This is awesome! Thanks Boss, Doc, and Retro. :D

Regarding the locked threads and community sections... I have two ideas.

Locked Threads

For the locked threads... why are they locked anyway? To prevent people from posting? I'm not sure that's necessary. I think it might be a better idea to edit and update the relevant threads with recent changes (just in case the update isn't complete for another 6 months) and then re-open them so users can ask questions and comment. When this update is eventually released and everything changes, THEN we'll lock these ones and create new threads. Until then it just feels weird to have everything locked.

Either update them or put a notice at the bottom saying "information in this thread may be out of date and requires updating, if you have questions please see [insert link here]". Does that sound reasonable? You, TheDoc, Rhythm or any other mod can edit my posts, and we should only lock the truly irrelevant threads. I know lots of those mechanics are still completely valid in-game. If you guys have any questions or need clarification, just let me know.


Community Categories

I'm both open and anxious to create new categories in the community so we can filter things better. Please, please let me know if you or anyone else has ideas for new sections I can create that would apply to several or many existing threads so we can move them. I feel the General category has become an anything-goes section with way too many threads so I'd like to organize it a bit better.

My first idea for a new section would be titled "Help" and appear right at the end after bugs. This would be completely different from the Strategies section, of course, and relate more to community guidelines, rules, events, and that kind of stuff. We could move this thread and all others like it to that category, un-sticky the ones that do not need it, and clean out the other categories a bit. I also considered calling this new section "Rules" but that felt too restrictive... Do you guys have any other ideas for a name? Or maybe a different section all-together? Let us know.

I'm also open to more rooms in the chat, by the way, so let us know if that's a thing you guys want to see added. :)

EDIT: Oh! What about a community section for fanart and fanfic and that kind of stuff? We could move the sprite showcases and stuff to the new section. Maybe call it "Media"? No, that sounds too official... "Creations"? Any ideas for a better name? This would be different from Roleplay, of course, with individual users to showing off their creations in their own threads, rather than collaborators making play-by-post stories. It might be fun.

Alright everyone, a NEW CHAT has been installed into the MMRPG (thanks to BossMan and Mikey for the link)!

If anyone is still using or in the Xat, please refresh the community page or update your bookmarks!

The chat can still be accessed at https://prototype.mmrpg-world.net/community/chat/ but you can also bookmark the following other link if you want to view the chat in fullsize https://prototype.mmrpg-world.net/chat/.

Some of the rules and the opening post may need to be revised, but overall I think it should be a straight forward transition. Enjoy!

@rotomslashblast : I... can't really explain that one. Every other stardroid has a pretty straight-forward dual typing except for Mercury. What is he? Liquid metal? Poison? How do we express that with the available elements? I admit I got really, really creative with this one (maybe just crazy?) but my line of thinking probably revolved around melting, shining, cold metal, or... something. :S Anyone have a better idea?

@Tobyjoey : I have changed Commando Man's second weakness to Electric, as suggested. Your reasoning makes sense and until a better option comes around I think this fits rather well. For a moment I thought you were going to suggest Shield, but then I understood where you were going with the antenna thing. :P

@TheDoc : It sounds like you're disagreeing with me but I think you may have just misread my post. We're actually on the same page. ;) I do think Strike Man should have a resistance to Electric type in addition to Impact and have updated his database entry as such. And obviously I agree about the creativity thing - this game offers a unique opportunity for us to view robot masters from a different perspective and I think we should take advantage like that. Sure these robots may act a certain way when confronted one-on-one in an action setting, but what kind of strengths and strategies would they use in an open field and - more importantly - on a team? I'm sure you agree.

Turbo Man has been changed to a Swift Core and Slash Man has been changed to Nature Core after much consideration and creative planning based on the feedback from everyone here. I think these were wise decisions.

Snake Man's resistance has been changed to Shadow after reading the arguments for and against. I agree that Snake Man as a character is already fairly shady, and with him being a snake he's already quite familiar with darkness and shadows. Also - as BossMan said - it ties well into his T2 ability the Venom Snake.

For Strike Man I have decided to give him weaknesses to Cutter and Crystal. This may seem unusual, but the only real way to destroy a baseball is to cut through it and the only other type that's even remotely sharp is... Crystal. I feel like this is the only available element that makes sense, so rather than have a single-weakness as TheDoc suggested I erred on the side of weakness variety. Don't hate me. As for his resistances, I have changed them to Electric and Impact. The first is obvious and the second is because I agree that baseballs are designed to be hit - very hard - with metal or wooden bats. Has anyone held a real baseball? They are firm and almost indestructible - it takes a lot of effort to destroy one short of manually cutting into it.

Lastly, Commando Man's weakness to Cutter has been changed to Swift. As for his weakness to Explode... I'm gonna let that discussion develop some more before I make any changes. :)

The decisions we make for this game may not always be canon, but I believe they are in the best interest of the prototype's future. I am personally prioritizing fun and variety of robots and abilities over the authenticity of each individual special weapon. Purists have plenty of other Mega Man fangames to choose from, and I'm more than okay with this one doing things a little different. As long as Slash Man looks the same and uses his claws in some way, who cares? Is he fun to play as? Against? Does it still feel like Slash Man? I believe that's all that matters.

Aaaaaand we have another! Welcome TheDoc as our second new addition to the team - he is now a Community Moderator and can offer his assistance with the day to day maintenance and upkeep of the prototype community. Thank you for accepting as well and I look forward to working with you more going forward! :D

@TailsMK4 : Which brings me to the next early change...

3. Effective immediately, Rain Flush now damages all other robots on the field just like it's description has suggested the entire time. The only robots that will not be affected by the Rain Flush damage are the user and any benched robots that have affinities or immunities to the Water type. Now the ability is much closer to the double-edged sword that is "Surf" from the Pokémon series (which is what I had imagined for the ability in the first place). Rain Flush can still be exploited by bringing in a specific team, but much less so than before. Enjoy (or not)!

I just wanted to publicly announce that I've made two early changed to the prototype well before the update is complete because I felt they were necessary and - more importantly - they were very easy to implement. The changes take effect immediately and you to not have to wait for the update to benefit from them.

1. Roll, Disco, and Rhythm now have a base WE of 15 instead of the usual 10. They are and will be the only unlockable robot masters to have this distinction and I believe it will further solidify their role as support robots in the game. Boost, break, and swap away my friends!

2. Target robots in Player Battles are now hidden until the fight starts and appear as dark, generic robots instead. No longer will you be able to select your opponent's weaknesses and gain the advantage before the battle has even begun, instead needing to rely on other strategies. Will you select your strongest? Your most versatile? Your most defensive or speedy? It's a long way from making Player Battles as balanced as they'll be in the update, but it's a start - right?

Let me know your thoughts if you have 'em, otherwise enjoy! :D

These are fantastic! OMG Disco!!!

Thank you for sharing these, sooo much! I have no more words. :')

Field Change on Hard: Higher chance of Dark Elements appearing in battle.

Totally agree with this. Doing it will make it much harder to abuse starforce in the later missions for the first few turns in a given battle, which is the whole point of the Dark Elements so I approve of this change.

AI Changes: Hard:
The changes that shouldn't require much new code: [...]
Changes that may be a bit more difficult to implement: [...]
The change that definitely will require some careful thought: [...]

I agree with every single one of these and may use a few of the more obvious ones for normal mode as well. Normal mode AI is pretty dumb right now so I few common-sense tweaks would be okay. Special attention to...

-In later battles, give AI more Starforce on their side to work with (could even go so far as to include Laser and Shield Starforce for AI).

I like this, but we'll need to think about how to represent it visually. It wouldn't make sense for a field star to give the enemy +100 (for example) if you only get +10 when you collect it... so do we give the enemies more stars? Do we give them something else that has the same overall effect on starforce levels but cannot be collected by the player? Maybe some kind of tower or spire on their side of the field? Just brainstorming here, but if it doesn't make sense in context it might be better to power them up in some other way.


Easy:
[...]
-Prevent Dark Towers from appearing.
-Disable bench modifiers for the enemy team.

I agree with all these but the last two, for different reasons.

Regarding the Dark Towers... they may actually end up being story-related and tied to the early parts of the game so that might not work. "Why would Dark Towers appear before Starforce?" you might ask, but it's possible for these to serve other purposes in the early game and it's not until much later that the player realizes the full scope of their power.

I think I might use the Dark Towers as MacGuffins in the early game. In Chapter Two there may be a Dark Fortress or other form of blockade that prevents you from progressing to Chapter Three and can only be removed by destroying the Dark Towers in the other eight RM missions. The player would technically be doing the same thing as they're doing now - going into each of the eight missions and disabling all the enemies - but the "goal" would be less ambiguous than downloading their data (whatever that means) and wouldn't be tied to unlocking the RMs for use in battle.

Imagine going through the story mode in the first pass, destroying Dark Towers along the way as a means to remove Dark Fortresses blockades at the end of each chapter and progress to the next. Dark Towers will be destroyed and removed once a mission has been completed and will appear in all single and double RM missions all the way to the conclusion of phase 1 when you meet Slur and get introduced to starforce. On your second run through the game in phase 2 those original single/double missions now have field/fusion stars to collect instead of towers to destroy. Collecting all those stars unlocks the last few chapters of the game where Dark Towers are present once again in triple missions (stardroids) but have a new meaning to the player given how much starforce they would have been collected by that point.

Maybe I went a bit too much into that idea though... expect it to be tweaked and played around with before launch. :P

The problem I have with the bench modifiers should be simpler to understand - there may be future abilities that use this as their gimmick (ignoring bench modifiers) so I feel that putting as a core mechanic of Easy Mode might make those abilities redundant... I'll have to think about it.



Otherwise, WOW. These are fantastic ideas and most of them will surely be implemented into the game before the update. Thank you!!

Yay! Now that ThatGuyNamedMikey has acknowledged and accepted the offer I can publicly talk about it and say thank you from the bottom of my heart for joining the team! ^_^

I know we don't always seem to get along, but I also know it's only because we both love this game so much and want what we feel is the best for it going forward. Thanks for keeping me on my feet and thanks for always bringing new ideas to the table - I look forward to your unique brand of no-nonsense in the community and will very much appreciate the extra hand in keeping order around here. :)

I've updated Reisrat's opening post with your name so people know your new role, FYI.

I've updated the preview link again to fix a few spelling mistakes (thanks TheDoc) and rename a few other abilities. Please see this link for the most updated version (and yes, the first post has been revised with the new link as well):
mmrpg-database_2015-04-05.html

I just added a link to the bottom of the first post with a preview of the entire database page. This is the version of the database I am working with at this moment on my home computer and I will update the link occasionally to show you my progress on the update. Please check the link below and hover over any of the icons for more info. :)
mmrpg-database_2015-04-04.html

@TailsMK4 : Regarding the AI, we just talked about this briefly in chat but I'd love to hear more ideas on the subject here so we can discuss. You suggested having the enemy switch out when WE is low, which I totally agree with, so I'm interested to see what other ideas you have. I have my own, naturally, but I'd love to hear yours and everyone else's so I can review and see which are possible.

@Reisrat : Fantastic idea. That way you the same mechanic is present but it doesn't waste a turn activating it AND you can pre-meditate their abilities better when you're equipping stuff. Unless there are any objections, I think this is a great alternative and will probably use it in the update. Thanks.

@MetaKirbSter : There are four opponents in that screenshot because I adjusted how many show up on the Bonus Field II mission. It might change back before launch but there's a related idea I'm still debating with myself. I'll let you know when/if this changes.

@Bt Man : Yes, Tomahawk Man will eventually be in the game when the update is released. He wont be unlockable but you will be able to challenge him on the bonus fields and any Earth type starforce missions like the other preview bots.

@ThatOneEnderMan : Yes, when the new update is released the mechanics of starforce will change. Rather than boosting all abilities of a certain element by 10%, starforce will instead grant +10 Attack toward and/or +10 Defense against all damage of that type.

@Retro Pikachu : Thanks for responding. I'll take your words into consideration for possible mechanics in the update. I am a huge fan of super forms too - it's the reason I put that mechanic into the game in the first place - but after player with the system I felt it added little to the game. Maybe I was mistaken. I'll let you guys know if anything changes.

---

I also have some additional information to reveal. Mostly revisions to existing mechanics, but also a bit of clarification on some new ones.


Hold Item Mechanics
The hold mechanics for items have been revised again after discussing them in the last few SNC sessions. I am fairly confident that these options provide the most balance while still allowing for some creative strategy. Please see the following document for the new draft of the mechanics:
item-hold-mechanics.txt

Battle Points Mechanics
The battle point mechanics have remained relatively unchanged with one important addition. Much like it is right now, missions have a base reward value and a target amount of turns that are used together to determine you final points - the new mechanic here is that missions will also have a target amount of robots in your party. You can easily select more of less of those robots (min 1 and max 8 like always) but your choices will affect your final reward in the same way the turn counter does. Please see the following document for more details:
battle-point-mechanics.txt

Difficulty Mode Mechanics
After the announcement of the difficulty modes many users started to panic about the effect on their games and the logic and math involved, but I'm here to assure you it's not that bad and come a long way since it's initial conception. The basic calculations for battle points will not change between difficulties and will instead only impact the final reward by +/-10% of the base. The target amount of turns and the party size limits will also remain consistent between mode and have no modifiers. Instead, there will be changes to the enemy intelligence level and the consistency and type of item drops. Please see the below document for more details:
difficulty-mode-mechanics.txt

@ZeroDXZ : I like the idea, and I think it would be cool, but then Slash Man would have two dual-type abilities which isn't very balanced... I know that I'm the one who created them, but sometimes these restrictions are very hard to work with. >_>

@Tobyjoey : I think you bring up some very solid points, Toby, and I'm inclined to agree.

I'll keep Slash Man as a Nature core robot with primarily Nature type moves. Too much Cutter / Swift is redundant and boring, which we want to avoid. We need to make sure his first ability is pure Nature type though, and have either Slash or Claw in its name... this is gonna be hard. I'd like to use his dash attack or that glue-like projectile he uses in the games, but I'm not sure how to make it work with the name format.

Maybe we could replace one of the two words with something else? "Slash" and "Claw" are both cutter-like words so they're a little redundant - maybe "beast" is a good substitute? We could have ___ Beast (which is way more flexible) as a first tier Nature type, and then Slash Beast as his second tier Nature / Cutter type. I'm open to other suggestions though...

I know that focusing on small details like these might seem silly or unnecessary, but naming things has turned out to be a very important and delicate task that must be handled with care. It's very hard to "fix" save files that have references to old file or character names, so changing things in the future might be too late. It was quite a pain fixing spelling errors in the past (like Lightning Facility vs Lighting Facility) and I'm not eager to do that again.

In fact, I may kick myself later, but I'd like to have all the abilities planned out by the time the update is released. Not finished, of course, but named and organized so I don't have to reorganize the database again and we can have a clearer road map of the prototype's eventual "complete" version. I know it's an impossible goal but I want to try anyway.

Anyway, back to Turbo Man, maybe you're right about the Flame Core. He's super fast but being able to produce a wheel of fire definitely suggests Flame core potential but leaving him as Swift would make it very difficult to give Nitro Man a unique spin. I think I'll change him back, as your reasoning is solid and I tend of agree. TheDoc, you have any additional thoughts on this?

Lastly, Turbo Man's abilities (sorry I have to go there). If he's a Flame core his first ability should be Flame and his second should be Flame / Something. We have Scorch Wheel as his official ability, so the other one has to use either "scorch" or "wheel". I think wheel would have made more sense visually, but as a Flame core maybe scorch would be the better option. Scorch Drive? Maybe Scorch Wheel is the single-type tier one and Scorch Drive is the dual-type tier two (flame / swift)? Maybe he only uses pure Flame type abilities?

No rush to reply, and I'm not asking YOU specifically, I'm just putting it out there for you guys to think about while I continue coding away. :P

(sorry for double-post, even I'm subject to the character limit on this forum...)



Slash Man being a Cutter core was admittedly a bit of a cop-out on my part, but you're right in suggesting that Nature suits him much more. If this game didn't have the core-match mechanic for abilities it might not matter, but because do we're confronted with the question "should Slash Man be able to learn all Nature abilities or all Cutter abilities?" and I was... pretty torn.

He has sharp claws, so of course he can learn all the abilities that cut things! Right? As you've illustrated, it's not that simple. I can more easily imagine Slash Man raising a Leaf Shield or summoning a Search Snake than throwing a Rolling Cutter or a Metal Blade at the enemy, so making him Cutter core wouldn't work. And so, Nature type it is.

'robot_token' => 'slash-man',
'robot_core' => 'nature',
'robot_weaknesses' => array('freeze', 'flame'),
'robot_immunities' => array('swift'),

What about his own abilities though? Slash Claw is currently Cutter and Swift type, neither of which match his new Nature core. I suppose we could make Slash Claw the only Nature and Cutter type ability but I'm not sure if that makes sense? Of course, whatever we do the ability has to be upgraded to second tier because it's dual-type and that leaves us with an unknown first tier ability. Do we create it as a pure Nature ability to match his core (maybe that purple poison he throws?) or do we give it some other type?

I can see this going a few ways but here are my ideas:

---

Scenario A:

Slash Man is a Nature core robot who unusually leans Cutter type abilities on his own - Slash _____ and Slash Claw. This would give him the unique position of being able to equip two distinct elements without any external assistance - the two Cutter type abilities he learns by level-up and then any Nature types are available to the player.

This would be pretty cool, but I'm not comfortable with only one robot in the whole game having this ability (unless it's a special or bonus character). We would need to find another robot - preferably from the same game - to give this same mechanic to (learning abilities that don't match one's core). Spring Man perhaps?

Scenario B:

Slash Man is a Nature core who learns Nature abilities like everyone else. - ____ Claw and Slash Claw. This would make him easier to work with for sure but I'm not sure if it would match his character or make sense. If we need to change the naming scheme of his abilities to something other than "Slash" or "Claw" I'm open to it (we've done it before) but we still need to stick with the theme of both abilities sharing a common word.

---

I'm not sure which is better, but I think it's important to figure this out before we make these characters unlockable. We don't want another Top Man situation where everyone equips Explode type abilities and then his core changes in the next update. :|

Anyway, thanks for discussing this guys and helping to sort out all the details parallel to me working on the update - makes it much easier to skim the community for recommended changes and apply them all at once. :)

Regarding Spring Man, if electricity healed him in his original game then I agree that Electric should be his affinity. I have updated his data to reflect this, let me know if this looks good.


'robot_token' => 'spring-man',
'robot_core' => 'impact',
'robot_weaknesses' => array('cutter', 'flame'),
'robot_resistances' => array('impact'),
'robot_affinities' => array('electric'),



I think Turbo Man on the other hand should have an immunity to Electric type damage, mainly due to his rubber wheels (at least I assume they're rubber). I also think you're right about his typing, so I changed him to a Swift core. This of course means his first tier ability will have to be a pure Swift type and Scorch Wheel will have to be upgraded to a second tier ability. Let me know if you have any ideas.


'robot_token' => 'turbo-man',
'robot_core' => 'swift',
'robot_weaknesses' => array('shadow', 'earth'),
'robot_resistances' => array('swift'),
'robot_immunities' => array('electric'),



Now, I would have normally given Cloud Man an affinity Electric (given his design and appearance) but as you said we don't want two robots from the same game with the same affinity so... maybe just let him have it as a resistance? Or would giving two robots with an Electric affinity not be that big of a deal and I should just do it?


'robot_token' => 'cloud-man',
'robot_core' => 'electric',
'robot_weaknesses' => array('explode', 'wind'),
'robot_affinities' => array('electric'),
'robot_immunities' => array('earth'),