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Indivisible: Lab Zero's Action-RPG! (General Discussion)

Not-So-Saint said:
I just wish it won't come from some single person who is being bad guy for the sake of being bad

A villain can have lots of good motivations besides "evil for evil's sake".

Hell, even the classically immoral type can work with good writing, just look at Shakespeare. Claudius is a reprehensible human being, but his motivations and feeling are 100% human and believable, to the point of being piteous.

Not-So-Saint said:
and all of hero's AND world's problems will be solved with sufficient amount of punches to his face.

A villain can merely be a hindrance to solving the hero's/worlds problems, not the source of them outright (not that there's anything wrong with that either).
 
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As this is a Lab Zero Game, and from what i have seen, i'm refraining from bringing in other traditional meta's that we are used to.

Kit Ballard said:
We need a baddie on the level of Kefka..
This however we need. I hope we can get him as a stretch goal.
 
Dean[SG] said:
This however we need. I hope we can get him as a stretch goal.
Like, get Kefka as a stretch goal
or, like, literally get the villain as a stretch goal, maybe as a sort of daimakura or cardboard cut-out?
 
After playing JRPGs that just flat out give you your health back after fights, I've lost the all desire to ever handle field healing again. It's just a time waster.
 
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And here I thought "screw antagonists" meant something about romance options between hero and villain...
 
Kai said:
After playing JRPGs that just flat out give you your health back after fights, I've lost the all desire to ever handle field healing again. It's just a time waster.
Well Field Healing can be a thing, but yeh, if healing is handled intelligently (for which I have no doubt it will), field healing would only be a thing to do after fights you majorly screwed up in.

As far as antagonists go, I don't think we need some super powerful baddie. We can't even really tell what direction the story is going to take. It could be literally anything or any number of things impeding Ajna's path. From some of the enemy's we've seen, part of me wants to guess at some sort of trial, but that could be one area or one plot point. I want to wait and see what they do for some sort of villain. Let's not be too hasty and set our bars way to high for this, guys.
 
The Dave said:
And here I thought "screw antagonists" meant something about romance options between hero and villain...
What? Romance in my Lab Zero game? O_o
Squire Grooktook said:
A villain can have lots of good motivations besides "evil for evil's sake".

Hell, even the classically immoral type can work with good writing, just look at Shakespeare. Claudius is a reprehensible human being, but his motivations and feeling are 100% human and believable, to the point of being piteous.

A villain can merely be a hindrance to solving the hero's/worlds problems, not the source of them outright (not that there's anything wrong with that either).
I know it can. That's why I wish for it.
 
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Fumako said:
Like, get Kefka as a stretch goal
or, like, literally get the villain as a stretch goal, maybe as a sort of daimakura or cardboard cut-out?
If the villian is cute, I would be on board for having a dakimakura of them.
And like, 90% of the cast.
 
Demifiend said:
Well, in Wild ARMs 1 (The one i played) healing items were pretty useful
Wild ARMs 1 does not have the thing I talked about, though. See how I said "as the series progressed"? :^)
They first introduced it in the late-game in WA2 as a skill you can learn, and they gradually made it more and more built-in for later games, until WA5 doesn't actually LET you heal outside of battle except reviving dead cahracters, it just gives you back full health.
Demifiend's streak continues..

Kai said:
After playing JRPGs that just flat out give you your health back after fights, I've lost the all desire to ever handle field healing again. It's just a time waster.
I don't quite agree. I like games where healing depends on performance and CAN happen automatically, and I dislike games where you must heal all the time, but I am also not a huge fan of the always-100%-HP style.

ArgonBern said:
Will drawings/commissions be a possible reward in this IGG? I heard they were a bit harmful in SG's.
Possibly, but definitely not cheaply. (As far as I know it's mostly the postcards that are the problem for SG's, they were too cheap and too numerous.)
 
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I can't believe I'm posting this, but the indie bundle of shame I picked up actually has an RPG with an interesting healing mechanic. Essentially, you've got regular HP and armor status. As long as your armor isn't broken, you heal gradually over time both in battle and while wandering. You can use potions to quickly heal between fights, but it's not strictly necessary unless someone took a real beating in a fight unless the armor was broken. The items that heal equipment are much more expensive, but it's pretty essential to have 1 handy for long dungeon crawls. Critical hits have a % chance to cause a level of armor damage depending on the attack.
 
Don't like the space thing. If the background was a nice blue sky with clouds I would like it a lot better. It looks great otherwise, though.
 
Mike_Z said:
I don't quite agree. I like games where healing depends on performance and CAN happen automatically, and I dislike games where you must heal all the time, but I am also not a huge fan of the always-100%-HP style.
Although I'm definitely interested to hear about a merit-based healing system, I just plain don't like resource-based field healing. No matter how you set it up, all it accomplishes is imposing a threshold in which you need to go back to town or a healing stone or whatever is in the game. It doesn't increase the challenge, is just complicates and hinders forward progress. I don't view potion management as a fun challenge.
Ravidrath said:
The plan is that over time it will grow into a full world, with a sky, ocean, etc.
Sounds very Bastion. Will it fulfill a similar function (base of operations)?
 
Hey this sounds really cool, and I love the design of it. Interesting to hear that there will be non-combat Incarnations.
I could see the bestiary possibly being able to hold tamed enemy types, and you'd get a bit of background on the mythology and concept art they're based off of. I wonder if any off the incarnations we saw in the first trailer were non-combat.

While the current plan is for Ajna’s Inner Realm to manifest like her home town, as a stretch goal we’d like to let you customize the appearance, selecting architecture throughout the game so you can customize Ajna’s Inner Realm however you see fit!
Dark Deco Inner Realm cmon!



Also v cool that it sounds like all your Incarnations will just be sat chillin on a rock or something. Along with the 'resolve their personal story arcs', it's kind of giving me social link vibes.

Meow-Professor said:
Don't like the space thing.
cool
 
Man thats kool. Although "absorbing" Incarnations sounds a bit creepy, mostly because I do not know whether these Incarnations are actually alive, or a spirit or sorts.
 
Well it's a bit too like VP where you saved people souls and made them heroes for Asgard. I hope they get a bit more individuality with the Inner Realm.
 
Kai said:
After playing JRPGs that just flat out give you your health back after fights, I've lost the all desire to ever handle field healing again. It's just a time waster.
My problem with that is it takes out some strategy and tension.

If healing is a limited resource, you have to plan your fights to take minimal damage, and use healing only when you need to in order to survive. Classic Risk/Reward. With instant healing, battles become more of a nuisance then anything (unless they're all just so hard that any random bunny can one shot you).

Mega Man Battle Network is an ARPG, but I still think it's relevant to this: After the second (or was it first?) game, you always went back up to full health after every battle. And for me, the result was that random encounters felt completely pointless, because on top of being easy enough to survive, you didn't care about getting hit too much either, since you'd just be restored pronto.
 
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Squire Grooktook said:
on top of being easy enough to survive, you didn't care about getting hit too much either, since you'd just be restored pronto.
That first thing is the main problem, rather than the healing.
WA5 makes random encounters actually scary, because they give you back full health.

I also will say that I really enjoyed whatever new-ish game that was (sorry, game!) that had a limited number of random encounters per dungeon.
 
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Mike_Z said:
That first thing is the main problem, rather than the healing.
WA5 makes random encounters actually scary, because they give you back full health.
So WA5 designed for the systems they had. That sounds proper.

Mike_Z said:
I also will say that I really enjoyed whatever new-ish game that was (sorry, game!) that had a limited number of random encounters per dungeon.
Cthulhu Saves the World is the only game that comes to mind off-hand. Breath of Death VII might have done the same thing (same devs) but I don't know.
 
Squire Grooktook said:
Mega Man Battle Network is an ARPG, but I still think it's relevant to this: After the second (or was it first?) game, you always went back up to full health after every battle. And for me, the result was that random encounters felt completely pointless, because on top of being easy enough to survive, you didn't care about getting hit too much either, since you'd just be restored pronto.

Too correct you, Battle Network only healled you when you LEFT the network. So long areas or new areas you had to explore or find things in could still be a threat. You could still say it took so of the tension away, but when you're in the later areas with tons of viruses, then its still tense as the wrong encounter with enemies you're not familiar or good at beating could still spell game over.
 
North888 said:
Too correct you, Battle Network only healled you when you LEFT the network. So long areas or new areas you had to explore or find things in could still be a threat. You could still say it took so of the tension away, but when you're in the later areas with tons of viruses, then its still tense as the wrong encounter with enemies you're not familiar or good at beating could still spell game over.

Are you sure about that? I'm 99% sure that you get a full life restore after virus battles after a certain installment in the series.

Mike_Z said:
That first thing is the main problem, rather than the healing.

It depends on the type of game. The classic dungeon crawl playstyle is really based on preparation and planning, where you need resources to survive inside dungeons and resources just to escape them, so inventory/mp/ability management is just as important as battle tactics if not more so.

Resource management as a factor becomes more blurred/arguable when dealing with real time/skill based combat.
 
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So the mind realm seems super interesting! I love the idea of being able to personalize your realm. So without exact numbers if you don't mind saying, is that planned to be an earlier or later stretch goal? I'd image it'd be one of the more time consuming elements you'd implement so I could see it being several stretch goals down the line.


Also as a small personal note... just started working so I'm excited to throw at least half a paycheck at you guys.
 
Squire Grooktook said:
Are you sure about that? I'm 99% sure that you get a full life restore after virus battles after a certain installment in the series.
No (at least in all of the pre-DS ones [EDIT: or Falzar], I haven't played those). However with many of the random encounters you can win health recoveries instead of zenny or battlechips.

Also there's another factor to the risk:reward that @North888 didn't mention, which is that while being able to jack out means you can heal and avoid dying, it is also a bad thing to do because you then have to spend ages walking back to the point you were up to. So it's basically the risk of getting game over versus the reward of not having to waste all of that time doing stuff you've already done and still having the possibility of ending up in the same position again if you don't buy a ton of subchips.
 
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Squire Grooktook said:
Are you sure about that? I'm 99% sure that you get a full life restore after virus battles after a certain installment in the series.
1000% sure as I play the games a lot. I've been playing them as a kid and know them inside and out XD
 
I'm surprised Indivisible will have flexible Save-points, given the Metroid influence, but I'm really curious to see how they'll balance it out. I'm wondering if it'll be the literal Save on Location style (where you can return to that exact spot with the same health/equipment), Zelda style (where you maintain your progress but are returned to a certain checkpoint after death/restart), or maybe something different.

Save on Location style actually intimidates me sometimes when jumping into a new game, particularly if the game doesn't allow me to save on multiple slots during a playthrough. I'm always tempted to save frequently, but get worried about accidentally saving in a situation where I might be stuck and unable to progress. I'm thinking back to games that relied heavily on XP and consumables though, so since those won't be a big factor for Indivisible, then getting stuck probably won't be as much of a problem.

I'm hoping that Indivisible will have a lot of challenging fights and branching story paths too, so it makes sense to have flexible Save-points for that kind of game. Any feature that can relieve some stress on the player, without negatively affecting the game's challenge or replay value, sounds good to me.
 
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KaboomKid said:
I'm always tempted to save frequently, but get worried about accidentally saving in a situation where I might be stuck and unable to progress.
If a game lets you get stuck (anytime, but specifically after a save) it's a badly made game.

I'm considering going with quicksave-anywhere but real-save-only-in-safe-places, which means you can quicksave and restore any time but that file is only good once, so real save points are still in places we want them.
 
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Mike_Z said:
I'm considering going with quicksave-anywhere but real-save-only-in-safe-places, which means you can quicksave and restore any time but that file is only good once, so real save points are still in places we want them.
Would that be quicksave-and-quit (essentially meaning that you can't abuse it just before a boss or whatever), or the opposite which would allow someone to save, try something and mess it up, restore the save, save, repeat, but with the save being lost on reset?
 
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Mike_Z said:
If a game lets you get stuck (anytime, but specifically after a save) it's a badly made game.

I'm considering going with quicksave-anywhere but real-save-only-in-safe-places, which means you can quicksave and restore any time but that file is only good once, so real save points are still in places we want them.
That's a good system to me, also removes an exploit some people miss when they put in a "quick save", which is they forget to delete the quick save data after it's loaded.
 
Enemies will be at random places, or every encounter will be fixed? Sorry if that was asked before.
 
Sotherius said:
Enemies will be at random places, or every encounter will be fixed? Sorry if that was asked before.
Enemies move around, but they are placed in the level and you can see them. Not Chrono Trigger, where each encounter is completely fixed.
 
Mike_Z said:
If a game lets you get stuck (anytime, but specifically after a save) it's a badly made game.

I'm considering going with quicksave-anywhere but real-save-only-in-safe-places, which means you can quicksave and restore any time but that file is only good once, so real save points are still in places we want them.

That sounds perfect. Not a fan of save anywhere, but one-time save anywhere is a great way to let people put down the game anytime without allowing save scumming.
 
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