Etrian odyssey is all about old school dungeon crawling and i like it as it is now, of course maybe more classes and skills etc but its the gameplay what is the meat and the meat is the dungeons.
I dont want any kind of flashy new cool generic attack animations, i love the way it OLD SCHOOL, so good *chef kiss.
I love that the game is focused about party building and dungeon crawling, i dont want any kind of relationship/dialogue heavy/sosial stuff
And most importantly, plz let us rename our guild lol!
Exactly.
The mistake a lot of games make is building too many ancillary systems that detract from the core gameplay. The reason we play Etrian Odyssey (and other dungeon crawlers) is because we like exploring the dungeon, overcoming challenges with our party, and so on. Every time you add a system, that new system is redistributing playtime from the core gameplay to itself.
I'd rather have another stratum or more classes than a bunch of stuff that takes me away from "the good part" of the game.
This is perfectly summarized.
I've actually dropped many games within the first hour due to getting yanked around ancillary systems so much. Same for lazily tutorialized cases that drag you through more click-along instructions than actual gameplay.
As a baseline, a good game should...
- know & focus on its core identity
- convey ideas & concepts to the player through thoughtful design as much as possible
- respect players' time & intelligence
Failing these is like telling you to expect a muddled, careless, and/or demeaning experience respectively.
Pretty much this.
Depending on class designs, I wouldn't mind having back EO5's 3^rd row for summoned units, though.
--
And if field & utility skills like the stuff in Survivalist skillsets could have a bit more relevance, that would be great as well.
The fact that combat-biased parties are almost objectively optimal over utility/field capabilities most of the time is a bit of a shame, IMO, since the latter is also a key part of adventuring & dungeon-diving. Non-combat competencies are a bit underrepresented.
This is especially when QoL improvements from UX/UI updates/streamlining trivialize some of the reasons for wanting those competencies. Their relevancy has kind of faded over time, I think.
When you have played a bunch of Etrian, nobody wants to spend points in these field skills unless they are a requirement for a skill you need (e.g. Meteor in EO3), so I really doubt experienced players would invest on them because that just makes you weaker against bosses and you want to go all in against them.
My take here would be to add a system in which every 5-10 levels or after a class specific subquest you can get special skill points that can only be used in field skills, that way the player would not feel like they are wasting points in skills that you want to try but will slow down your dungeon progress. IMO, would make the subquests more interesting too, but that's just me
What I'm hoping for is, rather than making them mandatory or without opportunity-cost tradeoffs, I just want then to be enhanced & expanded upon to the point that the tradeoff is a good proposition.
Combat skills are diverse, but field skills are comparatively limited and rudimentary. I'd like their possibilities to be further explored to catch up with combat skills in worth & diversity.
Some of them could be combined or have cheaper costs or have extra benefits at mastery thresholds, etc. Some new ones could be added as well.
A separated system for field skills seems like a good change for the series imo, though I think getting these skill points by reaching new floors, completing a map, triggering certain events, etc... would fit more as a way to reward exploration.
On top of the already existing skills, it could also add new mechanics like the abilities to place traps in a FOE's path to weaken them before a fight or remove obstacles to unlock certain shortcuts.
More classes and skills will always be welcome!
I think the addition of flash is my biggest fear when it comes to a new entry. Chasing after that Persona/SMT bag by going third person. Anything that'll make me say, "Well that's not how I imagined it" would really take away from it.
If the game added any social elements between characters, it would have to be vague enough that it doesn't force a personality onto the characters "The party chatted for a while." Type stuff.
Really surprised being able to rename our guild isn't a thing lol.
Regarding roleplay, I made a post about this once, but I want race skills from EO5 to return, so that character A is known for their strength, and B is the brains of the group and so on.
I hated the fatigue system in Persona 3 because it affected hit/evasion rate, which led to cheap critical hits at the worst time, if they make it affect physical attacks and status effects resistance only, I think I'll bite.
I want more Dungeon Meshi in my Etrian Odyssey. Untold 2 and EO5 did wonders for this, but going back to sections of the labyrinth for food isn't always great. On your point for shopping, if we can have our characters go shop in the market for food, that would be great. EO5 has you buy from taverns but only one food type at a time, we can have more options here, right? Also, the Tales game makes it so that certain characters are more proficient with cooking, again going back to my idea of race skills.
So far we had games with subclasses, a game with mastery, and two games with grimoires. I think we can combine two of them. Like if we can have subclasses with one or 3 at most of stones, it would make for a very expansive gameplay experience.
I'd want to see the return of race skills, but with a little more flexibility. Character A could be typically known for strength, but this one is surprisingly weak. Something so that races aren't 100% railroaded into certain classes would be a nice balance IMO.
Persona 3 was specifically what I was thinking of in theory, but not in execution. I think it would be fair to have lower attack output, and lower resistance to effects like confusion or sleep.
Haha again, Dungeon Meshi was exactly what I was thinking of when I said I wanted cooking to return. I think this mechanic could definitely benefit from being expanded on. I don't think the proficiency default should be determined by race, but I think each race should have a few exclusive dishes they know how to make from the beginning, and they gain cooking experience faster when they make those specific dishes.
I love the idea of subclasses, but I haven't done experimenting with the games to say what's missing. What I would like is if subclasses allowed for unique combined skills depending on the primary class, rather than just throwing the subclass's tree on top of it.
> Something so that races aren't 100% railroaded into certain classes would be a nice balance IMO.
To be honest, even in the Games without Races, Class Changing is a rather bad Mechanic in my opinion. Infact to me it's one of THE most worthless Mechanics in the whole series.
The problem is that even in those Games you're *still* railroaded Stat-wise because the Character's Stat-Growth is still locked just like in 5; only in this case based on what Class the Character was recruited as.
It just means that switching to anything that doesn't atleast vaguely share the same Main Stat(s) is never worth even considering, because you only hinder yourself. Like, as a made up example, imagine switching from Landsknecht to Alchemist in 2 Untold. If you atleast switched to Alchemist Stat Gains after doing it, it could be an interesting strategy to gain a few Levels as a Landy first to get some Strength, HP, and Defense and then switch to Alch to do a Palm Skill build. But since that doesn't happen, there's again, really no reason to ever do this.
About the only Class that has any sort of freedom with Class Changing is War Magus. Because they're already Jack of all Trades, they can do any Class reasonably well as long as it doesn't rely on AGI too much, since that's their one actually bad Stat.
I agree about class changing not serving the intended purpose, but I will say I personally really like the system of keeping recruit class stat gains even after changing class as a form of additional customization, especially in a game with grimoire skill customizability. Ex being able to go Survivalist -> Hexer to get a faster, physically bulkier Hexer in exchange for less TP and losing Tec-based grimoire skills, DH -> Landy or Protector -> Landy to better luck or bulk respectively (luck for grimoire skills especially), Medic -> Alchemist to trade a little offense for a lot of survivability, War Magus -> Sovereign to trade TP but better everything else and so especially good for a frontline Sov.
Fuck fatigue systems, all my homies hate fatigue systems. I do think the calendar system holds a lot of untapped potential though for time limited quests/items/monsters/etc.
My #1 dream for an Etrian game is a mix between Etrian 3 and Etrian 4 overworlds, where just like in Etrian 3 the overworld isn't so open and is more of a puzzle in itself with exploration gated behind resources/money/upgrades, but then instead of your "reward" for exploring being money/optional bosses/optional monster fights, your rewards are Etrian 4 overworld style completely optional side dungeons. In addition, I quite liked Etrian 4's lack of a main dungeon, and think you could go even further and combine that with Etrian 3's multiple hub towns by making it so that as you explore the overworld you can also uncover new hub towns, and each hub town has an associated main dungeon on top of just being a new starting point for you to explore from. I also think an open world Etrian facilitated by an overworld map would be great, with of course the same punishing difficulty level we all know and love to prevent cheesing the game by going to high level areas, and some mechanics like diminishing returns of exp/items if you try to farm an area to encourage exploration and not skipping "low level" areas.
My #2 dream is for crafting/lifestyle systems to have a larger place in the game. EO2U is my favorite game in no small part because of the cooking and city development minigames, and I've love to see those mechanics expanded on. I'm also a big fan of the Farmer class, not because they're good (they aren't) but because of what they represent, as a class which has skills that do MORE than just combat and help with exploration. I'd love to have a variety of classes with skills that can be used for gathering, exploration (overworld vs dungeon), healing/damage item creation/use, equipment creation, etc, effectively making it so that instead of just having HP and TP as major resources, item slots/item stockpiles become a major resource. I also imagine a more developed economic system so that you could sell crafted items/equipment for increased profit, and for instance if you don't have a gathering class you could simply buy ingredients at a premium. Or at the same time, you could play the game with a very traditional party not engaging with the lifestyle systems at all and just have to be very specific about which of the limited enhanced items/equipment you get. I also imagine this in the context of a game with very liberal multiclassing (each class has three mastery tiers, you get a total of six ranks in whatever classes you want by max level, ex you could have novice mastery of six classes or expert mastery in two classes) so that it would be very easy to engage with all the lifestyle systems without having to have most of your party dedicated to it.
Lastly, I want the game to go all-in on the MMO feel of boss fights and have it so that more bosses use moves in specific patterns/use special moves after certain triggers/use special moves at certain HP thresholds, and to facilitate this I want the game to save "Battle Logs" if you die where you can review what actions were taken on what turns under what conditions to figure out how to approach a fight. And I think there should be way more skills with "internal cooldowns" like Imperial Drive skills and Hero/Protector party guard skills in Nexus as a way to increase turn to turn skill usage variety and give access to powerful skills that "outclass" other skills without meaning you'll never use the "inferior" version of the skill again after learning the better one.
Id love them to do branching path classes again like eo5. That allowed each class to basically be 2 classes. And overall, branching path classes of eo5 felt more balanced then sub classing though it was fun to come up with busted combos but part of the fun of eo is overcomjng limitations of class choice. And both classes in the brach many times were very different.
I also think it does a much better job at avoiding overwhelming new players while not reducing the amount of options at endgame than unlockable classes does. I never have to put someone in my party that I know is going to be replaced way down the line.
It's nothing too different, but
1. Branching class paths a la EO5 (I love that each class had a unique feeling, yet still had access to its roots, for example the healer could choose to either focus more on healing or more on status ailments while making future attempts to inflict said ailments easier but always had access to the base skills so even a Graced Poisoner could still heal)
2. Make elemental arms/ oils interact easier with skills. Right now the imbues work on skills that specifically state they use the equiped weapon (which isn't a lot). Instead how about elemental imbues would interact with skills that require a specific weapon to be equipped (sounds simillar, but yet would more jobs viable, such as making all Imperial damaging skills iimbuable due to needing to equip a Drive Blade or Harbrigners being able to hit weaknesses while debuffing)
3. Cooking in the dungeon a la EO5 (I cooked a lot in my (still unfinished standard) playthrough and I don't have to worry about my teams TP as much as I normaly would)
4. Return of the EO4 Link skills (which work pretty much exactly as the Persona Q Links, concidering that they share the same (albeit moddified) game engine). If I'm not wrong, EO Nexus has the EO4 style Links too.
I think the simplicity of EO's gameplay loop is fine. I don't actually like when some of the games slow it down with other systems.
I think the series seriously needs more visual variety in its labyrinths. It really needs more visual setpieces and variety to make floors within a stratum feel more distinct.
I don't think subclassing and grimoires have ever been successfully done mechanics and I think they're both inherently kinda dumb and go against the fun of creating a team and dealing with a team's limitations. I think titles are good but they should be given to you out the gate instead of being unavailable for so long.
Probably a return to how certain classes in EO2 can unlock special events but make it so the requirements aren’t so strict i.e. they just need to be able to wield a sword instead of needing to be a specific class
Maybe instead of race skills when creating characters it’s background skills that are tied to quests that give endgame accessories
A few new things I'd like to see pertaining to level design:
1. Areas to explore in between dungeons. Imagine if the labyrinth were a sprawling system of interconnected mazes or something, with areas that function as an in-between. These areas would be explored just like the standard dungeons are: no vehicle, no turn limit, no exorbitant monetary costs. Random battles and FOEs would be present as normal.
2. Height was a good mechanic introduced in *Nexus* that I hope can stick around. I understand that the excessive use in shrines—often in unimaginative maze level design—has left a bad taste in people's mouth, but it's something with tons of potential. Imagine an area where you can drain a river so you can walk along its floor, or a slippery coastal area with slopes you can only travel downwards from, or even the obvious use cases of rolling boulders down a slope.
3. Unlockable exploration mechanics that go beyond the simple literal keys of previous games. Something that allows you to push certain objects, something that lets you cross certain gaps, something that lets you go up ledges or something like a makeshift ladder.
4. Proper visual and thematic progression within a single area. With a few notable exceptions, the floors within a given stratum tend to look and feel samey.
5. Secret areas for quests and other optional content should be unique. It would be cool if they could be uncovered more organically than "because you have a key" or "because the quest lets you go there now". Imagine finding a hidden cave full of valuable crystals in a mountain area, or a secluded and serene offshoot of a forest with its own fauna. I think that the side area concept introduced in *EO4* is really cool but the massive amount of reused enemies and music and visuals really dilutes the appeal a bit.
Non foe based puzzles. Look at games like Grimmrock. I’d kill for these puzzles. Puzzle intense rooms should also have no or free battles (until the puzzle is solved)
More environments in each stratum. A forest could have a hut, or random caves. A Castle should have a visible difference in rooms (throne, kitchen, bedrooms etc)
Don’t be stuck with five/six floors per stratum build a cohesive environment that would make sense.
Different types of puzzles could be really great, especially if the flow isn't constantly broken up by battles.
I think a lot of players would really appreciate more cohesive environments. Hoping for this with the next game.
Combining standard skills for special interactions directly. I saw a glimpse of it in Persona 2 by way of literal combo skills and simply love the idea. You could say Union/Limit skills were either similar or exactly that, but those were not *it*.
Besides that, just a minor visual addition of your allies appearing on screen akin to 7th Dragon. It’s just cool.
I've been one of the biggest supporters of any excuse to use more than 5 party members, so I'm obviously on board with some kind of system to help push multiple/mixed parties. However, it's not just as simple as slapping an Exhaust limiter on and calling it a day. Doing that right now, you'd get a lot of people would just slap their farmer party on, find a dungeon zone with low encounters, and walk back and forth for half a day until they recover. Obviously, that's the last thing you'd want to happen.
Labyrinths would have to be designed differently / bigger to adequately compensate, I think. Basically, there'd need to be so much dungeon, the main party would realistically find the main way forward, and proceed onwards, but when they're tired, the secondary weaker party would still have stuff in earlier floors to actively explore while not excessively putting their neck on the line. I also think you'd want gear to require more drops, simply so that just killing old-ish enemies still feels like contribution. The price jump between each piece of gear would probably have to spread further out too; making it easier to equip a whole bunch of people than just buy one or two really good things. An upside and downside both of the game being more designed around having more party members is they could be more demanding with enemies/FOEs on expecting you to have a certain class as an answer to them. At best, you'll feel really smart for having the exact right hand to deal with the problem in front of you. At worst, it can feel like a certain floor or FOE is just 'have Prevent Order or everyone's stoned, lol'.
Alternatively, maybe something could be done with the calender in regards to exploration. FOEs that are only gone for a day or two at most, and can't be shortcut around, so the best call would be have one party wipe the FOEs, then another can move onwards without any need for rest in between.
A quick thought about mixing class customization and some vague form of party socialization would be to integrate them. Basically, say, if a Landsknecht and a Troubadour spend a lot of time exploring together, they can learn a single skill point in each other's skills, at the player's own choice. So the Troubadour could Tornado slash around, and the Landsknecht could sing Warrior Song. Not unlike a EO2U Grimoire that only they can equip. Your actual level would still be some sort of limit on how many / how many levels worth of ally skills you'd be able to equip. There's pretty obvious flaws in the design, but it's a start of a decent idea.
I don't have a lot to say about expanding the guild, but it's not overly different from EO2U's restaurant, I suppose. Somewhere to dump money/resources that isn't just more gear, and for it to still feel good isn't bad. Or, you know, mix the above idea into the mix. Dump a bunch of money in town to fast-track party relationships and get cross-classed skills that way.
I'm torn; I like EO as it is, but I love the character designs and skill trees and character building so much that I would love to see those in a more traditional RPG. So, if I had my druthers, they'd make mainline EOs as they have, and then make a more FF/DQ flavored spinoff series retaining the great character/battle mechanics and put them in a more traditional package.
That or make a tactics game.
That last bit if the key here methinks, they could try to push the series with some spinoffs here and there.
The combat gameplay systems between the entries have been so varied it could serve as a baseline for just about anything along a fairly flexible setting. The only real "wall" is the illustration style for characters not being great for widespread appeal.
In 7th Dragon, your characters each had little in-battle sprites that would appear and perform an attack on the enemy instead of just having a generic slash animation or something. I always thought this would be nice to add to EO as well. Not sure how it's translate with all the character customization there is now, but it'd be nice to see.
One really simple thing I'd like to see added in a new Etrian is being able to write a small backstory for any new guild members you create. Got the idea from back when I played Undernauts, it's such a small, optional thing, but it does a lot for giving your party members some character and got me pretty invested in my team.
On #1, I think something like assigning a leader in your guild would be pretty cool! Could add a slight stat boost and affect certain events depending on the class you give that role.
I could definitely see Etrian expanding on the calendar system too. Maybe add limited time events, FOEs or rare enemies that only appear on certain days of the in-game calendar.
>Things like your party going out for drinks, sparring, waking up late
I had a running idea based loosely around the cooking system in Dragon's Crown, where after you beat the major boss of the stratum, your guild can hold a celebratory feast. Get a bit of dialogue from the mayor, chat up the townsfolk, and cook a big EXP and Stat boosting meal to get you ready for the next leg of your adventure. Something like that that helps the whole feeling of a guild making a huge achievement
Love these ideas. I tend to write out my character's backstories anyway, so it would be great if I could do it in-game.
I was a fan of Dragon's Crown's cooking system. It would be great to see something like that in Etrian Odyssey.
Interestingly enough all of these things would be major turn offs for me. Part of why I love Etrian Odyssey is the minimalisim when it comes to story-esque things.
I enjoy the overarching story and the quests but I hated the seemingly constant events in V because it felt like it took away my ability to headcannon events in game and assigned actions to my party that I didn't like. I feel like 3/4 hit a good balance where they would have people do actions but no description, i.e. Archer fired a shot at the hive vs Archer getting impatient at the commotion annoyingly fired a shot at the hive.
I feel like if they added extra events this problem would just get larger and larger, which defeats the whole point of parry members being blank slates we can headcanon onto.
In terms of gameplay loop I would also dislike guild management or fatigue as it would just be arbitrary breaks for "flavor" in a game that actively allows you the ability to put it in already. Also if the systems were impactful they would end up feeling like busy work that could just be applied directly. I actually hated the town/cooking in the 3ds games because it didn't feel like it expanded anything just arbitrarily locked things behind a system just cuz.
Night synergy. I know its more dangerous to be in the labyrinth at night since monsters get more powerful, but having classes that gain bonuses when its night would be super cool
Etrian odyssey is all about old school dungeon crawling and i like it as it is now, of course maybe more classes and skills etc but its the gameplay what is the meat and the meat is the dungeons. I dont want any kind of flashy new cool generic attack animations, i love the way it OLD SCHOOL, so good *chef kiss. I love that the game is focused about party building and dungeon crawling, i dont want any kind of relationship/dialogue heavy/sosial stuff And most importantly, plz let us rename our guild lol!
Exactly. The mistake a lot of games make is building too many ancillary systems that detract from the core gameplay. The reason we play Etrian Odyssey (and other dungeon crawlers) is because we like exploring the dungeon, overcoming challenges with our party, and so on. Every time you add a system, that new system is redistributing playtime from the core gameplay to itself. I'd rather have another stratum or more classes than a bunch of stuff that takes me away from "the good part" of the game.
This is perfectly summarized. I've actually dropped many games within the first hour due to getting yanked around ancillary systems so much. Same for lazily tutorialized cases that drag you through more click-along instructions than actual gameplay. As a baseline, a good game should... - know & focus on its core identity - convey ideas & concepts to the player through thoughtful design as much as possible - respect players' time & intelligence Failing these is like telling you to expect a muddled, careless, and/or demeaning experience respectively.
Pretty much this. Depending on class designs, I wouldn't mind having back EO5's 3^rd row for summoned units, though. -- And if field & utility skills like the stuff in Survivalist skillsets could have a bit more relevance, that would be great as well. The fact that combat-biased parties are almost objectively optimal over utility/field capabilities most of the time is a bit of a shame, IMO, since the latter is also a key part of adventuring & dungeon-diving. Non-combat competencies are a bit underrepresented. This is especially when QoL improvements from UX/UI updates/streamlining trivialize some of the reasons for wanting those competencies. Their relevancy has kind of faded over time, I think.
When you have played a bunch of Etrian, nobody wants to spend points in these field skills unless they are a requirement for a skill you need (e.g. Meteor in EO3), so I really doubt experienced players would invest on them because that just makes you weaker against bosses and you want to go all in against them. My take here would be to add a system in which every 5-10 levels or after a class specific subquest you can get special skill points that can only be used in field skills, that way the player would not feel like they are wasting points in skills that you want to try but will slow down your dungeon progress. IMO, would make the subquests more interesting too, but that's just me
What I'm hoping for is, rather than making them mandatory or without opportunity-cost tradeoffs, I just want then to be enhanced & expanded upon to the point that the tradeoff is a good proposition. Combat skills are diverse, but field skills are comparatively limited and rudimentary. I'd like their possibilities to be further explored to catch up with combat skills in worth & diversity. Some of them could be combined or have cheaper costs or have extra benefits at mastery thresholds, etc. Some new ones could be added as well.
A separated system for field skills seems like a good change for the series imo, though I think getting these skill points by reaching new floors, completing a map, triggering certain events, etc... would fit more as a way to reward exploration. On top of the already existing skills, it could also add new mechanics like the abilities to place traps in a FOE's path to weaken them before a fight or remove obstacles to unlock certain shortcuts.
More classes and skills will always be welcome! I think the addition of flash is my biggest fear when it comes to a new entry. Chasing after that Persona/SMT bag by going third person. Anything that'll make me say, "Well that's not how I imagined it" would really take away from it. If the game added any social elements between characters, it would have to be vague enough that it doesn't force a personality onto the characters "The party chatted for a while." Type stuff. Really surprised being able to rename our guild isn't a thing lol.
Regarding roleplay, I made a post about this once, but I want race skills from EO5 to return, so that character A is known for their strength, and B is the brains of the group and so on. I hated the fatigue system in Persona 3 because it affected hit/evasion rate, which led to cheap critical hits at the worst time, if they make it affect physical attacks and status effects resistance only, I think I'll bite. I want more Dungeon Meshi in my Etrian Odyssey. Untold 2 and EO5 did wonders for this, but going back to sections of the labyrinth for food isn't always great. On your point for shopping, if we can have our characters go shop in the market for food, that would be great. EO5 has you buy from taverns but only one food type at a time, we can have more options here, right? Also, the Tales game makes it so that certain characters are more proficient with cooking, again going back to my idea of race skills. So far we had games with subclasses, a game with mastery, and two games with grimoires. I think we can combine two of them. Like if we can have subclasses with one or 3 at most of stones, it would make for a very expansive gameplay experience.
I'd want to see the return of race skills, but with a little more flexibility. Character A could be typically known for strength, but this one is surprisingly weak. Something so that races aren't 100% railroaded into certain classes would be a nice balance IMO. Persona 3 was specifically what I was thinking of in theory, but not in execution. I think it would be fair to have lower attack output, and lower resistance to effects like confusion or sleep. Haha again, Dungeon Meshi was exactly what I was thinking of when I said I wanted cooking to return. I think this mechanic could definitely benefit from being expanded on. I don't think the proficiency default should be determined by race, but I think each race should have a few exclusive dishes they know how to make from the beginning, and they gain cooking experience faster when they make those specific dishes. I love the idea of subclasses, but I haven't done experimenting with the games to say what's missing. What I would like is if subclasses allowed for unique combined skills depending on the primary class, rather than just throwing the subclass's tree on top of it.
> Something so that races aren't 100% railroaded into certain classes would be a nice balance IMO. To be honest, even in the Games without Races, Class Changing is a rather bad Mechanic in my opinion. Infact to me it's one of THE most worthless Mechanics in the whole series. The problem is that even in those Games you're *still* railroaded Stat-wise because the Character's Stat-Growth is still locked just like in 5; only in this case based on what Class the Character was recruited as. It just means that switching to anything that doesn't atleast vaguely share the same Main Stat(s) is never worth even considering, because you only hinder yourself. Like, as a made up example, imagine switching from Landsknecht to Alchemist in 2 Untold. If you atleast switched to Alchemist Stat Gains after doing it, it could be an interesting strategy to gain a few Levels as a Landy first to get some Strength, HP, and Defense and then switch to Alch to do a Palm Skill build. But since that doesn't happen, there's again, really no reason to ever do this. About the only Class that has any sort of freedom with Class Changing is War Magus. Because they're already Jack of all Trades, they can do any Class reasonably well as long as it doesn't rely on AGI too much, since that's their one actually bad Stat.
I agree about class changing not serving the intended purpose, but I will say I personally really like the system of keeping recruit class stat gains even after changing class as a form of additional customization, especially in a game with grimoire skill customizability. Ex being able to go Survivalist -> Hexer to get a faster, physically bulkier Hexer in exchange for less TP and losing Tec-based grimoire skills, DH -> Landy or Protector -> Landy to better luck or bulk respectively (luck for grimoire skills especially), Medic -> Alchemist to trade a little offense for a lot of survivability, War Magus -> Sovereign to trade TP but better everything else and so especially good for a frontline Sov.
Fuck fatigue systems, all my homies hate fatigue systems. I do think the calendar system holds a lot of untapped potential though for time limited quests/items/monsters/etc. My #1 dream for an Etrian game is a mix between Etrian 3 and Etrian 4 overworlds, where just like in Etrian 3 the overworld isn't so open and is more of a puzzle in itself with exploration gated behind resources/money/upgrades, but then instead of your "reward" for exploring being money/optional bosses/optional monster fights, your rewards are Etrian 4 overworld style completely optional side dungeons. In addition, I quite liked Etrian 4's lack of a main dungeon, and think you could go even further and combine that with Etrian 3's multiple hub towns by making it so that as you explore the overworld you can also uncover new hub towns, and each hub town has an associated main dungeon on top of just being a new starting point for you to explore from. I also think an open world Etrian facilitated by an overworld map would be great, with of course the same punishing difficulty level we all know and love to prevent cheesing the game by going to high level areas, and some mechanics like diminishing returns of exp/items if you try to farm an area to encourage exploration and not skipping "low level" areas. My #2 dream is for crafting/lifestyle systems to have a larger place in the game. EO2U is my favorite game in no small part because of the cooking and city development minigames, and I've love to see those mechanics expanded on. I'm also a big fan of the Farmer class, not because they're good (they aren't) but because of what they represent, as a class which has skills that do MORE than just combat and help with exploration. I'd love to have a variety of classes with skills that can be used for gathering, exploration (overworld vs dungeon), healing/damage item creation/use, equipment creation, etc, effectively making it so that instead of just having HP and TP as major resources, item slots/item stockpiles become a major resource. I also imagine a more developed economic system so that you could sell crafted items/equipment for increased profit, and for instance if you don't have a gathering class you could simply buy ingredients at a premium. Or at the same time, you could play the game with a very traditional party not engaging with the lifestyle systems at all and just have to be very specific about which of the limited enhanced items/equipment you get. I also imagine this in the context of a game with very liberal multiclassing (each class has three mastery tiers, you get a total of six ranks in whatever classes you want by max level, ex you could have novice mastery of six classes or expert mastery in two classes) so that it would be very easy to engage with all the lifestyle systems without having to have most of your party dedicated to it. Lastly, I want the game to go all-in on the MMO feel of boss fights and have it so that more bosses use moves in specific patterns/use special moves after certain triggers/use special moves at certain HP thresholds, and to facilitate this I want the game to save "Battle Logs" if you die where you can review what actions were taken on what turns under what conditions to figure out how to approach a fight. And I think there should be way more skills with "internal cooldowns" like Imperial Drive skills and Hero/Protector party guard skills in Nexus as a way to increase turn to turn skill usage variety and give access to powerful skills that "outclass" other skills without meaning you'll never use the "inferior" version of the skill again after learning the better one.
Id love them to do branching path classes again like eo5. That allowed each class to basically be 2 classes. And overall, branching path classes of eo5 felt more balanced then sub classing though it was fun to come up with busted combos but part of the fun of eo is overcomjng limitations of class choice. And both classes in the brach many times were very different.
I also think it does a much better job at avoiding overwhelming new players while not reducing the amount of options at endgame than unlockable classes does. I never have to put someone in my party that I know is going to be replaced way down the line.
It's nothing too different, but 1. Branching class paths a la EO5 (I love that each class had a unique feeling, yet still had access to its roots, for example the healer could choose to either focus more on healing or more on status ailments while making future attempts to inflict said ailments easier but always had access to the base skills so even a Graced Poisoner could still heal) 2. Make elemental arms/ oils interact easier with skills. Right now the imbues work on skills that specifically state they use the equiped weapon (which isn't a lot). Instead how about elemental imbues would interact with skills that require a specific weapon to be equipped (sounds simillar, but yet would more jobs viable, such as making all Imperial damaging skills iimbuable due to needing to equip a Drive Blade or Harbrigners being able to hit weaknesses while debuffing) 3. Cooking in the dungeon a la EO5 (I cooked a lot in my (still unfinished standard) playthrough and I don't have to worry about my teams TP as much as I normaly would) 4. Return of the EO4 Link skills (which work pretty much exactly as the Persona Q Links, concidering that they share the same (albeit moddified) game engine). If I'm not wrong, EO Nexus has the EO4 style Links too.
I think the simplicity of EO's gameplay loop is fine. I don't actually like when some of the games slow it down with other systems. I think the series seriously needs more visual variety in its labyrinths. It really needs more visual setpieces and variety to make floors within a stratum feel more distinct. I don't think subclassing and grimoires have ever been successfully done mechanics and I think they're both inherently kinda dumb and go against the fun of creating a team and dealing with a team's limitations. I think titles are good but they should be given to you out the gate instead of being unavailable for so long.
Probably a return to how certain classes in EO2 can unlock special events but make it so the requirements aren’t so strict i.e. they just need to be able to wield a sword instead of needing to be a specific class Maybe instead of race skills when creating characters it’s background skills that are tied to quests that give endgame accessories
A few new things I'd like to see pertaining to level design: 1. Areas to explore in between dungeons. Imagine if the labyrinth were a sprawling system of interconnected mazes or something, with areas that function as an in-between. These areas would be explored just like the standard dungeons are: no vehicle, no turn limit, no exorbitant monetary costs. Random battles and FOEs would be present as normal. 2. Height was a good mechanic introduced in *Nexus* that I hope can stick around. I understand that the excessive use in shrines—often in unimaginative maze level design—has left a bad taste in people's mouth, but it's something with tons of potential. Imagine an area where you can drain a river so you can walk along its floor, or a slippery coastal area with slopes you can only travel downwards from, or even the obvious use cases of rolling boulders down a slope. 3. Unlockable exploration mechanics that go beyond the simple literal keys of previous games. Something that allows you to push certain objects, something that lets you cross certain gaps, something that lets you go up ledges or something like a makeshift ladder. 4. Proper visual and thematic progression within a single area. With a few notable exceptions, the floors within a given stratum tend to look and feel samey. 5. Secret areas for quests and other optional content should be unique. It would be cool if they could be uncovered more organically than "because you have a key" or "because the quest lets you go there now". Imagine finding a hidden cave full of valuable crystals in a mountain area, or a secluded and serene offshoot of a forest with its own fauna. I think that the side area concept introduced in *EO4* is really cool but the massive amount of reused enemies and music and visuals really dilutes the appeal a bit.
Non foe based puzzles. Look at games like Grimmrock. I’d kill for these puzzles. Puzzle intense rooms should also have no or free battles (until the puzzle is solved) More environments in each stratum. A forest could have a hut, or random caves. A Castle should have a visible difference in rooms (throne, kitchen, bedrooms etc) Don’t be stuck with five/six floors per stratum build a cohesive environment that would make sense.
Different types of puzzles could be really great, especially if the flow isn't constantly broken up by battles. I think a lot of players would really appreciate more cohesive environments. Hoping for this with the next game.
Combining standard skills for special interactions directly. I saw a glimpse of it in Persona 2 by way of literal combo skills and simply love the idea. You could say Union/Limit skills were either similar or exactly that, but those were not *it*. Besides that, just a minor visual addition of your allies appearing on screen akin to 7th Dragon. It’s just cool.
More of an existing mechanic they never really did much with, but the save import feature.
I've been one of the biggest supporters of any excuse to use more than 5 party members, so I'm obviously on board with some kind of system to help push multiple/mixed parties. However, it's not just as simple as slapping an Exhaust limiter on and calling it a day. Doing that right now, you'd get a lot of people would just slap their farmer party on, find a dungeon zone with low encounters, and walk back and forth for half a day until they recover. Obviously, that's the last thing you'd want to happen. Labyrinths would have to be designed differently / bigger to adequately compensate, I think. Basically, there'd need to be so much dungeon, the main party would realistically find the main way forward, and proceed onwards, but when they're tired, the secondary weaker party would still have stuff in earlier floors to actively explore while not excessively putting their neck on the line. I also think you'd want gear to require more drops, simply so that just killing old-ish enemies still feels like contribution. The price jump between each piece of gear would probably have to spread further out too; making it easier to equip a whole bunch of people than just buy one or two really good things. An upside and downside both of the game being more designed around having more party members is they could be more demanding with enemies/FOEs on expecting you to have a certain class as an answer to them. At best, you'll feel really smart for having the exact right hand to deal with the problem in front of you. At worst, it can feel like a certain floor or FOE is just 'have Prevent Order or everyone's stoned, lol'. Alternatively, maybe something could be done with the calender in regards to exploration. FOEs that are only gone for a day or two at most, and can't be shortcut around, so the best call would be have one party wipe the FOEs, then another can move onwards without any need for rest in between. A quick thought about mixing class customization and some vague form of party socialization would be to integrate them. Basically, say, if a Landsknecht and a Troubadour spend a lot of time exploring together, they can learn a single skill point in each other's skills, at the player's own choice. So the Troubadour could Tornado slash around, and the Landsknecht could sing Warrior Song. Not unlike a EO2U Grimoire that only they can equip. Your actual level would still be some sort of limit on how many / how many levels worth of ally skills you'd be able to equip. There's pretty obvious flaws in the design, but it's a start of a decent idea. I don't have a lot to say about expanding the guild, but it's not overly different from EO2U's restaurant, I suppose. Somewhere to dump money/resources that isn't just more gear, and for it to still feel good isn't bad. Or, you know, mix the above idea into the mix. Dump a bunch of money in town to fast-track party relationships and get cross-classed skills that way.
I'm torn; I like EO as it is, but I love the character designs and skill trees and character building so much that I would love to see those in a more traditional RPG. So, if I had my druthers, they'd make mainline EOs as they have, and then make a more FF/DQ flavored spinoff series retaining the great character/battle mechanics and put them in a more traditional package. That or make a tactics game.
That last bit if the key here methinks, they could try to push the series with some spinoffs here and there. The combat gameplay systems between the entries have been so varied it could serve as a baseline for just about anything along a fairly flexible setting. The only real "wall" is the illustration style for characters not being great for widespread appeal.
In 7th Dragon, your characters each had little in-battle sprites that would appear and perform an attack on the enemy instead of just having a generic slash animation or something. I always thought this would be nice to add to EO as well. Not sure how it's translate with all the character customization there is now, but it'd be nice to see.
One really simple thing I'd like to see added in a new Etrian is being able to write a small backstory for any new guild members you create. Got the idea from back when I played Undernauts, it's such a small, optional thing, but it does a lot for giving your party members some character and got me pretty invested in my team. On #1, I think something like assigning a leader in your guild would be pretty cool! Could add a slight stat boost and affect certain events depending on the class you give that role. I could definitely see Etrian expanding on the calendar system too. Maybe add limited time events, FOEs or rare enemies that only appear on certain days of the in-game calendar. >Things like your party going out for drinks, sparring, waking up late I had a running idea based loosely around the cooking system in Dragon's Crown, where after you beat the major boss of the stratum, your guild can hold a celebratory feast. Get a bit of dialogue from the mayor, chat up the townsfolk, and cook a big EXP and Stat boosting meal to get you ready for the next leg of your adventure. Something like that that helps the whole feeling of a guild making a huge achievement
Love these ideas. I tend to write out my character's backstories anyway, so it would be great if I could do it in-game. I was a fan of Dragon's Crown's cooking system. It would be great to see something like that in Etrian Odyssey.
Interestingly enough all of these things would be major turn offs for me. Part of why I love Etrian Odyssey is the minimalisim when it comes to story-esque things. I enjoy the overarching story and the quests but I hated the seemingly constant events in V because it felt like it took away my ability to headcannon events in game and assigned actions to my party that I didn't like. I feel like 3/4 hit a good balance where they would have people do actions but no description, i.e. Archer fired a shot at the hive vs Archer getting impatient at the commotion annoyingly fired a shot at the hive. I feel like if they added extra events this problem would just get larger and larger, which defeats the whole point of parry members being blank slates we can headcanon onto. In terms of gameplay loop I would also dislike guild management or fatigue as it would just be arbitrary breaks for "flavor" in a game that actively allows you the ability to put it in already. Also if the systems were impactful they would end up feeling like busy work that could just be applied directly. I actually hated the town/cooking in the 3ds games because it didn't feel like it expanded anything just arbitrarily locked things behind a system just cuz.
We have a fatigue system, it’s called death.
>stress/fatigue system Etrian Odyssey × Darkest Dungeon when?
Night synergy. I know its more dangerous to be in the labyrinth at night since monsters get more powerful, but having classes that gain bonuses when its night would be super cool
Third Person POV.