COMBAT SYSTEMS: DO'S AND DONT'S & OPINIONS

author=Trujin
An other thing is big animations. If you have like monster combo, go for it, but don't annoy me with 30 second battle animations on minor element magic XD.

author=JosephSeraph
I don't like skill cooldowns very much. I mean I like it when it covers about 20% max of the available skills, preferrably 10% or less, AND affecting turn order, not skill usage blocking.
But I like skills coolup.(lol) I.E. skills that make the next turn come faster.
And... I don't think there's any MUST for any battlesystem out there. Heck you don't even have to have Hp, so long as you make it fun and rewarding.

author=JosephSeraph
Restricting skills by taking them out of the player reach for a turn is, while a rather creative solution, not the best one.
It doesn't fix the problem, just works around it. The game shouldn't need to stop the player with a cooldown if the system is balanced well enough so that the spells sort themselves out.
Not to mention that depending on the game's skill / stat system I will want to blast FIRAGAGAGAJKAJAJA a million and one times. If, for example, you can design an equipment / acessory / rune / glitter magical board of status boosting and booze / etc. that boosts my fire spells and adds a drain effect to it, I'll be really pissed if I can't spam Firaga every turn. But that's just me, an obsessed minmaxer. xD
But my personal hate aganist cooldowns is just this, personal.
It doesn't stop the game from being great, it just stops me, and maybe a few other people, from enjoying it as much. xD

<3


(also, I love italics.)

author=Trujin
I dislike it when people try to put every system they liked in a game in one game. Thus making it very difficult to get the hang of it and very difficult to make any sence or balance it.

author=KingArthur
Skill cooldowns work out well in real-time systems, but they translate rather badly to turn-based systems because the concept of time is actually split into whole units of turns instead of seconds, which makes cooldowns much longer across the board than their real-time counterparts. Longer downtimes mean more stale combat and combat systems should never be stale.

author=KingArthur
Skill cooldowns work out well in real-time systems, but they translate rather badly to turn-based systems because the concept of time is actually split into whole units of turns instead of seconds, which makes cooldowns much longer across the board than their real-time counterparts. Longer downtimes mean more stale combat and combat systems should never be stale.

author=Scalytank
It would only make the combat stale, if the player has only one skill, and that one has cooldown. But that's poor design. I would probably alt+f4 out from that game.

author=LockeZ

author=Trujin
I dislike it when people try to put every system they liked in a game in one game. Thus making it very difficult to get the hang of it and very difficult to make any sence or balance it.

I don't think I've ever had this problem, I'm pretty indifferent. I have a friend who hates it when people don't put every system they liked into one game. In his words, there are just so many games that have one good system, but it's wasted and pointless because it's in such an otherwise mediocre game.

author=LouisCyphre
The cooldowns don't make it any less boring.

They just use the same boring skill rotation. Don't kid yourself.

author=Clareain_Christopher
EXAMPLE: Fire II is on a 2 turn cooldown. My skill rotation:
~Fire II
~Fire I
~Normal attack
~Fire II
Repeat boss weakness until he/she changes tactics. If I'm spamming this for more than 5 minutes... you already know. =3

author=KingArthur
Skill cooldowns work out well in real-time systems, but they translate rather badly to turn-based systems because the concept of time is actually split into whole units of turns instead of seconds, which makes cooldowns much longer across the board than their real-time counterparts. Longer downtimes mean more stale combat and combat systems should never be stale.

author=Clareain_Christopher
- SKILL COOLDOWNS ARE AWESOME AND EVERYONE SHOULD USE THEM.
EXAMPLE: Fire II is on a 2 turn cooldown. My skill rotation:
~Fire II
~Fire I
~Normal attack
~Fire II

author=m4uesviecr
Sure, why not. But is there a plausible reason for why the character is using that sequence of events, aside from the fact that the developer wants to give the player a "chance to attack"? A good example is charge based attacks, similar to the charge attack that Bahamut uses in FFX-2. Bahamut is obviously giving up turns to charge because he has to conserve ample amounts of energy if he wants to unleash a energy barrage upon Yuna's skimpily clad body. He is making a notable sacrifice - He is giving up turns (allowing the player to buff by adding protect, or attacking his body), to use his strongest, unavoidable attack. He's not using a weaker skill "simply because".
I'm going to have my bosses think the way a player would - If you have plenty of MP to cast Fire II, why in God's name would you cast Fire I, or even stoop low enough to use a normal attack?

If you ARE going to have cool down attacks, make sure they are relevant. But, if the boss attacks are well-thought out and properly constructed, I believe that there won't be a need for specific 'cool down' attacks.

TANGENT

As far as battle systems, I'm all about flow. I have no problem with turn-based battles, but I am definitely a fan of ATB, or anything similar With turn-based games, I especially look for battles with more depth. It is so easy, especially in RPG maker games, for turn-based battles to become stale and stagnant. I expect a large degree of thought to be put into any game that is turn-based. Not saying that I wouldn't want that in an ATB game, it's just that you are constantly making decisions at a fast, unrestricted pace with ATB, which I believe adds to the difficulty of the battle system.

author=LouisCyphre
The cooldowns don't make it any less boring.

They just use the same boring skill rotation. Don't kid yourself.