Browser Based, Party Based RPG: Pioneers of Aethora

[RangerSheck]

Hi, there! I'm requesting feedback on my game, Pioneers of Aethora. It's still in development, but very playable at this time.

Working Features:

• Turn-based, Grid/Tactics-style combat
  
• The nature of the combat system makes it an ideal "coffee-break" RPG - close the window in the middle of combat - when you come back your turn will be patiently waiting for you
  
• Up to 8 characters total - 4 in your active party, giving you the ability to swap characters in and out
  
• Each character can wield two weapons, and combat actions are based on combinations of skills related to weapons - currently 50+ possible actions
  
• Buy/sell items from/to other players in the Market
  
• A couple of Missions are in the game now, plenty more to come
  
• Completely web-based - uses javascript and DHTML (no Flash) - use of AJAX minimizes page-loading
  
• Cross-browser compatibility - play from practically any computer with a recent browser! Well tested in Firefox 2, but also known to work well with IE6/7, Safari, and Opera
  

Here are some screenshots:
Combat #1
Combat #2
Equipping a character
Party Management

More about the game: http://wiki.aethora.com/wiki/Pioneers_of_Aethora
Some help docs: http://wiki.aethora.com/wiki/Help_Me%21

Registration is always free - at some point I may offer account upgrades or something else, but there will always be a free version. Check it out:
http://aethora.com

Thanks,

Ranger Sheck

[Sinzygy]

Hey there

I finally took the time to register at your site and spent some time (roughly 40-50 minutes) trying out your main features and I have to say I'm very impressed!
I have rarely seen such a smooth-flowing game as yours, but this flow comes at a price... I did start and finish one battle but it took about 25 minutes to finish! You probably intendent the battles to be spread out beween short periods of time, but still. 25 minutes is in my oppinion too much time for one fight. Maybe this is just my basic oppinion about PBBGs coming through again, that the success in a game should not be determined by the amount of time a player spends in the game, but rather by the way he plays it.

Here's a quick list:
Pro

• Smooth Navigation
• Nice Page Layout
• Easy to grasp concepts
• User friendly and intiutive interface
• No foot-long navigation menu, all the important actions are right were they suit gameplay the best

Cons

• very time consuming

All in all this is what I have to say:
Everything I saw looked like a well thought-out game with a lot of work put into it.
Suggested Players: Players with (a lot of) spare time and joy at tactical maneuvering of a small group of units.

I'd need to play more for a more in depth feedback, but I just got back from vacations and its 2.30 am here.
Still I hope this helped.

[RangerSheck]

Thanks, Sinzygy, for very constructive and helpful feedback!

I can see your point about the battles taking quite a bit of time. And yes, they are designed in a way that you can play the battle in chunks, but many people play them straight through, which can be somewhat time-consuming. I read your post last night and gave it some thought, and I think I may consider juicing the combat formulas a little and increasing the amount of damage and the strength of effects slightly (by something like 50%) to speed up the progression of a fight. It's a question I'll have to put to the rest of the players and get some opinions on it. You're the first person to mention battle length specifically, but I wouldn't be surprised if most of the other players agreed with you.

Thanks again for trying it out and providing some insight

- R. Sheck

[Sinzygy]

Glad to hear that you're giving it thought

Speaking of battles: I still find it very confusing to actually plan a battle. It's hard to keep track of the current unit and the unit that moves next (and so on). What I'd suggest is add a little orb (or something else) that indicates if a unit has already moved during the current turn. Maybe green for active, yellow for still able to move and red for already moved. I believe this would help out a lot (or it would at least help me ).
Something even more depressing is the decaying or eliminating of dead bodies. I was often in the situation that I killed a unit, but the corpse remained visible (and blocking). But it appears that the body is removed when a unit of the same site as the killed unit moves (or something the like). Anyways, what I'd like to see is the bodies to decay immediatly or have an indicator after how many turns it decays. It's always depressing when you kill something but can't occupy the spot, just to see the computer do exactly that when the body is removed.
And a third thing that bothered me (I'll shut up after this one, promie ) is the duration of holds. I don't know how long holds are supposed to last, but it seems that a hold-action is "dispelled" (don't know the correct word, sorry. What I mean is lifted or removed) sooner than a positive boost. Plus when you plan on a unit being held and it moves out of the hold, you (or at least I) just go "o.O wtf?"

Other than that: I played again today and your game is probably a one-of-it-kind PBBG. It reminds me more of a CRPG or console game than a PPBG. Don't take this as a negative, I've just never played a game like this before.

[€∂¡†]
Btw, RangerSheck: The link in your signature is somehow written with bad syntax. Look at it again and try to fix it. Just so that people get directed to your game correctly

[RangerSheck]

I posted the Length of Battle issue in our in-game forums, here: http://aethora.com/forums/thread/3913

Turn Order: For keeping track of who's turn is when during a battle, look for a link in the Help box on the right side (I forget what it says - Turn Order or something like that).

Bodies: The dead bodies disappear when the passed character's turn comes around. Sometimes the body is in your way - sometimes it's in your enemies way. It never stays more than one turn cycle, so it shouldn't be too problematic. Admittedly, I've ofter wondered how much it would change tactics if the body disappeared instantly. If anything, I may make this change just because it's kind of confusing to new players when they kill someone but the body is still there on the map.

Holds (Effects): "Holds" are kind of the intro to "Effects". Basically there are two kinds of Actions you can take in battle - straight up attacks that do instant damage, and Actions that have an Effect that lasts one or more turns. The "hold" attack has a pretty  minor Effect - it reduces your opponents movement points and action points for one turn. An Effect doesn't ...err... "take effect" until the affected character's turn. The reason for the timing is so that the effect happens after the character gets their points additions at the beginning of their turn. So for example: you "hold" Gladiator X and the strength of the hold is (12). When it's Gladiator X's turn, he's going to get 50 action points and 50 movement points (and 10 defense points) - that's the standard. The hold takes effect (that's when you see the message that says "Gladiator X is held by someone's grappling",  followed by "Hold wears off Gladiator X.") and the result is that Gladiator X now has a net gain of only 38 action points and 38 movement points. (hope that makes sense)

Since early on, enemies have no armor, they usually have a lot of movement to spare, so it may look like a hold isn't doing much, but it does eat into their action points, which is reducing the amount of attacks they can make. Once you get into better weapon combos and discover more Actions, you'll find much better Effects than the simple 'hold'.

Also, one more note - the same effect cannot be stacked, so if you have one character place a hold on Gladiator X and then your next character places a hold on Gladiator X  (before X's turn has come and the first hold has taken effect) then the second hold will over-write the first (there is some discussion on this in the forums - it's designed to keep effects under control and not abused, but unfortunately the way they overwrite is not very obvious to new players ).

Other than that: I played again today and your game is probably a one-of-it-kind PBBG. It reminds me more of a CRPG or console game than a PPBG. Don't take this as a negative, I've just never played a game like this before.

Oh, that's definitely not a negative. I've been playing the full spectrum of RPGs in all forms for many years, so there are influences from all over the place in my design. And saying it's unique is the best compliment you can give me

(The biggest downside to being "unique" is a higher learning curve...)

[Sinzygy]

(The biggest downside to being "unique" is a higher learning curve...)

Amen to that. I think it would take me a long time before I could create such a smooth-flowing game. And I don't have the patience to stick it out.

As for dead bodies: Here's my a suggestion that I blatantly ripped off from an open-source game I casually play: Have each character have a zone of control which enemy units cannot pass through (or  take more movement to pass though). So Instead of having a body block randomly, have all units block constantly. As a radius for the zone of control I'd suggest about 1.4 squares (all 8 squares around 1 unit).

That was my quick morning-post. Off to work now!

[Dasein Fiasco]

"Death zones" are a common gameplay mechanic in board games as well. In fact, anyone seeking to create a tactical RPG might do well to investigate the rules behind popular strategy board games - the more I think, the more and more common ground it seems the two media have.

Pioneers of Aethora looks interesting, though. Sorry, R. Sheck, that I'm extremely busy at the moment, otherwise I'd jump on and take a look as well. In fact, I'll promise to do just that as soon as my daily schedule lightens.