work, and I think it should be more widely emulated. Certainly, future Final Fantasy games and RPGs in general would be better off following in Final Fantasy X's footsteps, rather than go the path of Final Fantasy XII, with a central character customization system that exists to emphasize the equipment tax rather than actually enable customization.

The Equipment Tax

When you reach a new town in a new part of the world, you need to go to the weapon and armor stores in order to upgrade all of your equipment. It is a simple routine, and it has been part of almost every RPG I have ever played, going all the way back to Dragon Quest. This need to upgrade equipment at every new town occasionally gets altered, made more complicated, or even completely subverted, but far more often it is not. At its most basic, every character will get a new weapon and new armor at every town, and the growth in power of those items will scale perfectly in proportion with every other character's new weapons and armor. While this is perhaps the most common model for how characters upgrade equipment across the course of the game, it usually detracts from a game more than it helps.

In a situation where new, more powerful equipment becomes incrementally available as the player progresses through the game, the cost of this equipment will inevitably become little more than a tax the player has to pay. In such a structure, the game designer must design the game under the assumption that the player will always have the best equipment available. This means that a player who, for some reason or another, doesn't have the latest equipment will be at a disadvantage and have a more difficult time with the game. At the same time, acquiring the new equipment doesn't give the player any kind of new advantage (since the enemies will have equivalent increases in power to match) or new kind of strategic option (for this post, I am assuming that equipment only grants the usual bonuses to attack and defense, and new equipment only gives bigger bonuses), so acquiring new equipment only maintains the status quo. As such, the cost of the equipment is little more than the minimum amount of money (or whatever) that the player needs to pay in order to avoid a penalty and keep things the same as they were previously. In many cases, the need to pay off this "tax" can simply be a source of frustration and stress for the player (this has happened to me countless times), and may result in the player feeling required to spend a lot of time on boring activities (AKA money-farming/grinding) in order to progress.

If new equipment is little more than a tax to be paid in order to avoid a penalty, then it would be better off it that entire aspect of the game were removed entirely. After all, I have never actually missed the act of buying equipment in games that didn't feature it (Xenosaga Ep. II comes to mind). More importantly, it seems like it would be easier for the designers if there was no equipment, since it means they don't need to guarantee that there is enough money (or whatever) available for the player to pay the "equipment tax", it would mean that there would be fewer variables in character balancing, etc. If equipment is simply going to be improved incrementally, then there is no advantage to having it that would justify adding all that complexity. If there is some aspect of an equipment system that justifies its existence, it is usually only limited by an incremental upgrade system (for example, a rare and difficult-to-acquire weapon being completely replaced by a weapon found in an ordinary shop later in the game).

There are many games I can think of in which equipment adds a lot to the game experience, but none of these games have the stereotypical "buy new equipment for every character at every town" system. The Fire Emblem scheme, where weapons will eventually break and most of your equipment for the entire game is comprised of simple iron and steel weapons, makes equipment management an extremely important part of strategy and makes unusual weapons extremely important and memorable. In SaGa Frontier, pretty much all the equipment you will ever see is available to be bought from the start, but cash is so limited that you need one of the game's several infinite money tricks in order to ever buy anything, making the items you acquire through luck and exploration extremely important. In Final Fantasy III, inequality in the availability of viable equipment can be annoying, but at the same time it forces the player to adapt by trying out new classes and strategies. Both the Suikoden and the Super Robot Taisen games combine non-transferable equipment upgrades with very large teams of characters, so it is impossible to upgrade everyone, forcing the player to make tough decisions. There are many ways to make equipment work, but just buying a new, mathematically-superior weapon at every town is not the way to do it.

Final Fantasy III DS: Equipment Woes

Because my brother has been playing Final Fantasy IV DS, I have been inspired to go back and finally play through Final Fantasy III DS, which I have owned for quite a while but never played too much. It has been a very interesting experience. Even with the new 3D graphics and modified main cast of characters, this game still has all of the elements of an old-fashioned RPG made for the NES. Some of these are a nice change of pace, such as the loose directions that tend to encourage exploration, but there are just as many elements that remind me of exactly how far videogames have progressed since those days.

At one point around halfway through the game, the plot dumped me in a new place with access only to a single town right after I acquired a new set of Jobs to play around with. The jobs I just acquired were the Evoker, the Dark Knight, the Dragoon, the Bard, and the Viking. The town, though, only had armor and weapons for Thieves, Rangers, Monks, and Vikings, as well as a spear for the Dragoon and a harp for the Bard. As such, the town provided enough equipment for three of these new jobs to function (because of equipment available earlier, everything but the Evoker and the Bard works, but I will get to those two later), but there was a problem: the enemies around that area and in the next few dungeons were much deadlier than previous enemies, so much so that anyone without improved armor would quickly get torn apart. As such, only Thieves, Rangers, Monks, and Vikings were really viable until I could reach some new towns. I could have bought a spear or two and had a Dragoon who could fight, but he would die so quickly to enemy attacks that it would be pointless.

The problems for Bards and Evokers were much more severe. The Evoker class needed an entirely new set of spells in order to be able to do anything, but these spells can only be acquired a few dungeons after you acquire the Evoker class. Similarly, the Bard requires harps in order to function, since its "Sing" ability depends on the equipped harp, but the only harp available in that one town merely provides a protective effect, which isn't something that can carry a character through several dungeons. In addition, neither job can benefit from the armor available in that town, and are stuck with a set of armor that was outdated long before the sudden increase in enemy power. As such, it would be almost suicidal to try to bring either of these classes into a dungeon when they first become available.

This lack of viable equipment actually becomes a recurring problem for several classes. Warriors, Red Mages, White Mages, Black Mages, Knights, and Dark Knights all have to go quite a long time from the point enemies get a sudden large increase in power to the point that they get a full set of armor capable of protecting against attacks. One glaring example is the Dark Knight job, which, from the point I acquired it (9 or 10 hours into the game), had to make do with armor I acquired a long time prior (6 hours into the game) all the way until I reached a new town recently (17 hours into the game and several dungeons and bosses later), and even then that armor upgrade was incomplete. In the meantime, I acquired several full armor upgrades for the Dragoon, something like five new kinds of lance, five or so Viking weapons, two full upgrades for the pathetic Bell and Tome weapons, and three whole levels of new magic spells.

The real problem with this lack of equipment is that it severely delays the player's ability to have fun with new Jobs. The various Jobs are the most exciting new toys to be had in the game, but because of poor equipment and spell availability the player isn't really free to have fun with them. It is something much akin to giving the player a new kind of gun in a First-Person Shooting game and not giving them any ammo for it until five more hours into the game. It just destroys the fun of experimenting with new things and enjoying hard-earned rewards.

Overall, the more widely-usable equipment should have been available across the entire post-Water Crystal section of Final Fantasy 3. Instead of providing a lot of class-specific equipment that favored eccentric and unusual classes, the game designers should have included a lot more armor and equipment that could be used by a large number of classes, as well as made the equipment necessary for certain classes (Evoker spells, Bard harps, and Dark Knight dark blades) available earlier.

One thing that I will say the game does well, though, is that it tends to use equipment availability as a way of hinting at optimal class choices very well. The game gives you Scholar gear around the time you need a Scholar. It gives a sudden increase in Thief gear right before the point where having a Thief is handy. It makes good Dragoon gear available right before a period in which Dragoons are extremely powerful. Dark Knight gear finally appears right in the midst of the time where it is most needed. This kind of hinting is quite effective, though I wish they didn't sacrifice overall flexibility and class viability for the sake of it.

Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn: Forging Weapons

I don't think I appreciated the real value of the ability to forge custom weapons in my last playthrough of Radiant Dawn. It is an extremely useful system, and one of the many good innovations made in the two Radiance games.

From what I have read online, it seems the Japanese version of Radiant Dawn required you to spend "weapon points" that are acquired by selling old weapons in order to actually forge something. I am glad that is not the case in the US version, because that would have made the system far less useful. With the apparent difficulty of acquiring "weapon points", it would prevent the player from acquiring a large number of forged weapons, and it may have restricted forged weapons to only being used in the final phases of the game, when forged weapons would be already nearly obsolete because of the powerful SS-rank weapons and character-specific weapons. That whole subsystem would just restrict the player's ability to experiment with and have fun with the entire forging system.

The weapon point limitation was fairly unnecessary in large part because the entire system is already fairly well balanced. The whole thing works by taking one of the base weapons (Iron, Steel, and Silver versions of the default weapon types, plus a few thrown weapons and the basic Tomes other than Dark), and letting the player modify the weapon for a price. The cost increases exponentially with how much you modify it (so it is cheaper to get a slightly better weapon and expensive to get a really powerful weapon), with the base price set by the weapon price (so it is more expensive to raise the attack of a Silver Sword by 1 than it is to raise the attack of an Iron Sword by 1). Thus you have the flexibility of either making a cheap slightly-tweaked iron weapon or an incredibly expensive, but powerful buffed-up silver weapon, with both costs being (mostly) fair.

Another great thing about the system is the use of Coins. It is possible to acquire a number of items called "Coins" in the game that can be used to further upgrade an item after all other upgrades have been chosen and paid for, so you get essentially free improvements to the weapon. You can use one Coin per weapon to "choose" a random card (it gives you an illusion of choice, but in truth it is just drawn randomly, and is designed so that even resetting won't let you change the result) and add its benefits to the weapon. You can get simple things like the "Sword" card that adds to the weapon's attack power, or stronger things like the "Goddess" that slightly increases attack power, accuracy, and critical hit rate. Coins are extremely plentiful, so these free bonuses are an extremely economical way of adding to the power of your weapons. It is even possible to create weapons that are slightly better than a normal weapon at no added cost with a Coin. It is an elegant addition to the system that makes it slightly more complex and fun than the simple cost-benefit calculation of the system's main component.

For all of these reasons I really like the forging mechanic, but I still think the system could use a few more improvements. For one thing, this system makes it impossible to create weapons with any of the many special properties that are found on other weapons. For example, it is impossible to make a weapon with the "horseslayer" property that inflicts triple damage to enemy cavalry, or a "brave" weapon that can be used to attack twice. These kinds of weapons are very interesting and add a lot to the kind of tactical choices of the game, so it is a shame that they are excluded from the weapon forging system. That said, it would be somewhat excessive to enable the player to create such powerful weapons just by paying a fee. However, the "Coin" system provides a solution. It would be easy enough to let the player get special properties just by drawing the right card.

At this point, though, I wonder if the "Coin" system could be improved somewhat. As it stands, Coins are a nice treasure, but hardly something that feels particularly valuable or worthy of effort. After all, you may draw a good card with a Coin, but you might also end up drawing the "Vine" card and getting nothing at all for your spent Coin. In addition, you get so many Coins that it reaches a point where you simply don't need any more. Perhaps it would be better if the random element of Coin effects were dropped. Instead of finding Coins, it might be better to find "Sword Coins", "Goddess Coins", and "Brave Coins". Instead of giving up a generic Coin in the hope of getting a good benefit, the player would have to put the effort into finding particularly rare and valuable Coins and then choosing how to spend them wisely. This kind of change would make finding Coins more rewarding and would add to the kinds of choices available to the player.

On a much more minor note, I really like the ability to change the color of a forged weapon, but I would have preferred it if the chosen color overwrote the default color, rather than simply be layered on top of the existing color. The current effect is far from satisfying in many ways. It is impossible to get a pure black weapon, for example, and combining colorful Tomes with any color gets unusual results. I also would not mind the ability to choose the design of the sword in addition to the color. At the very least, the Blade/Greatlance/Poleaxe models should be available in addition to the default weapon models. After all, a lot of smaller weapons look fairly ridiculous in the hands of larger characters like Generals.

Finally, I owe this thought to my brother, but this kind of weapon customization would be a great thing to combine with the Fire Emblem 4 scheme, where weapons can't be easily traded between characters, don't vanish forever after breaking, and can be passed down from one generation to the next. It seems like it would be a lot more fun to pass down an incredibly powerful forged weapon rather than an Iron Sword. This kind of system would also be a good combination with the older and more restrictive Weapon Level scheme which made the distinctions between Iron, Steel, and Silver weapons part of the distinctions between characters and classes.

Golden Sun: Combat system

The heart of Golden Sun lies in its combat system, which is easily one of the best I have ever seen. Combat in Golden Sun is built to be dynamic and flashy. Not only does the game give the player access to lots of fun powers, it encourages the player to actually use these powers, even in regular battles. Yet, the player still has to utilize a lot of strategy and think his moves through carefully.

In Golden Sun, characters have access to three main types of power: Psynergy spells, Djinn powers, and summon spells. However, each of these powers operates on different, yet interconnected systems. What makes the Golden Sun system work so well is that all of a character's abilities are renewable. For example, Djinn powers are almost free to use. When the player uses an equipped Djinn's special power, the Djinn is switched from set mode to standby mode. Between battles, the player can simply open the menu and switch the Djinn back to set mode, making them ready to be used again. So, Djinn do not use up any permanent resource (though there is an opportunity cost involved I will get into later).

Psynergy spells work like typical magic spells seen in other videogames. When a character uses Psynergy, the spell's cost is deducted from the character's total number of Psynergy points. What makes Golden Sun different than a normal RPG is that Psynergy points recover as the party walks around in dungeons and on the overworld. It seems to be balanced so that the characters can afford to use about one Psynergy spell per battle without reducing their average totals. The result is that the player can use fancy group attack, status condition, and healing spells as part of his regular strategy and still have plenty of Psynergy left over for boss fights. So the player is strongly encouraged to make use of these powers regularly, but not go overboard in any one normal battle.

Topping off the core set of special powers in Golden Sun are the summon spells, which can only be used when a set number of Djinn of one element are in standby mode. While these summons are easily the strongest attacks in the game, they do not cost Psynergy points to use. The only cost of using summon spells is in their opportunity cost. Djinn are not just useful for their special powers, they also provide passive stat gains and additional spells when they are in set mode. They can even change the class and overall abilities of the characters they are equipped to. So, when a significant number of Djinn are in standby mode, as they need to be in order to summon, the character suffers significant stat penalties. Furthermore, summon spells exhaust the used Djinn, which require time before they can recover and return to set mode. If the player uses a powerful multi-Djinn summon in a regular battle, not all of the Djinn used will recover in time for the next fight.

The dynamic quality of Golden Sun's battles arises from the interconnected nature of these three sets of powers. When a fight starts, a character has all of his or her Psynergy spells and Djinn powers available. As soon as the character uses one of the powerful Djinn abilities, the character's available options change. Now, the character is down one option as far as Djinn powers go, has reduced stats, possibly has different available Psynergy, and now has a low-level summon spell open. So over the course of a protracted fight, each character's options will likely change significantly. Unless the player limits himself to only using basic attacks or psynergy spells, every character will be using a new action every turn of battle. Thus, battles have a flow to them that keeps the action from being repetitive or stagnant.

The other outcome of this system is that it opens up many different strategies and supports many different play-styles. For example, the player could use Djinn powers in every battle, reseting the Djinn afterwards. Alternatively, a player could intentionally switch his Djinn to standby before fights, and start every battle with a powerful summon attack. One player may equip the Djinn with the intention of maximizing stats and creating the best classes and Psynergy, while another player might arrange the Djinn to set up summons quickly during boss battles. The possibilities are nearly endless.

My only complaint about Golden Sun's combat system is that it doesn't do anything to make items particularly useful compared to other RPGs. While there are smoke bombs, sleep bombs, and the like, there is little point to using them. I already have access to group status condition spells, so single use status condition items are not very valuable. In fact, since money seems to be very tight in the game, spending money on healing items and bombs seems to be a sub-par choice. Maybe this will change as the game continues on.

Conserving MP

Whenever I play an RPG, I typically conserve MP (or AP, SP, etc) to a ridiculous degree. For example, I always watched my MP like a hawk when I was playing Dragon Quest VIII. Since Angelo had a move that allowed him to restore his own MP, I always kept his MP full. I only felt comfortable using his expensive spells when his MP was near full. Furthermore, I typically ended a dungeon with more than half of Jessica's MP left over. Since she couldn't regenerate MP, I typically avoided using her magic if possible. I only started using her cheap 2-4 MP cost moves regularly once she had a MP max over 250. I conserved Yangus's MP the most, since he only had a fraction of what the other characters did. So, he typically ended a dungeon with three quarters of his MP remaining.

I think my approach to using spells and skills is actually an outgrowth of the way Dragon Quest VIII and other RPGs are designed. Typically, a dungeon is a long haul full of monsters that in of themselves are not a significant threat to a party at normal fighting condition. However, most RPGs have a boss encounter at the end of a dungeon (or multiple bosses throughout the dungeon) that do represent a significant risk. So, a reasonable strategy for a player would be to maximize his chances at defeating the boss by saving up as many resources as possible for the fight.

This strategy is reinforced by the common trend of making regular monster encounters simple to overcome without the use of magic spells or other significant resources. For example, I was able to defeat almost every regular enemy in Dragon Quest VIII using nothing but regular physical attacks and 0 MP special moves. I only resorted to using magic when fighting certain enemies with very large HP totals or unusually large groups of monsters. In most Final Fantasy games, I see similar patterns.

Perhaps the single best example of this phenomenon in play is the Playstation game Breath of Fire 3. The main character of the game, Ryu, possessed the strongest healing magic of any character on the team. He had the best all-character heals and revive spells. Yet, I never used these spells much at all over the entire length of the game. Why? Because Ryu could use his dragon transformation powers during boss fights instead. By using up all of his AP, Ryu could sustain his transformation for about five to six turns, while dishing out the most damage of any character. If I had used up Ryu's AP earlier in the dungeon by using his healing a lot, his time spent in dragon mode would be much shorter. Since AP restoration items were rare and expensive, restoring Ryu's AP before a boss fight was never really an option.

I think this pattern of gameplay can negatively impact a game's experience. Since the player is discouraged from using his flashier and more strategically complex special moves and spells, it reduces regular monster encounters (which typically make up the largest part of the game experience) into a very repetitive grind. It can also make the player feel like they have wasted their resources if they come out of a dungeon with characters who still have most of their MP.

However, there are several games that break out of this pattern. One of the best examples is the original Grandia. In Grandia, I used magic spells and special attack skills much more often than my basic attacks, even against regular enemies. This is because Grandia did two things differently than most RPGs. First off, a character in Grandia could only learn new spells and special moves by using their current magic spells a lot of times. This encouraged the player to actually use magic. Second, save points that automatically restored the party's HP and MP were consistently located just before every boss fight. This freed the player from having to worry about saving enough resources for the boss. So, instead of saving MP in Grandia, I ended up trying to waste it.

Another game that pulls this off is Persona 3, and for similar reasons to Grandia. Once again, Persona 3 allows the player to approach boss fights in peak fighting condition, no matter what. However, instead of encouraging the player to use spells through a "level up through use" system, it did so by making battles hard. Since individual monster encounters in Persona 3 have the very real risk of ending in game over, the player is encouraged to not hold back with limited resources like SP.

Since the condition where a player plays through a game is the result of the developers' game design decisions, and may have a negative impact on the player's experience, figuring out ways of breaking out of traditional patterns in the way games like Grandia and Persona 3 did is not a bad idea at all.

Dragon Quest 8, part 9

Dragon Quest 8 is turning out to be much longer than I anticipated. While the end of the game is clearly in sight now, I am more than 80 hours into the game. A bit long for my tastes, but not bad I guess. Anyways, I have a confession to make about the game: I have been relying heavily on FAQs to help me with one particular part of the game: the alchemy pot.

The alchemy pot is actually a rather brilliantly designed item creation system. It works in a very simple manner: the player chooses two items to put into the pot (up to three items after an upgrade). If the two items can be combined, then the pot begins cooking, and an item is produced after some time. The pot even dings when the item is complete. If the items cannot be combined, then the pot spits out the two items immediately, and the player loses nothing. So, the system is very easy to use, and encourages experimentation.

The alchemy pot system also produces plenty of useful items. Many of the best items at all levels of the game can be created by the alchemy pot. For example, it is possible to take basic healing herbs (which can be purchased dirt cheap at any general store), and combine them in various ways to make strong medicine, rose-miles, special medicine, lesser panaceas and even greater panaceas (the strongest single-character healing item in the game). It is also possible to create unique and very useful weapons and armor from the moment the alchemy pot becomes usable.

On the other hand, the products of the alchemy pot are rarely unbalancing. Creating stronger weapons and armor is usually dependent on finding new components that only become available later in the game. For example, upgrading the snakeskin whip into the dragontail whip requires waiting for dragon-scales to become available in the game, So, the growth of equipment power is held in check to match the increase of challenge in the game.

Yet, I still find the alchemy pot bothersome at times. While it is a fun addition to the game, figuring out useful recipes can be a mind-numbingly hard task. While the game gives the player the recipes for numerous items, these recipes cover only a fraction of the total number in the game. Furthermore, the given recipes can be uselessly vague. While some recipes such as the Sage's Robe can be easy to figure out, others like the Magical Skirt can be very tricky. In the Magical Skirt's case, the given recipe says that the player must combine a grass skirt with two different "magical items". There are at least six different pieces of equipment with "magic" in their name, plus numerous other overtly magical items. And I would never have guessed that the actual recipe required a magic staff.

The problem is that some guidelines are necessary for the player to figure out what combinations are possible, since guess-and-check is not feasible in Dragon Quest 8. For one, there are simply too many possible combinations for a player to try them all. Second, items are too expensive for the player to have multiple spare items lying around in storage. Many combinations require combining equipment that the player might not have otherwise needed to buy. With money so tight in DQ8, buying spare equipment for the sakes of experimentation was usually not practical.

In this situation, the best possible solution is to use recognizable patterns to make item combination easier to figure out. To a certain degree, there are items in DQ8 that do follow clear patterns. Basic healing items can be made by combining store-bought herbs for example. Cheeses can be made by combining basic cheese with special mold. Cursed items can be combined with saint's ashes to create non-cursed items. Certain magic swords can be combined with accessories to make improved versions of the magic swords. Rings can be combined with status effect causing weapons to make status protection rings. Trends like these make it possible to anticipate possible item combinations and experiment along focused paths.

Unfortunately, most recipes in DQ8 do not follow such clear patterns. Instead, there are many items such as the scholar's cap, which is created by combining a pair of scholar's glasses with a magical hat. While the combination is logical, it's logic is based on the notion that the player knows that the finished product exists. There is no other pattern followed by other items that can be used to extrapolate this recipe. I only knew about it because it was one that the game gave me. Sadly, almost all armor and most weapons in the game are equally impossible to guess as this.

As a result of this, I resorted to looking at Alchemy Pot guides online to figure out recipes. Which I think is a bit of a shame.

Using Items

Many RPGs let you use consumable items to attack enemies, create defensive barriers, heal allies, and various other effects. However, as I mentioned in my last post, I find that the extent to which I use such items varies quite heavily depending on which RPG I am playing. In some RPGs, I might use items regularly, while in others I might not use them at all. I am not certain that my experiences are universal, but I do see specific reasons for why I use items more often in some games than in others, and some types of items more than other types.

A major factor that determines how often an item gets used is the rarity and cost of the item. If I can only get a few items of a type, and there are no easy ways to get new items of that type, then I will probably never use that item. I will always "save it for later when I will need it more", and that means never using it at all unless there is a particularly difficult moment in the game in which the item is needed (which has only happened once or twice to my recollection). If an item can be used an infinite number of times, or can be acquired in great numbers cheaply, then I will use it freely.

Another fairly obvious factor is the overall usefulness of an item. I am fairly likely to use a powerful item (such as Final Fantasy's classic "Megalixer" item), especially if it is stronger than other items for its cost. An item which is weaker than other items for its cost is a lot less likely to be used. To use an example from the Final Fantasy series, if I can afford large numbers of both Potion and Hi-Potion, then I will use more Hi-Potion items simply because they heal more than normal Potions.

From this point on my argument gets a bit more complex, so first I will list some specific games (mostly taken from those I mentioned lately) in which I tend to use items, and some games in which I do not. In Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy games, I only used HP restoration items (mostly only outside of battle), MP restoration items, status restoration items, and Megalixers (only in the final battle). In Atelier Iris 2, I used items of all kinds sporadically. In Ar Tonelico, I only use MP restoration items (and only rarely in boss battles). In Odin Sphere I used many items in every boss battle, and often used items in difficult normal battles. Taking all of this into account, there are a few things I can determine.

First, the opportunity cost of an item is extremely important. In the Final Fantasy series, healing items do not heal more than one person, while other magic spells do, so it is often better to use magic spells to heal many people at once in order to save time that could otherwise be used to do other things. On the other hand, in Atelier Iris 2 only one character can heal the whole party at once (and only with mild effectiveness and at high cost), and there are many healing items that can heal the whole party very well, so healing items are more likely to be used in a pinch than character-specific abilities. Players will tend to go with the most efficient strategies, so items will only be used if they are part of those strategies.

Second, items will be used more if there are effects that can only be created with an item. In many RPGs, this is mid-battle/mid-dungeon MP restoration. In these games, MP restoration items are some of the most important. Even if items are otherwise pointless, items with necessary unique effects will still be used by the player.

Third, the cost of an item is always relative to the cost of other options. In the Final Fantasy series, HP restoration items tend to be useful because it saves MP to be used on other things (such as attack spells), which means that using HP restoration items saves you from using rare and more expensive MP restoration items (since those are the only way to restore MP in a tight spot). In Atelier Iris 2, all character-specific abilities are drawn from a meter that is filled as the battle progresses, so using those abilities has no cost on any permanent resource, making even the cheap and common items of that game have a relatively high cost. Since using the most powerful effect at the lowest cost is the most basic of all strategies, players will tend to use the lowest-cost method to getting any effect.

Finally, there is a psychological cost involved in the ease of use of any particular method. Often, item menus are large messes which require far more tedious navigation than other menus. If it is annoying to sort through, then many players will not bother with it, and use options other than items whenever possible.

As a whole, the reason I used items more in Odin Sphere than in any other RPG I have ever played, even Atelier iris 2, is because everything in the game is designed to encourage item use. Items have a lower cost than character-specific abilties (it can take countless Phozons to refill the Phozon Gauge, practically as many as will be absorbed by the weapon in the stage). Also, items can be replenished easily through the Alchemy Mix system, and have powerful, unique effects that are necessary to winning major battles. Finally, the item menu is rather easy to navigate. Meanwhile, Atelier Iris 2 does many things that discourage item use, most important of which is the fact that items are relatively costly (despite the Mana Synthesis system making every useful item easy to acquire) and unnecessarily powerful (so strong that the basic Flame item can wipe out a whole enemy group).

It is important that games match their systems to the way the game will be played. Players should spend more time and effort on things that will be necessary and useful, rather than on things which will not be useful or are unnecessary. Developers should not waste effort making countless items and systems that will not be used by the player. Items should not become Fake Rewards because they will never be needed due to contradictions in game balance.

Item Creation Systems, Part 2

In my last post, I compared the the item creation systems in Ar Tonelico and Atelier Iris 2. As a whole, I found Atelier Iris 2's system to be a fun and effective system. However, while Atelier Iris that the basic premise I discussed, which I would consider the traditional system (item creation based on combining different basic items into more complex items, which are then fused into more complex items) is a viable system, it is not the only system that is good. In many ways, I consider the item creation system of Odin Sphere, an action RPG for the PS2, to be superior in some ways.

First, I need to point out a fundamental similarity between Odin Sphere's Alchemy Mixing system and Atelier Iris's Item Synthesis system: both systems rely on finding recipes, and following those recipes in order to make an item. Overall, I think this is a superior system to the alternative (not providing recipes and instead asking the player to experiment to learn anything), simply because it is easier for the player to use, and involves less frustration.

Despite that similarity, it is at the level of recipes that Odin Sphere makes one of its most important departures from more typical item creation systems like the one seen in Atelier Iris 2. In Odin sphere, all items are created from mixing one of five certain types of the item "Material" with one of the five "Mandragoras" or a "Troll Molar" or "Milk". As such, there is an absolute limit on the number of possible combinations, and in the game every possible combination has a recipe. It is a very limited set of items, but because the number of ingredients for mixing is small and there are only a few recipes (often following elemental themes based on Mandragora), it is very easy to memorize the entire system. This makes it very easy to use. At the same time, it means each mixable item is more unique and important, rather than a minor thing that will become obsolete or forgotten.

Another elegant aspect of the Odin Sphere system is found in the Material item. This item is essential to all alchemical mixes, with the value of the mix determining the resulting item. However, rather than these items being static ingredients, they are incredibly flexible. Any value of Material can be created by mixing a Material with common items like seeds, bones, bread, or fruit, or by mixing two Materials. Because this system is explicitly mathematical with no hidden processes it is easy to calculate, and creating a Material does not depend on finding particular items or special ingredients. All you have to do is combine a Material with items you don't need (which you need to do because inventory space is terribly limited), and you will eventually get the Material you want. Also, the game rewards mastery of this part of the process by giving you lots of "Phozons" (the functional equivalent to Experience Points in the game) if you create Material with really high values.

The item required for the Alchemy Mix other than the Material is another interesting side of the system. Here, the game takes a fundamental problem of more traditional item creation systems, the rarity of necessary component items, and turns it into something more interesting. In Odin Sphere, it is pretty much always possible to find a Mandragora when you want to Mix something, but what Mandragoras you can find depends on the stage. you will always be able to find the Mandragoras you need to complete a stage, but it may be difficult to find the other Mandragoras. This forces the player to think about what items to stock up on based on which stage he wants to attempt, and makes resource management more interesting.

The Odin Sphere system does not have the advantages of Atelier iris 2's complexity, which allows detailed item customization and the creation of equipment, but it is a very simple and easy to use system that is very well integrated into the game. It is one of several reasons that, even though Atelier Iris 2 is built around an item creation system, I actually used the items I created a lot more in Odin Sphere. However, I will need to discuss that another time.

Item Creation Systems, Part 1

Since I have finally completed many of the games I have been playing over the last few months, I am going back to a few old ones I want to play some more. Right now, I happen to be playing Ar Tonelico, an RPG for the PS2. This is a quirky game, which makes it fun to write about, so I will certainly have a lot to say about it, but for now, I can only think of one thing: I hate Grathmelding.

Grathmelding is the name for the system that lets you combine old or useless items into new and useful ones. It is a great concept, but the execution in this game is just terrible. What is worse, Ar Tonelico is made by the same developers as the Atelier series, an RPG series which uses item creation as the central mechanic to good effect, and it begs the direct comparison because Ar Tonelico and the Atelier Iris series seem to share the same basic game engine and a lot of artwork. It seems entirely likely that the Grathmelding system is in the game simply because Ar Tonelico is an offshoot of the Atelier series, even though its inclusion is glaringly forced into the setting and plot.

For the following comparison, I will be drawing examples from Atelier Iris 2, mostly because that is the only Atelier game I have played.

The Grathmelding system is actually very similar to the Synthesis system of Atelier Iris 2. Both are based on combining common junk items into basic items, then combining those basic items with other junk into more complex items, and continuing that cycle until the end of the game. Essentially, in order to create a single powerful item you need to combine several items, each of which was made from several items, some of which were made from a few more items. In other words, unless you have a stockpile of pre-combined items, you may need to go through several stages of item combination in order to get a finished product. Also, this entire process breaks down if you are missing a single component of any of the combination steps. Creating simple items is easy enough, but making complex ones can take a lot of tedious effort. Essentially, such a system will quickly get bloated and unplayable unless measures are taken to remove some of the complications and middle steps.

The major differences between Ar Tonelico and Atelier Iris 2's item creation systems lay in the different ways they try to solve the complications of the basic system they share, and the different ways they reward mastery of the item creation system.

The main method that Ar Tonelico uses to simplify the item creation process is to make some of the items you create available in shops. This way, instead of having to remake an item every time you need it in a later combination, you can just buy it in a shop and use it without the middle steps. However, the usefulness of this system is flawed, simply because the prices of the items you need to purchase are far too high, and money is too scarce. As a result, the only reasonably economical thing to do is to make each item from scratch, including every component item. The game makes no effort to solve the problem of needing specific items for each step that may be rare or hard to find.

Atelier Iris 2 simplifies the basic system through two methods: Mana Synthesis and allowing several possible ingredients for each recipe. Mana Synthesis is a mechanic which lets you recreate certain types of items very cheaply and easily, without needing to buy them from shops or recreate them through tedious effort. Also, any particular item can be made with many different possible ingredients, so you can choose to make it with either rare ingredients found in chests or bought from shops, or it can be made with cheap Mana Synthesis Items that can be acquired reliably, or some combination of Mana Synthesis Items and normal items. Even some of the most complex items can be made with the same effort as a low-level item this way, so the system is less tedious and frustrating.

Even though Ar Tonelico's Grathmelding system is difficult, heavy use of the system is not very rewarding. Every item can only have one variable ingredient, the Grathnode Crystal, and this only affects the "Quality" of the item, which only matters if you turn that item into another Grathnode Crystal. As such, mastery of the system will allow you to get a few rare Grathnode Crystals, but the money and effort required for this would be better spent just buying items from shops.

In Atelier Iris 2, system mastery lets you actually make the items and equipment you make even stronger. You can add more range or power to an attack item like the "Flame" item depending on what ingredients you choose for it. Then, you can add those same properties to any item that can use "Flame" as a component (such as "Mega Flame"). It is even possible to build recursive loops using different ingredients, using "Flame" items to make "Megal Flame" items, and then using "Mega Flame" to make "Flame", in order to vastly more powerful items. This is much more fun and rewarding than having items you create always remain the same.

As a whole, Atelier Iris 2 has a system that makes it fun and rewarding to mix together items, and Ar Tonelico's system is a chore. Even though the two systems are based on the same framework, the differences have a huge effect on the playability of the game. However, I'm not done with examining this kind of system yet, but more will have to wait for another day.