Sunday, July 16, 2017

Heal Potions vs a rainbow of status curers

I'm starting to feel less confident in a decision I made early on while designing the Lunarian Shuffle.

One of the design points of this randomizer is that, although it is for the most part a randomization of the "easy type" of FFIV that the USA received as "Final Fantasy II", I am restoring the "hard type" consumable items - stuff like ZeusRage can attack enemies, and Bacchus Wine can buff your party members.  This gives more options for more randomness overall, and it incentivizes a player who is missing something very important (say, a black mage for the Kainazzo fight) to scour treasure chests and shops in optional towns to find a replacement for what they need.

However, I'm also attempting to avoid adding my own balance choices whenever possible.  For example, I think the 2000GP price tag on the Power staff is far too low, but the original game really does sell them at that price, so I'm leaving that untouched.  The same principle led me to leave the Heal potion untouched - the "easy type" version sold Heal potions at a super cheap 100GP, rather than the "hard type" list of 10 different status curing items, most of which only cure a single condition, with price tags ranging from 40 to 5000GP.

I'm beginning to think, though, that perhaps I should be basing my balance decisions on the "hard type" version of the game, since it.  If so, the "Heal" potions will need to have their price tags jacked the heck up, and there will also be a lot more garbage in the treasure chests.  (How often will you be happy finding an eyedrop?)  If you have an opinion on this, let me know!

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