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TIPS FOR MAKING BATTLES INTERESTING ?
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Mr_Detective
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CloseSo, as I have read most of the reviews by Solitayre, Christopher, Marrend, Lockez, and others, they always seem to be picking on how skills are being used. They all criticized skills that follow the simple concept : more MP = more damage.
While I do agree to a certain degree, I am also not so sure on making battles more interesting and more strategic. How should I manage skills so that the players have to consider before choosing a powerful technique ? Should I make some skills require cool down or a certain amount of TP ?
In my game, when the TP reaches 100, the character can use a really powerful technique, but that is the only thing that uses TP so far.
While I do agree to a certain degree, I am also not so sure on making battles more interesting and more strategic. How should I manage skills so that the players have to consider before choosing a powerful technique ? Should I make some skills require cool down or a certain amount of TP ?
In my game, when the TP reaches 100, the character can use a really powerful technique, but that is the only thing that uses TP so far.
I don't play RPGs that much, but I know what I like when I play them. And that's not so much to manage skills based on the limits of their use or how powerful they are, but more that the skills in question have advantages and disadvantages depending on the battle. If you want to make battles interesting, you have to balance the skills you have at your disposal with a combination of enemies such that the player has to weigh the pros and cons of using such skill on such enemy. Take enemies that could Counter your attacks in the Final Fantasy series. That was a really new and interesting thing for me when I first played IV, since the enemies were able to attack back depending on certain party actions.
The skills in RPGs are like the movesets of individual chess pieces (yeah bad example just roll with it). The complexity of the game comes from the advantages and disadvantages of each piece's movement, and understanding how the enemy moves. I think the trick to interesting battles isn't so much the skills, but the enemies. Make the enemies interesting first. Try and think of different senarios, abilities, or enemy combinations for the player to deal with. Then come up with skill sets that might be helpful against such encounters.
Yeah, I know that's all very generalized. But to go further in-depth requires me playing more RPGs than Dragon Quest.
The skills in RPGs are like the movesets of individual chess pieces (yeah bad example just roll with it). The complexity of the game comes from the advantages and disadvantages of each piece's movement, and understanding how the enemy moves. I think the trick to interesting battles isn't so much the skills, but the enemies. Make the enemies interesting first. Try and think of different senarios, abilities, or enemy combinations for the player to deal with. Then come up with skill sets that might be helpful against such encounters.
Yeah, I know that's all very generalized. But to go further in-depth requires me playing more RPGs than Dragon Quest.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
Here is a formula I've been using, which I think works well
- Make skills that interact with each-other, so that the player isn't using the same skills repeatedly. For example, a fire spell that lowers the enemy's defense against the ice element, or a skill that only works on enemies that are stunned or asleep, or a skill that restores MP instead of costing it. If done right, the player will get some great satisfaction out of using his skills the right way to get big numbers.
- Make some skills that have inherent reasons that you can't spam them, even outside of interactions with other skills. Skills usable at 100 TP and skills with cooldowns are both good examples. This generally just helps keep battles from feeling as samey.
- Once you have enough skills of the above two types, the player will have a fairly complex tactical rotation of skills that he would like to ideally be using to maximize his damage.
- There will almost certainly be more than one "ideal" rotation of abilities, depending on the situation. Try to make sure different situations all have enjoyable rotations. If enemies that are weak to lightning have a much much simpler rotation of skills - thundaga on 80% of rounds, for example - then I hope that situation doesn't come up more than a couple times in the game. It's not necessarily bad if the situation is rare, since it's momentarily satisfying, but it becomes boring a lot more quickly.
- Your job when designing most enemies, and especially bosses, is to get in the way of that rotation! Come up with a variety of situations where the player is struggling - not unable, just struggling to some degree - to use his best skills, because he has to respond to and prepare for what the enemies are doing. Generally I try to make enemies in the first half of the game get in the way of your skills far less than enemies in the second half.
- Make sure the player has ways to counter what the enemy is doing without feeling like he's spending the entire battle doing so. Ideally, you want different enemies to be countered in different ways. If the counter to 95% of your enemies is "heal after they do damage" then that becomes boring fast. Counters can be pretty complex, and can even involve things the enemies do rather than things you do. For example, one enemy might cast a powerful spell that it telegraphs the round before, while another enemy might explode and silence everyone in the battle for one round when it dies. Then the player can counter the first enemy by timing the kill of the second enemy. Generally I try to make these counters get more complex as the game goes on.
- At the same time, make sure the player can figure out how to do those things to counter the enemy. Preferably by some method other than dying to it. This is one of the hardest things to do, though, especially for the more complex counters.
As I said, this is just my method. It's based heavily on how World of Warcraft deals with skillset design and enemy design. There are other ways. Dragon Age for example uses a very different method, based on disabling enemies as much as possible without running out of resources, and killing the player if he hasn't won by the time he runs out of ways to disable his targets, while the differences between enemies are mostly just their positioning and timing - but so many of your skills rely on enemy positioning and timing that it works out. Shin Megami Tensei games revolve around buff/debuff management and hitting elemental weaknesses, and enemies have a variety of different methods of getting in the way of you doing those things, while also hitting your party's elemental weaknesses (but you can prevent that with good planning). Find a game you like the combat in, and try to analyze how it does what it does. Maybe recruit the game design forum to help you analyze it!
No matter what method you use, I think it's important for the base skillset to be fun, even against very simple enemies. However, that's obviously not enough - the game will get old fast. Thus, you also need interesting enemies. They should require specific tactics to beat, rather than just being punching bags. Punching bags are okay sometimes, but not for 95% of the game.
- Make skills that interact with each-other, so that the player isn't using the same skills repeatedly. For example, a fire spell that lowers the enemy's defense against the ice element, or a skill that only works on enemies that are stunned or asleep, or a skill that restores MP instead of costing it. If done right, the player will get some great satisfaction out of using his skills the right way to get big numbers.
- Make some skills that have inherent reasons that you can't spam them, even outside of interactions with other skills. Skills usable at 100 TP and skills with cooldowns are both good examples. This generally just helps keep battles from feeling as samey.
- Once you have enough skills of the above two types, the player will have a fairly complex tactical rotation of skills that he would like to ideally be using to maximize his damage.
- There will almost certainly be more than one "ideal" rotation of abilities, depending on the situation. Try to make sure different situations all have enjoyable rotations. If enemies that are weak to lightning have a much much simpler rotation of skills - thundaga on 80% of rounds, for example - then I hope that situation doesn't come up more than a couple times in the game. It's not necessarily bad if the situation is rare, since it's momentarily satisfying, but it becomes boring a lot more quickly.
- Your job when designing most enemies, and especially bosses, is to get in the way of that rotation! Come up with a variety of situations where the player is struggling - not unable, just struggling to some degree - to use his best skills, because he has to respond to and prepare for what the enemies are doing. Generally I try to make enemies in the first half of the game get in the way of your skills far less than enemies in the second half.
- Make sure the player has ways to counter what the enemy is doing without feeling like he's spending the entire battle doing so. Ideally, you want different enemies to be countered in different ways. If the counter to 95% of your enemies is "heal after they do damage" then that becomes boring fast. Counters can be pretty complex, and can even involve things the enemies do rather than things you do. For example, one enemy might cast a powerful spell that it telegraphs the round before, while another enemy might explode and silence everyone in the battle for one round when it dies. Then the player can counter the first enemy by timing the kill of the second enemy. Generally I try to make these counters get more complex as the game goes on.
- At the same time, make sure the player can figure out how to do those things to counter the enemy. Preferably by some method other than dying to it. This is one of the hardest things to do, though, especially for the more complex counters.
As I said, this is just my method. It's based heavily on how World of Warcraft deals with skillset design and enemy design. There are other ways. Dragon Age for example uses a very different method, based on disabling enemies as much as possible without running out of resources, and killing the player if he hasn't won by the time he runs out of ways to disable his targets, while the differences between enemies are mostly just their positioning and timing - but so many of your skills rely on enemy positioning and timing that it works out. Shin Megami Tensei games revolve around buff/debuff management and hitting elemental weaknesses, and enemies have a variety of different methods of getting in the way of you doing those things, while also hitting your party's elemental weaknesses (but you can prevent that with good planning). Find a game you like the combat in, and try to analyze how it does what it does. Maybe recruit the game design forum to help you analyze it!
No matter what method you use, I think it's important for the base skillset to be fun, even against very simple enemies. However, that's obviously not enough - the game will get old fast. Thus, you also need interesting enemies. They should require specific tactics to beat, rather than just being punching bags. Punching bags are okay sometimes, but not for 95% of the game.
Crystalgate
694
Put effort into your enemies. If the enemies are very similar, battles are guaranteed to become monotone. Once the player has found a way to defeat one, it has found a way to defeat all of them. Small differences will not cut it. For example, let's say that the fighter has 150 attack, the damage is simple subtraction and the average enemy in a certain area has 60 defense. One of the enemy types is a giant scorpion with a hard exoskeleton, so you figure it should have more defense and give it 80 defense instead. That makes damage dealt 70 instead of the average 90 which is highly unlikely to change the player's tactics. Most likely the player will choose targets based on whichever enemy the cursor starts on in that situation.
The enemies has to differ in a way that the player's tactics also differs, and that in a significant way. Casting ice instead of fire is not significant. Having the fighter concentrate on stunning enemies instead of damage output is. Generally, it means giving the enemies big differences. In the example with the scorpion, if you give it 120 defense instead of 80, then it will matter. Having a fighter deal one third the damage the player is used to is very likely to make him/her stop and think for a while. Of course, if you go that way, then it's also your responsibility to make sure the fighter has other good ways to contribute than just dealing damage.
Check if your skills actually are useful. In more than 75% of the RPGs, the developers either skipped that step or simple don't know what it takes for a skill to be useful, as usually half or so of the skills rarely see any use. Direct damage and healing are easy to make useful, but the other skills are trickier.
If a player encounters an enemy, assume she/he will try to kill it. The first priority is to be able to kill it at all. This is why healing is always used, if the player doesn't heal, she/he will get a game over and have to do the battle again. The second priority is to kill it as quickly as possible. This is why it's easy to make direct offense useful.
There are exceptions to that order, but this is the most reliable way to assume the player acts. Go trough every skill and see if they help with either priority.
Let's take the sleep spell as an example. Helping with the first priority means that the use of the skill can turn a game over into a non game over. For example, the enemies can have such a high damage output that the healer(s) cannot keep up and you have to weaken their offense somehow. Alternatively, you make it so that it costs less MP to put an enemy to sleep than healing the damage you will take by letting it act and balance your game so that the player will run out of MP by neglecting damage mitigation.
Helping with the second priority mean that the player uses less time casting the sleep spell than by using a direct damage move instead. For example, the sleep spell could save the player from having to cast two heal spells meaning one action is gained that can be spent on damage output. This will not work for after battle healing though. You could also give the sleep spell some offensive purposes, like making physical attacks auto-crit against sleeping enemies.
If a skill don't help with either priority, assume it will be considered useless. For example, "take less damage" is not a priority unless mitigating damage prevents a game over and/or speeds up the battle. For that reason, the assumption that the sleep spell will be useful because it helps the player to prevent damage is flawed (but seems to be what most developers go with.) The skill should prevent a game over and/or speed the battle up.
Now, let's add the varying enemies into the reasoning. You have successfully created a sleep spell that can ward of a game over and/or make battles go faster. The next step is to create situations where the sleep spell isn't useful anymore, maybe because the enemies are undead and cannot be put to sleep. Now the player needs to find another way to mitigate damage and/or is encouraged to experiment with other means to make battles faster. Ideally, you want as many skills as possible to both have many situations where they are useful and many situations where they are not.
The enemies has to differ in a way that the player's tactics also differs, and that in a significant way. Casting ice instead of fire is not significant. Having the fighter concentrate on stunning enemies instead of damage output is. Generally, it means giving the enemies big differences. In the example with the scorpion, if you give it 120 defense instead of 80, then it will matter. Having a fighter deal one third the damage the player is used to is very likely to make him/her stop and think for a while. Of course, if you go that way, then it's also your responsibility to make sure the fighter has other good ways to contribute than just dealing damage.
Check if your skills actually are useful. In more than 75% of the RPGs, the developers either skipped that step or simple don't know what it takes for a skill to be useful, as usually half or so of the skills rarely see any use. Direct damage and healing are easy to make useful, but the other skills are trickier.
If a player encounters an enemy, assume she/he will try to kill it. The first priority is to be able to kill it at all. This is why healing is always used, if the player doesn't heal, she/he will get a game over and have to do the battle again. The second priority is to kill it as quickly as possible. This is why it's easy to make direct offense useful.
There are exceptions to that order, but this is the most reliable way to assume the player acts. Go trough every skill and see if they help with either priority.
Let's take the sleep spell as an example. Helping with the first priority means that the use of the skill can turn a game over into a non game over. For example, the enemies can have such a high damage output that the healer(s) cannot keep up and you have to weaken their offense somehow. Alternatively, you make it so that it costs less MP to put an enemy to sleep than healing the damage you will take by letting it act and balance your game so that the player will run out of MP by neglecting damage mitigation.
Helping with the second priority mean that the player uses less time casting the sleep spell than by using a direct damage move instead. For example, the sleep spell could save the player from having to cast two heal spells meaning one action is gained that can be spent on damage output. This will not work for after battle healing though. You could also give the sleep spell some offensive purposes, like making physical attacks auto-crit against sleeping enemies.
If a skill don't help with either priority, assume it will be considered useless. For example, "take less damage" is not a priority unless mitigating damage prevents a game over and/or speeds up the battle. For that reason, the assumption that the sleep spell will be useful because it helps the player to prevent damage is flawed (but seems to be what most developers go with.) The skill should prevent a game over and/or speed the battle up.
Now, let's add the varying enemies into the reasoning. You have successfully created a sleep spell that can ward of a game over and/or make battles go faster. The next step is to create situations where the sleep spell isn't useful anymore, maybe because the enemies are undead and cannot be put to sleep. Now the player needs to find another way to mitigate damage and/or is encouraged to experiment with other means to make battles faster. Ideally, you want as many skills as possible to both have many situations where they are useful and many situations where they are not.
LockeZ touched on this, but skill synergy is one half of the battle (heh). The other half is battle tempo (</Jude>).
Skill synergy is as simple as defining roles for your characters, and then making them interact. Let's look at a classic warrior/rogue/mage/healer jRPG setup and make it interesting:
Warrior: Our warrior has the best armor, and as such we're going to reward her with the ressurection magic. She'll ideally be alive the most, and thus can get far more use out of the spell than the healer. We're also going to give her an attack that lowers the enemy ATK and an attack that always inflicts Silence for a turn. Both are on a 3-turn CD, but cost very little MP, so almost all of her MP is going toward Revive and a Battle Roar that forces an enemy to attack her -- useful for letting a low-HP ally off the hook.
Rogue: We want to reward use of status ailments, and to let our rogue's persuasive personality shine. As such, he's going to get a cheap and low-CD DEF Down attack, an attack that ignores enemy evasion (re: it always hits), and the ability to buff the entire team's evasion/critical rates. He's also going to get a Charm spell that causes an enemy brute to attack his allies. He can also sing a mystic ballad, sacrificing his turn to halve the rest of the party's MP costs. This will let everybody else do their jobs more efficiently in a time of crisis.
Mage: Our mage is a feisty sorceress, and we want her to play off of her allies' strengths. She has two tiers each of fire, ice and storm magic. Her fire spells deal more damage per ailment on an enemy, making her warrior and rogue friends even more useful. Her ice spells freeze enemy limbs, always reducing their accuracy and evasion for two turns (unless the enemy is naturally hot, and thus is immune to the effective). Lightning spells always attack multiple random targets, making them effective against groups, and deal bonus damage on a critical hit (see: our rogue's buffs). Using the lower-tier spells also provides her a small boon on her next turn (for example, the lightning spell making her next physical attack steal some MP), causing her to dance between her abilities without any need for cooldowns.
Healer: Our healer is armed with powerful maces, allowing him to make decent physical attacks. He can't deal as much damage as the rogue, or take as many hits as the warrior, but each of his attacks are followed by a secondary effect. One attack heals the party slightly, another raises the party's MAGDEF for two turns, and yet another inflicts a special DoT on the foe that heals the healer equal to the amount of damage it deals. That last attack lets him focus on healing others instead of himself. His three other main abilities are 30% heals that raise the target's attributes; for example, he likes to use the ATK Up heal on the rogue. His three heals have 5-turn CDs on them, but any physical attack he uses reduces all of his CDs by an extra turn. Eventually, he gains a spell that lets him enchant one ally for the rest of battle to receive healing whenever a different ally is healed, essentially letting him take care of two people at once.
As you can hopefully see, everybody helps everybody else out with the use of only a little meta (the fire spells dealing more damage per ailment).
Battle tempo (or "battle pacing") is the other half of the fight (...slay me). It is all about keeping things interesting and not in a rut -- hopefully by having at least two phases in battle, the lead-up and the execution. Two primary examples are FFXIII's Stagger system, where you must utilize both warriors and mages to raise the enemy's Stagger gauge until the enemy is severely weakened, and Xenosaga III's Break limits that made battles have two effective HP bars to watch over and damage.
My simple solution to ensuring a positive battle tempo is to add a secondary resource to the game. Break is one example. Another would be a system where physical attacks filled up a party-wide MP bar for mages to cast out of -- one part of the battle is a flurry of attacks while keeping your mages alive, and then the other part of the battle is unleashing those mighty spells to take out the enemy.
Skill synergy is as simple as defining roles for your characters, and then making them interact. Let's look at a classic warrior/rogue/mage/healer jRPG setup and make it interesting:
Warrior: Our warrior has the best armor, and as such we're going to reward her with the ressurection magic. She'll ideally be alive the most, and thus can get far more use out of the spell than the healer. We're also going to give her an attack that lowers the enemy ATK and an attack that always inflicts Silence for a turn. Both are on a 3-turn CD, but cost very little MP, so almost all of her MP is going toward Revive and a Battle Roar that forces an enemy to attack her -- useful for letting a low-HP ally off the hook.
Rogue: We want to reward use of status ailments, and to let our rogue's persuasive personality shine. As such, he's going to get a cheap and low-CD DEF Down attack, an attack that ignores enemy evasion (re: it always hits), and the ability to buff the entire team's evasion/critical rates. He's also going to get a Charm spell that causes an enemy brute to attack his allies. He can also sing a mystic ballad, sacrificing his turn to halve the rest of the party's MP costs. This will let everybody else do their jobs more efficiently in a time of crisis.
Mage: Our mage is a feisty sorceress, and we want her to play off of her allies' strengths. She has two tiers each of fire, ice and storm magic. Her fire spells deal more damage per ailment on an enemy, making her warrior and rogue friends even more useful. Her ice spells freeze enemy limbs, always reducing their accuracy and evasion for two turns (unless the enemy is naturally hot, and thus is immune to the effective). Lightning spells always attack multiple random targets, making them effective against groups, and deal bonus damage on a critical hit (see: our rogue's buffs). Using the lower-tier spells also provides her a small boon on her next turn (for example, the lightning spell making her next physical attack steal some MP), causing her to dance between her abilities without any need for cooldowns.
Healer: Our healer is armed with powerful maces, allowing him to make decent physical attacks. He can't deal as much damage as the rogue, or take as many hits as the warrior, but each of his attacks are followed by a secondary effect. One attack heals the party slightly, another raises the party's MAGDEF for two turns, and yet another inflicts a special DoT on the foe that heals the healer equal to the amount of damage it deals. That last attack lets him focus on healing others instead of himself. His three other main abilities are 30% heals that raise the target's attributes; for example, he likes to use the ATK Up heal on the rogue. His three heals have 5-turn CDs on them, but any physical attack he uses reduces all of his CDs by an extra turn. Eventually, he gains a spell that lets him enchant one ally for the rest of battle to receive healing whenever a different ally is healed, essentially letting him take care of two people at once.
As you can hopefully see, everybody helps everybody else out with the use of only a little meta (the fire spells dealing more damage per ailment).
***
Battle tempo (or "battle pacing") is the other half of the fight (...slay me). It is all about keeping things interesting and not in a rut -- hopefully by having at least two phases in battle, the lead-up and the execution. Two primary examples are FFXIII's Stagger system, where you must utilize both warriors and mages to raise the enemy's Stagger gauge until the enemy is severely weakened, and Xenosaga III's Break limits that made battles have two effective HP bars to watch over and damage.
My simple solution to ensuring a positive battle tempo is to add a secondary resource to the game. Break is one example. Another would be a system where physical attacks filled up a party-wide MP bar for mages to cast out of -- one part of the battle is a flurry of attacks while keeping your mages alive, and then the other part of the battle is unleashing those mighty spells to take out the enemy.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
Man, there are so many useless skills even in big name professional games.
Let's look at Rydia in Final Fantasy 4. She has exactly the kind of awful skill list I see way too often in RPG Maker games. FF4 was great for its time, but look at how many of these skills are useless, and how many others are boring.
Fire - OK.
Blizzard - Boring. Exactly the same as fire except it works on different enemies. Enemies that make you use one instead of the other do not actually play any differently - the only difference is the animation you see.
Thunder - Boring. See Blizzard.
Sleep - Useless. Theoretically prevents damage, but every enemy in the game can either be killed in three or fewer hits, or is immune to sleep. Plus, even if the enemy's not immune, it usually misses. Thus, offense is always better.
Poison - Useless. Does 1/8 of the target's maximum HP every few rounds. No enemy that can be poisoned survives long enough for it to tick twice. A single offensive spell would deal several times more damage, and do so immediately.
Warp - N/A. Has no effect in combat.
Toad - Semi-useless. Has two effects: can either inflict toad status, or heal it. The effect of healing the toad effect is useful, since inventory is limited and thus you may not be carrying any maiden's kisses. The effect of inflicting the toad status is useless; it prevents magic casting and slightly reduces damage dealt. Even if it didn't miss more often than not, enemies are rarely so threatening that the minimal reduction of damage is worthwhile, and by the time you've figured out that an enemy is primarily a magic caster, you've beaten it five times and it's clearly not a threat.
Pig - Boring and semi-useless. Literally the exact same spell as Toad.
Bio - OK.
Fira - OK, but sorta boring, since it just replaces Fire instead of adding a new option alongside it, and also does exactly the same thing. By the time you get this spell, you have three hundred thousand gold, and conserving MP is no longer useful for anything but saving time. Casting a weaker spell would cost more time than it saves, so you'll never cast Fire again once you get this.
Blizzara - Boring. See Blizzard.
Thundara - Boring. See Blizzard.
Osmose - Useless and boring. Drains enemy MP. By the time you learn this spell at level 32, you have enough gold to buy mountains of ethers. It would take dozens or hundreds of casts of this spell to lower an enemy's MP to zero. This is like a version of Mute that takes 40 rounds to cast.
Drain - Useless. If you use a physical attack one round and use a potion the next round, it will deal several times more damage and heal several times more HP than casting Drain twice. Never mind if you had cast Bio instead.
Firaga - OK, but sorta boring again. See Fira.
Blizzaga - Boring. See Blizzard.
Thundaga - Boring. See Blizzard.
Quake - OK.
Break - Useless in US version, ridiculously overpowered in Japanese version. Most everything you would ever want to use this on is immune. However, in the Japanese version, it has a 100% hitrate. And you can target the entire enemy party with it. Yeah. This spell causes you to instantly win 90% of non-boss battles and has no random fail chance.
Tornado - OK, surprisingly. 70% hitrate, causes the target to die from the next attack.
Death - Useless and boring. Single target petrify with a slightly higher chance. 40% success, single target, high MP cost, one in four enemies are immune to it. There's no way to tell if it randomly failed or the enemy was immune without wasting even more time casting Scan. Guess how many enemies could survive at least two and a half hits and are vulnerable to Death? Go on, guess. (Hint: it's less than one.)
Flare - Borderline OK. Does less damage than Firaga due to the much longer charge time, but the player is unlikely to realize that. Would be good against enemies that resist all three primary elements, but that situation never occurs. Useful against Zeromus and Behemoth, since they counterattack when hit by magic.
Meteo - Borderline OK. Same damage problems as Flare. Also, same situational uses as Flare, plus it can also pierce through reflect status. As a result, you'd think situations where it's useful would be somewhat common. Sadly, by the time you get it at level 60, there are only two enemies left in the game that it's useful against.
So of Rydia's 24 spells, ten are totally useless, and eight more are dumb because they're redundant. This is the kind of skillset design you generally don't want to emulate. I mean, it was fine in 1994. But in the decades since then, someone invented game design.
Let's look at Rydia in Final Fantasy 4. She has exactly the kind of awful skill list I see way too often in RPG Maker games. FF4 was great for its time, but look at how many of these skills are useless, and how many others are boring.
Fire - OK.
Blizzard - Boring. Exactly the same as fire except it works on different enemies. Enemies that make you use one instead of the other do not actually play any differently - the only difference is the animation you see.
Thunder - Boring. See Blizzard.
Sleep - Useless. Theoretically prevents damage, but every enemy in the game can either be killed in three or fewer hits, or is immune to sleep. Plus, even if the enemy's not immune, it usually misses. Thus, offense is always better.
Poison - Useless. Does 1/8 of the target's maximum HP every few rounds. No enemy that can be poisoned survives long enough for it to tick twice. A single offensive spell would deal several times more damage, and do so immediately.
Warp - N/A. Has no effect in combat.
Toad - Semi-useless. Has two effects: can either inflict toad status, or heal it. The effect of healing the toad effect is useful, since inventory is limited and thus you may not be carrying any maiden's kisses. The effect of inflicting the toad status is useless; it prevents magic casting and slightly reduces damage dealt. Even if it didn't miss more often than not, enemies are rarely so threatening that the minimal reduction of damage is worthwhile, and by the time you've figured out that an enemy is primarily a magic caster, you've beaten it five times and it's clearly not a threat.
Pig - Boring and semi-useless. Literally the exact same spell as Toad.
Bio - OK.
Fira - OK, but sorta boring, since it just replaces Fire instead of adding a new option alongside it, and also does exactly the same thing. By the time you get this spell, you have three hundred thousand gold, and conserving MP is no longer useful for anything but saving time. Casting a weaker spell would cost more time than it saves, so you'll never cast Fire again once you get this.
Blizzara - Boring. See Blizzard.
Thundara - Boring. See Blizzard.
Osmose - Useless and boring. Drains enemy MP. By the time you learn this spell at level 32, you have enough gold to buy mountains of ethers. It would take dozens or hundreds of casts of this spell to lower an enemy's MP to zero. This is like a version of Mute that takes 40 rounds to cast.
Drain - Useless. If you use a physical attack one round and use a potion the next round, it will deal several times more damage and heal several times more HP than casting Drain twice. Never mind if you had cast Bio instead.
Firaga - OK, but sorta boring again. See Fira.
Blizzaga - Boring. See Blizzard.
Thundaga - Boring. See Blizzard.
Quake - OK.
Break - Useless in US version, ridiculously overpowered in Japanese version. Most everything you would ever want to use this on is immune. However, in the Japanese version, it has a 100% hitrate. And you can target the entire enemy party with it. Yeah. This spell causes you to instantly win 90% of non-boss battles and has no random fail chance.
Tornado - OK, surprisingly. 70% hitrate, causes the target to die from the next attack.
Death - Useless and boring. Single target petrify with a slightly higher chance. 40% success, single target, high MP cost, one in four enemies are immune to it. There's no way to tell if it randomly failed or the enemy was immune without wasting even more time casting Scan. Guess how many enemies could survive at least two and a half hits and are vulnerable to Death? Go on, guess. (Hint: it's less than one.)
Flare - Borderline OK. Does less damage than Firaga due to the much longer charge time, but the player is unlikely to realize that. Would be good against enemies that resist all three primary elements, but that situation never occurs. Useful against Zeromus and Behemoth, since they counterattack when hit by magic.
Meteo - Borderline OK. Same damage problems as Flare. Also, same situational uses as Flare, plus it can also pierce through reflect status. As a result, you'd think situations where it's useful would be somewhat common. Sadly, by the time you get it at level 60, there are only two enemies left in the game that it's useful against.
So of Rydia's 24 spells, ten are totally useless, and eight more are dumb because they're redundant. This is the kind of skillset design you generally don't want to emulate. I mean, it was fine in 1994. But in the decades since then, someone invented game design.
@Isreiri: JRPG battles as chess is a great analogy. Chess is all about predicting your enemy and making the best possible move based on the situation and what you know. I would love to see that kind of strategy in more JRPGs.
@Lockez: Boss-immunity has always irritated me about Final Fantasy/all JRPGs!
Presenting a player with a spell that doesn't work on bosses is a huge betrayal. Typically you would hope a player gets a new spell, experiments with it and learns the best ways to use it, when not to use it, and gets this practice on your fodder enemies before coming up against a boss.
Then you tell them that they wasted their time and they should go back to casting Fire2. An extreme but comparable analogy would be "surprising" your players by removing Mario's ability to jump when he gets to Bowser.
So... make them work the same way on bosses! If that unbalances your battles, think about what purpose the spell is supposed to serve in your game. Not every game needs Death or Toad.
@Lockez: Boss-immunity has always irritated me about Final Fantasy/all JRPGs!
Presenting a player with a spell that doesn't work on bosses is a huge betrayal. Typically you would hope a player gets a new spell, experiments with it and learns the best ways to use it, when not to use it, and gets this practice on your fodder enemies before coming up against a boss.
Then you tell them that they wasted their time and they should go back to casting Fire2. An extreme but comparable analogy would be "surprising" your players by removing Mario's ability to jump when he gets to Bowser.
So... make them work the same way on bosses! If that unbalances your battles, think about what purpose the spell is supposed to serve in your game. Not every game needs Death or Toad.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
To be fair, you can't use fireballs against Bowser.
Sometimes there are skills that you straight up cannot allow to be used vs. bosses because they would result in effortlessly bypassing the challenge of the boss. Sometimes you need to disable these skills against only certain bosses, but sometimes you need to disable them versus the vast majority of bosses. Instant death or paralysis, for example. Now, it's better if you can make the skills have a reduced effect, but sometimes that's not possible, and sometimes it doesn't matter because the reduced effect version would be identical to another skill you have, or would not be worth using.
Minimizing it is certainly preferable, though. If a skill is only useful against enemies that aren't challenging, that's usually a good sign that it's never really useful at all. And a lot of the time you can take these effects that aren't usable against bosses, and design encounters specifically to allow them. Bosses that summon minions are a common and excellent method. Maybe your "instant death" spell removes 100% of a life bar, but bosses have multiple life bars. Maybe when bosses are stunned, they break out of the status after 1 round and then become immune for the rest of the battle. Etc. The point here is that if you're training the player to use the skills you gave him, there should be at least a few climactic moments where those skills really make a difference.
Sometimes there are skills that you straight up cannot allow to be used vs. bosses because they would result in effortlessly bypassing the challenge of the boss. Sometimes you need to disable these skills against only certain bosses, but sometimes you need to disable them versus the vast majority of bosses. Instant death or paralysis, for example. Now, it's better if you can make the skills have a reduced effect, but sometimes that's not possible, and sometimes it doesn't matter because the reduced effect version would be identical to another skill you have, or would not be worth using.
Minimizing it is certainly preferable, though. If a skill is only useful against enemies that aren't challenging, that's usually a good sign that it's never really useful at all. And a lot of the time you can take these effects that aren't usable against bosses, and design encounters specifically to allow them. Bosses that summon minions are a common and excellent method. Maybe your "instant death" spell removes 100% of a life bar, but bosses have multiple life bars. Maybe when bosses are stunned, they break out of the status after 1 round and then become immune for the rest of the battle. Etc. The point here is that if you're training the player to use the skills you gave him, there should be at least a few climactic moments where those skills really make a difference.
I don't mind the outright invulnerabilities bosses get as a rule. Just being able to completely break a boss would take all the fun out of a fight that would otherwise had been challenging (though not always). The only reason I find it irritating is because they never have a way for the player to tell if the spell works on the boss and just failed to register, or if the boss is immune and you're wasting your time. Why not simply have a prompt that lets you know? Maybe instead of "there was no effect on X!" you could say "the spell failed!" when it just doesn't work at all?
But in my opinion, if you want to give an enemy or boss an immunity, wouldn't it be better to make that an ability the boss can pull out and use rather than an inherent trait? That way you can counter it with your own skills and bring down it's immunity.
And you can use fireballs against Bowser.
But in my opinion, if you want to give an enemy or boss an immunity, wouldn't it be better to make that an ability the boss can pull out and use rather than an inherent trait? That way you can counter it with your own skills and bring down it's immunity.
And you can use fireballs against Bowser.
You can beat Bowser with fireballs in most mario games, or at least the original Super Mario Bros. anyway.
You're absolutely right, it would be a mistake to take the standard spell system found in FF/DQ and simply enable spell use on bosses. Your suggestions are solid and I've seen them used well in other games - for example, in WoW you can't Polymorph or stun Sulfuron, but you can control his minions with those spells and that's a brilliant part of the strategy.
Still, I think the standard JRPG system could be drastically revised to great effect. The basic problem still exists where actions that the player comes to rely on are suddenly useless for what boils down to "the game says so". It's not always that blunt, but it can feel like it and that's frustrating.
You all got me reading all about chess strategy. So far the focus is on combinations and sacrifices that require the player to be able to predict the enemy's actions over the next turn or two. An RPG where the enemy's actions were learnable & predictable would lead to more fulfilling combats, because rather than being purely reactive, the player could take a proactive approach to both defense and offense. Or maybe not. IT'S A THEORY
You're absolutely right, it would be a mistake to take the standard spell system found in FF/DQ and simply enable spell use on bosses. Your suggestions are solid and I've seen them used well in other games - for example, in WoW you can't Polymorph or stun Sulfuron, but you can control his minions with those spells and that's a brilliant part of the strategy.
Still, I think the standard JRPG system could be drastically revised to great effect. The basic problem still exists where actions that the player comes to rely on are suddenly useless for what boils down to "the game says so". It's not always that blunt, but it can feel like it and that's frustrating.
You all got me reading all about chess strategy. So far the focus is on combinations and sacrifices that require the player to be able to predict the enemy's actions over the next turn or two. An RPG where the enemy's actions were learnable & predictable would lead to more fulfilling combats, because rather than being purely reactive, the player could take a proactive approach to both defense and offense. Or maybe not. IT'S A THEORY
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
author=IsrieriMy entire life, I've been living in a world that was a lie. I've had half a life and never realized what I was missing.
And you can use fireballs against Bowser.
author=LockeZauthor=IsrieriMy entire life, I've been living in a world that was a lie. I've had half a life and never realized what I was missing.
And you can use fireballs against Bowser.
It takes a lot of fireballs, though.
Regarding bosses being immune... Consider temporary vulnerability to the effects they're normally immune to. A straight up Death spell probably shouldn't be allowed, but if a final boss drops her guard for a turn every six rounds then a little observation should be rewarded with a Paralyze spell.
Mr_Detective
60
You guys have some really awesome tips, I really appreciate the help ! :D
But I feel that most of these are more suitable for boss battles. What about random encounters at the beginning of the game ? How strong should the enemies be ? How many hits should they take before they die, either normal hits or special skills ?
Also, I have heard people complaining about normal attack is weaker than skills and therefore useless. Well, how strong or weak should normal attack be compared to the weakest special skill ?
But I feel that most of these are more suitable for boss battles. What about random encounters at the beginning of the game ? How strong should the enemies be ? How many hits should they take before they die, either normal hits or special skills ?
Also, I have heard people complaining about normal attack is weaker than skills and therefore useless. Well, how strong or weak should normal attack be compared to the weakest special skill ?
You want your special attacks to be strong enough to feel significantly "special", but not so powerful that players always use them, and not so expensive that players never use them. In the end you'll likely want to sit down with some paper and map out Normal Dmg vs. Skill Dmg vs. MP Use vs. Healing Power, etc. The offset of using too many skills is that the player can't afford to cast heals, so it's important to take that into account.
As far as battle length and difficulty, that will require some playtesting on your part. You don't want to overwhelm the player too early. They need a few regular battles to get a feel for their characters and skills. In a typical* JRPG a random battle doesn't last much longer than 30-60 seconds, but those battles can feel very filler-ish at times, so you will want to think** about how the player will feel after fighting all of your battles.
*your mileage may vary
**in which I digress far too much:
You have a couple choices here!
In most JRPGs, there are two challenges presented to the player by enemies - attrition and overpowered (I made these terms up)
Attrition is caused by several battles and a lack of resources (HP, MP, Potions, Ethers). This leads the player to die to a battle she can't handle because she can't heal or use the skills she needs to. Very often this comes from fighting a lot of little battles before a boss. A typical JRPG strategy is to play it safe when the player knows it'll be a long time before she gets to a town, so she won't use items/MP skills carelessly.
Being Overpowered is actually being defeated because due to the enemy's strategy or power level. The enemy does too much damage and the player is unable to respond quickly enough, despite having the appropriate resources. This is typically reserved for Bosses or Mid-bosses, as almost-dying to every encounter can be extremely frustrating.
TLDR: If the player dies because they ran out of resources and couldn't take the actions they needed, it's due to attrition. If she has all the resources she needs but dies before she can respond, she was Overpowered.
So, assuming your game works similarly to most JRPGs, you'll want your enemies to present enough challenge so that they can chip at the player and create attrition, but not actually overpower them. The player has the option to use skills to speed up the battle and save HP, but then they spend MP, which can mean less healing later, a typical trade-off. Normal attacks do less damage, but preserve MP. Your defeats *should* be saved for bosses, after the player is worn down and haggard.
In the end, it would behoove you to sit down with some paper and chart out MP Use vs. Damage Dealt vs. Damage Taken vs. Healing Power and things like that. I wish I could tell you how much your normal/special attacks should do relatively, but all of these things are dependent on each other in attrition-based games.
---
However! This isn't the only way to present your battles.
You could eliminate random encounters and attrition entirely, focusing on the Overpowering aspect of difficult fights. Restore each player to full HP/MP/Items at the start of each battle, but make each battle require different strategies & solutions in order to win. This makes every battle exciting and eliminates filler, but some easier battles in-between can help the player relax and catch their breath.
Similarly, you could reduce the focus on overpowering boss fights but make your game about traveling the distance between towns & shops without being worn down via Attrition & random encounters. Each individual battle is less threatening, but the player must be wise and plan her resource-use ahead of time to last her the journey. This could lead to frustration, but can also create a down-to-earth, struggling feeling that can make minor accomplishments feel very rewarding.
I see a lot of potential in both, but it would require some out-of-the-box thinking since many traditional JRPGs don't work that way!
As far as battle length and difficulty, that will require some playtesting on your part. You don't want to overwhelm the player too early. They need a few regular battles to get a feel for their characters and skills. In a typical* JRPG a random battle doesn't last much longer than 30-60 seconds, but those battles can feel very filler-ish at times, so you will want to think** about how the player will feel after fighting all of your battles.
*your mileage may vary
**in which I digress far too much:
You have a couple choices here!
In most JRPGs, there are two challenges presented to the player by enemies - attrition and overpowered (I made these terms up)
Attrition is caused by several battles and a lack of resources (HP, MP, Potions, Ethers). This leads the player to die to a battle she can't handle because she can't heal or use the skills she needs to. Very often this comes from fighting a lot of little battles before a boss. A typical JRPG strategy is to play it safe when the player knows it'll be a long time before she gets to a town, so she won't use items/MP skills carelessly.
Being Overpowered is actually being defeated because due to the enemy's strategy or power level. The enemy does too much damage and the player is unable to respond quickly enough, despite having the appropriate resources. This is typically reserved for Bosses or Mid-bosses, as almost-dying to every encounter can be extremely frustrating.
TLDR: If the player dies because they ran out of resources and couldn't take the actions they needed, it's due to attrition. If she has all the resources she needs but dies before she can respond, she was Overpowered.
So, assuming your game works similarly to most JRPGs, you'll want your enemies to present enough challenge so that they can chip at the player and create attrition, but not actually overpower them. The player has the option to use skills to speed up the battle and save HP, but then they spend MP, which can mean less healing later, a typical trade-off. Normal attacks do less damage, but preserve MP. Your defeats *should* be saved for bosses, after the player is worn down and haggard.
In the end, it would behoove you to sit down with some paper and chart out MP Use vs. Damage Dealt vs. Damage Taken vs. Healing Power and things like that. I wish I could tell you how much your normal/special attacks should do relatively, but all of these things are dependent on each other in attrition-based games.
---
However! This isn't the only way to present your battles.
You could eliminate random encounters and attrition entirely, focusing on the Overpowering aspect of difficult fights. Restore each player to full HP/MP/Items at the start of each battle, but make each battle require different strategies & solutions in order to win. This makes every battle exciting and eliminates filler, but some easier battles in-between can help the player relax and catch their breath.
Similarly, you could reduce the focus on overpowering boss fights but make your game about traveling the distance between towns & shops without being worn down via Attrition & random encounters. Each individual battle is less threatening, but the player must be wise and plan her resource-use ahead of time to last her the journey. This could lead to frustration, but can also create a down-to-earth, struggling feeling that can make minor accomplishments feel very rewarding.
I see a lot of potential in both, but it would require some out-of-the-box thinking since many traditional JRPGs don't work that way!
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