WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A TURN BASED BATTLE SYSTEM?

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As I'll be getting a little bit more free time and working closely with Vanit in the coming months, I'm curious to get some input from you my "audience".

What are qualities that you guys like in a turn based battle system?
I'm conflicted as to whether I should try to come up with a system that's completely original, or just do a spin on the conventional ATB battle system.

For those who are interested in looking at what my second draft of my game's battle system in-particular looks like, can check it out here: https://www.box.com/s/yyknjd8s6ypvfvk0bbpb

Otherwise just let me know what qualities of turn based battle you enjoy.
Thanks!

~Sion
The most obvious factor I can think of is incorporating strategy into the battle system. Things like Sleep or Poison being useful or even just an elemental rock-paper-scissors system, as long as it's more complex than Attack-Attack-Attack.

That said, my absolute favorite thing to see in a turn-based system is incorporating a field of movement, like in Lunar, Quest 64, or Heroes of Might and Magic. That would open up plenty of opportunities for combat, but I'd imagine it would be difficult to create.

Ratty524
The 524 is for 524 Stone Crabs
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Considering that RPGs are supposed to be strategic games, I prefer turn-based battles in that they give me some time to think about my next move, similar to playing chess. That being said, work needs to be done with the fights themselves to incorporate strategy. As Alexander pointed out, mashing the attack button repeatedly ruins the strategic element and makes for a boring game.
I don't have a problem with the conventional systems, I'd rather see someone expand it in new directions than re-invent the wheel as a square. I think some developers get a little too impressed with what they've accomplished mechanically and forget the player doesn't see any of that. Their experience may be a bland attack-attack-attack pattern.

Don't make the strategies Alexander mentioned too unbalanced either. I've seen too many games where only one party member is at all effective against a monster at any given time, so it's just him and the healer doing anything at all while the rest are useless. Next battle, the water guy is the only one who's effective, and that's the healer too...crap. :3

ED: Ditto what Ratty said too, I'm not the biggest fan of ATB.
author=Ratty524
Considering that RPGs are supposed to be strategic games, I prefer turn-based battles in that they give me some time to think about my next move, similar to playing chess. That being said, work needs to be done with the fights themselves to incorporate strategy. As Alexander pointed out, mashing the attack button repeatedly ruins the strategic element and makes for a boring game.


I don't think that it ruins strategy so much as it is... just not strategic. That said, mashing Attack can theoretically work in, say, an action game, and I don't think the Attack command is necessarily bad in itself. You could have, for example, different weapon types (such as bows being effective against flying enemies) or the ability to buff up your attack (and debuff your opponents' attack).
At what point though, are you adding too much strategy to your battle system?
The battle system I've written up plays off of Chrono Cross a lot, in that both the player and enemy can stack elements to their respective "Fields" and can gain damage boosts based on how much of one element is stacked on the field; 3 giving all enemies a 1.5x stat boost and 3 on the players side giving all characters a x2.0 stat boost.

I don't want any one character to be more useful than another. But I do want players to build their party for different battle situations. In the system I'm working on, mashing attack won't take you very far unless your stats and equipment dwarf your opponents. Even weaker enemies can hurt you if you allow them to stack elementals and don't dispose of enemies of the opposite element quickly.

I worry that a system like this might put off players who don't do much strategy in role-playing games.

~Sion
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=Sion
What are qualities that you guys like in a turn based battle system?
Uh, I don't think this is a question someone can answer in a single post - we have an entire forum devoted to discussing it.

Regarding the more specific question of when you have too much strategy, that's not a thing. RPGs are games about strategy. That's the reason people play them - they're the thinking man's games. That would be like asking when you have too much combat in a first-person shooter game.

There's a point where your game can feel like it got too complex too fast, but that's not the same thing. That's a result of bad pacing and bad conveyance, not of too much strategy.
author=Sion
At what point though, are you adding too much strategy to your battle system?


When I have to consult a strategy guide on how to level up (or something equally mundane).

The key here is to not overwhelm the player with too many choices, especially at the beginning of the game. Start with a relatively simple scenario (say, 2 elements and 2 fields), and then have a slightly more complex one (4 elements, 3 fields), and keep gradually building up from there as the game progresses.
I like strategy that doesn't feel like its a puzzle where only one or two pieces fits the hole. My general approach on strategy is to give the player a bunch of options (none of which are required to win), a number of variables to consider, and a great enough challenge (on bosses at least) that at a decent level, teamwork among the party is key in order to make your battling effective enough to win. Strategy is at its best when you are putting together a puzzle of your own design and find it turns out great.
6 people in the party, 3 active two in the back, you can switch between them, and if someone in the front dies, someone in the back replaces like BOFIV, so that the party system isn't clustered like 4 people in the front or something like Suikoden, and it can split the focus on 3 people at a time making strategy more accurate and less based on luck.
author=AlexanderXCIII
author=Sion
At what point though, are you adding too much strategy to your battle system?
When I have to consult a strategy guide on how to level up (or something equally mundane).

The key here is to not overwhelm the player with too many choices, especially at the beginning of the game. Start with a relatively simple scenario (say, 2 elements and 2 fields), and then have a slightly more complex one (4 elements, 3 fields), and keep gradually building up from there as the game progresses.


You know, that might just be the right way to go. Couldn't hurt to slowly guide a player through the systems.

~Sion
I want to make interesting choices, of course!
Okay, so that's degenerate.

Next I would say, don't fall into the trap of thinking that a complex skill set implies strategy. Short of a tactics RPG, optimizing a single turn is usually pretty easy, if the player knows the mechanical effects and chances of success of skills (and if not, why don't they?). Too large an available skill set is just more things for the player to ignore.

So generally I think you'll do a lot better by having some tension between immediate and multi-turn objectives. For example, a classic ordering problem where you're trying to manage some sort of long-term combo of skills (use-once, or with cooldowns) and modify it as new information comes up.

author=AlexanderXCIII
even just an elemental rock-paper-scissors system, as long as it's more complex than Attack-Attack-Attack.


If my enemy is paper, what reasons would I have not to choose scissors? This is probably the most important question you can answer if you go this route.
author=DFalcon
If my enemy is paper, what reasons would I have not to choose scissors? This is probably the most important question you can answer if you go this route.


I would agree with this. A weakness system isn't anything deep or interesting. If I get a fire enemy I have no reason but to spam whatever water attack I have available until it's dead.
What I like in a combat system is having skills that are useful in different situations, and do more than just damage, or just heal (although it's OK to have a few of these). If there are conditions, then they should be useful in most encounters (not too situational).
I'm not a fan of items. They're easily abused by hoarding them (item limits suck as well, though), and usually don't do more than the basic heal character or cure condition with no penalty, which could easily be put in as a skill at the cost of MP.
I like enemies that work together and have different roles, and force you to use different skills to get rid of them effectively.
I like characters that can do more than 1 thing. So don't have 1 guy that does damage only, and another guy that does healing only. Give them skills so they can do more than just that.
Having switched to a turn based system, I found that rather than things being easier as originally thought, it turned out to be harder. Getting enemies to act first generally means you'll get 5 or 7 attacks out of enemies, where before you were likely to interrupt their attacks due ATB and then be able to one hit them.

The battles are actually slower, meaning at this point of gameplay, I'd normally manage to get to level 40 or so (exp in my game is crazy fast), but it hasn't been this way. As a result, I'm often forced to run from battles, because my team doesn't have the needed elements to kill a monster.

It helps challenge that a few battles are actually weighted against the party, giving massive status effects to them (for instance, cold weather zones slow drain health)
author=DFalcon
If my enemy is paper, what reasons would I have not to choose scissors? This is probably the most important question you can answer if you go this route.

Simply tie side effects to each element. Ice freezes enemies, Fire reduces defense, Lightning reflects off metal armor back at the player...
I've been playing a lot of fun RM games of late. Unfortunately, a lot of them rely on several key strategies that the player can pick up on almost half way through the project. I would like to see subtle changes to the battle system, and how I go about defeating my enemies, throughout the entire project. Be this with bosses that have minor gimmicks, or new characters with small, yet different skill sets.

tl;dr Keeping the game fresh without too many new, alienating features.
Nightowl
Remember when I actually used to make games? Me neither.
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tl;dr A real-time battle system.
slash
APATHY IS FOR COWARDS
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Battle situations with lots of different approaches. One answer may be the best, but many are viable and the best one isn't so far ahead that the others seem worthless.

I'd rather have less battles that are more threatening and require deep thinking than numerous battles that aren't a threat, just a waste of time.

Even if there's enemies that take 50% more damage from fire in the battle, if it takes me 0.5 seconds to press Attack and 3 seconds to scroll down to Fire, there's a good chance I'm just going to use an attack, because unless it's a boss the battle isn't enough of a threat for me to be efficient with my turns anyway.

Finally, I always like Timed Hits. Even that one little button press during battle makes me feel like I've got some skill and sucks me in a little more.
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