BATTLE SYSTEM PLANS

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Thiamor
I assure you I'm no where NEAR as STUPID as one might think.
63
My friend is telling me about this game he's making and so I wish to discuss it with you all.

It's sorta unique, but not. I think it's cool. It's using RPG MAKER, obviously, and it will not have the function to wait, it'll be all action turn based, based on agility, but not just that. He plans to have every character in the game have a default 999 MP, and each action they do other than items, defending (heals, and gives MP), and MP combo hits, uses MP up. IE, you start with 0 during each battle, and have to build your way up to perform better abilities, even attacking uses it up. The only thing they doesn't use MP is the pet you have that is AI controlled, strong, but slow.

Anyway, he wants to have it like Pokemon in terms of view where your back is facing the player, enemy is in the foreground, facing the team and you. Now onto the next part. He wants battle simulation where you can use up the previous MP you've gained to not fight the next battle, but instead it gives you your items, gold, and exp but a lot less. All enemies will be on the screen like Chrono Trigger, and goes after you, and then when touched you go into the battle screen. He plans to have it where you can only simulate battles half way into the game.

Is it sounding okay so far, in concept?
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
It sounds like the player might be spending a *lot* of his turns defending, which is potentially really boring. My advice:

1) Start the player with some small amount of MP each battle, so that your first turn isn't always forced to be Defend in every single battle, because that's silly. Why not just skip that turn and effectively start every battle on the second turn by starting the player with one defend worth of MP?
2) Make sure defending gives at least enough MP to perform 3-4 actions.
3) Strongly consider making a number of other ways to restore MP besides defending. Passive skills that start you with MP, healing spells or buffs that restore MP to the target in addition to their other effects, MP regeneration buffs, skills that sacrifice HP to restore MP, skills that sacrifice multiple turns to fully restore MP, etc.
4) Make absolute sure that damn near every enemy in the game has actions that make it so that the player can benefit from tactically choosing when to defend. For example, skills that the enemy charges up for a round before using, or short debuffs applied to a character, or short buffs applied to an enemy, etc.
5) Actually, having enemies follow the same rules so that they need MP before they can attack too would be an excellent way of doing this - the player would be able to figure out when to attack and when to defend by watching when the enemy has enough MP to use big skills. Enemies don't necessarily need to gain MP anywhere near as fast as players (though personally I would vary this greatly from enemy to enemy).


Being able to use MP to earthbound the battles seems... possibly okay if it's done right? I don't really see the point of it. It's not letting the player avoid easier battles, or avoid battles they've already done before, or any sort of pattern that I can see that would make the game more fun. You just sort of avoid every second battle, but only if you spend an extra round defending and doing nothing at the end of each battle? Am I missing something here?
Thiamor
I assure you I'm no where NEAR as STUPID as one might think.
63
Combo hits are the main source of MP he said. Where it may take a bit of HP off just to add a bit of an extra bit into it, but it'll restore a great deal of MP, and when he said combo, he means it. He plans to make it where the more times this combo hits, the more MP you gain, and one hit gains a decent amount. Defending is just so you can always have one other way to gain MP and HP in one turn.

He also wants to add in unlockables so that people won't be skipping battles using the simulate battle system. Where you gain battle points you can use on newgame+ while also unlocking additional, current playthrough quests.
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
So is the point of the battle-avoidance system just to add an extra layer of complexity to the act of getting in an encounter?

That would actually be pretty welcome, as it's a part of gameplay that many games give you very little control over or input into. But I'm not sure fully skipping the battle is the way to go - getting a preemptive strike might be better. I suppose it depends how combos work. What is a "combo" in this context exactly, and what triggers it?
Thiamor
I assure you I'm no where NEAR as STUPID as one might think.
63
Well it's probably going to focus on it being a random system, that it marks how many hits you'll get when you click to use it. IE, you use the combo hit, the event scripted for it kicks on, it determines you'll get 3 hits rather than 1, then you're loaded with MP.

Also yes to the encounter. The idea is that it skips the battle entirely and gives them a bit lower of exp and everything else so that people have another way to choose how to go into a fight and how to farm for experience rather than the normal "go and fight enemies" way.
halibabica
RMN's Official Reviewmonger
16873
Skipping the battle entirely doesn't sound too interesting, even if the incentive to fight is a higher yield of cash/experience. I like LockeZ' suggestion of gaining a preemptive strike; it makes the battle easier without completely nullifying its existence.
Sbester had something similar to this, at least I think it was his game. Anyways what he did was have a few skills that were very weak when used, but built up MP every time you used them. Each skill had its cons and pros, one would do more damage, but give less MP than any other skill. Then once you had built up enough MP you could use the real attacks that would actually do a bit of damage. He made sure the player would use the MP skills by making the skills that give MP very weak, usually take at least 10 attacks just to kill a monster, but made the MP skills strong enough so that the monsters would die quickly once you could use MP skills.
Thiamor
I assure you I'm no where NEAR as STUPID as one might think.
63
author=halibabica
Skipping the battle entirely doesn't sound too interesting, even if the incentive to fight is a higher yield of cash/experience. I like LockeZ' suggestion of gaining a preemptive strike; it makes the battle easier without completely nullifying its existence.

Well if I hadn't said so earlier, his plan was that if you don't fight every fight (no random battles in this, it's scripted, NPC on screen battles where it goes into the battle screen once touched) then you don't obtain points. These points he said would be used to start a new game+, while also allowing you to buy a list of different items, skills, levels using the points you had, and any left over is cut down by a certain amount and that is what is left to carry over to your next playthrough. Even if you had everything unlocked and had a shit ton of points left, his idea is to cut it down by half when the new game is finally started.

halibabica
RMN's Official Reviewmonger
16873
Most developers are lucky if people play their game once. If the only incentive to gathering points is to play the game again with more stuff, I don't think anyone will care.
Thiamor
I assure you I'm no where NEAR as STUPID as one might think.
63
author=halibabica
Most developers are lucky if people play their game once. If the only incentive to gathering points is to play the game again with more stuff, I don't think anyone will care.

That's not a reason not to add replay value. Just because they might get lucky, and more times than not they don't replay it.

Not counting the fact people are starting to enjoy having replay value, and even more so enjoying it if you can copy stuff over so as to quicken your next playthrough up.
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
Huh. I was thinking of doing something where a basic attack (and techniques) cost TP, and spells would cost both TP and MP. TP would be called "Stamina", but, that's a minor technicality on that point. My thoughts were also to have enemies start battles with 100 TP, whereas player characters would start with 100 TP, but the TP would be retained between battles as they are used. TP restoration would come in the form of defending, resting, and maybe consumable items.

Aaaaanyway, are the skills/items that are available while spending points via the New Game+ feature available anywhere else in the game? I think it's important for them to be available in-game. Minimally, while playing a New Game+, since they would be "unlocked" then. Otherwise, it's probably going to come off as a cheap way of adding replay value.
Thiamor
I assure you I'm no where NEAR as STUPID as one might think.
63
He really wanted it where you can get certain things during your play through with the points, but a lot of the stuff only available through newgame+.

If I recall his one major replay value idea is that eventually when every single thing is unlocked, from the smallest quest, to main quests, to having everything unlocked in the new games, to having a specific number of points available after unlocking all things, that a true ending arc of sorts is unlocked.

IE, new story, new items, final, true boss fight. Also hew wanted it where after the first play through on EASY mode, it unlocks normal, then normal unlocks medium, which does hard, which does extreme, then something like Ultimate. Each mode makes the monsters faster, higher defense, more intelligent, and with more HP.

He also thought along the lines of after beating everything and getting the final, true ending arc, that it is only playable on a difficulty setting called Ultimate Plus. The final difficulty setting, on the final arc.

Graphics-wise, he's thinking of making the battles look like the perspective of how Pokemon does things. You're facing the enemy like the trainer does, they are facing you like the enemy trainer/Pokemon does.
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