Zelda Universe RPG
Streamlining: Downsizing passive abilities. - Printable Version

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Streamlining: Downsizing passive abilities. - Orithan - 06-26-2015

As of now, the game is still very confusing to newer players. For veteran players who can keep track of everything like myself, this isn't as much of an issue. However, other players struggle with this sort of stuff, like as reported by Windstrike and DoubleEx in the 1v1 battle they had with each other the other day. According to Wind, one of the major contributors to this issue is the number of passive abilities the fight had going. This is what I will be addressing here.


Proposition #1 - Make sure all bonuses you have are logged into the Total Bonuses field in description.

This should be simple enough to do. At least in my quests' ruleset, any bonuses you have from equipment, etc. have to be logged into your Total Bonuses section in your profile prior to battle or they won't count. This will save everyone the inconvenience of constantly having to look all the way through character and enemy profiles just to look for a specific bonus that might mean the difference between victory and complete slaughter.
As for bonuses that take effect under specific conditions, note the conditions. I am going to propose the downsizing of some of these abilities later on in this post.


Proposition #2 - Revert the Passive Skill cap to 3.

With the full array of 7 (6 as of recent) Passive Skills plus racial skills loaded onto the test characters Windstrike and DoubleEx used, that's a lot of stuff to keep track of in a 1v1 match. Imagine applying that to larger battles. A lot of the effects are also fairly complicated (*cough* Magic Recovery Aura *cough*), which makes for very complicated battles.
My solution: Revert the Passive Skill cap to 3, up to one from each category. The reason why it was like that in the first place was to make the game so much simpler and not have a billion passives flying around everywhere.
As for Racial Skills, there should only be up to three Passive Skills per race, and they need to be mostly for RP purposes (something with I've broken myself -_-). Enemy innates will also be facing a couple of simplifications.


Proposition 3 - Simplify Passive Abilities on equipment.

This will be the hard one. As of now, the game has a ton of passive abilities that exist in many forms. Passive Skills make up the bulk of powerful passive abilities, but there are definitely some on equipment. I'm fine with how it is on Passive Skills, but there are a lot of equipment that needs to be simplified.
First off, equipment (especially one-handed equipment) should have a minimal number of passive abilities outside their standard function. One per item at the most, any more and they get too complicated. The only exceptions should be Robes, which should have a maximum of two passives, Masks, which specialize in transformation, and Artifacts, for obvious reasons.
Secondly, abilities on said equipment should be relatively simple and easy to keep track of. On top of Passive Skills, these can be major contributors to the number of variables to keep track of and therefore make the game confusing to newer players. They should be kept to single bonuses or simple passive effects (eg. gradual recovery), and not crazy complicated effects that change depending on what time of day it is.


Hope you enjoyed reading, and don't forget to vote in the poll.

RE: Streamlining: Downsizing passive abilities. - WindStrike - 06-27-2015

Great list of suggestions! Here's my comments and thoughts on it:
  1. All bonuses logged into Total Bonuses is something Sephiroth has also been wanting to reinforce. I guess in order to do so, I'll just have to make sure the new tutorial covers it. I'll also include a guide on it in the Guides forum.
    • Though, question... what if someone doesn't have their Total Bonuses listed? Will we just assume then he has no bonuses? I suppose that right there would be the incentive to include them, or else you'll forget and probably lose the fight.
  2. Passive Skill cap to 3, oh god I'd love that.... except make it 4. Counterattacks won't be listed directly in the rules; instead, everyone's going to start with the Basic Counter passive skill, so ideally, I'd like to condense the passives down to 4 categories.
    • Booster
    • Offensive
    • Defense
    • Counterattacks
    • If anyone has a different set of ideas for condensing it, I'm all ears.
  3. Lol, that one isn't the only problem. There's also a number of Status Effects or just overly long EFFECTS in general that need to hit the scrap can. That said, what I'd like to do is go through the list of spells and items and comb through all the others that have long effects and either hit 'em with the Changebat or have 'em visit the Scrap Can.
    • FYI, the Scrap Can will not be a straight up "let's nuke this item/ability entirely from existence". Instead, it'll be something we can revisit later for ideas or possibly other ways of incorporating them into the game.


RE: Streamlining: Downsizing passive abilities. - FireSeraphim - 06-27-2015

The reason why I voted other is because I want to vote for all three option because doing all three like a good idea in comparison to just choosing one of the three, I would also like to simplify the racial skill down to one skill per race.

RE: Streamlining: Downsizing passive abilities. - Darte Fellshard - 06-27-2015

#1 doesn't make sense due to the relative mutability of this bonus. Better management tools for handling the swapping in and out of equipment would be a preferred way to handle this.

#2 has definitely bugged me a bit. Still not sure counterattacks should really be listed separately, Wind. Is there a reason they can't fall under one of the other categories?

#3, yep.

RE: Streamlining: Downsizing passive abilities. - WindStrike - 06-27-2015

FireSeraphim Wrote:The reason why I voted other is because I want to vote for both option 1#, 2#, and 3# because doing all three like a good idea in comparison to just choosing one of the three, I would also like to simplify the racial skill down to one skill per race.

Hmm, that may be too oversimplified, but at the same time, I see your reasoning. Originally, we used to have it so that racial innate passives only applied to out-of-combat situations. For example, Hylians have a greater sense of hearing and can pick something out from a crowd of voices; eventually, they can also use Telepathy. Sheikah can speak with Gossip Stones to get hints about the world around them. Zoras can swim freely underwater with no issue. Stuff like that. That said, here's another option:
  • Of the Innate Passive Skills, all of them should be for out-of-combat situations except one. That way, you can pretty much ignore all except the battle-related one in-battle.
  • Or heck, we could even make it so that all of them are for out-of-combat. Though, of the races we've done so far, I'm thinking we should try to keep one combat passive, cause there's some really useful abilities in there.


Fellshard Wrote:#1 doesn't make sense due to the relative mutability of this bonus. Better management tools for handling the swapping in and out of equipment would be a preferred way to handle this.

Got any ideas towards that end? We've updated the spreadsheet to account for bonuses (see tab 2) - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SJ9bKcBBKmNQTXy9_RCR0xeKMACIyB8UKBKvWWn9vuw/edit#gid=0


Fellshard Wrote:#2 has definitely bugged me a bit. Still not sure counterattacks should really be listed separately, Wind. Is there a reason they can't fall under one of the other categories?

Counterattacking is considered both offensive and defensive. Unless someone's got other ideas towards that end...


EDIT: Actually, there is a way we can remove the Counterattacks category. We've currently got one called Basic Counter, which gives anyone two conditions to counterattack during battle, and giving them a limited array of attacks to counterattack with. Here it is:
  • Basic Counter
    • RESTRICTIONS: This is a Counterattack Skill. You may only have one Counterattack Skill enabled at a time. All others must be set to (Disabled).
    • DESCRIPTION: The basic Counterattack Skill, this skill allows you to counterattack when the opportunity arises.
      • COUNTERATTACK: If you meet one of the following CONDITIONS, you can Counterattack by using any attacks listed on an equipped weapon or a PSI Spell.
        • CONDITION 1: If your Successes when defending are at least twice as great as the attacker’s Successes.
        • CONDITION 2: When you would "automatically get the chance to Counterattack".

That said, we could stick this... under Basic Skills, and then remove the rest of the counterattacks. The one listed above is essentially an updated version of the original rules. CONDITION 1 was the original ruleset, but it didn't happen very often. CONDITION 2 banks on any attack that leaves you vulnerable afterwards, and is usually denoted by "IF FAIL: Target automatically gets the chance to Counterattack you." It's actually quite common; the Sword's Stab attack, for example, is one of them.

RE: Streamlining: Downsizing passive abilities. - Sephiroth - 06-27-2015

Voted for #1 and #3.

Reason why I didn't vote for #2; I dislike arbitrary "You can only have #___ of this." limitations. It doesn't really make sense, imho. Its like trying to tell someone that they can only have $20.00 at any given time, and any more than that they'd be illegal.

Yes, I agree less passives would make the game simpler, but let's face it. The majority of them comes from the effects and afflictions given to you via items and spells. Not necessarily the passive abilities.