warning, a large wall of text is approaching:
First off, this is kinda my "Grand design" for an rpg maker game I would like to make some day. Do note that I have little mention (if any) about story or setting or whatever. I'm not concerned with these aspects at this point. If my game is ever finished, it will be for people who want to enjoy a deep and technical battle system in their rpg, compareable to a turn based strategy game. If I ever finish the groundwork for my battle system, I will then worry about story and setting more, but that's far too ahead for now.
Part of the reason I'm writing this is not to hype anyone up for it or anything since I doubt I'll ever complete this, nor do I know if any of this is even doable. But I also want to fish out from any rpg maker vets what you guys feel would be aspects I should short-list for a shorter demo/stepping-stone game. I realize one of the biggest ways to actually finish ambitious games is to release it in small steps one at a time, but I don't know rpg maker at all and am not sure what the easier steps are quite yet.
Anyway, here's the list of features I currently have in mind (They are not likely to change per say, but there may be more that I just haven't thought about at this moment).
1: party size is 5/15 like touhou labyrinth's 4/12. I want this because I want slot 3 to be relatively safe for characters who are not really tanky (but not very squishy either) to "stay out" in standard battles. I kinda think I want the entire cast accessible at the start of the game as well. The ONLY reason why this isn't a definite yes is because fighting the touhou girls as bosses is also fun, and it doesn't make much sense fighting them as bosses when they might be in your party.
2: Like labyrinth of touhou, healing will be extremely limited, switching out will be the greatest tool for survival in difficult battles. Buffing will also be under a similar system. If possible, have 2 separate stats that dictate both how fast buffs fall off a character (10% per turn, 20% per turn, etc), and how fast ailments/debuffs wear off.
3: Unlike most people, I actually kinda like consistantish enemy upgrades (bronze knight, silver knight, gold knight, etc). I intend to have a lot of these, but knowing most people hate these, I also intend to compensate by having a much larger variety of enemies on a per-floor basis. That said, enemies of a certain "Class" (that will be identifiable by the recolouring or whatever) will often have similar strategies as their previous floor counterparts. Naturally, odd ball enemies will exist too.
4: If possible, I will have enemy encounters to be of a similar nature as labyrinth of touhou/EO where the player can make educated guesses as to when they will encounter more enemies. However, I intend to not only randomly select which enemies they encounter upon this time, but hopefully will make a random roll to determine a "tier" of encounter, where the highest has the most difficult, most rewarding, and rarely seen enemies (or rather a whole gob of regular enemies accompanying a rare one or two. I like it when enemy encounters in rpg games are not equal within a same dungeon. Ideally, the hardest encounters may make players consider the run command even if they are not doing a "run dive", and or are simply nearly finished their dive and want to return as soon as they grab that last chest or whatever but cannot normally fight.
4A: If possible, enemy classes and/or rare enemies will have different AI than regular enemies. Instead of rolling a pool to select certain attacks, they might deliberately target certain player characters if they are at a low% of hp (no I will not make them target the naturally squishy characters, just ones at low%), or try to apply "shock" type status to characters with near-full action bars.. or.. you get the idea...this is not something I'm absolutely needing, I'd like to have it but if I'm advised this is too hard to script in rpgmaker or whatever I'll cancel.
5: This is likely my game's most ambitious/unique planned feature... Enemies will not drop materials, they will not drop equipment (except maybe story boss equipment drops or something)...they in fact will not have any kind of randomized loot whatsoever. All enemies will only drop currency. Naturally, I plan on making shopping in this game far more important to the player than most (if not all) rpgs. They WILL have to carefully consider how they spend their cash, and I intend to balance the game so that stuff will NOT be so cheap that they can just continually buy the best stuff available. I may make it so the rare enemies drop a separate form of currency, however it will also be a currency that is shared amongst all/most of the rares. Not some special "that monster only" currency.
6: probably way too ambitious to balance but I actually enjoy that as much as playing a damn game so pft. But well, I also intend this game to make currency seem even more valuable (and it WILL be valuable) by making basic consumables cost not-insignificant (double negative intentional.. significant sounds like too much, but I just mean to express that it will matter but not be stupid) amounts of currency. Unlike labyrinth of touhou, characters will not automatically heal after battles, you need to pay for it... I plan on making "heal over time as you walk" healing potions rather than ones players will be forced to spam numerous times after every battle though. Same goes for mana. Teleporting back to town will also cost currency...I MAY (probably not) include battle consumables that cost extra high.
7: "dead" characters between battles during a dungeon dive still obtain full exp. I do not want to feel like they are forced to quit a dive should a character die early on or else punish that character from exp. I want them to suck up their loss and march on without any long term penalties.
8: I really liked wish under celestial star's defend command. But I plan on making mine different despite the inspiration. I want it so that characters use certain defend commands to apply temporary defensive buffs much like LoT's mnd/def buffs that expire over time. However, they will stack multiplicatively with defensive buffs provided via spells. This will not be overpowered because enemies will be balanced around the players actually using these defensive commands to begin with. If you are wondering how this makes sense story-wise, it's just our girls actually conjuring forcefields or whatever that wear off unless they choose to re-cast em.
9: I like how games like genius of sappheiros show you the powerup/bomb/etc icons when an enemy dies as you collect them. Super minor thing but I want that if possible! =P
10: Achievements that matter. They will never be used to unlock areas of the game, but they will reward you with stuff like 10% discount in shops if you obtain and hoarde a ba-jillion currency or something. Surviving xx battles within one dive may reward you with those heal over time per step potions lasting 20% longer, etc.
11: Most of everything else should be labyrinth of touhouish. Action bars showing when each player character/enemy will move next, that pause when someone is full, regeneration to people switched out, buffs being maintained while switched out, level ups and "skillpoint" level ups if possible. Maps only being revealed as players move around in them, etc.
I might make it so players can also purchase (with skillpoint experience perhaps?) spells for each character, probably with a larger variety than labyrinth of touhou. Though hopefully each spell purchased for a character will increase the price of future ones exponentially, so while you may have them all, you definitely want to choose which you get first carefully, and maybe ignore some completely if they are for tasks that your chosen party doesn't particularly need from that character.
