Basics
Well, back to the old mechanic of fishing. Still kinda bothers me how fish aren't in the game yet. I made several fish early in Eliatopia's development, but I also added four fish to the roster.:
Beyond that, there will be some difficulty looking for fish in some spots, namely in places like the sewers and Red Leaf Hills Creek since one has a lot of obstacles strewn about while the other is a big ol' cliff next to water! In order to deal with stuff like this, I made something inspired by Epic Battle Fantasy 5's water travel: a raft.
https://i.imgur.com/nQ4D7Og.png
I initially considered a boat, but I figured a raft would make water travel easier while also maximizing visibility when riding along the waters of Eliatopia.
Anti-Exploitation
Of course it goes without saying that Helmet Heroes' fishing mechanic is full of mistakes: being exploitable to the point where nobody fished right being probably the biggest mistake HH made. To prevent exploitation, I had looked at fishing in Sega Bass Fishing and Big the Cat's story from Sonic Adventure and all the good fishing mechanics from those games. Here's what I found.
1. You are limited to fishing above water. The game already limits you above water since when a player is underwater, all he can do is flail around.
2. Both Sega Bass Fishing and Sonic Adventure made you actually cast your line out a bit. Difference is one only let you cast forward while the other let you cast wherever you please. Mouse-aiming when casting would allow you to cast wherever you please much like Big the Cat's fishing mechanics in Sonic Adventure.
3. In both Sega Bass Fishing and Sonic Adventure, fish will refuse to bite the lure if they're a certain distance away from you. Sega Bass Fishing seemed to have that limit set at around 10 feet while Sonic Adventure had it set at around 5 meters (about 16.4 feet). Eliatopia should have it to where the fish needs to be at least 10 feet (the distance of a grenade toss) away from your position if you want them to bite the lure.
4. Sega Marine Fishing expands upon Sega Bass Fishing's casting mechanic in that it lets you cast at any distance, yet to balance the game out, it restricts casting distance. A minimum casting distance of 10 or 12 feet directly in front of you (sinking will increase the lure's distance away from you, obviously) will suffice.
5. For a more fun fishing experience that prevents exploitation, I recommend a fight mechanic, preferably Sega Bass Fishing's as it is more realistic and it offers you a choice between reeling a fish in and making a fish you don't want let go (Hook Off!). I don't recommend line breaks as those would be very annoying due to forcing resets onto the player.
These five ideas combined prevent exploitation in the best way possible. Other fishing mechanics from other games are good in their own right.
1. Animal Crossing, which Eliatopia has done some homework from, featured a simple "line of sight" mechanic, meaning that the lure simply had to be in a fish's line of sight to grab its attention. This would be the best way to go due to the ease of implementation and lowered annoyance factor.
2. While not necessarily recommended, Cat Goes Fishing had a strange bait mechanic that had the player use smaller fish as a bait for larger fish. If this mechanic were implemented into Eliatopia, I would recommend that fish of equal size or smaller ignore the bait fish in order to reduce the annoyance factor. This would make fish more useful than just being turkey-clones.
What To Do With Fish
Of course the other mistakes HH made in fishing are the blandness of fish (they're all just alternative versions of the turkey), senseless usability (who in their right mind would use fish to make equipment? All fish do is rot and stink up the joint.), and the fact that shinies are forced upon players (shiny fish are just too rare for any form of functionality).
For fish, I have an idea for them that's both more realistic and more unique. I would believe that fish would work best as trophies for decorations in guild houses (which I think should be accessed through a clickable button that lets you switch between the main game and the guild house), and why not? Wall mounts are decorations.
Another idea I had for fish would be contribution points for a culinary talent. Simply put, if you either make fish into sashimi or bake fruits into pies (the latter which would require the pie tin shield), you'll get Culinary XP to gain Culinary levels. This talent would improve consumable strength by 10% all the way up to a Maximum of Level 10 where edible consumables have twice the strength they originally have (ex. Blueberries restoring 14 MP as opposed to 7; Watermelon restoring 80 HP as opposed to 40 HP).
As for selling them, I'd say much like the Smoke Bombs, they'd have a set price.
The first idea is more fun while the latter is more mechanically useful.
As for shinies, I recommend that shiny fish DON'T exist. If they have to exist, I recommend that, like shiny pokemon, they don't exist for any purpose other than aesthetics. Anything not aesthetic would just make shiny fish feel forced.
Copying More of Animal Crossing's Homework
Eliatopia had a thing for copying Animal Crossing's homework, and I think that's a good thing too. In Helmet Heroes, size and rarity are one of the same for some reason. This wouldn't make sense as the coelacanth, a notable example of a rare fish, is much rarer than a yellowfin tuna despite their similar sizes. Animal Crossing handled fish rarity better by making it independent of size, which is far more realistic than HH's size=rarity deal. For example, let's take a look at two of the most well-known oceanic fish from Animal Crossing: the sea bass and the barred knifejaw. In Animal Crossing New Horizons, this is what I got in terms of size and rarity.:
Sea Bass:
Rarity: Common (*) (1-5 stars; 5 is the rarest)
Size: 5 (1 is the smallest, 6 is the largest)
Barred Knifejaw:
Rarity: Scarce (****)
Size: 3
You can easily tell that despite being larger than the barred knifejaw, the sea bass is much easier to find than the barred knifejaw.
Conclusion
This is all complex, which I think is good because the best way to handle unique mechanics is to give it the right amount of complexity to make it as much fun as possible while also providing a nice break from the action.
Revisiting Fishing
Re: Revisiting Fishing
Wow! I think that's a great idea! (That was a lot of words tho O_o)
Re: Revisiting Fishing
...Flashlight237 wrote: ↑Sun Jul 19, 2020 2:22 pmBasics
Well, back to the old mechanic of fishing. Still kinda bothers me how fish aren't in the game yet. I made several fish early in Eliatopia's development, but I also added four fish to the roster.:
Beyond that, there will be some difficulty looking for fish in some spots, namely in places like the sewers and Red Leaf Hills Creek since one has a lot of obstacles strewn about while the other is a big ol' cliff next to water! In order to deal with stuff like this, I made something inspired by Epic Battle Fantasy 5's water travel: a raft.
https://i.imgur.com/nQ4D7Og.png
I initially considered a boat, but I figured a raft would make water travel easier while also maximizing visibility when riding along the waters of Eliatopia.
Anti-Exploitation
Of course it goes without saying that Helmet Heroes' fishing mechanic is full of mistakes: being exploitable to the point where nobody fished right being probably the biggest mistake HH made. To prevent exploitation, I had looked at fishing in Sega Bass Fishing and Big the Cat's story from Sonic Adventure and all the good fishing mechanics from those games. Here's what I found.
1. You are limited to fishing above water. The game already limits you above water since when a player is underwater, all he can do is flail around.
2. Both Sega Bass Fishing and Sonic Adventure made you actually cast your line out a bit. Difference is one only let you cast forward while the other let you cast wherever you please. Mouse-aiming when casting would allow you to cast wherever you please much like Big the Cat's fishing mechanics in Sonic Adventure.
3. In both Sega Bass Fishing and Sonic Adventure, fish will refuse to bite the lure if they're a certain distance away from you. Sega Bass Fishing seemed to have that limit set at around 10 feet while Sonic Adventure had it set at around 5 meters (about 16.4 feet). Eliatopia should have it to where the fish needs to be at least 10 feet (the distance of a grenade toss) away from your position if you want them to bite the lure.
4. Sega Marine Fishing expands upon Sega Bass Fishing's casting mechanic in that it lets you cast at any distance, yet to balance the game out, it restricts casting distance. A minimum casting distance of 10 or 12 feet directly in front of you (sinking will increase the lure's distance away from you, obviously) will suffice.
5. For a more fun fishing experience that prevents exploitation, I recommend a fight mechanic, preferably Sega Bass Fishing's as it is more realistic and it offers you a choice between reeling a fish in and making a fish you don't want let go (Hook Off!). I don't recommend line breaks as those would be very annoying due to forcing resets onto the player.
These five ideas combined prevent exploitation in the best way possible. Other fishing mechanics from other games are good in their own right.
1. Animal Crossing, which Eliatopia has done some homework from, featured a simple "line of sight" mechanic, meaning that the lure simply had to be in a fish's line of sight to grab its attention. This would be the best way to go due to the ease of implementation and lowered annoyance factor.
2. While not necessarily recommended, Cat Goes Fishing had a strange bait mechanic that had the player use smaller fish as a bait for larger fish. If this mechanic were implemented into Eliatopia, I would recommend that fish of equal size or smaller ignore the bait fish in order to reduce the annoyance factor. This would make fish more useful than just being turkey-clones.
What To Do With Fish
Of course the other mistakes HH made in fishing are the blandness of fish (they're all just alternative versions of the turkey), senseless usability (who in their right mind would use fish to make equipment? All fish do is rot and stink up the joint.), and the fact that shinies are forced upon players (shiny fish are just too rare for any form of functionality).
For fish, I have an idea for them that's both more realistic and more unique. I would believe that fish would work best as trophies for decorations in guild houses (which I think should be accessed through a clickable button that lets you switch between the main game and the guild house), and why not? Wall mounts are decorations.
Another idea I had for fish would be contribution points for a culinary talent. Simply put, if you either make fish into sashimi or bake fruits into pies (the latter which would require the pie tin shield), you'll get Culinary XP to gain Culinary levels. This talent would improve consumable strength by 10% all the way up to a Maximum of Level 10 where edible consumables have twice the strength they originally have (ex. Blueberries restoring 14 MP as opposed to 7; Watermelon restoring 80 HP as opposed to 40 HP).
As for selling them, I'd say much like the Smoke Bombs, they'd have a set price.
The first idea is more fun while the latter is more mechanically useful.
As for shinies, I recommend that shiny fish DON'T exist. If they have to exist, I recommend that, like shiny pokemon, they don't exist for any purpose other than aesthetics. Anything not aesthetic would just make shiny fish feel forced.
Copying More of Animal Crossing's Homework
Eliatopia had a thing for copying Animal Crossing's homework, and I think that's a good thing too. In Helmet Heroes, size and rarity are one of the same for some reason. This wouldn't make sense as the coelacanth, a notable example of a rare fish, is much rarer than a yellowfin tuna despite their similar sizes. Animal Crossing handled fish rarity better by making it independent of size, which is far more realistic than HH's size=rarity deal. For example, let's take a look at two of the most well-known oceanic fish from Animal Crossing: the sea bass and the barred knifejaw. In Animal Crossing New Horizons, this is what I got in terms of size and rarity.:
Sea Bass:
Rarity: Common (*) (1-5 stars; 5 is the rarest)
Size: 5 (1 is the smallest, 6 is the largest)
Barred Knifejaw:
Rarity: Scarce (****)
Size: 3
You can easily tell that despite being larger than the barred knifejaw, the sea bass is much easier to find than the barred knifejaw.
Conclusion
This is all complex, which I think is good because the best way to handle unique mechanics is to give it the right amount of complexity to make it as much fun as possible while also providing a nice break from the action.
Re: Revisiting Fishing
I love the idea of fishing but i have a few suggestions
1) The fish can be made in only a few sets ( so scammers and people trying to price gauge them don't ruin the games economy, also works for #3)
2) If you use them for Hp or Mp restoration, Please add a system were you must cook them first, and a twist could be that fruit can be mixed in with it and could add a specail twist like damage boost for 10 mins.
3) Though I do Like the idea of trade systems, I think fish should be non tradeable. My reasoning? Well with HH, people price gauged the fish to oblivion, Oh you want a shiny well you gotta pay like 15m for this or 25m for that, I dont think people should fork over a pretty penny just for some fish.
4) a good suggestion if fish can be used for armor and weapon crafting, that you dont really need a certain fish for it, that armor and weapons need a certain amount of fish to build. Each fish can give off like a certain amount of points, say a helmet needs 15 fish to build, a twist could be that some fish could be worth like 2 points and some could be worth 15. I use this idea from monster hunter stories
1) The fish can be made in only a few sets ( so scammers and people trying to price gauge them don't ruin the games economy, also works for #3)
2) If you use them for Hp or Mp restoration, Please add a system were you must cook them first, and a twist could be that fruit can be mixed in with it and could add a specail twist like damage boost for 10 mins.
3) Though I do Like the idea of trade systems, I think fish should be non tradeable. My reasoning? Well with HH, people price gauged the fish to oblivion, Oh you want a shiny well you gotta pay like 15m for this or 25m for that, I dont think people should fork over a pretty penny just for some fish.
4) a good suggestion if fish can be used for armor and weapon crafting, that you dont really need a certain fish for it, that armor and weapons need a certain amount of fish to build. Each fish can give off like a certain amount of points, say a helmet needs 15 fish to build, a twist could be that some fish could be worth like 2 points and some could be worth 15. I use this idea from monster hunter stories
Re: Revisiting Fishing
I do like the idea of fishing and giving the player other things to do and challenges. However, it's still probably a bit down the to-do list, so I think for now I'll have to put this off. But come time for it, I'll have to remember to revisit this post.