The Badge System in Seven Sages was okay. In no way was it really able to copy the likes of the Paper Mario badge system. At the most it was a reference, perhaps a nod in the general direction, to the PM system, but in actuality nothing like it. In The Seven Sages, badges were a minor thing, didn't influence battle too much, and there weren't to many of them.

This time around, in what I've dubbed the Advanced Badge System, things are a lot different. Much like Paper Mario, badges will play a big role in The Starlite Worlds. All of your skills are learned from them instead of by level. There are party badges (like in Seven Sages) but also badges for each individual hero. However, the badge points needed to equip badges are shared by the whole party. Just like when you buy an equipment for Mario, you use the entire party's Gold Coins, equipping the Fire Flower Badge to Mario will use the BP stock from the party. This feature allows you to balance your characters the way you see fit. Stack Bowser with strong moves and leave the Bros. with only basic skills? Only equip badges that boost the whole party? It's up to you.

The Badge system and it's involvement in skills has made Seven Sages Suit system obsolete. This may be a step backwards in some people eyes, but it's really not. In actuality, it advances the Suit concept to an even higher level.

This time around, YOU MAKE THE SUITS. The Badge systems allows for this type of customization. For example if you want a "Fire Mario," then give him badges with fire-based attacks, badges that make fire moves stronger, and even equipment that raises his resistance to fire and lowers it ice. And there you have it, your very own Fire Mario.

Seven Sages had rigid, predetermined changes in skills/attributes which we called Suits. But badges allow for you to change things to fit your playing style. Are you a defensive player? Equip Defend Plus, Pretty Lucky, and Damage Dodge to lessen the damage of your foe's blows. Would rather go all out? Equip high damaging/high risk moves, badges like Power Plus or Charge. Again it's really up to you.

Badge Interface (Subject to change)


List of badges:


List of Ores (Turn Ores into badges, or mix ores to make new ores and then turn those into badges)

In other words, Suits 2.0.
Except they're smaller...

....

That reminds me, anything new about the badges?

The System as a whole? Not really. I guess it'll be impossible to tell if it's good or not until more badges are added. I added a few more yesterday though.

There are about 25 Badges in the game last time I checked. That's already as much as SS... I think.

As an estimate, how many badges do you expect to have in the end?

Hmm... I don't really know, lol. Most of them are really easy to make. And also every skill we make will have a badge assigned to it as well. Considering we're already at 25, 50 will easily be cleared. I'm not going to say much more than that though.

Awesome, as I keep saying. Though, im really looking forward to customizing and making suits.

Actually, today I was able to add another component to badges in terms of scripting. It's kind of hard to describe, but basically I was able to add "local switches/variables" as a property of badges.

In other words, badges like "Makes the first attack you do in battle do 4x damage, but for the remainder of battle your enemies hurt your 1.5x more!" or stuff like that.

I'm going to read through the Suggestions again and see what else I can add!

I can understand your terms, but I can't understand what are you trying to say.

Aren't local switches and variables only for the event itself?

They're not really local switches/variables.

Basically, they're switches/variables that only exist for that battle.

So if I do "ULTIMATE DESTRUCTION ATTACK," it turns on a "switch" and for the rest of the battle my damage output is halved or something like that.

The key thing here is that they aren't real switches that I have to make in the game. Also, they only apply to the Hero he used the skill.

Let's look at the Paper Mario inspired badge "Charge." This makes the user's next attack do double. Without resorting to manipulating states, I'd have to make a switch for Mario, Bowser, and Luigi depending on who used it. I'd have to make a battle event that turned off the switches after they did their attack. I'd also have to make a parallel process outside of battle that turned off the switches just in case.

This gets rid of all of that, and generates a switch that only exists in that particular battle.

Ladies and gents, the brains behind the project. This is good stuff.

I'm the worker who pushes things through. He's the big system maker. It works out pretty well.