What would you do in a sequel to OB64 to improve it?

As the title says, what would you like to see in a sequel?

As for me, I think a unique addition wold be a multiplayer feature! I feel like it would be really neat, and since the maps are played in real-time, it wouldn't be too awkward I think. I've always wanted an srpg with a proper head-to-head mode.

There's so much I love about this game, it's hard for me to think about what I would change, so help me out here. What would you do differently?

Yes, multiplayer would be awesome! It would extend the life of the game so much!

I would also like to see random missions, like all of a sudden a band of rebels took over Blah blah region.
Just more fighting to do during the main quest and after. Speaking of which I would also like to continue
play after the game has been beaten. Perhaps even a 're-challenge' a mission feature.

Also, more classes, always more classes. And balance in the classes. Like equal number of male and female
class types.

What else...oh! I would also like more side missions, you know stuff that gives more history and culture to the
world. More diplomatic alternatives, and of course character customization.

I mean, Ogre Battle 64 could have a squeal that could top even Ogre Battle 64. A remake would be just as
interesting. Like a harder difficulty and new areas.

yes yes yes! Those would all add so much replay value and extra game time. I was just thinking that there should be more dialogue choices that affect the story progression. Like there could be more paths and such so you would have to play the game through a couple of times in order to do every mission, rather than just having slight differences like it is now. Just making it more difficult would be a huge improvement!

Oh, and I liked the tarot cards from MotBQ, they wouldn't have to be in exactly like they were, but the theme is pretty cool.

I would defineatly add a feature that allows the player to create their own class,the appearence depending on the equipment.Perhaps even make a new evolution system for dead male soldiers(instead of all dead males evolving into zombies, maybe a small percentage can turn into special classes,like the angel knight).
For classes, I would add more females that attack head-to-head,unlike most that attack long range.
That might be the reason I like to make a bunch of female centurions instead of male ones.

Yeah, a create/customize-a-class feature would be awesome, but I think it would have to be for the main character only. There are enough classes out there for all the units in your army to have a pretty good variety, and a sequel that added classes already would have even more variety!

Make an adjustment to the character alignment mechanic to make it a bit more manageable and user friendly. Instead of individual characters alignment going up or down based on the individual enemy characters they kill in combat, make it a unit based mechanic that takes in the average alignment of the entire unit versus the average alignment of the enemy unit. Similar to how liberating/capturing strongholds works (I plan on writing an article pertaining to how Alignment averaging via character swapping can be used to liberate any stronghold).

E.G. A neutral unit (alignment average 50) destroys a chaotic neutral unit (alignment average 35) of the same level. Each member of the neutral unit will receive an alignment gain regardless of which characters killed enemy characters and those that did not.

This method prevents high damage dealing classes (3x swinging physical characters and AoE spellcasters) from outpacing in terms of Alignment supportive/tank members of their unit who generally net fewer "kills." One could argue that balancing mechanic counteracts this, but it generally fails in the second half of the game when player units generally become powerful enough to destroy enemy units in a single combat. Due to this, as we all know by now, damage dealing members of a unit will continue to outpace other members in alignment until they reach absolute lawful (100) or absolute chaotic (0), which of course support members of the unit will immediately follow suit simultaneously (ironically, due to said alignment balancing mechanic). This results in ever-so-common polarized units, which become so lawful or chaotic that they reach a point of no return regardless of who they kill. This is why neutral units are so difficult to maintain late game when the majority of enemy units will either be neutral or chaotic. I don't consider my solution to be a silver bullet, but it would make alignment juggling a bit less of a headache for players who don't want to end up with polarized units late game.

Those are some really good points about the alignment system Marjin.

They would really need to improve upon it, or remove it.

I agree, marjin, that's a great idea! It would certainly make it so I don't have to mix-n-match my neutral aligned units to keep them truly neutral!

A cure for Zombification, and Holy attacks only disable undead for the rest of the mission, instead of permanently killing them.

Nix the male/female split... lets get progressive here! Instead, classes could be based on Pedras (eg. maybe Berserkers have to be Fire or Earth, Archers have to be Wind). It also would create a way to identify elements, thereby allowing you to counter with the correct ones, and create some asymmetry between the elements (hey, it worked for Vantage Master).

Multi-tiered missions. Meaning it'd be like Fire Emblem or Supreme Commander where the mission area expands after the goal is achieved, and you are given a new goal. Much more story telling potential and possibility for interesting scenarios.

A new way of handling zombies and undead: a necromancer class! It would have a regular decent attack, but when it uses that attack it can bring back a dead unit as a zombie. The necromancer would also be able to resurrect and control dead enemy units as undead, unless that unit also had a necromancer (if the enemy unit fought something else, resurrected undead would come back under that unit's control).

Maybe a couple of new Tactics? I was thinking of some that changed what happened during battle or after battle, but I haven't thought of anything that would be any good (without being broken!). I was thinking like a defense tactic that'd improve defense, or a skirmish strategy that'd allow for hit and run tactics. Stuff like that.




Here is a bunch of less interesting balance/vanity changes:

Killing the leader shouldn't disable control of the unit. Instead, the leader should give a bonus to attack that is lost when the leader is killed. Selecting a new leader doesn't restore the bonus right away thanks to loss of Unity.

Legions should be able to fill every vacant slot in the entire Legion with soldiers, without costing a single character. It also shouldn't depend on soldiers to maintain the legion core, and shouldn't take up more than a single deployed unit. That oughta make up for the crappy maneuverability!

The Opinion Leader (or whatever the leader would be called) should have the same ability as the enemy leader where they have the Immobile movement type when sitting on their stronghold, which makes it so you can't lose battles due to damage.

Buff Beasts! Seriously, I'm not going to spend 2 character slots on a Beast that is worse than ONE normal character! Let them block out to their sides like in MotBQ or something.

If there is going to be multiplayer, something needs to be done about unit stacking. It kinda kills the strategy of choosing who to attack when you can just lump 10 units onto one spot or send them all at once at something.

Multiplayer would need a time limit, and an alternate winning condition like controlling a larger number of towns when the time is up. The game would also probably need a cooldown or something on formation switches.

Bring back spells and specials that can target any unit regardless of position. It should probably be an advanced tech that doesn't give you many uses per battle, but I like the concept of it. Maybe it could be a beast only thing.

Nerf field magic. Who cares about positioning when you can just hit the whole field? It would probably be best to have most units as single targeters.

General rebalance for units. I figure that a Ninja could be a guy that hits many times per battle, but weakly so as to do heavy damage but be nerfed by armored units. Maybe. Berserkers should have a small number of big hits in contrast. Kinda like Zerglings vs... oh I dunno Siege Tanks or something. I really want a differentiation between Berserkers, Paladins, and Sword Masters beyond "Oh I have the Ogre Blade so I want one Sword Master". I also want to do something about the teams loaded with 3 Paladins and 2 Archmages :P

erppc wrote:

awesome-ness here

I think you got some great ideas here! Also, welcome to the forum. >w<

Please don't be like me.

For years now I've been working on a game document for a sequel to OB64. I've written down the story, character bios, timeline, class descriptions, combat mechanics, drawn sketches and what do I have to show for it... nothing. My dream game is still just a dream.

If you are a game designer, artist, programmer, writer please use these ideas (with permission of course) and build us a worthy sequel to one of favorite all time games.

But I digress...

I agree with a lot of the suggestions given; "diplomatic alternatives", multiplayer, side missions, "nix the male/female split", a necromancer class and most importantly fix the alignment system. What I would add is:

1) Changes in alignment should be based on the choices made not who a character fights - It's more logical that way and would be easier to manage units.

2) The player's Chaos frame should be obvious - It should be shown in one of the status screens. Furthermore it should affect everything; what classes, missions and special characters are available, how dark or pleasant the music is, and even how the game looks. (For instance maybe the menus get a dark red tint if you have a low alignment.)

3) Unit specializations - Similar to erppc's idea I think units should be specialized as defender, infiltrators and artillery. Defenders would be used for guarding strongholds, infiltrators would be used to attack strongholds and artillery units would support other units with ranged attacks.

4) More movement options - Units should be able to sprint and set to follow other units. The sprint would be on a cooldown and/or bring on fatigue quicker. Following would stop once either unit entered combat.

5) Elem Pedras should be used more strategically and not just for DPS - I image Elem Pedras that apply some status effect: for instance the Earth pedra would immobilize the enemy, the Wind pedra would summon a tornado that could change where the enemy is facing, the Virtue pedra would protect the unit and the Bane pedra would jinx the enemy decreasing their accuracy and even causing them to hurt themselves.

6) Better storytelling - Avoid lengthy cutscenes or text; pet peeves of mine. Spoken dialog during missions and short movies that the player can watch outside of the game would be very effective. Also if the sequel is even more epic I would suggest treating it episodically so the player can keep up with the story.

7) Make the ogres more terrifying - I would love it if the ogres were more of a threat and required a different strategy. Maybe even have one ogre take up all 9 spaces in a unit.

Classes renamed - (This is one is minor but...) Instead of the beginning human class being called soldiers I would cal them fighters instead. It seems more logical to me to evolve from a primitive fighter to a trainer soldier. Expanding on that I would have the male fighter evolve from fighter -> soldier -> knight and a female evolve from fighter -> archer -> amazon. (Once again it sounds better to go from an archer to an amazon.)

SirKnowS wrote:

awesome-text

All great suggestions. Also, welcome.

my ideas

1) either buff up newly promoted Fighters/Amazons, or make them easier to promote.

2) Give us a second Dragoon

3) Make the witch do area of effect attacks like in MOTBQ, or give them some small damage attack to they aren't so uselss.

4) (I use an Emulator but still) Give us a "speed up time button"

5) Item Set Boots, if you equip a character with items that are a set you get a small boost or somthing

6) This one depends on what part of the story line the game would be from, for OB64 is number 6 of a 8 part series? But let some old faces show up. Troi, Dio, Leia if after, or Sheen, or Saridin if Before.

7) More side plots for the supporting Characters

Custom Colours for you army, intead of classic, blue/red.

9) A class for the Beserker to evolve into, In MOTBQ they became evil ones, who in this game are the black knights, but not really an evolution for the berserk class in OB64.

10) Some better Enemy formations, I know the beginning is supposed to be easier but some formation later on, come on!

Thoraxe wrote:

Awesome. I really like the item set idea.

Also, WELCOME

I would also like to see some more stories on the supporting characters. Especially the little characters that only even have like a single scene devoted to them. It would be cool if they each had their own small set of quests and maybe even their own special mission!

I also agree that both Chaos Frame and Alignment should get some changes in how they work to make it easier to manage and understand. (If it weren't for the internet I wouldn't even know about how either of them work!)

I've seen lots of interesting ideas so far!

I would add a question at the beginning that the archbishop asks. It would be " please tell me the next graduate's gender".that would allow the main character to either be a boy or a girl. He should also ask " what does thou specialise in."then you could choose their class from special classes such as gladiator(magnus and dios class) or just any other class.

I think it would be very cool if you could pick which ending of OB64 you wanted to continue. Do you want to see Magnus raise or fall? And what about the demon baby? I think that would be epic!!!

gooncho7 wrote:

I think it would be very cool if you could pick which ending of OB64 you wanted to continue. Do you want to see Magnus raise or fall? And what about the demon baby? I think that would be epic!!!

Nice! Also, Welcome!

The demon baby sounds like awesome fodder for a sequel!

More classes, maybe in the form of a third tier or maybe just in general.

Each row should get a different attack or each unit has multiple attacks that you assign them when you place them. Example, you place Mags in front. He can either use slash x3 or you can assign him say... Cleave that he can use once but it hits all unit in the same row. Mages could get x3 single target attack or x1 area attack. etc.

This is a minor visual one.

I'd give named characters recolored other units as well.

Example: Troi has a unique color scheme, but once he's promoted, or changes class, he looks like everyone else.

I understand that was probably a memory issue on a cartridge, so I don't mind it too much.

Muliciber wrote:

This is a minor visual one.

I'd give named characters recolored other units as well.

Example: Troi has a unique color scheme, but once he's promoted, or changes class, he looks like everyone else.

I understand that was probably a memory issue on a cartridge, so I don't mind it too much.

Oh I love this idea. I mean having a Gold this ---> would have been AMAZING!

Man, these are some great ideas.

I would so love to follow the "secret" ending in which Magnus is defeated by Destin in the bonus chapter and ends up following him. They return to Palatinus together to right the wrongs of the past.

One thing I would really like would be a higher difficulty level setting, so the enemy units actually look organised. You wouldn't even need to buff them, just give them all a proper formation (especially early game... srsly 1 wizard in front with 2 golems in the back? REALLY?).

Obviously having Hero characters keep their custom colors would be awesome. Imagine Black Knight Asnabel. It's so incredibly badass, the console wouldn't be able to handle it.

Max Magnus wrote:

I would so love to follow the "secret" ending in which Magnus is defeated by Destin in the bonus chapter and ends up following him. They return to Palatinus together to right the wrongs of the past.

On a similar note, I always wanted to follow a path were Magnus killed Frederick and didn't join the revolution.

Muliciber wrote:

Max Magnus wrote:

I would so love to follow the "secret" ending in which Magnus is defeated by Destin in the bonus chapter and ends up following him. They return to Palatinus together to right the wrongs of the past.

On a similar note, I always wanted to follow a path were Magnus killed Frederick and didn't join the revolution.

Oh snap. Now that would've been interesting, seeing Magnus trying to change the country from within. This would've changed a lot about the interactions between him and Yumil as well.