Game Making: Start By Healing the Player

Whether the game system is fun or not, and whether the plot is exciting or not, these all require players to spend a certain amount of time and experience the game in person before they can feel it.

These are all contents belonging to the lining, but the human setting is different from the map art. These are the contents belonging to the face, and the player can feel the charm of it as long as he glances at it.

The character setting full of beauty, not to mention that it can conquer players immediately, can definitely make many players have some interest in the game.

The second is the map in the game. The biggest difference from the traditional RPG is that the "Xenoblade Chronicles" series is a huge map with an open world scale, and the sense of world it creates.

The main reason why traditional RPGs have to be crowned with the word "traditional" is that for traditional RPGs, that is the limitation.

If someone asks where is the fun in The Witcher: Wild Hunt, players can give examples from many aspects, the adventure stories of the white wolf Geralt and Ciri, the changes in the Southern Empire and the Northern Kingdom, or unique worldview performance...

But if this object becomes a traditional RPG game, then the answer is almost invariably liking a certain character and liking a certain story.

The creation of a sense of the world is very weak, and it is still a typical story-driven mode, so even if Nebula Games has made the concept of open world popular through "Red Dead Redemption" and "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild", the traditional For RPG, I still haven't tried the open world because its core doesn't match.

A planned story is still told within a relatively static confines, and it doesn’t matter what the story doesn’t touch.

However, in "Xenoblade Chronicles", it is completely different. The huge map is open-ended exploration. In the "Xenoblade Chronicles" series, the map is not part of the main line. Players can clear all the way without any exploration.

At the same time, the maps in the "Xenoblade Chronicles" series are not just piled up areas.

If you say "Xenoblade Chronicles 2" itself, all kinds of characters that satisfy the player are very charming.

Then the design of the game map in "Xenoblade Chronicles 2" is definitely an artistic performance, which can only be described as stunning.

The stage in the game is the world of Alstor, which is covered by a sea of ​​clouds, and there are many wild creatures living in the sea of ​​clouds, including giant creatures called "giant beasts".

Just like a movable continent, life and civilization are bred on the bodies of these giant beasts, and the scenery displayed on different giant beasts is completely different.

From the wild and overgrown Gularian, to the colorful Invidia, the industrial wasteland of the Spebia Empire, the religious Arcadia, the Liberalitas Islands in the sea of ​​clouds, the vast snow field and Losulia of ancient civilization buildings.

Of course, if you only look at it from the perspective of art style, then it can only be said that it is excellent but not amazing.

What is truly amazing is the perfect combination of open-world maps and dungeon-style levels in the game.

Each map has a multi-layered design. The roots of Gula create a tree maze, and Spelbia is the lost way of a steel factory, adding a lot of complex exploration to the map, and the map itself has some hidden Side roads and amazing spots that require special skills to reach.

Just like the map design of "Dark Soul", the theme map of each giant beast in "Xenoblade Chronicles 2" is three-dimensional.

At the same time, the concept of the sea of ​​​​clouds has also been added to the game. There are ebb and flow of tides at different times. Some places can only go when the tide of the sea of ​​​​clouds is high, and there are also places where you can go only when the tide is low.

With Ruan Ningxue, after confirming the problem of game art, I came to the conference room and listened to Chen Xu's description of the core ideas of the whole game. Everyone, including Meng Zuo and Qin Yi, was a little surprised.

Because the amount of work is too large, the inner core of the traditional RPG is fused with the skin of the open world.

That's what they feel, and so far it's just been a design on the map.

"I won't say much about music and plot performances. I will set up two special departments to carry out the follow-up." Chen Xu watched everyone make a decision.

For traditional RPGs, music and performances can be said to be the top priority, and more simply put, these two are the foundation.

An excellent traditional RPG, let's not say whether it is fun or not, but the performance and music are definitely not bad.

Just like the previous "Xenoblade Chronicles" series, music is definitely one of the cores. Even the more criticized Xenoblade Chronicles X is more just because the connection between the scene and the soundtrack makes the player more playful, but it is not The soundtrack is not good enough.

After confirming these contents, Chen Xu also explained the combat system of "Xenoblade Chronicles".

This is also a more important core, and it is also the content that supports the depth of this game.

The game's combat system is complicated, if it's complicated.

Its essence is still the ATB turn-based battle, but it seems to be more free, and there is a core setting in the game that is the different blade, each of which has four martial skills but three equipped, and has four at the same time. Different levels of killing, and each character can equip up to three different blades, and the different blades are bound to different weapon types.

In the game, players will automatically attack according to different weapons, and the automatic attack is divided into three different stages. The attack power becomes stronger at one time. At the same time, if the attack is successful, you can also accumulate the martial skill slot of different blades. When the martial skill slot is full, you can activate the martial skill skill. , and martial arts skills can accumulate nirvana gauges, and according to the accumulated nirvana gauges, different levels of nirvana can be activated.

Then release the nirvana in the order of 123, and you can trigger the different blade combo. Each blade has different attributes. After triggering the different blade combo, it can generate a lot of damage, but it will increase the enemy's endurance ball with the corresponding attribute. , up to 8 balls

You can also accumulate team slots when performing automatic attacks, martial arts attacks, and slay attacks.

At this time, you can use the team slot to launch a team chain attack, and let all teammates take turns to release a kill, thereby destroying the attribute ball. Once the attribute ball is destroyed, a stronger chain attack can be added. When the attribute ball is destroyed, it will increase the damage. Ball slot, when the ball slot is full, you can also launch a full-break finishing move to deal a lot of damage to monsters.

In addition, the game can also cancel automatic attacks through martial arts, cancel martial arts with martial arts, and cancel martial arts with nirvana to increase extra damage and energy, and the martial arts themselves also have additional effects, in the order of breaking defense, falling to the ground, floating, and slamming Unleashing martial skills can trigger a more powerful field-controlling skill, Blade Master Combo. At the same time, if the Blade Master Combo overlaps with the Different Blade Combo, it can also trigger Fusion Combo...

Of course it sounds complicated, but it is not impossible to say it simply.

Hang the ball, break the ball.

This is a core gameplay of the combat system of "Xenoblade Chronicles". Of course, in the later stage, along with the training of Xenoblade Chronicles and the collection of equipment, there are also various routines, but from the basic setting of the game, the main gameplay It is a mechanism that extends around the attribute ball.

It can be said that this combat system is indeed a persuasion for many players, but if you can master it proficiently, you will really feel the refreshing feeling.

For many "Xenoblade Chronicles" players, after successfully mastering the combat system, they all have a common idea, that is, why this strange health bar is so short, and the ball can't be done after only a few hangs.

Listening to Chen Xu's brief introduction to the battle system, everyone in the team was not too dizzy. After all, everyone sitting here is a leader in the industry. Although Chen Xu's words are very complicated, everyone can clearly feel this. The maturity of the combat system.

On the contrary, compared with the combat system, they are concerned about another aspect of the people present.

"Mr. Chen, according to what you said, the player will control a single character in the game, and the rest of the teammates will be controlled by AI, but as a traditional RPG, it needs to have enough depth of development, and the plot is different from the controllable one. The blade must have strengths and weaknesses, and even only exists as a weapon, how to solve it in this "Blade of Xenomorphism"?" Meng Zuo asked a most crucial point.

Therefore, there are only so many different blades involved in the plot. However, the different blades themselves exist as a weapon system. It is a bit unreasonable to have only a few weapons in an RPG game. At the same time, considering whether the weapons will become decorations or drinking water How to balance the different blade is a very critical point in the situation where the machine guard has no sense of existence.

Listening to Meng Zuo's words, Chen Xu couldn't help but smile slightly: "So, this involves the next mechanism, you can call it... um... bloodline detection mechanism."