I mostly play RPGs just to get to the next cutscene O.o
Yeah, I'm a plot whore. Battles aren't THAT fun.
Most of my bosses don't give XP 'cause there's no XP at all... but when there is, the player's up for a nice level bonus after a tough fight. It's well-deserved, after all.

Well yeah... EXP is experience from fighting. It's seems kind of dumb to not get experience from fighting... speically if it's a boss fight. It's like learning to ride a bike... but not LEARNING to ride a bike...

*reads post*

Sorry, that made no sense at all.

Good old Dungeons & Dragons, where you get XP for roleplaying... and where fighting lower-level monsters means almost no XP at all... and where you only get your beloved XP AFTER completing the adventure. And where XP means actually researching, reading, and training time.

Yeah. Good old D&D.

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Well, some commercial RPGs don't give XP after bosses (most notably FF6, 8, and 9). Since they're mandatory, having them give XP would mean the player would potentially be bumped up a level for something they had to do anyway, unlike regular battles and their optional-ness. It'd almost be like giving XP for watching such-and-such get killed. But that's just them. I'll always give XP, myself.

That's a great idea! Lots of options and cool stuff you can do there.
Sounds awesome. I like being able to do cool stuff beyond the
simplistic "go out, fight monsters, go back to town, talk to people, and
shop" routine.

(I kept forgetting to add this to my posts. Sorry. At least I finally
remembered to comment. )

~*~*~



I think the entire thing's intrinsically pointless. You spend a great deal of
time fighting the same goblins (or whatever) over and over and over to
gain experience and levels to get stronger. Then the bad guys eventually
start getting tougher; the tougher guys can keep up with you, so we gotta
do it all over again. Fight the same guys over and over and over to gain
more experience and levels so we can keep up with the flow. It seems
that a great deal of my time is spent knocking down monsters who always
pop up in my face and pick a fight. And the flow of REs is never ending.

In this type of game, I'll go out of my way to power-level so that I don't
come across a boss or monster party who's too hard to beat. The
alternative is to run or use some monster repellant if it's available. But
that's not gonna help me get stronger. The whole thing's a vicious cycle.
You gotta fight to get stronger, and fighting the same battles over and
over gets boring after a while.

In my game, each battle is a unique encounter that only happens once.
The only "reward" you get for clearing it is access to the room or area that
the monsters were guarding (which has treasure chests and goodies to
find). Gold is gained from treasure chests and from finding and selling
unique treasure items in town. This perhaps makes the battles even more
intrinsically pointless, but it comes from an understanding that the whole
thing is pointless to begin with. But hey, the point of playing a game is to
play the game.

As I worked on my game, I realized that experience gaining really wasn't
necessary to the proceedings. As far as the story is concerned, we're
entering an "ancient ruins" or "abandoned temple" or "cave" where
monsters live, and we're gonna have to fight at least a few monsters
along the way. I tried to make it interesting without it becoming a chore.
Enough monsters to give the impression that there are indeed monsters
living here. But not so much that the battles become redundant.

I prefer a balance between battling, exploration, and cool stuff to interact
with.

This line of thinking from commercial RPGs turns XP simply into a tool to make characters better. It's not like that... XP means 'experience' for SOME reason. And pretty much everuthing you do gives you experience, specially combat-wise. I just think it makes no sense in not giving away experience for something which, in fact, does mean experience. Blah.

Back do D&D... it's very nice to have knowledge of both RPG 'sides'... really broadens your horizon. XP in D&D means not just experience, but also resources the character acquired during his adventures. Writing a magical scroll, making a potion, crafting magical items, or even casting some of the stronger spells (Wish, for example) all cost XP.

In my game, I'm not worried as much about the difficulty. I'm probably just going to make the bosses difficutly based on the level of the characters at the time they get to the boss without too much extra fighting.

Which means you can play though the game without mindlessly boring yourself to death with repetitive fighting.

But that's exactly the tricky part ^^

Are you gonna go Final Fantasy-ish and put on an optional boss with 'Weapon' in the name that could eat the final boss as dinner?

Yes, I have an optional boss...

No, it doesn't have 'Weapon' in the name. (Zeles is his name)

And you probably won't be able to beat him unless you are playing New Game + mode. I may be wrong... I'll just see how it works out.

I always figured the reason some games didn't give XP after a boss fight was because they expected some of your characters to die so they didn't want your other characters to get too much higher than the others.

facts, believe me, game creators aren't THAT nice to players. Nope.

Optional bosses ROCK! But beware of players that overdo training. Specially on RPGM1, where it's downright easy to gain levels.

@ Dray - I tested the item issue.... and you are right. Damnit.

But I found a way around it (sort of). name the item nothing. As in, delete the name. The only thing that will show is how many of the item you have if you have the item status to hide.

Meh...

Pretty soon you'll have your e-mail box full with "I found a glitch in your game!", "Phantom items keep showing up!" or "SECRETZZZ ZOMG!!!!11". But there's no way around it =P

Right. Same thing with my game. You go through the dungeons fighting monsters, and assuming you didn't run from too many along the way, you should be at the right level for the boss. 'Cause forcing you to stay in one spot fighting battles over and over again until you're finally at the right level is tedious and really only works in Dragon Quest, or any game made before the PlayStation.

Considered it. But it makes it a bit tricky editing any events that use the item if you don't know what the item is called. Even after finishing the game, there's a chance that I'll want to go back and edit a few things for a V1.x release.


Regarding optional bosses, those guys are tricky. It seems odd to have this massively powerful enemy that's more powerful than the final boss and yet isn't really a threat. At the same time, the reward usually isn't worth it. The way I see it, the best way to have an optional boss is if he becomes available midway through the game and at optional boss diffulty for that point. For example, you're at L15, the boss is at L30. You can defeat it there and get an item you won't find by normal means until L35-40 (which would make it quite useful for a long time), or you can come back at L30 (or sometime in between), where it will be easier and the item will still be a pretty good prize. Meanwhile, you've still got until maybe L40 before you're ready for the final boss.

Ah, I agree about the optional boss not being worth your while... but I made some pretty useful stuff you can get.

Like a never breaking heal all item. (the amount it heals is small so it makes it not worth a waste of your turn in battle) and another for MP.

Also, you'll get a key that will unlock a door in the development room you can unlock if you get the special ending that will give you the password for all scenarios and system data.

AND, the optional boss ties in dramatically with the story... so I think it'll worth the effort.

Now the first two items seem too fancy to get... but again, I'm planning on making the boss something you can only beat in game + mode... and with all the easter eggs unlocked in game +... it's not THAT great.

How about percentage-based items? I think it's impossible in RPGM1 due to its limitations... but maybe it's something 'doable' in other RPGMs...

Like, for example, Pokemon had an item called Leftovers that recovered x% for your HP every turn. It's darn right useful anytime. Diablo-ish skills, that you can select in the first level, but remain useful until the end because they increase damage by x% and so... that can solve the problem.

But again, only if it's possible. *sigh*

Nope, RPGM generally doesn't do percentages. There's a couple statuses and spells that have a set percentage effect, and items can be made to break some percent of the time, but that's it for percentages.

My game has six bonus dungeons. Four elemental caves, a thieves' guild,
and a tower. Each is unlocked with a different key. The keys are in
hidden places and can be found during the normal course of the game at
various stages during the game. Each key unlocks one of the bonus
dungeons, which houses some treasure chests with gold and a unique
artifact that boosts one of your abilities (strength, defense, magic, stuff
like that). Each of the elemental caves also has a mysterious barred door
that you can't get through.

The key that unlocks the tower is right next to the door it unlocks, in a
vending machine that accepts special coins. The first coin is easy to find.
The second coin is also easy to come by, but it's very sneakily hidden.
Late in the game you can acquire the third coin and use the three coins to
buy the key. The tower has more treasure chests with gold, more coins
for the vending machine, a revive spell, and a gold key as a reward for
taking the time to go there. It also has a couple story scenes. The gold
key unlocks those mysterious barred doors in places you've already been
to. The reward for doing that is a set of more powerful ability-boosting
artifacts.

That was the best I could do by way of "uber bonuses". It's not much, but
hopefully it turned out to be cool.

Perhaps you could do something similar, with an "uber skeleton key" that
unlocks mysterious doors in places you've already been to. Just an idea.

RM3 has lots of percentage stuff. Recover Hp each turn, recover Mp each
turn. You can set an item to be used only if the one holding it is at 1/4
their Hp. There's other "cool stuff" you can do, but I can't remember it all
at the moment.

I think the most uber ability in an RM3 game with REs is "encounter
down". If the encounter rate is already set at minimum, using "encounter
down" means no encounters. Allows me to choose when and where I'll be
fighting, and if I'm already strong enough I can completely bypass the
battles in an otherwise battle-laden labyrinth. You can also use it to
effortlessly backtrack through an area full of weaklings that would
otherwise devour your time. And it's a life-saver if you're trying to solve
a puzzle in a monster-infested area.

Well i made a locked door and a key that opens it.

In FFX, no-encounter items were pretty rare (I think there was one optional boss that dropped ONE of them ONE time), and you only got them late in the game. It was the perfect time, since it's the time when you backtrack to do all side-quests-stories-things.

I just had an idea to use optional bosses and still keep the challenge. It's kinda like the final boss in [spoiler] Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow for the GBA; but not quite[/spoiler].
You create various optional bosses through the normal game, hard to beat (but not uber). Make these bosses drop uber-items. (Or you could also make optional dungeons with uber-items).
If the players confronts the final boss with those items, it will be a sure win, even an easy fight. But IF the player does get to the final boss with these items, there's an 'optional final boss' waiting for him after the 'normal final boss'.

You still get multiple ending options as a bonus! =P