How Do You Develop A RPG?

I working on a RPG on paper and I'm not finish working on it. I still have some editing to do. I was planning on working on a RPG ASAP. I have a problem using math for how to calculate how much damage get dealt to both the player's allies and enemies depending on both sides' current levels, and stats. I try to use four of the order ooperations, but it's not working. Do anybody know what mathematics method I should use for dealing damage to both sides? How would the incremented stats affect damage dealt after leveling up?
Parties use moves to attack each other or aid each other/oneself. The combat is like a RPG. It's a turn-based RPG. After beating Mario&Luigi: Superstar Saga, I realized that you deal more damage to your past weaker enemies because your at an either high or higher level. But, when you face your new enemies. You do some high damage to them. Also, you deal slightly more damage to your enemies as you level up.
 
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zircher

Guest
Can you provide an example from your pen-n-paper version of combat? I think that would clear things up a bit.
 

Yal

šŸ§ *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
There's two approaches I use for maths stuff... either I plan it out on paper starting from graph theory and try a bunch of cases until I find a balanced formula... or I just mess around with cool functions and test play with different values until it feels right. I'd personally recommend the former, it's a lot more visceral and visual than trying to find the right balance using theory. I also kinda like a lot of games that have very obscure calculations, because that means I can't evaluate every possible move before doing it... I generally can't NOT do that because I want to play optimally, so only having a hunch about how well something works usually means I gotta go more by instinct and strategy instead of doing my maths homework each turn.
 
Z

zircher

Guest
I think we need to know the tactical scale before that call. Do to parties bump into each other until one dies or retreats? Is combat more like a JRPG where everyone takes turns whacking at each other? Or, is it a micro-managed tactical slug fest like Jagged Alliance or X-Com? An RPG tends towards the later while a RTS with role playing elements tends to the first one.
 
I think we need to know the tactical scale before that call. Do to parties bump into each other until one dies or retreats? Is combat more like a JRPG where everyone takes turns whacking at each other? Or, is it a micro-managed tactical slug fest like Jagged Alliance or X-Com? An RPG tends towards the later while a RTS with role playing elements tends to the first one.
Yes, parties use moves to attack each other or aid each other/oneself. The combat is like a RPG. It's a turn-based RPG.
 

Khao

Member
Really depends on how complex you want your combat to be. Some games have an extremely complicated formula that pull numbers from several different stats and equipment values and has a random element (also dependant on stats) so that every attack deals a different amount of damage. Other games don't need anything more than an "attack power" stat and a "defense" because they simply decrease the attacker's power by the opponent's defense.

If you're going for a "serious" game with a ton of strategy involved, lots of different moves, weapons and characters, and a deep combat system, you probably want the first one, especially if you don't want your players to always know how much damage they're gonna deal (if only because they have no access to their opponent's stats).

If you're doing something more laid-back and simplistic (such as the RPG Mario games), or even just want it to be easy to understand so that you can focus on other elements more easily (like movement in a tactical RPG, or perfectly timed button presses), you definitely want the second.

Just think about how complex you want your combat to be (how many stats you're using, how much you want it to depend on character stats vs weapon stats, how much randomness you want) and start experimenting with different operations until you find something you like. Or look at what games similar to yours did and try doing something similar.
 
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