If you’ve played our other games, you probably know that we love buffs (abilities that boost or otherwise improve a character temporarily). We continue to love buffs, but we realize that they were a bit overpowered in our other games so we have two small but important changes to fix that.
First, characters will only be able to have a limited number (probably starting at 3 though in a few rare cases, you’ll be able to increase that) of buffs active at once. If an additional buff is cast on a character beyond that amount, it’ll replace the oldest active buff. In our previous games, there was no limit to the number of different buffs you could stack on a single character.
Second, most buffs will have a limited duration of X number of turns (although there are ways to increase that turn count). In the past, most of our buffs lasted for the rest of the battle.
We think those two changes should make buffs a bit more balanced in Cosmic Star Heroine (and allow us to do more interesting things with them). And beyond these balance changes, we’re also going to make it easier for the player to quickly see which buffs are currently active on their characters.
Now let’s talk a little about two of the more buff-heavy masteries in the game: Alyssa’s Leadership Mastery and Chahn’s Friendship Mastery. Although both masteries focus on supporting the party in various ways, it was important to us to make sure that each one felt unique & went well with each character’s personality.
Alyssa’s Leadership mastery is very active for a support mastery. She’s meant to actively lead her party in the thick of battle rather than hanging back from behind. Here are a few of her Leadership abilities…
Lead by Example: Passive. Whenever Alyssa defeats an enemy, the party restores some HP.
Cheer Up. Buff. Target ally regains some HP. They also get a bonus to all Stats for 1 turn.
Confidence: Passive. Alyssa gets a +10% bonus to all stats as long as no one in her party has been defeated in this battle.
All-Out Assault. Special Effect. All ally attacks & abilities deal 50% more damage this turn.
From the Shadows. Buff. Party gets a boost to Cunning for 3 turns.
In contrast, Chahn’s Friendship mastery is much more of a traditional support mastery. Through her giving nature, she actually becomes more powerful the more she helps other members of the group. A few of her Friendship abilities include…
Fortify Mind: Buff. Increases magic defense. 4 turns.
Best Friends Forever: Buff. The Best Friends Forever buff does not expire. Other buffs on this character last for 2 additional turns.
Sharing: Passive. Whenever Chahn places a buff on an ally, she also gains that same buff.
Economize: Buff. Reduces MP costs by X points.
All in all, the mastery system & related abilities are proving to be very fun to design. We could make some really interesting characters just by using a single mastery, but when you take into account that each character will have 3 masteries to choose from, plus further customization through things like equipment, there should be a ton of fun depth to explore with the various characters. 🙂
Oh and by the way, the Cosmic Star Heroine kickstarter has reached its goal! And there’s still a little over 2 weeks left in case you want to help it shoot up even further.
Your buff system for PA4 was pretty good, where they wore off over time but were generally worth using. 5 turns is generally better than 3 though. Having to recast it too frequently makes them more of a nuisance then a fun boon. The fun involved in setup turn->abuse is the ‘abuse’ part. If you have to recast the buffs every few turns it feels like a chore. You could balance buffs by throwing in enemies with Dispels (actually a good idea) or just making sure that the buffs cancel upon KO and having enemies with sufficient offense to threaten this.
Remember that time-sensitive buffs are worse then even ‘steady state’ equivalent buffs. A +50% damage boost permanent buff is tons better than a buff that triples damage output the next turn, even if the damage/turn is equal between the two. Remember that players will often have to abandon their buffed turns to focus on emergency healing, which ‘wastes’ the buffs!
Here’s hoping you nail enemy AI in this. It’d be nice to face an enemy who optimized physical/magical damage based on what would do more damage, prioritized more important targets, and generally tried it’s hardest to *WIN*. I thought it was stupid that PA4’s final had a single-target physical attack when it could have instead used it’s Overkill Single-target attack instead. Maybe this is a silly complaint.
Good to hear =)
I just wanted to list my experiences with buffs. I have that problem in the Etrian Odyssey games for instance, buffs there would be really useful if they had a longer duration, but with the damage output from enemies making me want the buffer’s damage to finish the fight faster, and the speed factor causing issues with not getting that first round worth of a 3 round buff on some faster characters, it seems almost worthless to use a lot of buffs on anything other than boss and FOE fights.
Debuffs on the other hand are just plain useful in the game.
I feel the key to single turn buffs is having the buff take the place of the buffer’s contribution, and then some to make it worth casting, by being useful enough to make it so you would feel the loss of damage for one turn isn’t a detriment to the fight. A good example is a single target haste buff in games like Grandia where your sacrifice of damage would get you a damage dealer who attacks more often.
Anyway, I will just shut up now. I have bought all your games, so I actually trust you guys to release a fun product =)
Chris, when it says 1 turn, it’s not counting the turn that it was cast on. Plus there’s some stuff that hasn’t been revealed that makes that particular ability better. And in any case, it’s meant as a Heal spell with a bonus, rather than a dedicated buff.
I will be honest, I absolutely hate weak 1 turn buffs like that cheer one you mention up above. Assuming you have a speed stat, a buff that affects one character for that round is kind of worthless. A problem with short buffs is people don’t even mess with them unless they have no other choice. Buffs are more fun when they have an extended duration and have visible effects. Regen buffs are a lot of fun as you see the effects of it every turn. Same with buffs like Berserk in Final Fantasy, you don’t see the attack increase, but getting that red glow on your character makes it more fun.
Every rpg I have played, I have skipped any and all short duration buffs. I felt it was more important getting that extra damage out of my buffing characters rather than using buffs that last 3 turns. This problem is somewhat mitigated by making group versions of buffs as buffing everybody with a 3 turn buff in one round far outweighs the annoyances of a single character 3 round buff. Group versions make worthless buffs worthwhile.
How about implementing new stat like WILL or WIS that can make a certain character better at buffing than the others? (higher the stat, longer the duration & better the effect, or shorter the delay for recast.etc.)
Do you consider equipment sets? Not to make anyone overpowered but I like the idea of “recommended setups” for each character so they can be unique in one or some roles.