FUNDAMENTAL RPGOLOGY THREAD

The CD system as well as general buffs, debuffs are not very original, but it is notable that you are forced to change your general setup as you cannot have a stance twice in a row.

Stances are imbalanced, though, and you can go with defensive and agile alone, for example.
There are too few spellslots with too similar spells. Buffs and debuffs do not work, simple as that. Aside from the speed buff, which only messes with who gets the first attack per turn, I couldn't find any difference. The damage taken and done were the exact same. There were a few variations in the skeletons' attack though.

It boiled down to spam attack or wait for ultimate attack. Either way, the most useful setup was to stack the firespell and take perhaps one freeze dot for anything other than agile.
No variation, no different tactic for bosses, bosses themselves imbalanced.

It was a very simple and straightforward design with an easily memorizable set up skills, but it didn't have any depth as it is.

(could be made viable with more skill-, partycreation and balancing)


AegixDrakan: Delusions of Duty

going toward duel-type with the same range of spells as the enemy, with predictable/learnable pattern. Although there isn't too much to memorize or to react upon.

The system of locking unlocking is very straightforward, but the huge spellpool (+ the separation supp/off in two windows) made it very difficult to memorize them at first, but that could be replaced with tutorials.
My main concern is that plenty of spells are obsolete, weaker than spells they unlock and generally just a stepping stone towards good spells.

The "ultimate" attack of sorts + stun combo was what you were aiming for, and if you just used everything needed to get there and repeat you were the most effective. Rush would've been a possibility, but the enemy is smart enough to block it.
You can keep up parry most of the time, debuffs do have a use, but they are just spice, not meat.
Blocking enemy spells seemed to have no impact at all, aside from suckering him to attack now and then, which is no real advantage, as you could've attacked or buffed instead.

A positive thing is that there are multiple ways to unlock the same skill, so you have a wider range of possible tactics, although, as I mentioned already, most lower skills are not your main concern.
The defensive boost was too strong, imho, as it blocked most of the enemies' attack entirely and could be kept up almost constantly.

Guard was only useful against rush, you could barely predict negative status effects, so that did not come into play.

Overall, intuitive, unlocking is interesting, but one coretactic to apply still.

Cap_H Mace Blue Arena

There is charge, guard and attack. Easy and intuitive, yet since your enemy does not need to charge in order to attack, it comes down to 50% waiting around and 50% luck.

There is no tactic to apply aside from "guard until attack" -> "charge" -> "guard until attack" -> "attack/wait a turn, then attack"

It boils down to luck. The enemies can attack multiple times in a row, or keep guarding, or charging, so .. really no way to know a thing. It's just the one formula over and over again until it works.

Intuitive, clear, but no depth or tactic of any kind to be had. Original? Perhaps.

Marrend - Test Duel

Ripped concept from the Suikoden series

Stone - paper - scissors concept predicted by enemy talk

Very clear and intuitive, but far too linear and easy. Mistakes are not punished, feints are very clear and only one character has two possible options for a certain line of dialogue (in which case guard does the trick for both, playing it safe)

The battles are far too long for mistakes to matter or for you to need to figure out the dialogue lines asap.
Little depth, although thinking short-term required.


rosesarecrimson Queen of the Ring

There isn't much to say as the battle system is not complete.
The different spell categories in the limbs that are used makes it very hard to get a grasp for what skills you actually have, and since both status effect and close-combat vs. more distant combat which this system seems to build on do not work, it's spam your strongest attack and win.

Guarding or evasion seems to have no positive side whatsover, as you lose hp using them, not much more than you would take anyway.

The stamina effect decreasing over time is a very good touch, though, as it renders infinitly long battles impossible.

Treason89 2xT

Interesting concepts, which a few nice touches, none of which I can really find that appealing.

Dots

The dots are a nice variation of currently used ones, although ignoring armor is not that new. However, the exponential one just boils down to "waiting for the special certain death superattack", rendering the actualy description and damage done useless.

It comes down to use the right dot for the right monster, which isn't that different from elements. The need to spam it over and over prolongs the battles needlessy, too.


Spells

The spellsystem with affinity is not a bad touch, but as you can unlock an ultimate spell (and should do so), you just align your spell usage to that, use the ultimate and other unleash spells and then spam the elemental weakness on whatever may be left.

It doesn't offer much depth short or longterm as it is the usual elemental weakness + super ultimate

It's much more straight forward than the dot system, mainly due to some confusing names. Potential - Exponential, for example. It's still more complex than need be and it doesn't help that the tutorials aren't written that well (becoming apparant in number 3)


Light

The idea is a tagteam attack, but it really boils down to complicating normal attacks. You have no idea what does what until you memorized it (I admit I did not properly notice the mirror on the top right, though, without which you are doomed to hit yourself to death)
.. and even then, all you do are normal attacks on single enemies or an enemy group.

The tutorial also neglects to mention that you choose with lenses to equip/unequip - and that they will stay if not chosen differently, but that doesn't harm the actual system.

It's counterintuitive, overly complex, but without depth and anything new to add to combat. You just hit enemies, done.

azalathemad - battle

Simple textbased system. One action per character, different characters and status.
Revolves around shifting items around your team and enemies - possibly "destroying" them by defeating someone wearing one.
Employs usual character differences (healing undead = dmg)

Extremely intuitive, simple and deep. You need to think both short and longterm and do have multiple choices to swap around those items (although some are more viable than others. You don't want to hurt the lich you can't heal, for example)

And more importantly, this system can easily be changed, adjusted and deepend by removing or adding team members, or by adding just one new item.
With more items, you could, for example need to either juggle around an item which brings debuffs, or kill one of your party members off to have it gone.

While it is more a puzzle to solve, there is a little bit variation possible and, it is easily expandably.

Very elegant design.


caparo: Battle System Experiment

CD System + charge for stronger ones, while applying bonus damage for status effects.

There are quite a lot of spells, but they are all rather easy to understand, however, most do the same thing in green. They allow for variation from chilled to burning, but essentially not doing much different. There are buffs/debuffs, too, none of which affect your strategy greatly.

The idea is to charge for strong attacks consistently, applying the status effects you want and then exploiting those.
However, the bonus is too meager to matter much. You don't need to form any special tactic, not even shortterm (perhaps - applying burning with char 1 and using burning special with char 2)

It was generally too easy and too slow for tactic to really matter.

It's a mix of generally known ideas, rather intuitive, but does not allow for or require much planning, tactical forming or generally thinking.

NeverSilent - The Campaign

Employs a battle grid + support characters. Instead of ganging up upone one enemy, it's a row of fights which is certainly realistic and thus intuitive.

As it is, however, it's very imbalanced and results to 3 parallel fights which don't really need any help.
Most support skills are weak or have only limited use (like the hunter's trap preventing movement, if no enemy ever moved, why do that!)
The tank and battle axe characters are both very strong, but their stacking effect are a building up and wait for the special attack kind.
The support of team members next to them is interesting, but not exploited and certainly not needed as it is.

Characters are more or less unique with some CDs applied. It doesn't add any tactic, though.
They have generally too much HP, though, you don't even need to switch anyone, nor go full-force.

The build in itself offers potential if you are required to support your teammates properly and have more crosstactics, but it's more a core than anything else.




Azalathemad: 78
Aegix_Draken: 61
NeverSilent: 59
Karn's Soulkeeper: 55
3xT Spell: 37
Cap_H: 37
Marrend: 36
3xT Dot: 35
caparo: 30
3xT Lens: 17