Just like you, I also quite liked the field design in MARDEK and Taming Dreams. They felt well put-together, especially the MARDEK Chapter 3 and Taming Dream ones.
Boundaries are often a difficult aspect, I recall that one big roadblock you encountered when making Clarance RPG was blocking off outdoor areas since there was no easy way to block off roads and alleyways. Boundaries are also really important in 3D games, since running into invisible walls is frustrating and immersion-breaking.
I remember making rooms using the AF:C engine, it was often fun to work out how rooms connected and whatnot. One trick I liked was to have a room with several doors in it, and every door connected to the same interior map, so once you entered one door you'd see what was behind the others doors and might get curious to see what the NPCs would say. Usually it'd just be nonsense, of course!! I was rather fond of the room with 5 beds, 5 Ogres and 1 Goblin. [LINK]
I always liked the aesthetics of the FFT series, the isometric rotatable view made it so any map was easy to decipher regardless of how many height discrepancies there are.
My question regarding jumping would be "What does this add to the game?". It's a big change to the way the overworld works, so there should be a justifiable reason for it being there. It makes sense in games like the Mario RPGs since jumping is part of Mario's core identity, and it also makes sense in overworlds such as Yooka-Laylee: The Impossible Lair's since it's a platformer, but Divine Dreams is a JRPG that has nothing to do with jumping.
And I would suggest taking a look at Yooka Laylee: The Impossible Lair's overworld, it's very well-designed and the way that game balanced the jump is to make it a very tiny hop which you can only use to scale tiles about half the protagonist's size. Such a thing is more fitting for Mardek than the current Mario-like jump.
Should Mardek be able to jump onto enemies to get a first strike? Should the game have platforming? How high should Mardek be able to jump? Personally I agree with limiting the movement and diving deeply into that rather than having a broad but shallow selection of things to do in the overworld.
I really liked how the party followed the player in MARDEK and Taming Dreams so I hope that stays in the game! It was still possible to change the order in MARDEK during segments where you select your on party. I'm not sure whether the remake is even going to have those though, and I'd be cautious about implementing it.
I recall that MARDEK 3 was difficult for you precisely because the player could form parties from a pool of like a dozen characters so you had to write a lot more dialogue to account for it and had to sequester most character beats into P-dialogue as a result. I was more partial to Taming Dreams's more linear set-up where the party set-up is determined by the plot and constantly shifting. Perhaps a combination of both where the main plot parties are predetermined but optional side content has freeform partybuilding?
Special field techniques could add some flair to the game, and promote backtracking and secret-searching in old areas when your party configuration changes! One part of MARDEK that was really fun was going back to old areas with a new party and seeing how things differed, such as exploring more parts of the Gem Mines in Chapter 2 after obtaining Emela and then again in Chapter 3 once you get Oxyale potions.
Are you going to rerelease Clarence's Big Chance before or after the demo?
3
Tobias 1104~4Y
I'm surprised you remember the Clarence's Big Chance boundary issues! I was thinking of that myself during this, and it's something that's been on my mind weirdly often since then as well; I make a point of looking at how the issue's been solved by other games I play.
Seeing that (completely ridiculous) screenshot of AFC makes me want to do something with that, release it in some way, so I probably should do that at some point!
I'm only replying now, but I've been thinking about what you said here regarding jumping, and I've decided it's more pain than benefit and have removed it.
My thinking when adding it was that I wanted to add something that added interest to field traversal, in the same way that reactions add interest to attacking. Something you can press a button to do, but which isn't just completely superficial. I was also thinking about how much of a pain adding those ladders was in Belief; a simple jump is way easier to code and animate and much more versatile as well. So it seemed a two-birds-with-one-stone kind of thing: it allowed easier navigation to higher parts of the maps, and it gave the player more engagement with them.
So now I'm wondering what I can add instead which isn't as disruptive, but which isn't pointless or too specific either. I do like the idea of having different unique skills that your allies can use since it gives them more a little bit more personality and gives the player a reason to switch between them, but I'm not sure yet what kinds of abilities those could actually be. I'm very open to suggestions there!
I like the party following too, and without jumping that should be a lot easier. I like the idea of changing leaders and having your control switch to someone else without any of their positions changing. That wouldn't have been possible in 2D, but I think I can do that with this.
The way I've planned the story so far, many sections require maybe two or three characters, but you can include whoever else in the remaining slot(s), sort of like Zach and Vehrn in MARDEK 2. MARDEK 3 already did this, sort of, though the characters had to be on the party for plot triggers but then you could remove them if you want.
I'll talk about this in another post (especially since it's just a vague idea at this point), but I'm planning to make the P dialogue primarily based on paired connections that develop by using characters together. I think someone might have suggested this at some point? Maybe it was you?? I can't remember! One of the big things about the plot is psychological connections that bind two minds together as they get closer, so it makes sense to do it this way. Connections between Mardek and his allies would take the place of MARDEK's unlockable-by-level-up dialogue.
I also saw on one of your blog posts that in Hiveswap (I've been meaning to play that myself), you mentioned that there were bits of text for when you used every thing on every other thing (or something?), and you said you found that overwhelming and quit, I think? So I think adding too much P dialogue wouldn't be a good idea, especially since it'd be an overwhelming amount of work for me too. I'll try to be selective about it.
Also, I didn't know there was a Yooka-Laylee spin-off! I was curious enough about the first one to play it a while ago, but couldn't finish it due to bugs... Annoying. I looked up screenshots, and the layout of some maps does seem like something I could use as an inspiration for this even if I'm not keeping jumping. Maybe I'll watch some videos on it.
I'm not sure what to do about CBC! When those amazingly successful people contacted me recently, I thought about releasing it through them since it seemed much better than just adding it to my site and earning nothing from it. But since I'm not going to do that, I'm not sure what to do! Releasing it on Steam feels weird, but releasing it here is certain to get no attention, hmm... Or maybe it'd get more if it wasn't consumed by some algorithm? I feel I should attract some more people to me first though, at least. Maybe release it around the time I re-release MARDEK, so there might be some spill-over? Maybe I could release AFC in some form then too?? Honestly I've been too busy focusing on this to give it much thought!
2
Maniafig219~4Y
Oh, I got to this reply very early it seems!
Posting the AFC screenshot actually got me to dive around in my files and ask some other Alora Fane people about it, and I managed to unearth the .SWF file and my old quests. I've been thinking of recording playthroughs of them and writing about them on my blog, sort of to look back on the thing I put into them and why.
Looking back at some of the stuff I put in there makes me glad the game never got publicized!! I don't think the world could ever be ready for the saucy Ogre brothel scene... So much to cringe about! But also some stuff I actually quite like.
Those Sorrowlad quests hold up rather well in a charming wholesome way, and some of the Quests like Quiz Quest and QuestQuestQuestQuestQuestQuest were at the very least innovative given the engine's limitations, though they're really not executed well.
I think most JRPGs when they want to spice up the world map gameplay go for basic puzzles. You see it all over the place from games like Golden Sun to Mario & Luigi, and even back in the old MARDEK with the accursed Water Temple switch puzzle!!
I think tying the abilities to the characters's sentimancy would be an interesting starting point, especially if they were the same abilities characters could use both in and outside of combat. Like if Emela could use Aqualung inside combat too for some effect, it makes the game feel more cohesive in a sense.
I wonder how many people got stuck in MARDEK 3 due to not realizing which party members they need to trigger certain events. Needing both Verhn and Bostolm/Legion to enter the Lost Monastery was probably the most obscure one, I might have actually had to look that one up!
I don't remember suggesting such a system! It does make sense though, and it ties together MARDEK's and Taming Dreams's systems! I do really like the idea of having every combination be able to talk to each other rather than having everything be filtered through Mardek.
I'm glad you read that blog! You probably noticed yourself when playing, but every room in Hiveswap was very dense with things you can examine, like over a dozen things per room, and then when you have like 8 items every new room suddenly introduces like 100 new irreverent inane gags, and it becomes very overwhelming!
In contrast, the P-Dialogue in Taming Dreams was all meaningfully connected to the current events and further developed the characters. I always looked forward to talking to the party members! The game also spread out its P-dialogue rather well, so not every combination of party members updated after an event, only the relevant ones. And then when something BIG happens you would be able to get new dialogue with every combination, which reinforces the importance of the event since everyone wants to weigh in on it.
I can sort of understand why the Hiveswap did it though, when I played some of my old quests yesterday it struck with me that writing dialogue for examining objects was really fun to do! And it is very in-character for a Homestuck game to be full of dialogue like that for everything no matter how stupid... But that doesn't change the fact that the game is currently collecting dust on my PC! I ought to restart from the beginning some day.
When I played Yooka-Laylee they'd already patched out most of the bugs, but several other people told me about their frustrations with the game. It's a shame! I rather liked the game myself, enough to buy the spin-off. It's worth checking out more of it, or getting it yourself, I've been enjoying it!
1
Tobias 1104~4Y
Ha, it sounds like your experience of your own quests wasn't too different to mine when replaying MARDEK!
I don't remember if I've mentioned Golden Sun anywhere recently, but that's been on my mind as an example of the field skills idea. I haven't played it in years though so I've forgotten how it handled them! Maybe I should look to it for inspiration again... though it feels like all the games I'm drawing on are so old! And I still haven't played any new games!!1 I might start Octopath Traveler tonight though??
I'm definitely hoping to have a direct connection between characters' field skills and their combat ones! I've not really given it much thought, but from what little I did do, not as many obvious possibilities jumped to mind as I might have liked. I like the idea of Emeela using Aqualung, but what could something like that do in battle? That could be her field skill, but it's not really something you can have fun just spamming like you would with a sword slash or jump, so HMM...
I think what I'll likely do is having either individual or situational P-dialogue with a (!) thing to mark that it's changed like in Taming Dreams, but not for everyone all the time. Then the paired bits would be detached from the plot. I'll have to see how it goes when I get far enough to worry about the details! I definitely like that kind of thing myself, but it does take time to write!
Hmm, maybe I'll return to Yooka-Laylee first, since I already own it and I've played it before? Maybe! I never played Banjo Kazooie when I was little though, so I felt the game 'wasn't for me' when I played it before, since I'd read it was designed to appeal to people who wanted that same kind of experience but not exactly a remake. An interesting design choice, that. Appealing to nostalgia, but not directly. Not too different to what I'm trying to do myself.
1
Metrux3210~4Y
I've been watching a playthrough of the Breath of Fire 3, and they have this thing where each character has a field skill, mostly things they also do in combat, although some characters have the same skill and they're only used either for puzzles, fun tidbits or trying to get some (really very small) amount of money. It doesn't seem bad, but knowing you, in this it should be somewhat more unique.
The Fire Emblem series had at some points a similar system about dialogues between characters that got played together, since in FE you play levels in large terrains, the distance between the characters was the most important. I remember it had a special place wehre you could go to see dialogues, only if you wanted to, and it had either things about the specific mission, tips or the dialogues you unlocked with familiarity. Could work to do something similar, maybe even have the not so immediate ones only in a campfire or such? As in, you unlock them during your walkings, but only see such dialogues when your party is stopped, resting or somesuch.
1
Astreon152~4Y
"but I'm not sure yet what kinds of abilities those could actually be. I'm very open to suggestions there!"
Inspired by FFIV: one mage of the party could cast "levitate". Alternatively, could be available through an item (cape, or winged boots ?).
Allows to hover (not fly), so could help crossing pits, move above specific terrain (lava, quicksand) or get on level with an otherwise too high platform, cross over a wall...
Or for the latter, characters could also just give each other a leg up, then pull the last one up. That'd be fun to see and could lead to P dialogue (who's gonna leg up the girl with a robe^^).
Plenty of other solutions besides wind magic: earth magic (bridge/ladder), or a weapon/construction skill that could help climb up something.
Also, you might not have to actually let us see what happens, if it's too complicated to code: just go with a black screen during action, with dialogue pop ups and sound effects to explain what's happening and how characters are interacting during the specific action. Could also be skipped by pressing a key.
1
Tobias 1104~4Y
The environment traversal things sound similar to what I included in Deliverance! Strange thinking that even back then, before MARDEK, I was trying to do something like that...
Ideally I want these field skills to be something that you can use whenever you want, as often as you want, which are fun to just use, like jumping or slashing a sword is. It's what makes it tricky! In Deliverance, the environment traversal was tied to items (the crystals, I think?), so maybe I could have something like that and field skills you can use with a button press?
I do like the idea of 'team up' things like the leg up, though as the developer it does sound like a complete nightmare! And I'd want to avoid something that's so complex it requires a fade, or so long it'd be usually skipped!
0
Astreon152~4Y
"I like the idea of Emeela using Aqualung, but what could something like that do in battle? That could be her field skill, but it's not really something you can have fun just spamming like you would with a sword slash or jump, so HMM..."
You could use Aqualung in the field to explore underwater puddles. So now go design tiles and hidden areas for that, ha.
More seriously, in battles it could be used as a status ailment protection, for enemies whith air based attacks (breaths). Or, litteraly, to catch a breather and recover points in something (mana, stamina, calmness, whatever breathing exercises are used for: the spell litteraly and figuratively puts you in a bubble).
On field, about the same idea, but that would be very specific: could be useful in areas with toxic miasma, or to resist magnetic fields, etc. ?
Also, if the field ability has to be easy to use (no need to browse the menu), couldn't you make it so that one key is dedicated to that ability, but what the key activates is up to the player ? We'd just select which recently awakened ability we want each character to use on field, and press the said button when we want to activate it.
Or if you wanna make it available to all characters and useful all the time (not in specific context, though i don't see what the problem is with that), there could be stuff like "dash" (move faster on the map, but consume stamina), "camp" (restores all your stats to max, heals status ailments), "jog" (decreases stamina while jogging, but increase max value by +1 every n minutes, cause hey, you gotta stay fit to save the world), "dig" (and find random stuff, like consumables, or just become dirty, or dig up some monster and trigger a fight).
Minor stuff like that would make going from point A to point B more "fun", but let's face it, unless you actually want to invest some programming time into making the field map actually interesting to explore in itself (besides its aesthetic value i mean: by discovering secrets, or at least easter eggs, like Memody's long lost debut album or whatever), it's just used for traveling between towns or dungeons.
Boundaries are often a difficult aspect, I recall that one big roadblock you encountered when making Clarance RPG was blocking off outdoor areas since there was no easy way to block off roads and alleyways. Boundaries are also really important in 3D games, since running into invisible walls is frustrating and immersion-breaking.
I remember making rooms using the AF:C engine, it was often fun to work out how rooms connected and whatnot. One trick I liked was to have a room with several doors in it, and every door connected to the same interior map, so once you entered one door you'd see what was behind the others doors and might get curious to see what the NPCs would say. Usually it'd just be nonsense, of course!! I was rather fond of the room with 5 beds, 5 Ogres and 1 Goblin. [LINK]
I always liked the aesthetics of the FFT series, the isometric rotatable view made it so any map was easy to decipher regardless of how many height discrepancies there are.
My question regarding jumping would be "What does this add to the game?". It's a big change to the way the overworld works, so there should be a justifiable reason for it being there. It makes sense in games like the Mario RPGs since jumping is part of Mario's core identity, and it also makes sense in overworlds such as Yooka-Laylee: The Impossible Lair's since it's a platformer, but Divine Dreams is a JRPG that has nothing to do with jumping.
And I would suggest taking a look at Yooka Laylee: The Impossible Lair's overworld, it's very well-designed and the way that game balanced the jump is to make it a very tiny hop which you can only use to scale tiles about half the protagonist's size. Such a thing is more fitting for Mardek than the current Mario-like jump.
Should Mardek be able to jump onto enemies to get a first strike? Should the game have platforming? How high should Mardek be able to jump? Personally I agree with limiting the movement and diving deeply into that rather than having a broad but shallow selection of things to do in the overworld.
I really liked how the party followed the player in MARDEK and Taming Dreams so I hope that stays in the game! It was still possible to change the order in MARDEK during segments where you select your on party. I'm not sure whether the remake is even going to have those though, and I'd be cautious about implementing it.
I recall that MARDEK 3 was difficult for you precisely because the player could form parties from a pool of like a dozen characters so you had to write a lot more dialogue to account for it and had to sequester most character beats into P-dialogue as a result. I was more partial to Taming Dreams's more linear set-up where the party set-up is determined by the plot and constantly shifting. Perhaps a combination of both where the main plot parties are predetermined but optional side content has freeform partybuilding?
Special field techniques could add some flair to the game, and promote backtracking and secret-searching in old areas when your party configuration changes! One part of MARDEK that was really fun was going back to old areas with a new party and seeing how things differed, such as exploring more parts of the Gem Mines in Chapter 2 after obtaining Emela and then again in Chapter 3 once you get Oxyale potions.
Are you going to rerelease Clarence's Big Chance before or after the demo?
Seeing that (completely ridiculous) screenshot of AFC makes me want to do something with that, release it in some way, so I probably should do that at some point!
I'm only replying now, but I've been thinking about what you said here regarding jumping, and I've decided it's more pain than benefit and have removed it.
My thinking when adding it was that I wanted to add something that added interest to field traversal, in the same way that reactions add interest to attacking. Something you can press a button to do, but which isn't just completely superficial. I was also thinking about how much of a pain adding those ladders was in Belief; a simple jump is way easier to code and animate and much more versatile as well. So it seemed a two-birds-with-one-stone kind of thing: it allowed easier navigation to higher parts of the maps, and it gave the player more engagement with them.
So now I'm wondering what I can add instead which isn't as disruptive, but which isn't pointless or too specific either. I do like the idea of having different unique skills that your allies can use since it gives them more a little bit more personality and gives the player a reason to switch between them, but I'm not sure yet what kinds of abilities those could actually be. I'm very open to suggestions there!
I like the party following too, and without jumping that should be a lot easier. I like the idea of changing leaders and having your control switch to someone else without any of their positions changing. That wouldn't have been possible in 2D, but I think I can do that with this.
The way I've planned the story so far, many sections require maybe two or three characters, but you can include whoever else in the remaining slot(s), sort of like Zach and Vehrn in MARDEK 2. MARDEK 3 already did this, sort of, though the characters had to be on the party for plot triggers but then you could remove them if you want.
I'll talk about this in another post (especially since it's just a vague idea at this point), but I'm planning to make the P dialogue primarily based on paired connections that develop by using characters together. I think someone might have suggested this at some point? Maybe it was you?? I can't remember! One of the big things about the plot is psychological connections that bind two minds together as they get closer, so it makes sense to do it this way. Connections between Mardek and his allies would take the place of MARDEK's unlockable-by-level-up dialogue.
I also saw on one of your blog posts that in Hiveswap (I've been meaning to play that myself), you mentioned that there were bits of text for when you used every thing on every other thing (or something?), and you said you found that overwhelming and quit, I think? So I think adding too much P dialogue wouldn't be a good idea, especially since it'd be an overwhelming amount of work for me too. I'll try to be selective about it.
Also, I didn't know there was a Yooka-Laylee spin-off! I was curious enough about the first one to play it a while ago, but couldn't finish it due to bugs... Annoying. I looked up screenshots, and the layout of some maps does seem like something I could use as an inspiration for this even if I'm not keeping jumping. Maybe I'll watch some videos on it.
I'm not sure what to do about CBC! When those amazingly successful people contacted me recently, I thought about releasing it through them since it seemed much better than just adding it to my site and earning nothing from it. But since I'm not going to do that, I'm not sure what to do! Releasing it on Steam feels weird, but releasing it here is certain to get no attention, hmm... Or maybe it'd get more if it wasn't consumed by some algorithm? I feel I should attract some more people to me first though, at least. Maybe release it around the time I re-release MARDEK, so there might be some spill-over? Maybe I could release AFC in some form then too?? Honestly I've been too busy focusing on this to give it much thought!
Posting the AFC screenshot actually got me to dive around in my files and ask some other Alora Fane people about it, and I managed to unearth the .SWF file and my old quests. I've been thinking of recording playthroughs of them and writing about them on my blog, sort of to look back on the thing I put into them and why.
Looking back at some of the stuff I put in there makes me glad the game never got publicized!! I don't think the world could ever be ready for the saucy Ogre brothel scene... So much to cringe about! But also some stuff I actually quite like.
Those Sorrowlad quests hold up rather well in a charming wholesome way, and some of the Quests like Quiz Quest and QuestQuestQuestQuestQuestQuest were at the very least innovative given the engine's limitations, though they're really not executed well.
I think most JRPGs when they want to spice up the world map gameplay go for basic puzzles. You see it all over the place from games like Golden Sun to Mario & Luigi, and even back in the old MARDEK with the accursed Water Temple switch puzzle!!
I think tying the abilities to the characters's sentimancy would be an interesting starting point, especially if they were the same abilities characters could use both in and outside of combat. Like if Emela could use Aqualung inside combat too for some effect, it makes the game feel more cohesive in a sense.
I wonder how many people got stuck in MARDEK 3 due to not realizing which party members they need to trigger certain events. Needing both Verhn and Bostolm/Legion to enter the Lost Monastery was probably the most obscure one, I might have actually had to look that one up!
I don't remember suggesting such a system! It does make sense though, and it ties together MARDEK's and Taming Dreams's systems! I do really like the idea of having every combination be able to talk to each other rather than having everything be filtered through Mardek.
I'm glad you read that blog! You probably noticed yourself when playing, but every room in Hiveswap was very dense with things you can examine, like over a dozen things per room, and then when you have like 8 items every new room suddenly introduces like 100 new irreverent inane gags, and it becomes very overwhelming!
In contrast, the P-Dialogue in Taming Dreams was all meaningfully connected to the current events and further developed the characters. I always looked forward to talking to the party members! The game also spread out its P-dialogue rather well, so not every combination of party members updated after an event, only the relevant ones. And then when something BIG happens you would be able to get new dialogue with every combination, which reinforces the importance of the event since everyone wants to weigh in on it.
I can sort of understand why the Hiveswap did it though, when I played some of my old quests yesterday it struck with me that writing dialogue for examining objects was really fun to do! And it is very in-character for a Homestuck game to be full of dialogue like that for everything no matter how stupid... But that doesn't change the fact that the game is currently collecting dust on my PC! I ought to restart from the beginning some day.
When I played Yooka-Laylee they'd already patched out most of the bugs, but several other people told me about their frustrations with the game. It's a shame! I rather liked the game myself, enough to buy the spin-off. It's worth checking out more of it, or getting it yourself, I've been enjoying it!
I don't remember if I've mentioned Golden Sun anywhere recently, but that's been on my mind as an example of the field skills idea. I haven't played it in years though so I've forgotten how it handled them! Maybe I should look to it for inspiration again... though it feels like all the games I'm drawing on are so old! And I still haven't played any new games!!1 I might start Octopath Traveler tonight though??
I'm definitely hoping to have a direct connection between characters' field skills and their combat ones! I've not really given it much thought, but from what little I did do, not as many obvious possibilities jumped to mind as I might have liked. I like the idea of Emeela using Aqualung, but what could something like that do in battle? That could be her field skill, but it's not really something you can have fun just spamming like you would with a sword slash or jump, so HMM...
I think what I'll likely do is having either individual or situational P-dialogue with a (!) thing to mark that it's changed like in Taming Dreams, but not for everyone all the time. Then the paired bits would be detached from the plot. I'll have to see how it goes when I get far enough to worry about the details! I definitely like that kind of thing myself, but it does take time to write!
Hmm, maybe I'll return to Yooka-Laylee first, since I already own it and I've played it before? Maybe! I never played Banjo Kazooie when I was little though, so I felt the game 'wasn't for me' when I played it before, since I'd read it was designed to appeal to people who wanted that same kind of experience but not exactly a remake. An interesting design choice, that. Appealing to nostalgia, but not directly. Not too different to what I'm trying to do myself.
The Fire Emblem series had at some points a similar system about dialogues between characters that got played together, since in FE you play levels in large terrains, the distance between the characters was the most important. I remember it had a special place wehre you could go to see dialogues, only if you wanted to, and it had either things about the specific mission, tips or the dialogues you unlocked with familiarity. Could work to do something similar, maybe even have the not so immediate ones only in a campfire or such? As in, you unlock them during your walkings, but only see such dialogues when your party is stopped, resting or somesuch.
Inspired by FFIV: one mage of the party could cast "levitate". Alternatively, could be available through an item (cape, or winged boots ?).
Allows to hover (not fly), so could help crossing pits, move above specific terrain (lava, quicksand) or get on level with an otherwise too high platform, cross over a wall...
Or for the latter, characters could also just give each other a leg up, then pull the last one up. That'd be fun to see and could lead to P dialogue (who's gonna leg up the girl with a robe^^).
Plenty of other solutions besides wind magic: earth magic (bridge/ladder), or a weapon/construction skill that could help climb up something.
Also, you might not have to actually let us see what happens, if it's too complicated to code: just go with a black screen during action, with dialogue pop ups and sound effects to explain what's happening and how characters are interacting during the specific action. Could also be skipped by pressing a key.
Ideally I want these field skills to be something that you can use whenever you want, as often as you want, which are fun to just use, like jumping or slashing a sword is. It's what makes it tricky! In Deliverance, the environment traversal was tied to items (the crystals, I think?), so maybe I could have something like that and field skills you can use with a button press?
I do like the idea of 'team up' things like the leg up, though as the developer it does sound like a complete nightmare! And I'd want to avoid something that's so complex it requires a fade, or so long it'd be usually skipped!
You could use Aqualung in the field to explore underwater puddles. So now go design tiles and hidden areas for that, ha.
More seriously, in battles it could be used as a status ailment protection, for enemies whith air based attacks (breaths). Or, litteraly, to catch a breather and recover points in something (mana, stamina, calmness, whatever breathing exercises are used for: the spell litteraly and figuratively puts you in a bubble).
On field, about the same idea, but that would be very specific: could be useful in areas with toxic miasma, or to resist magnetic fields, etc. ?
Also, if the field ability has to be easy to use (no need to browse the menu), couldn't you make it so that one key is dedicated to that ability, but what the key activates is up to the player ? We'd just select which recently awakened ability we want each character to use on field, and press the said button when we want to activate it.
Or if you wanna make it available to all characters and useful all the time (not in specific context, though i don't see what the problem is with that), there could be stuff like "dash" (move faster on the map, but consume stamina), "camp" (restores all your stats to max, heals status ailments), "jog" (decreases stamina while jogging, but increase max value by +1 every n minutes, cause hey, you gotta stay fit to save the world), "dig" (and find random stuff, like consumables, or just become dirty, or dig up some monster and trigger a fight).
Minor stuff like that would make going from point A to point B more "fun", but let's face it, unless you actually want to invest some programming time into making the field map actually interesting to explore in itself (besides its aesthetic value i mean: by discovering secrets, or at least easter eggs, like Memody's long lost debut album or whatever), it's just used for traveling between towns or dungeons.