Some mechanical concepts for my next project

Okay… Besides the hack I’ve been posting and working on, I have another project and I’d like
some feedback about it… I do like the results I’m getting with You can (not) ban, but I’ve always seen it as a test proyect to get some experience for the other one. Now, this post is not about “I have this new project, but I need help”; I think I can deal with the ideas I want for it, furthermore, I already got some help regarding sprites, testing, etc.
The base rom is FE8 with Circles’ system.
The story, though I don’t wanna talk too much about it, I’ll do it to explain some mechanics, which is where I’d like feedback.

The plot is about a war between 2 kingdoms (nothing special, I know), but the idea is to tackle it from both kingdom’s perspective, like Fates preteneded to do, but more like The legend of the galactic heroes—not “good” vs “bad”, but instead, from the perspective of each protagonist (1 per side).
The idea is to constantly change the point of view (maybe each chapter), and I’d like to take from Radiant Dawn the idea of nonpermanent recruitments, I mean, being able to use characters only when story allows to do so.

I think Maiden of darkness does something similar, but I’m not sure, I’ll be honest, I’m not completely aware of every project in here, so I can’t tell for sure, besides this idea is from 2+ years ago, when I didn’t know how to carry this through. The idea is to have a kind of My castle, except a bit more like a citadel where the player goes after a mission (or sequence of missions), and will be the only place to buy and that kind of stuff. Also, at a certain point in the storyline, both sides are getting ready for the war, and from here, you can choose which missions to take on (maybe you need to complete 7 out of 13 available), as in SoV where each side has some optional or different paths, etc.

Even if I’m planing to use Circles’ system, I wont use a lot of its default skills, I want to use some skills of my own, but these would be a bit… different, to explain, I need to refer to the game from which I’m inspiring, World of Warcraft, The skills would be treated as professions, would be learnt at the citadel, and would affect at the battlefield, rather than in battle directly. For example, if a character learns “first aid” they’ll have a command to heal themselves a bit (5~10 HP), or skills to repair weapons or tomes with the appropriate materials (which must be bought at the citadel), besides of skills to get these materials in battlefield. Of course there will be skills for combat, but only a few.

During dialogue, I want to do something that resembles to Persona series, at least the visual novel part, small decisions that wont really affect the story, but will affect units’ performance, such as a boost in one stat or another if you decide one thing or another; this will also be the only way to increase support points. There will be decisions that change some things in the story, as well. I have decided 4 different endings.

I know this is just a mix of empty concepts without application yet, but eh, that’s what I have, and I want to read people’s opinions. I’m aware of how complicated and confusing the gameplay can turn, and I can appreciate a simple one (New Mystery is one of my 2 favorites from the FE franchise), but this is what I’d like to achieve.
What do you think?

I’ve always liked the idea of a repair kit item, but nothing so extreme as specific items for weapons, and a skill just to use them.
The first aid thing is made moot by vulnearies and staff users.

Maiden of Darkness is actually only using bases because of technical limitations. I’m 90% sure Onmi would prefer a prep screen with usable, buyable items, as it’s otherwise just a hassle, especially in gba format.

I have a few thoughts on the “two sides” thing. First, it will be a tough sell in a post-Fates world; the mechanical structure of an FE game just lends itself better to situations where “everything was okay after all” or the story inevitably marches towards the same resolution no matter which choices you made. A few ways I suggest subverting this is to make the clash be one of ideology (both sides are “the good guys”; they just have conflicting ideas of how to go about ending the great war, sealing the demon king, or whatever) and not to back out on the idea of having to choose a side for the final battle (you choose who to play as at that point, the other side’s leader will probably be the semi-final or final boss, you’ll probably have killed several of their friends by the time you fight them, and they’ll never make peace with you because they’re disgusted by your ideology, not because they’re actually a slime monster. You have the chance to really move the player by making them fight a character they’ve spent 50% of the game playing as). Additionally, I suggest you have more than just the two main countries playing big parts in the narrative. The most fascinating part of FE8 for me was Carcino: in the middle of all these kingdoms with thousand-year histories fighting over sacred stones, you have a very new republic whose primary concern is taking care of its own problems. It would be neat to have some Carcino-like countries/organizations/people/etc in this narrative whom you have to convince to become your allies to end the stalemate your big kingdom has against the other big kingdom.

I am very sceptical of the citadel system, which will require either a bunch of chapter slots or a lot of conditional logic to find out where you are in the game, which missions have been completed, etc; if you want to use the FE8 world map, it will be even more complicated. I don’t mean to discourage you; I know it’s possible, but it could be more trouble than its worth. I used to have a project planned to have a structure of “a few linear chapters ->a set of chapters you can play in any order from a mission select map ->a few more linear chapters ->another mission select ->etc”, but it was frustrating having to make the same chapter multiple times, with multiple possible arrangements of enemies, different conversation dialogue, etc, depending on the order in which you play them. It would have been really neat, but when I figured that most of the people playing the game would probably just play it in one order and not notice all the differences I put into the alternate versions of chapters (they might even run into glitches with the conditional checks governing the mission system), it just wasn’t worth it anymore. I set out to tell a story, but made things really complicated for myself with the game structure.

Sorry for typing out a novel; I sincerely hope you succeed. Your plans are ambitious, but nowadays it’s more possible than ever to realize them.

Of course, the vulneararies and staff user will always be better, but the idea with first aid is that it will be free and you will be able to abuse it in each turn (only few characters will have access to this ability, only 1 will have at the beggning, and 4 will be able to learn it)

I love everything you say, but if I’m honest, I’ve already planned everything in one way or another, but, to say something the difference in ideologies will be more noticeable not when kingdom A and kingdom B meet, but when they face the internal problems of their own kingdoms, (although the allies of both kingdoms are good guys the kingdoms are not exactly the good guys), with the “more than 2 kingdoms”, of course I will have them, bbut the premise is centered on only two

I know, I know what I’m up against, I know that probably, when I start programming, I already have to have all the aspects throughout the game

Thanks to both, I came up with some things reading this.

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