willmer

Servent -  I appreciate your suggestions but feel that having to maintain your monsters' happiness/hunger all the time would be tedious.  Also, I personally don't consider that mechanic to be worth any improvements it makes to the combat.  And because I would like to have lots of monsters, maybe only 3-6 in use at a time, it would be difficult to manage them all.

 

I like the capture mechanic.  I think that growing the crystals in the tower would be an additonal way to gate content.  After the player has reached a certain point, they can start growing crystals that are needed to capture monsters and write them into their grimoire.  Different monsters may need different crystals based on level or type.  Also some crystals might give a higher chance of capture.

I only have experience with Java so Spring looks attractive.  Is is going to offer similar things as the other options?

Jeffery thanks for your input.

- Why would you want to make a 1a if it can't be upgraded further? Maybe the "a" variants start at a higher rank than the new monsters, so therefore are the better short term option? Or they can have capabilities that the new monsters can never have?

I guess I forgot to put this but I don't think all the monsters will be able to be fused to create a new one.  There will be some where there is only one combination to make (ie 1 X and Y to make Z) but others fusions will be possible with more than one (ie swordsman with any fire creature -> flame swordsman) and some where there are no fusion combinations.  My idea on having the subtiers is to allow those monsters who don't fuse with others to get a little stronger and add some more depth since they can acquire new skills and stats through that fusion.  It would likely be a short-term upgrade that would help if you were struggling with a boss battle.  You could fuse one of your monsters to increase its stats and possibly add a new move which would be effective.  Maybe you have a high attack monster but need more defense...fuse it with a high defense monsters to get those extra defense stats.

I think that a high rank 1a should be able to beat a low rank 2. Imagine a human vs a dragon. A fully grown human can kill a baby dragon, but probably not a grown up dragon. That would add to the excitement when you're outgunned but win anyway through skill.

I think that's a great idea.  Maybe I'll have a scheme where tiers/ranks start to overlap...such that a tier 1, rank 4 or 5 monster will become stronger than a fresh tier 2 monster.

- I also kind of like the Pokemon idea of spontaneously evolving or up-ranking during a match based on a combo of past training, past matches and the current challenge. A nice wildcard when the chips are down.

I think that an evolution system like in pokemon would require fewer fusions or just a ton more monsters, which isn't necessarily bad.  Maybe I could have some monsters "evolve" when they gain enough ranks (dragonling -> dragon) which could possibly be used in fusions.  Is your suggestion permanent or temporary?  It sounds like it would be an in battle thing.



Do you think it would be better to allow any monster (especially tier 1's) to reach a stat level where it can compete with tier 3's or should I keep certain ones from reaching that potential.  Similar to limiting pokemon to a certain level like 20 unless you evolve them and then they can reach level 40 and so on.