   How many powers is too many?
  Hey there,In the game I'm designing, you are a boy who gets powers based of emotions. These powers come in the form of, well, forms that the player can change into.At the moment I have 4 that will be able to transformed into, but I'm considering increasing this number to 9, each one having a different emotion around it.The reason for this was the player gains these powers by defeating other people like him, and absorbing their power. And in the game, there is 9 bosses who use these powers.Would this be too many for this game? Which, by the way, is to be an action/rpg.Lets us know any feedback you have, it will be much apreciatedCheers,James   
  It's a bit hard to say specifically without knowing more about your game and your team. Since you are asking the question, I'm assuming you're worried about something about having the full nine.Some good reasons I can think of for not having the full nine:It's too much work to implement all nine.Some of the powers are redundant; you'd never pick that one over one of the others.It breaks your control system, which would be more elegant with less powers.However, if you're going with one power per emotion per boss, and you're going to have nine bosses, it does make thematic sense to have all nine powers.;  If you're looking for an alternative to giving the player all the abilities at once (eventually) you could possibly use a similar method to the old Mega Man game where the player is given the abilities of defeated bosses, but only retains the power from the most recently defeated; kill boss 1 and you gain power 1, but once you use power 1 to defeat boss to you gain power 2 and lose power 1.  If the player can choose the order in which they face each boss they can then plan things out so that they have the desired power for each fight.   ;  Also keep in mind that (I assume) the last boss is near or is the end of the game and so any power gained from him will see almost no use. Eight powers then might work better in that sense.   ;Quote:Original post by jbadamsIf you're looking for an alternative to giving the player all the abilities at once (eventually) you could possibly use a similar method to the old Mega Man game where the player is given the abilities of defeated bosses, but only retains the power from the most recently defeated; kill boss 1 and you gain power 1, but once you use power 1 to defeat boss to you gain power 2 and lose power 1.  If the player can choose the order in which they face each boss they can then plan things out so that they have the desired power for each fight.This is a very interesting idea. I like it.   ;Quote:Original post by jbadamsIf you're looking for an alternative to giving the player all the abilities at once (eventually) you could possibly use a similar method to the old Mega Man game where the player is given the abilities of defeated bosses, but only retains the power from the most recently defeated; kill boss 1 and you gain power 1, but once you use power 1 to defeat boss to you gain power 2 and lose power 1.  If the player can choose the order in which they face each boss they can then plan things out so that they have the desired power for each fight.I like this idea, too. I also like the GameBoy Advance megaman games, where you could add powers to megaman, a kind of AI/internet avatar in these games, by adding "programs" to a grid (or memory).say you start with a 4x4 grid, and fit in abilities like tetris, there were different colours and shapes, with rules such as two like colours could not touch, and you could only have certain types of "program" in certain spaces, making fitting in everything you wanted much harder.You could also expand the memory grid, unlocking new lines for you to put new abilities in to. the rules for fitting these abilities in could be decided by you, but I think the concept would fit nicely with what's been discussed so far.   ;  As long as you are able to develop a fun and engaging mechanic around each different power, I don't see why you couldn't have more.;Quote:Original post by bakanoodleAs long as you are able to develop a fun and engaging mechanic around each different power, I don't see why you couldn't have more.Indeed, as long as each is different, and not just a generic damage ability with a different animation, there's no reason you can't have as many abilities as you want.If you have ideas for a dozen mechanically different spells/attacks/skills whatever, then why not? if you can justify having each one, then what's stopping you.of course, you might not want to overwhelm the player to the point where, sure, each ability is unique and special, but they are so specialised that each only really has one use. Sure you can justify 50 different abilities for a single use, but is that really useful throughout the game?   ;  The correct number of powers is Five. [grin]Seriously, though, odd numbers have a kind of pleasant asymmetry to them that makes them work better in situations like this. Four is kinda boring. I think though that nine is a little large. Maybe you could do fewer bosses? Seven bosses and seven powers kinda sounds cool. If Nine works in the game, though (and you can think of nine distinct emotionally related powers), go for it.   ;  You have too many powers when they either lose distinction, or become confusing to the player.Another possibility is to have n powers, but only have some subset available at a given time - either they require an environmental trigger (and some levels only have certain triggers), or you can only choose a certain number of powers at a single time to be in your "deck."  For the latter, how often you can modify your "deck" is a separate question.   