No Core Guard, huh? Will there be any changes to the Robot Cores?




Robot cores will continue to be dropped by robot masters when defeated with a super effective weapons, but they will have different effects when used in battle. Cores used to raise the field multiplier and potentially shift Copy Core robots into other types, but that mechanic turned out to be relatively boring and has been replaced with a new one. When used in battle, robot cores will now be thrown at the target to inflict elemental damage . The amount will be respectable, likely percent-based, but will have no other effect. Clean, simple, and useful - especially given the rarity of certain types in the game. Speaking of which...

About those robot cores... Didn't you say something about "Core Guard"?



I did and I take it back. I was trying to give the cores a more meaningful place in the game while simultaneously balancing out the overpowered starforce mechanic. That was a mistake and the idea was killed off as soon as I came to my senses. Coreguard would have given the player boosted elemental defenses based on the number of cores collected, but a fair and sensible formula for that boost could not be agreed upon and the concept fell out of favour. Instead, cores will have other uses unrelated to the starforce mechanic. Starforce can balance itself out (we'll get to that later).

Okay, so Auto is getting new items. What about Reggae?



When Reggae starts off, he'll have a small collection of Neutral type abilities for purchase. These are your Energy Boost, Attack Support, Defense Break, Experience Booster, and other similar support abilities. While these abilities are helpful, they are not Reggae's speciality.



As his dialogue implies, Reggae loves collecting robot cores and will trade the player a respectable amount of zenny for them... but why? Well, it turns out Reggae uses the elemental power of those cores to create new abilities. Collect and sell enough cores of a certain type and Reggae will begin stocking abilities of a matching element. Give enough Flame Cores to Reggae and his shop will begin to carry abilities like Flame Buster, Flame Overdive, Attack Burn and Defense Blaze in the rotation. The same goes for almost every other core type - sell them to Reggae some sweet Zenny and then come back later to see what new moves he has on offer. The only cores that has no additional effect when sold are Neutral Cores (because those abilities are already available). Even the elusive Copy Core might unlock some new abilities in the shop...



Many of the elemental Shot, Buster, and Overdrive abilities as well as the elemental Boost and Break ones can only be obtained in Reggae's shop using the above method, so it's well worth the effort to collect and trade them in. It should be noted that Reggae's exchange rate for any given core will still be heavily influenced by the player's starforce, though the exact strength of that influence may be tweaked.

What about the shop then? Will anything be new there?



Yes, there are several new items being added to Auto's Shop. Most are pretty straight-forward, but I believe they'll add a bit more strategy and flexibility to battles.





The first set of new items are the pellets and capsules for the other stats. Just like Life Energy and Weapon Energy, there will now be items to restore/boost Attack, Defense, and Speed. There are even Super Pellets and Capsules that boosts all three at once! The Attack Capsule, Defense Pellet, Super Capsule, and the other stat pellets aren't available initially, but appear soon after progressing a bit in the story.





The next set of new items are the score balls. These items grant additional bonus points at the end of a battle, either as a flat amount or as a percentage of the base reward value. A score ball is used mid-battle like any other item but it's effects are not seen until the very end, and even then it's only if you win. Score balls can only be purchased after completing the main game and acquiring the "prototype complete" marker on your save file.

We're still getting alternate outfits... right?



Yes, absolutely. The alts for all unlockable robot masters are already complete, coded into the game, and the mechanics for unlocking them are already in place. Alternate colours/costumes for your robots masters will be unlocked based on how many times you have summoned them into battle, and this unlocking is retroactive. Most users will already have most of the alts unlocked when the update comes out, because any summons you used before the update still count toward the unlock requirements.



It was suggested that I put them in a shop instead (which lead to the concept of a robot named Tron who would run said shop) but in the end I decided against it. Alts will be unlocked automatically based on summon count. Maybe passwords in the future. But no shop. Sorry. Too much extra work for a purely aesthetic feature, and the alts people will want most are likely already the robots they use the most frequently in battle so it's not as bad as a few have suggested. If you like a given robot master and have used them in battle, you likely already have one of their alts. Maybe all of them.



It should be noted that alts have no effect in battle but can be used in story battles, player battles, and even on the leaderboard for a bit of extra flare. Alternately colours robot masters will also appear in-game as enemies for robot masters that have already been unlocked by the player, with the normal-coloured versions being replaced by alpha/beta versions of them in applicable missions. These colours are only there to represent the upgraded power of the robot and the alts themselves have no special properties. Just making that clear.



Standard robot masters each have two new alts (currently) and unlock them after 100 and 200 summons respectively. The support robots each have five new alts (currently) and unlock them after 50, 100, 150, 200, and 250 summons respectively. Copy core robots do not have alts simply because they already change colour frequently in battle. Maybe someday we'll make an exception, but not for this update.

Is the stat thing still happening? "No more 9999"?




Yes, stats are still getting capped as per previous screenshots suggested. The max amount will be 10x their otherwise unboosted max values. Mega Man has an unboosted max life energy of 595, for example, so his max life energy including stat bonuses would be 5950. Any overflow from robots who have already gained more stats then will be technically allowed will automatically be converted into Zenny. That Zenny can be used to buy anything you want in the shop so I think this is fair.

When will the update be ready/done/complete?



I have no idea. I'm hoping sometime before the end of the year but I'm making no promises. I initially thought it would be done by the end of Winter but that never happened so we all have to adjust our expectations. Know that I have not stopped working on it and I'll let you guys know when it's close to being ready. Otherwise, please stop asking. :)

In lieu of a cancelled chat, here are a few preview screenshots to mull over until next week:

I come with news of more changes in the next update, as well as the introduction of a new(ish) character! Say hello to "Tron", a servebot created by Kalinka to help with lab duties and routine maintenance. Though she's unable to offer any real assistance to our heroes in the world of the prototype, she has found a way to make your robots "more beautiful" by tweaking their colour and appearance variables.



Tron will be a new support character that owns the fourth shop, unlocked after you finish the single-player campaign for each doctor. With Tron's inclusion comes a few other changes to the game, listed below. Please note that even these ideas are in-progress and could change before the final release date.

Auto's Shop
- Complete Dr. Light's first chapter to unlock Auto's Shop
- Auto sells battle items and score balls to the player for zenny at full price
- Auto buys battle items and metal screws from the player for zenny at half price
- Inventory of items starts off small but grows as you collect more battle points until all are unlocked
- Immediately useful to the player, mechanics do not change as the game progresses

Reggae's Shop
- Complete Dr. Wily's first chapter to unlock Reggae's Shop
- Reggae sells support abilities to the player for zenny at prices inflated by high starforce values
- Reggae buys robot cores from the player for zenny at prices inflated by high starforce values
- Inventory of abilities starts with only Neutral abilities, but grows to include other elements based on the cores you sell him
- Moderately useful to the player as inventory is randomize and changes only once hourly in real time

Kalinka's Shop
- Complete Dr. Cossack's first chapter to unlock Kalinka's Shop
- Kalinka sells new battle fields to the player for zenny at prices inflated by high coreguard values
- Kalinka buys field/fusion stars from the player for zenny at prices inflated by high coreguard values
- Inventory of fields is constant but each is locked until you can find and scan the associated robot master in battle
- Wishlist of field and fusion stars she is willing to buy changes only once daily in real time
- Not useful to the player until much later in the story when they find their first field or fusion star
- Essential to the player if they want to unlock more robots and collect new types of elemental cores and field/fusion stars

Tron's Shop
- Complete the final chapter in each Dr.'s campaign to unlock Tron's Shop
- Tron sells new alternate outfits to the player for zenny at prices reduced by higher summons counts
- Tron does not buy anything from the player, you'll have to get your zenny elsewhere
- Inventory is randomized each time you reload the shop and expands as you unlock more robots
- Optional to the player with no in-battle effects other than aesthetic changes, purely cosmetic
- Alternate outfits unlocked in this way can also be used as your leaderboard avatar

@Daroach : You've brought it up yourself several times now. Please stop harping on it. You were kicked because you were interrupting a strictly development talk among senior members who are trying to plan future updates for the game. You are always welcome to sign in and listen, but if you're going to talk during a legacy chat you must stay on topic. No posting youtube videos or links to anything else that isn't on-topic as it wastes time and prevents real work from getting done. Please understand and keep your youtube videos and casual chat in the Xat room, otherwise you may be kicked again... and again. Thank you.

It's been a few weeks now, so I think it's okay to share these screenshots with the community at large. That way members who don't frequent the dev chats can still see what's in the works. I wont go into too much detail about them as they may change, but at the very least they'll be fun to analyze and speculate on.

For starters, here are a few updated database page previews:








And here are some screenshots I took today to illustrate the (updated) starforce and coreguard mechanics a bit more:





These changes allow for a slightly more balanced relationship between the two and also allow Neutral-type robots to benefit from the boosts as well. As previously stated, elemental attacks will still be ineffective against the Empty Type Dark Frags, Dark Spires, and Dark Towers but outside of those specific circumstances there's still a lot to be gained from collecting the elemental shards/cores/stars throughout the game.

And just for those wondering what this means for stats, I'll break it down quickly. One of the most common types right now is the Flame Type, and as a result there are currently 183 Flame type stars (6 of which are fusion stars). This translates to a potential maximum +1890 Attack boost whenever you deal Flame type damage. Compare this with the x282 (x99 + x183) limit for Flame Cores, and you have a potential maximum +1410 Defense boost whenever you receive Flame type damage. Not exactly equal, but pretty close and as more updates are released in the future the theoretical maximums will keep each other in check.

That's all for today, and sorry for the gigantic delay but I promise it'll be worth it with all the new content and fixes and mechanics that'll come into play. Thank you for your patience!

@MerryBossMan :

Thanks again for helping me get these previews out. The development process is often long and confusing, but being able to share the highlights and fun parts with the community via whatever means is always nice. :)

@TheGrinch :

I completely agree with what you and Mike are saying about it being too easy to level up and there needing to be changed, but I feel like I should clear something up about how levels work.

The required EXP per level is always equal to 1,000 - as you're all aware - but the actual amount of EXP awarded by each knock-out does change as you level-up your robots. The base EXP for a given enemy regardless of level is equal to the sum of its base Energy, Attack, Defense, and Speed stats. Once calculated, a percentage of that base EXP is awarded based on the target's level compared to your own. If you defeat a robot of a much higher level and therefore stronger than you, you'll receive more EXP. If you defeat a robot that is of a lower level and therefore weaker than you, you'll receive less EXP.

Even though I like this mechanic and I don't want to change it completely, I do agree that it's too easy to exploit and the relative level modifier isn't as effective as I'd hoped. I'll try to include some kind of fix for this update but we'll see what happens.

Back to the Dark Elements / Structures / Crystal-things I'm glad you appreciate the new benefit to Neutral-type abilities. For a long time now (years!) I've been telling people not to worry about the Neutral-types and that - in the long run - they would balance themselves out. Now I'm finally able to show you all how. I sure hope everything works out! :P

And for the collection effort of stars and cores, I will absolutely tweak drop rates but not for the cores or stars. I think that, given the effect of a core is only a 0.5% boost and stars are a full 5% (or 10% for fusion), it makes sense that one would be much easier to collect than the other. That being said, diligent players could easily collect all 99 of a given core before the end of their campaign and therefore block half of all matching elemental damage... but that's not as bad as it sounds.

I'm going to lower the drop rate of restorative items to being very rare (pellet, capsule, tank), and increase the drop rate of small and large screws in instead. Restorative items will still be dropped occasionally, but it will be much easier to get them in the shop. As it stands there is little reason to purchase items in Auto's shop because everything he has in stock can be found in battle with little effort. I think that when enemy forces only drop screws and cores, players will have more of a reason to exchange their rewards for zenny in the shop and trade them for better items. Given that cores have very good sell prices and individually their effect is quite small, I think it stands to reason that new players may underestimate them and sell whatever is plentiful. And as for post-game balance, we can move forward knowing that advanced players will likely be blocking half of all elemental damage and adjust challenge from there.

Or at least that's my thought process right now. As always things are not set in stone and may change next week, tomorrow, or even five minutes from now. "We'll see what happens." :P

@Shadownnico : Thanks for the heads-up. I adjusted the sheet with the x0.01 values and cascaded the results, see the new numbers here:
MMRPG / Elemental Trinity / Calculations V3

Now these make a lot more sense to me. The ideal scenario would be that if two players are evenly matched - both robots are fully trained, all available starforce/coreguard is collected - the damage from their abilities should be pretty low and close to zero. In these scenarios, players are forced to come up with alternate strategies and/or use the available field multipliers and weakness/resistances to their advantage. This is yet another reason why Neutral type abilities are not and will not be as useless as people keep saying they are. Just be patient and all will become clear.

@Santastrike : I was actually making more a reference to Control Spires in terms of function and to the Dark Crystals and Crystal Tokyo of Sailor Moon in terms of appearance, but that works too. :P

Oh, and BossMan has another piece of concept artwork to share with everyone so look forward to that. It will explain the Dark Spire mechanic a bit more and how they'll appear in battle. Pretty exciting stuff!

@Mikey McScrooge :

You've created a unneeded game mechanic to moderate 2 other unneeded game mechanics.
I created the third pillar in a game mechanic relationship that you don't like. From a visual perspective, it all fits together nicely, from a narrative perspective, it makes sense, and from a player perspective it makes you feel super awesome and mega powerful but only in specific situations. Once again, if you want a plain-vanilla Mega Man RPG without lots of moving parts and mechanics, you have other options than the Prototype. I and many other people love when multiple, seemingly straight-forward mechanics come together to balance each other out to provide new contexts and gameplay scenarios.

Of course, you can remedy this by including Star Force in the storyline...
I am. What you consider the storyline and what I do are obviously different things. If it happens in-game and doesn't say otherwise, you can consider the events part of the storyline. Even the player buying new fields from Kalinka is storyline. What we refer to as post-game is really just post-final-destination. Things aren't as rigid as you constantly assume.

It's actually more like than 12,000+ or 13,000+% for some types [Cutter, for example] after all 10,000+
I know that Mike, I was making a fun Dragon Ball Z reference with the "over 9000". I clearly said "over", so I'm not sure how many credit points you expect to get by correcting that specific value. And if you want to get technical, only 102 robot masters are playable and only 96 of them are elemental and capable of producing field stars. Using this handy tool or a little bit of math, you can see that there will be a total of 9120 fusion stars plus the initial 96 field stars when this is all over (9216 total). Because only 8 of the 96 robots in question are Cutter Core, that means the absolute maximum amount of Cutter type Star Force is 7680% (8 field + 760 fusion * 10% boost).

More complaining
I'm sorry if you don't like the way the game is developing, but if you really hate my ideas then you should wait until I upload the game's source code to GitHub. Once it's up there and publicly available, and you can download and tweak settings and features to your heart's content then upload to your own server and run the show there. Maybe even reskin the game with other characters. Might be fun. But so long as you're playing this particular Mega Man RPG, you need to accept that I'm not always going to agree with your ideas and I have no obligation to.

By the way, I'm not the kind of guy who would ban someone or take away their posting privileges for (aggressively) disagreeing with me but you really need to stop with the disrespect and talking down to me like I'm some kind of inexperienced flake. I promise I'll be using that downvote button when it's implemented and I imagine there will be others who have been waiting for it too.

@Mikey McScrooge :

For the love of all that is fun and colourful in the world, would you please just back off for once? I get that you're a Fox-only, Final Destination kind of guy but I'm not and you need to get over that.

I am the lead developer of this game, and at the end of the day I make the calls even if they're unpopular with a small minority of users. I've heard your arguments and suggestions, and I am well aware of all the circumstances you mention, but once again you forget that I am infinitely more knowledgeable about what's going on behind the scenes, what is or isn't possible withing the framework of the game, and what ideas of mechanics are coming up in the future. Add to that the fact that a whole lot of what you're saying is based on assumptions. You assume that all 102 robot masters will be added to the story and affect target enemy levels, you assumed that Neutral stars would be a thing, you assumed that Cache had something to do with Star Force and spent weeks writing a fanfic that is likely now all messed up, and you assume that the "post-game" as it is now will always be considered "post-game". I've been building this thing in layers for years, and many things have changed over that time both in purpose and utility.

Sometimes I know that all the parts of a certain feature or relationship will not be completed together in the same time frame, so I temporarily give them a purpose or stat or mechanic to make them at least a little useful until their true meaning is revealed. Star Force is getting a nerf, Robot Cores are getting a buff, and a new sub-mechanic will start to take place in the latter stages of the game. And no, not just the "post-game" as it is now. When this is all fleshed out, what we refer to as the "end" now may actually only be the middle, and I've long anticipated adding maybe one or two more chapters to the game after the final destination battles and the Slur events, but that's a long ways away it's really not worth fussing over right now.

The elemental forces in the world of the Prototype are quickly getting out of control, but a new mechanic looms in the distance...

Robot Cores - conceived and programmed by Dr.'s Light and Cossack - act as the energy sources for the robots that appear in the Prototype. They allow a robot to use abilities that match their core, and grant a +1% defense boost to received elemental damage of the same type. When collected by the player, their combined Core Guard can boost the elemental resistance of a given type by up to 99%!

Field and Fusion Stars are a powerful, alien energy source introduced into the Prototype by Slur as a means to revive her fallen army and prevent our heroes from escaping her plan. Field Stars grant a +10% attack boost to dealt elemental damage of the same type. Fusion Stars work in much the same way, but contain the power of two different Field Stars in one. When collected by the player, their combined Star Force can boost the elemental effectiveness of a given type by over 9000%!

Overwhelmed by the players' ability to harness the powerful elemental forces within the Prototype, Dark Spires are mysterious and monolithic entities created by Slur as her last stand effort to take out our heroes. Dark Spires appear in battle alongside enemy forces and completely nullify the effects of all elemental forces, rendering Star Force and Core Guard useless. Dark Spires absorb all other elements, so players will have to defeat enemy forces without the aid of their Robot Cores, Field Stars, and Fusion Stars - or - destroy the Dark Spires using only Neutral-type attacks and restore elemental powers to the battlefield.

The goal is to have these new mechanics ready for the Winter Update... but we'll see what happens. Either way, a trinity of forces balancing each other out is something I've wanted to do for a while but I (once again) needed to wait until other pieces were in place. In the mean time, here's some concept artwork I whipped up demonstrating how the Core Guard, Star Force, and Dark Spires will work together in tandem. Thanks again for your patience and please bare with me if it takes a little longer to get everything finished. :P



And for anyone who wants to run the numbers and don't mind getting into depth with calculations, you can review my in-progress findings at the following pastebin link. Please excuse my writing style and any typos you find, I'm more concerned with concept and numbers right now. Calculations are rounded to no more than six decimal places in these calculations, though in-game values may use more precise floating numbers.

MMRPG / Elemental Trinity / Calculations V2
MMRPG / Elemental Trinity / Calculations V3

Idea #7: Star Force is extremely broken, and should go.

Another nope. I am always going to side with the "change it" option rather than the "remove it" option. The negative effect starforce has had on the game's balance and economy cannot be understated, but the solution is not to remove it. It is to re-purpose it, tweak it, or introduce another element that balances it. Coreguard's mechanics and introduction notwithstanding, there are other ways to balance this and I think a lot of people other than yourself would be peeved if we removed a feature they spent 100s of hours with. I think we should scale back the effect of starforce, finalize the coreguard to even things out, and then most importantly, introduce a game element or mechanic that temporarily nullifies both those effects in certain situations. Imagine an enemy or object that - when on the field - prevents all starforce and coreguard from taking effect until destroyed? Maybe we could do something with the elusive "empty" type? Many possibilities.


Idea #8 [last one]: Level 100 isn't enough.

I still do not want to go past level 100. At least grinding for starforce was kind of fun for a while. Each star is a fun colour or combination of two, the field combinations with their mixed backgrounds and mechas are sometimes fun to look at and the different music is always a pleasure. Grinding levels though? Not nearly as interesting. I think increasing a robot's strength or usefulness post-level 100 can be done in other ways than increasing the cap. Maybe, upon reaching level 100, a robot is finally able to use that awesome core-swapping feature that I've heard so much about? Or maybe level 100s have some other thing they can improve upon or upgrade other than their level itself. Reaching level 100 should feel like an accomplishment, not one boring step on the way to 200 or 250 or more.

---

And that's it for today. I need to go to do something that doesn't involve typing, these suggestion replies really take a lot out of me. >_> Either way, thank you for the suggestions and discussions and for getting these ideas out there. Even if I don't agree with your solutions, most of your observations are spot-on and the conversations resulting from them are never a waste. Thank you.

Idea #3: Mechas don't have to be a joke.

I don't want to spent too much time on this one because I agree that mechas are currently bad and need to change, but I already have a few ideas of how to tweak them swirling around in my head. Again, I do not think breaking the stat-mold is the answer, but we'll come back to this after future changes have been implemented.


Idea #4: Critical Hits need to go.

I think there's some confusion about the exact rates, but I do agree that randomness can be... frustrating.

Critical hits happen, by default, 10% of the time. Certain abilities can increase it higher, to like 20%. And yes it is completely random, as far as percent-based chances go. And crits always do 2x damage. I've been playing Pokemon since the Red and Blue days and I had no idea crits ever did anything but 2x... I based the MMRPG's crits on that fact. Guess I need to look something up...

Anyway, I will take this suggestion to heart. Not removing critical hits altogether (I hate that all your ideas are about removing stuff!) - but definitely changing how they work in some way to be more fair and controllable.


Idea #5: No damage-dealing attacks should ignore stats.

I agree on some fronts and not others. I definitely agree about the Needle Cannon (how does one "ignore defense" when it's required for the damage calculation? what is actually happening with that ability?!) but not so much about some of the others.

Rain Flush, as well as any other percent-based actions need to be revised to NOT be affected by starforce or any other modifiers. We'll get into that in the next point though. Needle Cannon should ignore defense boosts (and use the base value), ignore 50% of the current defense, or something else, but it should not ignore defense entirely. Same with Drill Blitz. Others can be tweaked on an individual basis.

I completely disagree about the speed abilities though. Speed is not "ignored" by certain abilities, it's just prioritized lower. As you might have noticed in the database, every ability has a speed. Most have the same speed. A select few are faster than others and "trump" the default speed calculation when used... UNLESS both robots use one of these high-priority abilities. If both abilities have equally boosted speed, it's cancelled out and the robot's speed is taken into account once again. I feel like this alone balances the mechanic. Don't like getting trumped by Quick Boomerang? Use Proto Strike. Don't like getting trumped by Proto Strike? Use it or Mega Slide or Bass Baroque and your speed with triumph once again.


Idea #6: Attacks that deal with percentages are broken.

Yes, they are. I currently have all the percentage-based ability actions being processed as elemental - like the defense boost from Leaf Shield is calculated as a Nature-type action and thus it benefits from starforce. This is because the "damage" and "recovery" mechanics in the game are actually incredibly similar and use lots of the same code - they're just inverted +/- values with a few exceptions. I do agree that this isn't working, however, and some changes are in order.

Possible solutions that are not removing abilities?

1. Make it so all percent-based actions are non-elemental, even if the ability is elemental. The boost from raising a Leaf Shield would be neutral and would therefore ignore any nature starforce or coreboost, making it always recovery the same percent. I don't like this idea because it means certain in-game effects would no longer occur. For example, using Fire Storm after using Leaf Shield will burn the Leaf Shield away and remove its effect. This only happens because the Leaf Shield is weak to flame, and the Fire Storm rotator attaching itself to you knows it's flame type. Attachment weakness triggered.

2. Make it so all recovery actions ignore starforce and coreboost. There are few percent-based actions that should benefit from any kind of boosts without making them broken. This idea feels like it would fix most issues, except for Rain Flush...

3. Do some combination of the two and/or manually reprogram Rain Flush to make it unaffected by starforce. Maybe coreboost is still okay? This topic definitely needs more thought and planning.

I do like Mikey's ideas for status ideas, or some version of it, but it will take a lot of reprogramming and planning. That stat limit thing we'll revisit after the next update, and... neutral starforce will never be a thing. Adjust your expectations accordingly. Neutral type is the lack of a type. It is not a type in itself. In the programming, every other type has a lower-case token/value except neutral type (which has a value or nothing, null, empty, the lack of a value). It just wouldn't work.

[continued in next comment]

Just finished reading through the pastebin for the recent dev chat and the one for your ideas, here are my quick thoughts on your ideas for now. I will continue thinking about them as I go about my week, of course, but these are my initial thoughts.

Idea #1: The base stats of all currently available opponents need a refit.

Nope. All robots that are to be unlockable (as per this image) need to have the same base stats. I feel like this should be incredibly obvious as to why. What would be the point of ever using the MM1 robots after you've unlocked the MM2 or MM3 robots? All playable RMs should have an equal chance of being useful, and giving some higher base stats than others works against that goal in every way.

If the robot masters are currently unbalanced (hint: they are), it's not because of their stats and changing them is not going to fix it. Current imbalances stem from many different things, including but not limited to available abilities, available starforce, field multipliers, current mechanics, and so many other factors. Any one or all of these mechanics can be tweaked to be more beneficial to the robot and - more importantly - many, many abilities are not yet programmed into the game. Wood Man may be useless now with nothing but the Leaf Shield, but with a new ability, a retooling of his current one, and/or a few more nature starforce and you never know. I'm just saying that external factors play a huge role here and a base stat increase is not the answer.

That being said, if this suggestion is in the name of making the game more challenging then we're all forgetting about the bonus stats. These are like EVs in Pokemon - effort values - that get added on top of your robot's base stats for a given level (up until a point), allowing you to surpass your pre-programmed limits. These bonus stats are not reserved for player-characters either, target robots can have them too. I could easily give target RMs in Chapter 1 maybe +100 bonus points for each stat, or +10%, or something, and then +200 in Chapter 2, etc. Whatever the case, I can increase the stats and/or difficulty of future robots without changing their base stats and messing up the whole game.


Idea #2: More Robots need attacks that are theirs and theirs alone.

I agree with the sentiment of this suggestion, but not the suggestion itself. The rules we have established for this game, for this universe, in terms of robot cores and who can equip what, are pretty common knowledge at this point and make for some very interesting and fun scenarios in both the game itself and the fanon around it. I really like them, myself, and while they may strike some as odd at first it definitely goes a long way to making each robot capable of a range of abilities (hypothetically speaking, not all abilities are done of course).

I do agree that it would be nice if other robots had truly unique abilities, and ones that only they could use, but I do not think changing the existing mechanics are the answer. Do you know how much reprogramming that would take? And I'm not just talking about the game itself, but everyone's save file? How many robot I would have to loop through and un-equip abilities that would now be illegal under Mikey's rule? And replace them, programatically, with what? Buster Shots? It doesn't make sense. I think we should find ways to work within the system. Always.

Given that weapon energy is a thing, all abilities have it, and the exact requirements change on a per-robot basis anyway... why not use that? Each robot has a total WE of 10, correct? And WE requirements are halved if the move is the same type and halved again if the move is learned by level-up? Reverse-engineer that. Imagine an ability that requires 40 WE to use. No one could use it... unless they matched the type and learned the move by level-up. What if we made Tier 3 abilities fill this void? Imagine Ice Man having a Tier 3 ability that did some crazy-awesome effect and had a 40 WE cost? When used by Ice Man, that cost would be reduced to 10 exactly... the maximum amount of WE any robot can have. It would almost be like a Giga Attack in the X series - super powerful but uses all energy and leaves you at a disadvantage for a while.

It's just one idea but it's one of many potential additions that don't scrap the foundations we've already built.

[continued in next comment]