Fire Emblem clone game idea?

[dustinkang79]

Hi guys and gals,

I made a Fire Emblem clone (or I should say Fire Emblem 'type' but they keep calling it a clone) game, and now I'm determined to make more of it. =D

The game's called Partia and it has been on the iOS appstore for about a year now. I know the game's not as good as Nintendo ones but I mean to improve upon it going forward.

Since the sequel is in production, I would appreciate if people have some cool ideas or systems that they would like to see happen in this kind of game. And if it's not some gigantic mammoth of a colossus I'd like to put into my game too, but all ideas are welcome.

Thanks in advance!

[dustinkang79]

Serious no one has a wish or list of wishes? How disappointing!

[VincentASM]

I'm not completely sure, but it's possible this topic was posted around the time the site went down for a brief moment. Plus, that time is when fewer members are on (as most members live in the US).

But anyway, it's nice to see the creator of Partia here. I don't have a device to play the game, but I have heard of it before on these forums.

Since I haven't played it, I don't really have any specific suggestions.

For general SRPG suggestions, I'd love to see more non-random skills. Less stuff like "X% chance to negate defence" and more stuff like "negate defence (5 turn cooldown period)".

I'd also love varied mission objectives (like escape the map, survive for X turns) and maybe side objectives (like defeat this escaped criminal to get a bonus weapon).

Edited September 12, 2013 by VincentASM

[Elieson]

Ahh, the Partia mastermind himself. Welcome!

I'm interested to see if you can balance Low-movement units with higher movement units somehow, perhaps by increasing their raw power to make them more useful for things that rush units can't just do themselves.

[Espinosa]

Minor pet peeve but is there any chance the enemy phase (if that's what it is) can be programmed to skip the enemy units not moving in any direction or otherwise acting? This annoyed me a lot when I played Rondo of Swords.

[dustinkang79]

Thanks guys! I was beginning to think no one was interested in this kind of topic. =)

I put in some skills into the game over the past year for the sequel. For those who are interested, these are the unit skills I have:

<In Partia 1>

COMMANDER: "Raise ally accuracy by 5% within 5 tiles"
CHARISMA: "Raise ally accuracy by 10% within 2 tiles"
PREEMPTIVE: "When attacked, unit will attack first"
CALM: "Avoid enemy's critical attacks"
GENIUS: "Gains 1.5x xp than usual"
SWORD_EVASION: "Extra 30% evasion from swords"
LANCE_EVASION: "Extra 25% evasion from lances"
AXE_EVASION: "Extra 20% evasion from axes"
BOW_EVASION: "Extra 35% evasion from bows"
MAGIC_EVASION: "Extra 30% evasion from magic"

<Additions for the sequel>

LIFE_OR_DEATH: "Critical % rises as HP lowers"
RISK_TAKER: "Chance to ignore def of self and foe"
SHIELDER: "Shield % and def increases by level"
CONTINUE: "Chance to battle extra round"
MUG: "Take the opponent item"
PICKPOCKET: "Chance to pickpocket item"
FOREST_FIGHTER: "Extra 15% evasion on forest"
PLAINS_FIGHTER: "Extra 15% evasion on plain"
MOUNTAIN_FIGHTER: "Extra 15% evasion on mountain"
DESERT_FIGHTER: "Extra 15% evasion on sand"
SEA_FIGHTER: "Extra 15% evasion on water"
CITY_FIGHTER: "Extra 15% evasion in city"
ARENA_FIGHTER: "Extra 15% evasion in arena"
CHARGE: "Charges up to 5: str, skl up for 1 battle"
AIM: "Hit 10% up when attacking without moving"
CRITICAL: "Critical 10% up when attackig without moving"
MOVE_AGAIN: "Can move after fight action"
COUNTERATTACKER: "30% to hit countering, 40% penalty evasion"
COMPOSED: "Surrounded penalty is halved"
BRAWLER: "When surrounded bonus hit %"

What I did was to read all the documents on skills in this website (super helpful to me btw) and pick the ones that wasn't too hard to implement. Also I introduced a concept of 'surrounded' where you get evasion penaly for having multiple enemies in proximity. So being adjacent to one or two enemies is not that bad, but having 3 or 4 is severe penalty.

So Vincent I'll keep your wish in mind in future skill addition.

Ellieson, yeah I love this kind of balancing and giving units more noticeably defined role. Maybe put a cap on the stat per class too?

Espinosa, I know what you mean. They cannot be totally skipped since AI is really deciding what to do when its turn comes, but I can skip over the 1 second (or optionally half second) minimum wait time for that AI decision in Partia.

[Nicolas]

There is android version of this game?

I'm know it's much work to do that, but it would be great!

[dustinkang79]

Hi Nicolas! I have been working on the Android port when I bought the Nexus 7, but then a month later the touch screen broke and I have been unable to do more work on it. I guess I need to pick up an Android device soon. Damn Nexus 7! I loved it until the moment that screen got a line fracture with no reason then stopped working except the top right corner.

[VincentASM]

I like the new skills you introduced; the ones that activate when you don't move sound useful for defensive purposes.

The "surrounded" feature sounds great too. I always found it a bit weird how you could have tons of enemies ganging up on you and yet still manage to evade most of them.

It could also act as a counter-measure for extensive walling (like one unit blocking an entire army).

[Nicolas]

Hi Nicolas! I have been working on the Android port when I bought the Nexus 7, but then a month later the touch screen broke and I have been unable to do more work on it. I guess I need to pick up an Android device soon. Damn Nexus 7! I loved it until the moment that screen got a line fracture with no reason then stopped working except the top right corner.

When this game appear in Google Play I'm pretty sure I'll buy it.

Keep up good work! (I mean creating, not breaking Nexus :)).

Edited September 18, 2013 by Nicolas

[dustinkang79]

@Vincent:

Yeah! I always wanted to put some advantage to ganging up! But I guess it may make the game too easy against strong foes and later phase of the stage when not many enemies remain. So it should be balance in a way that at least the stage boss is not affected, etc.

@Nicolas:

Thanks! You make me want to sit down and do this crappy process that's called porting finally. I am trying out this NDK because the original game was written in C and I don't want to rewrite... perhaps 30K lines of codes. But it will be done!

[MacLovin]

how about a sort of speed up/frameskip/turbo option like the vba?

[dustinkang79]

@Shar Pei

That sounds like a good idea for repeat play. But it might result in some bad effects in practice especially for sounds? Speeding up an emulation is different from speeding up the game. But I'll keep the user convenience in mind! =)

[MacLovin]

also, is this availible for the android/kindle fire?

[VincentASM]

My sister just bought a Nexus 7, so if you ever get around to making an Android port, you'll have one more customer here X D

Oh yeah, for some reason I thought surrounded would only apply for the enemies--I failed to realise your characters could do it too.

In terms of speeding up the gameplay, I wouldn't be bothered about speeding things up, but an option to skip turns and/or battle animations like in recent FEs would be nice (you also wouldn't have the problem with sound etc.).

[Nicolas]

And if in your game is skill system, you should add something like.

For every point of con above enemy's con gain 1 (or 0,5) AS.

I think this skill will help axe users and generals.

And pleas, make a character as cool as Duessel.

Edited October 5, 2013 by Nicolas

[dustinkang79]

@Snoopy

Yes, the Android version! It's been a pain in the back porting to Android using NDK for me as I'm unable to debug what's going wrong. -_- I always think to rewrite the game in Java but then 50K lines of code is just too much, so I struggle on. It'll be made!

@Vincent

Yeah I think you have a good point there. Maybe the penalty should only apply to allies. To be honest when I was testing this was making the game a bit too easy. Otherwise I would have to lower the regular hit chance so the system would mean more.

I'll definitely try to fit in many 'skip' features. Skip animations, dialogs...

@Nicolas

Partia does not have con stat (to be honest I thought it was used only to carry units) but what you suggest is interesting. I would bring the size (or constitution) of character to matter more. I will put this into my to-do list.

And wow Duessel! Now that's a cool character. When I used to play FE I usually went for good looking ones, but as I get older I think I care more with old people... Haha.

[Baldrick]

This game is neat and has a lot of potential. And things like surrounded and the attack without moving skills will increase the strategic aspect and keep it fresh.

Right now, the arena is too easy to exploit for free exp. It's not a big problem since you can just ignore it.

There should be more talk conversations. Some characters have intriguing bios but they don't have any dialogue at all.

[dustinkang79]

@Huck

Thanks for the complement! =D I'd really like the potential to materialize...

EXP gain of Partia is double of what it was supposed to be because when the game got shortened due to production I still wanted ppl to be able to max out characters. I also put in Arena just so ppl can get easy EXP and money. I wonder how I should balance this now that Partia 2 would have full 20 - 25 stages?

I WILL have more minor character development in the sequel. Hopefully every character can have drama of their own! -_- I just need to find a writer who can do it though. I tried to commission at least 5 writers from Deviant (for the original Partia) but they all dropped out of the project within months. Game development is not easy!

[Shauni]

I just looked up what Partia is and i'm really quite interested. I wish I had ios so I could play it. I've never done anything in the game design field but I used to RP quite a bit back in the day. If you need help with dialogue, PM me.

[peener weener]

I'm sure you can get a bunch of writers here that are willing to help out for free fairly easily.

[dustinkang79]

Sorry guys, last a few weeks I literally spent all my free time workinng on the Android port of the game. I'm happy to announce the Android game's 98% complete! I still have to implement Facebook post function and... register at Google play perhaps? I may want to do some simple piracy check as well.

@Shauni

@Stolypin

Honestly I'm open to all story donations and if something fit, I will use it! But needless to say it's a lot of work and most writers find it hard to adjust to other people's world of which they do not have full grasp of. And some of them try to force their own style and interpretations and frankly I'm beyond caring about any teenage anguish any more.

But it's Partia 2 time now (as soon as I put the end to this Android port) and a lot of things are open. I really wish I can join up with some talented writers!

[Garland Chaos]

But it's Partia 2 time now (as soon as I put the end to this Android port) and a lot of things are open. I really wish I can join up with some talented writers!

I'm a bit of an amateur when it comes to writing, but I'd be glad to help! Just shoot me a PM.

[SRC]

Hey, SRC here. Maybe you remember my post about attack accuracy a while back...

I found the game balance to be a bit out of whack. In particular, the character and skill balance.

A few offenders:

Leon: Good stats, a horse that gives boosted attack and move, and the sole owner of a skill that multiplies experience gain by 1.5x. I'm sure you intended him to be good, the majority of your characters have nothing on him after he gains a few levels!

Archers: Their base stats are pathetic and their growths don't seem to make up for it without huge arena use. Past chapter 1, they do like 1 damage without doubling and are always 1-2 shotted. :(

Tatum: He's so overpowered when he joins that I figured he was a cushion to make up for the overpowered enemy units you have to face for the next few chapters. :P At least his slight frailness and mediocre move slow him down later on.

Thieves: I wish there was more use for the thieves besides opening stuff. Having Finn kill the chapter 3 boss with the legendary sword he finds is pretty hilarious, though!

Magic users: I found them kind of narrow and awkward to use. Mages do some pretty good damage and from a range, but they're not great in all other respects. :/ Healers do what they do, but without all the cool extra stuff they had in Tearring Saga, they felt really underwhelming without a promotion to gain a magic attack. On that note, classes gaining extra weapons after promotion in general would be a feature I would like to see in Partia II

Pre-promotes: The early general is hilariously bad past chapter 2. Then, your other ones are so high leveled just leaps and bounds better than their (non-Leon) counterparts. Having a sniper that was actually pretty useful was a nice change from the Fire Emblem norm, though. :)

Although they were not a huge problem, the skills bothered me a bit too. Genius is just insane. Charisma, commander, and initiative are useful enough if not underwhelming. The rest are barely noticable!

Partia II certainly has a larger variety of skills and several of them look pretty useful. But, there are also a lot that seem like duds. A highly conditional 10% accuracy boost (aim) and a highly conditional 15% evasion boost (mountain boost) are both pretty laughable to me. (I guess plains fighter might be good since the terrain is so common?) On a side note, I hope you plan on toning down life or death from its Tearring Saga. Now that's one skill that could give your "Genius" skill a run for its money, haha.

Anyways, the first game grew on me over time despite its flaws, so I'm really looking forward to your full fledged second project. (Does that mean you passed the $10,000 sales benchmark to get your wife's approval? :P)

[dustinkang79]

@GarlandDaHero

Sorry to respond so late! But because of that I'm almost done with online PVP cross-platform. Haha! =D

Anyways, you can always try writing something. We all start out as amateurs until it becomes a profession. I see you're very young so you can achieve anything if you are adapt and diligent.

I will always read a script if you're willing to share!

@SRC

Hey! Seeing you here reminds me that Imago website forum was taken down due to inactivity. I'll have to replace it with something today. -_- Something that doesn't require active participation I guess.

About Partia 1 balance... what can I say? I was too busy finishing up the game and Brett's only one person to test the game... and he's not a FE fan like I am. I have to admit all the balancing came from my head without actual testing.

But since then I played through the game 4 times- and I must agree with you for the most part. Although I must say you can play the game with any characters you like and the game's still beatable. Ha ha.

Leon's growth stat is just average, but since he gains exp faster he would seem more powerful I think. He was hit and miss for me in my playthroughs. But then I tried to use different units in each of my games.

Archers certainly become more powerful once you take time to grow them. But then Ivar the sniper is just so good and comes with Elven bow so you don't need to grow your own archer if it comes to that. As with all units that comes in higher class, they would get eclipsed by units that's grown from lower class though.

Now Tatum was a bandaid patch because Brett was telling me how difficult stage 3 was. Then I gave him ealier for people who may find the game hard for some reason...

Yeah, there are some scenes in the game I find fun. Like the Finn and Gram you mentioned, or letting go of civilians before fighting Duke Weston, having the main character get killed in palace...

Actually I still haven't made 10G with the game (last time I checked it was around 8) but wife's okay with giving another go: as long as I don't kill myself with cruch like the first game. At the end of Partia, I was having 3 hours sleep a day for about 5 months to juggle the job and Partia making.