Common Sense Corner

[DerVVulfman]

Seriously, Ahzoh. I mean, I actually HAVE a 'Atlantean Sword' from Conan the Barbarian (1979) .. the one Ahnood Shwarzenoogie found in the cave with the limestone covered skeleton of the king. I can handle it, so I can probably handle a Buster Sword. Not saying many others could. BUT... how are you going to swing a buster sword in an enclosed room?

But overblown sized items? I blame Kill La Kill for that one. I mean, who heard of a pair of scissors 7 foot tall, and she's swinging ONE HALF? What moron came up with that idea? And if that key is as big as a German Shepard, a skinny thief could probably poke his arm through the keyhole and move the tumblers by hand.

Now, relevent characters... I see your point. Meet a hero and he wants to become part of the epic crusade... and you never hear from him again. Yuck, bad writing. At least, come up with something why he's not there! Oh, he could be Aluxes, and you DON'T want him to join you, or you have a reason to leave him behind (apart from being Aluxes) like...
"The shuttle only holds three." - Ellen Ripley (ALIEN © 1979)
.... Give it a reason! But having a guy who looks like he's in shape... wants to fight.... says he has a score to settle with Darth Vader and is going on a tear and then... *POOF* ... you never hear from him again? Who wrote that???

Now, that's not saying EVERY character can be revelent. If you're in a town or village, you may have some kids running around doing ... well, hopscotch? (I had to really draw that one out.) How many seven-year-olds save the world? Okay, don't go on about a 7-ish pixie-like girl in a SNES Squaresoft game (A Secret of... Tales of... ?). She was really a twenty-something Elf that looked like she was 7ish.

What I'm saying is.. Oh, there can be some characters that don't really matter to the main story. BUT, allow them to make the world less bland. Give them something to do other than the oh-so-cliche guy at the bridge saying "Welcome to Port Town". However, if you're building up the character to seem more important, he better have something to do other than sit on his butt watching reruns of Game of Thrones.

[MetalRenard]

There's a difference between picking up and using a really heavy sword. :P
If you really want to give them huge weapons then justify it with some kind of enhanced strength. A supernaturally strong person would probably break a normal sword so they'd NEED a stronger and heavier weapon to make best use of this ability.

[Ahzoh]

I'm pretty sure that DerVV would not be able to fight effectively with a big freaking sword like the Buster Sword, not even if you had superstrength. Because it is all about PHYSICS.

Every skilled sword fighter wants the point of equilibrium to be right on the handle if it's a sword or they want the point of equilibrium to be closer to the weapon end if they use and axe or a hammer.
This is basic levers and pulleys type stuff you learn in elementary school.
The sword is a lever and you need to visualize it that way.

When you're a 2-meter/6-foot 2 person wielding a sword three or four times as tall as you, you're not going to get the point of equilibrium where your hand is at, which will make swinging it incredibly difficult.

I swear that Cloud would be mince meat if he were up against a warrior in real life. Superstrength or not, he'll struggle to even hit anyone.

[JayRay]

you're also assuming that the highly-civilized Shinra Corporation, with stylized technzology, Mako reactors, and refined spacea-ge robotics would be using less than high-alloy steels and that the Buster sword's size represents a weight that we are used to seeing with this type of sword.

Most of the pictures of the buster blade Do look to have most of the weight in the hilt and handle, not in the actual blade itself, like maybe the fulcrum of the blade itself is in the hilt.

Just Sayin, Throughout history, large machetes, falchions, two handed greatswords, and odachi have been wielded well, despite what looks like being an ineffective war weapon, and while we have never used anything in history quite like this, keep this in mind, In 1970, during the Vietnam War, a U.S. Marine hand crafted a sword using a portion of one of the Huey UH-1 main propellers which had broken off during the crash after his chopper was shot down, tied together with one of the rods from the exposed tail section from that same crash. This makeshift machete stood at roughly 4 and a half feet long (53 inches), and weighed 22 pounds, and while not as large or pronounced as the Buster, served the Marine well as his only weapon as he hacked through jungle environments as well as probably a few Viet Cong troops on his way through a journey to his lines.

[DerVVulfman]

Huzzah for that vet! And ... Ahzoh greatly underestimates my sword skills. I've been handling swords of various sizes since I was twelve. That's for more than 30 years. Claymores and Flamberges in the mix... they aren't small, but easy enough for me.

Be that as it may, this is about common sense in games.

[Bounty Hunter Lani]

Exactly, Dervy-kun. So let's all move on to more common sense now 

Here's some common sense: 

CONSISTENT SKILLSETS!


Examples:
1 - Drill Sergeant Sasha Branks is surrounded by enemies, and teleports herself to safety with a teleportation spell. She never mentioned having the spell, and never uses it again over the course of the whole game, despite being surrounded in the future.
She never gets it in her move arsenal, and it's never (not even briefly) mentioned beyond her explanation of what she did... which is something she definitely CANNOT do on a normal day. 

2 - King Miggle Mang can throw giant blades with perfect accuracy in-battle, but struggles to hit someone outside of battle!

3 - Fernando Martinez Jermanez Macademianut Jr. can use a skill that hits the enemy a bunch of times in-battle and magics that decimate the most powerful of monsters. However, outside of battle, he's barely on par with a Lieutenant, and only does single strikes! No magic is ever used, and poor Fernando gets slain. Awwww.   

These are the things we can do without, COME ON! 
I'M TALKIN' TO YOU, COME ON!
(Shout - By Tears for Fears)

*Ahem*


Thank you, and good evening. 

[Bounty Hunter Lani]

Here's a tidbit of common sense:

If you delete something from your game, make sure references to it are gone as well!
You don't want an NPC talking about how great the Water Gun Plaza is, but there's no such thing anymore!   

You wouldn't want a tutorial on how to use the Skill Learning system if you decided not to use the skill learning system MONTHS ago, and you certainly wouldn't want people talking about an evil dragon blocking the road, but... there's no dragon!   

Same goes for if you change the name of something!
If you changed the name of Shingletown to Bananaramaland, you don't want people to be referring to Shingletown!   
You changed Superarts to Superhugs? Don't still call them Superarts in conversations!   

[DerVVulfman]

Here's a tidbit for people testing scripts. If you're testing a script that enables a monster to exceed normal strength (like making a ghost invincible), turn it off when you're DONE TESTING!!!!!!

I thought I blew it and killed the project as no one was able to beat up a pair of simple ghosts. It was a script I wrote that made individual enemies nearly indestructible. Forgot to turn it off after testing.

[Bounty Hunter Lani]

It seems like we could all use some more Common Sense, so let's get a bit more in here, shall we?   

First, and it kinda goes with what Dervy-kun said...

Always test your game for enemy strengths!

Some creators have a habit of assuming a player will be the exact strength they want them to be, but it's not always the case with what is provided.
Examples:
1 -  Crumplestiltskin, the boss of Laggingtown, will be a pushover for a level 20 party... but the average player will be level 11 by the time they get to the boss! 
2 - Legolad of the Evil Queen's entourage is super weak for the point the boss is, and he was supposed to be a powerful boss! Oh no!
So, make sure that you fully play your own game to get the feel for everything, or have a tester play for you! If you find yourself or they are "Grinding" for levels before they can even come close to beating a boss, something might be wrong... and if they're hitting level 90 after the first boss, then something is VERY wrong 


Ahh, and that brings up our next common sense tidbit...

Encounter rates!

If you opt to have random encounters in your game, BE SURE TO TEST YOUR ENCOUNTER RATE.
If you set it to every 5-10 steps, you MAY have a frustrated player on your hands... and if there's only one enemy in an area with such an encounter rate, (Hi, Zubat) then you'll make people go INSANE!
So watch your encounter rates if you have random encounters in your game. Nobody wants their Zubat PTSD to come back full-force while playing your game 



And finally for tonight, and something much more minor and more optional than anything...

Leave room for theories!

People love to theorize about your game. Sometimes, things go over their head the first time, but when they realize something, they go back to check it out!
It creates interest in the game that should already have layers of intricacies, but when they see the small things you've added in, it gives a new appreciation for your work!
Example: 
Captain Crutch is Demarco's father. It is not directly said anywhere in the game, but Captain Crutch talks about his "Ex girlfriend of 1 hour" back in Tabascana Salsasa. 
Tabascana Salsasa is the small village where Demarco was born and raised, who had gotten attacked by pirates 18 years ago.

OH SNAP!   

That's all for this edition of Common Sense!
I hope you enjoyed! And if I repeated anything, then I'm sorry. There are a LOT of posts in this thread, kinda hard to go through them all. 

[Bounty Hunter Lani]

Time for some more common sense?

YUP!


WHEN MAKING PEOPLE SPEAK, DO NOT ONLY MAKE SURE THEY HAVE THEIR OWN VOICE, BUT USE DIFFERENT WORDS TO DICTATE AN IDENTICAL IDEA TO THE PLAYER WITHOUT BORING THEM!


 




There are many ways to say something, and a lot are situational. Instead of saying "Went" 50 times in an hour,  maybe they "Dragged" themselves somewhere? Wait, that gives a clue that they may be injured or tired!   
See? Descriptive   

Look at the definitions of any words you may use from these lists before slapping them into your game as a "Synonym", or you'll look like a goof saying "I EXTOL TO YOU, HE HURLED THAT WAY!"
Not gonna work, friend.