The thing I think that's going to be difficult is balancing any sort of support skill which affect players (not enemies) between single and multiplayer - like, especially difficult. However, I believe nothing should be restricted to either single or multiplayer, so I'll try my best in this post to explain how we might want to balance them
mechanically. I'll focus on trying to come up with sound mechanical solutions before thinking about how fun they might be to use.
Let's start by listing a few things that are somewhat fundamental criteria to a working system. I'll explain them in sections below, but treat this like a contents list in a book.
- Each spell must distribute itself evenly among the players it is affecting
- The caster should ideally have full control over who receives the effects
- Buffs must provide a reasonable trade-off in terms of the offensive capability a player sacrifices by putting points into the skills
Now we need to go through each of these one by one and discuss possible solutions and their respective positives and negatives.
1. Each spell must distribute itself evenly among the players it is affecting.
Seems like something that should be taken for granted, but the current system does not do this. It becomes increasingly more valuable the more players there are as they all receive the same quantity of the buff. Possible solutions to this depend on how the support skill is cast, but for now we'll focus briefly on the maths.
1 i) The strength is reduced. This does the job, but can lead to a bland feeling skills.
1 ii) The time is reduced. Not advisable, as people already don't like how long the current skills wear out.
1 iii) The MP per player is increased. Also not advisable, as we may end up consuming entire mana bars on a single bronze/silver casts on 4 players, and the jump of no effect to effect is so dramatic that it will become overwhelmingly more useful in Arcade than the longer story fights.
1 iv) The number of players is limited to 1. A very workable and easy solution, but removes a lot of potential for decent teamwork. Of course, you'd be able to select who you apply the effect to, but it seems a bit.. too simple, I guess.
I reckon both
i) and
iv) could work, but as different types of skill altogether, like the different sections for elements in the Magic skills section.
2) The caster should ideally have full control over who receives the effects.
This is a biggun'. Lots of workable ideas to talk about. The principle behind this is that they are the one who put the skill points in and therefore should control who it affects. If we have to sacrifice the intensity of the spell to comply with rule 1, then it makes even more sense, as the caster may want the effect entirely for them self, to give it all to a certain player or to distribute it among certain people. However, it can be quite hard to give 100% control for AOE, which is why this is not a must. Anyway, solutions:
2 ai) Player locked, involving a player choice system, which could work for skills giving 100% of the effect to a single player, all the time. Similar to Frosty Friend's menu, a directional menu pops up in multiplayer as you charge the skill. Perhaps up is P1, left P2, right P3 and down P4? However, as you might be using a different charge level (rather than just hold the button and quickly tap to activate the skill like Frosty does it) the menu should disappear once you select your player and allow you to move around while still charging the skill. This makes it fair across single and multiplayer, as the caster can still move around.
2 aii) Alternatively, have the player select menu cast the skill when a player is selected and do not allow the player to move around. Might work as a better solution, as it allows for shorter charge times, but then longer charge times leave you isolated. You could argue that if you're in multiplayer then you friends will draw the aggro, but what about singleplayer then? It seems completely wrong that a player should have to stand still while casting if the only person they are selecting is them self. Not really advised.
2 b) Areas of effect. I'll class all of these as circular areas that stay on the floor and distribute their effects according to how many people are in said circle. We'll get onto other things later. One thing to note is, if we reduce the effect of the skill dynamically depending on how many people are in it, it may be advisable to to increase the area of the circle slightly to avoid the area getting overcrowded. While this adds to their complexity in terms of coding, it increases the amount of strategic play that can be achieved with them, but also may get annoying if someone is actively trying to stay out of the circle.
2 bi) Player locked AOE. Using the same selection system as in
2 a) above, the skill is cast to a selected player who has the area of effect centred around them. If they move, the AOE moves with them, and players can sit in that circle and receive a portion of the effect. Due to this partial targeting, we can change the proportions of effects differently, as it essentially prioritises one player. For example, a system like so:
- If one person is in the circle (the subject of the skill) they receive 100% of the effect
- If another person joins the circle, they gain 1/2 of the effect and the subject gets 1/2
- If a third person joins the circle, the two people who joined each get 1/4 of the effect and the subject still gets 1/2
- If the final person joins the circle, the three people who joined each get 1/6 of the effect and the subject, again, still gets 1/2
I will stress this is an example. In practice 1/6 of an effect won't change much and it won't be worth sacrificing the damage bonus you could get on a couple people instead. However, if these skills have a bigger range, it focuses team playing by sticking together to watch the back of the one with the majority of the effect. Could work well with a combo of melee and casters.
Despite this, it's a bit eh in singleplayer as it just works like a normal 100% effect to 1 person skill.
2 bi) Local ground locked AOE. When the player casts, they spawn a circle around them which applies the effect to anyone in it. Should distribute the effect exactly equally among everyone, as the skill is cast to the ground not a specific player. Pretty simple stuff.
2 bii) Ranged ground locked AOE. When the player charges the skill, a ranged target similar to Earth Spike appears, which can target the skill around the battlefield, as mentioned above. This allows the caster to sit out of the battlefield and apply the effect to the others fighting if they do not want it themselves. Another nice tactical option.
2 c) The current system. And I wish I could give it a better name. When the player casts, each person near the player receives their respective portion of the effect and they carry it with them. There's nothing particularly striking about it and it doesn't give much control to the caster. I'd personally do away with this system.
So, there we go. 3 or 4 workable mechanics, each which can prioritise a different number of people. Satisfies the fascists, communists and the democrats! Political jokes aside however, we still have one more thing to consider.
3) Buffs must provide a reasonable trade-off in terms of the offensive capability a player sacrifices by putting points into the skills.
This applies more to the effects than the mechanics, really. As a support player has chosen to put skill points into these effects rather than an offensive skill to boost their attack, they should provide a reasonable trade-off. Furthermore (just an extra comment here) as the rest of the skill system is built around offence, I reckon about half of the skills should boost offensively rather than defensively. Otherwise we get the poor kid who puts all his points into defensive skills and he's stuck in a boss fight (that might take him multiple tries) for an hour. Poor guy
I don't think there are many actual solutions to this problem, but simply something that needs to be thought about when assigning the numbers.
That's it... for now
That was a lot of words. Hopefully someone pays attention to this. I'll probably do another post on what effects would work with each of these mechanics later... and we still haven't even touched skills that affect enemies. However, I'd personally leave out skills that affect enemies simply because when you're in a boss battle with a single one, the skill becomes practically useless. Diverting aggro also cannot be done to projectiles, which a few of the bosses are prone to using.
Thanks for being passingly aware of this post I guess. Rip my evening.
~G <3