Negotiations

Lets talk about Negotiations.

One of the more difficult ideas to put together is a fun and enjoyable way to implement a negotiation system for acquiring souls and other items from enemies without having to fight them.  Considering I want to use the negotiation system as the sole way of acquiring souls, I want it to be robust.

This becomes complicated because there are few negotiation systems I can look to for guidance.  The most comparable game, the Shin Megami games, have relatively poor systems.  You have to guess the answers to demons' questions, and hope to god they're not fickle and leave you with nothing.  This may be on theme for those games, but it definitely is frustrating.  My plan is to take a cue from Alpha Protocol's conversation system, specifically the level of detail and flow charts that they use, and combine that with the simple Q&A format used in SMT.

For example, each demon (not the individual demon, but the family of demons, such as "goblin") will have a personality.  This personality will guide what questions the demon will ask, and the flowchart of what questions will follow based on each answer you provide.  Some demons will ask the same questions as others, but each personality will dictate what the optimum answer is.  The demons will ask about five questions, give or take, before asking you what you want from them.  Based on the answers you provided up to this point, the demon will either agree, or tell you to shove off. 

I plan on giving out "Negotiation Points" for each answer provided, and at the end, when you go to ask the demon for something in particular, a bar will show you how many points you needed in order to have a shot at the demon acquiescing.  Certain answers will be worth many points, some few points, and some will subtract points.  It will be some trial and error, but once you learn how to deal with a certain demon, it should be relatively simple.  I also plan on adding a few sub personalities to each demon family, if possible, in order to keep things interesting for a longer period of time.

Equipment Design

Designing interesting equipment is a challenge that I have decided to undertake, and of course this challenge is further compounded by the existence of my Fusion and Soul systems.

In order for the fusion equipment to be meaningful in any capacity, it is important to make the choices between each possible fusion option meaningful and cater to different play styles, so here are my current thoughts.

Each permutation of elements will have a different name, so Hearth + Ray = Sun.  A 3 slotted weapon with 2H and 1R would then be a Sun Plate, or Sun Sword, etc.  At the higher end of the spectrum, the 5 slotted equipment, 3H + 2R would be Sunbeam equipment.  A similar name to convey similar stats.

When you create a Hearth item, it's going to add ATK, and affinity and resistance for the Hearth element.  Tundra gear will add DEF.  Gales Magic Acc.  Stones will add RES.  Ray will be Magic Acc and ATK, and Miasma DEF and RES.

When you combine elements, you will gain some of the stats from both elements as well as an additional effect (on the offense) or additional resistances or effects (on the defense).

For example.  T+T+H = Boiling Gear.  Weapons that are boiling gain ATK and DEF and inflict a damage per turn effect called Scalding.  Simply, it's just more damage for your weapon.  By contrast, T+T+S weapons would instead be called Arctic, and would reduce the enemy's T resistance.

Some non-symmetric additional effects should make the choices interesting.