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IS IT POSSIBLE TO MAKE A GOOD GAME WITH ONLY ONE PLAYER AND A TURN BASED BATTLE SYSTEM?
Posts
Ilan14
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CloseExcactly that.
Because I have a cancelled project in which I tried to do that, and I had many problems with that. And I don't know if there's a project here in RMN in which that works well. So, what do you think?
Because I have a cancelled project in which I tried to do that, and I had many problems with that. And I don't know if there's a project here in RMN in which that works well. So, what do you think?
It's very difficult, but it certainly can be done. I'm afraid I can't think of a good example on this site on the top of my head, but I'm pretty scatterbrained and may be forgetting something XD
EDIT: I personally don't care for it as much, as more companions = more people to talk = more character exploration and growth.
EDIT: I personally don't care for it as much, as more companions = more people to talk = more character exploration and growth.
Dragon Quest (the original) was this. Long before JRPG was even a thing. Obviously it's rather flawed by today's standards, but it's an interesting title nonetheless.
But it's something very plausible! There are a plethora of mechanics which could be implemented for such a game. Chance for acting twice would be four times as effective and important in this situation, for example. You could make it so you can even act 3, or 4 times a turn, depending on the gameplay, and still get away with it. Sounds really fun, in fact!
From RPG maker, there are 2 titles I'd recommend that use these, but one of them is a very rare find:
M.A.G.E., which is an RM2K game with a really interesting character progression system. A shame it's only a very short demo.
Wanderlust / Wanderlast, another rm2k game who had a different approach and was absurdly beautiful.
Anyway, it's not that hard to balance, though it'll look a bit ugly with the default scripts hahah XD
Good luck! If you need anything, just status, PM or thread away :3~
But it's something very plausible! There are a plethora of mechanics which could be implemented for such a game. Chance for acting twice would be four times as effective and important in this situation, for example. You could make it so you can even act 3, or 4 times a turn, depending on the gameplay, and still get away with it. Sounds really fun, in fact!
From RPG maker, there are 2 titles I'd recommend that use these, but one of them is a very rare find:
M.A.G.E., which is an RM2K game with a really interesting character progression system. A shame it's only a very short demo.
Wanderlust / Wanderlast, another rm2k game who had a different approach and was absurdly beautiful.
Anyway, it's not that hard to balance, though it'll look a bit ugly with the default scripts hahah XD
Good luck! If you need anything, just status, PM or thread away :3~
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
You can absolutely pull it off! But like unity said, it's pretty tough. Here's a game I think pulls it off very nicely: Okiku: Star Apprentice.
These are my recommendations:
1: Make it short (Maybe 1-2 hours). Since you only have one character, you run the risk of it being a character the player does not like. If the game is short, the player probably won't get so sick of that one character that they'll rage quit the game.
2: Put more emphasis on the world (specifically NPCs). Without party members, the character won't have many people to talk to. This means that the character won't have a lot of room to develop.
3: Give the character a diverse, but balanced, set of abilities. Since this one character will pull the entire weight of the battles, it's important that the character be able to not just pull their own weight, but be able to tackle a diverse set of challenges. I'm not talking about just elemental weaknesses. Give them stat debuffing abilities, inflicting lots of states, and any other fun things you can think of! (totally lost my train of thought while typing that sentence.)
4: Put more emphasis on the enemies. Give them a WIDE variety of attack patterns and styles. Do NOT make any random battle beatable by spamming strong AOE attacks, because that gets REAL boring, REAL fast.
5: Non-battling allies. The main character doesn't have to be alone, you know. Perhaps give them allies that don't actually participate in battle? I'm not talking about allies you need to escort, but perhaps give the character a familiar that they can send off into areas that the character cannot enter? That familiar could have a very different personality from the character, and you can have some good character development from that.
Those are just my thoughts.
These are my recommendations:
1: Make it short (Maybe 1-2 hours). Since you only have one character, you run the risk of it being a character the player does not like. If the game is short, the player probably won't get so sick of that one character that they'll rage quit the game.
2: Put more emphasis on the world (specifically NPCs). Without party members, the character won't have many people to talk to. This means that the character won't have a lot of room to develop.
3: Give the character a diverse, but balanced, set of abilities. Since this one character will pull the entire weight of the battles, it's important that the character be able to not just pull their own weight, but be able to tackle a diverse set of challenges. I'm not talking about just elemental weaknesses. Give them stat debuffing abilities, inflicting lots of states, and any other fun things you can think of! (totally lost my train of thought while typing that sentence.)
4: Put more emphasis on the enemies. Give them a WIDE variety of attack patterns and styles. Do NOT make any random battle beatable by spamming strong AOE attacks, because that gets REAL boring, REAL fast.
5: Non-battling allies. The main character doesn't have to be alone, you know. Perhaps give them allies that don't actually participate in battle? I'm not talking about allies you need to escort, but perhaps give the character a familiar that they can send off into areas that the character cannot enter? That familiar could have a very different personality from the character, and you can have some good character development from that.
Those are just my thoughts.
author=Red_Nova
You can absolutely pull it off! But like unity said, it's pretty tough. Here's a game I think pulls it off very nicely: Okiku: Star Apprentice.
I KNEW I was forgetting something! Yes, Okkiku does it brilliantly. It also helps that she's such a fun character!
And these are all great ideas, Red! :D
I don't know why you'd think you couldn't do this. You could write some really interesting stories focusing on a single person.
@Red_Nova: Wait, yeah! Of course I remember Okiku! I even played that game! I wonder how did I forget that... Also, this is very good advice, thanks!
@JosephSeraph: I would check those games, but first I need the RM2K engine and RTP, and a functional internet in my PC... Also, thanks for offering your help, but for now, I'm just asking this out of curiosity. I may do a project like this, but probably not in the inmediate future...
@Pizza: I was thinking that because I was asking this in regards to a turn based battle system.
@unity: Well... Thanks for the support!
@JosephSeraph: I would check those games, but first I need the RM2K engine and RTP, and a functional internet in my PC... Also, thanks for offering your help, but for now, I'm just asking this out of curiosity. I may do a project like this, but probably not in the inmediate future...
@Pizza: I was thinking that because I was asking this in regards to a turn based battle system.
@unity: Well... Thanks for the support!
Shinan
4314
I don't think it is impossible but I do think it is difficult. One of the upsides of a turn-based system is the tactical depth it can provide without having the stress associated with controlling multiple characters in real time.
Putting people into the right positions and executing and all that fun "planny" stuff that goes with a turn-based system. None of that is really applicable when you are only controlling a single character. So the battles sort of... lack any exciting depth.
As an example, take one of my all-time favourite games the original Fallout. Single character turn-based. It's a great game but the battle system is not terribly exciting. Sure it's not horrible. But it feels like a system that would have benefitted from more tactical options through more controllable characters.
But really how do you make it exciting? I guess there are various ways involving cooldowns, special abilities and varied weaponry and stuff like that. I guess AoE attacks depending on how the enemy is positioned and things like that make it interesting. The problem is that many enemy abilities are restricted. (so you should make the player's toolset as varied as possible to offset it)
For example status effects like stunning and other things that take away control from the player is doubly frustrating because it means the player can literally do nothing while the effect lasts.
Putting people into the right positions and executing and all that fun "planny" stuff that goes with a turn-based system. None of that is really applicable when you are only controlling a single character. So the battles sort of... lack any exciting depth.
As an example, take one of my all-time favourite games the original Fallout. Single character turn-based. It's a great game but the battle system is not terribly exciting. Sure it's not horrible. But it feels like a system that would have benefitted from more tactical options through more controllable characters.
But really how do you make it exciting? I guess there are various ways involving cooldowns, special abilities and varied weaponry and stuff like that. I guess AoE attacks depending on how the enemy is positioned and things like that make it interesting. The problem is that many enemy abilities are restricted. (so you should make the player's toolset as varied as possible to offset it)
For example status effects like stunning and other things that take away control from the player is doubly frustrating because it means the player can literally do nothing while the effect lasts.
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
A partial list of dimensions of combat you will lose out on by having only one party member:
Tanking: All enemy damage will automatically be dealt to the single character, so this is something the player no longer has to manage. While many RPGs admittedly don't have tanking in the first place, you're now completely locked out of it. Since most enemy damage in RPGs is unavoidable, being able to control that enemy damage can be a good feeling - the player loses that control.
Targetted Healing: The player no longer has to decide which character to heal. This simplifies combat significantly.
Character Deaths: With multiple party members, the player can get into progressively worse states as he continues to lose in battle. Character deaths help clearly communicate when things have gone disastrously wrong, and create a major penalty, but the player can still win. Additionally, when things are going south, the player's healing choices can give him a degree of control over who dies, which adds another element of depth to combat.
Formation and Gear Choices: Between battles, many games let the player choose certain party members who will be better protected, by assigning them to the back row or by giving the best armor to them. Players can use this to decide that certain characters have more important roles and therefore need to stay alive longer, or they can use this to make up for certain characters' defensive weaknesses.
Disabling Status Effects: Enemies in games with larger parties can use status effects that completely paralyze a character. In a party of four characters, this means that 25% of the player's actions become unavailable, and they have a choice of either spending a round with one of their three remaining characters to remove this effect or working around the penalty to finish the battle. In a single-character party, though, you just have to not include paralyzing effects in your game.
Now, obviously, removing all these dimensions of combat (and others I didn't list) causes it to be drastically simpler. The player has far less to think about and the options he has in battle have far fewer side-effects. That doesn't have to mean your game becomes super easy and boring though!
- You can add new dimensions to combat to make up for these. Something like timing your attacks to stop enemy actions could work - if the enemies have to charge up before certain attacks, you could give the player a single-turn damage+stun skill that's on a cooldown, forcing them to manage that skill properly in order to interrupt the enemy. Adding multiple different spellcasting resources can also help a lot (MP, Weapon Durability, Limit Break, Cooldowns).
- You can also find ways to sort of mirror those elements of combat in a single-player game - for example, perhaps the player has both HP and Exhaustion stats. Some enemy attacks might reduce your HP while other attacks increase your exhaustion (or do both). The player would not die until HP is at 0, but if exhaustion gets to 100 the player would lose access to certain types of skills. This would sort of mimic the effect of losing a party member, adding a new dimension to combat to replace the element of party member deaths that was lost.
- Some existing elements of combat are often only barely used in most RPGs. You could ramp up their importance. For example, choosing which enemy to target isn't usually a big deal in many RPGs - as long as you focus down enemies one at a time, it doesn't matter too much which goes down first, with the exception of bosses. If you create a lot of battles that involve enemies summoning additional enemies into the battle, though, then suddenly the targeting becomes both more important and more complex.
In addition to all this, player healing becomes way more obnoxious to balance. Without any targeting, the formula for whether the player can outheal the enemy's damage is much, much simpler. If players can freely cast their heal spells two out of every three turns to keep up with enemy damage, the combat gets stupid fast. In the absense of status effects and stuff, the only way enemies have any possible chance to kill the player is if they can outdamage their healing, at which point the healing spell might as well not exist. You kinda have to design a method of healing that requires the player to create openings or something.
If you're looking for examples of games that have only a single character in turn-based battles, try... Pokemon? It doesn't technically qualify, but it only has one character fighting at a time. If your character could change between six difference stances, each of which had its own set of four abilities and its own elemental weaknesses, you could do a pretty good approximation of Pokemon battles.
I'm also narcissism-bound to recommend playing the first two dungeons of my RPG Maker XP game, Iniquity & Vindication. Only the second dungeon makes any attempt at solving the healing issue though - I do it by giving enemies healing debuffs, and doing weird things with MP regeneration.
Tanking: All enemy damage will automatically be dealt to the single character, so this is something the player no longer has to manage. While many RPGs admittedly don't have tanking in the first place, you're now completely locked out of it. Since most enemy damage in RPGs is unavoidable, being able to control that enemy damage can be a good feeling - the player loses that control.
Targetted Healing: The player no longer has to decide which character to heal. This simplifies combat significantly.
Character Deaths: With multiple party members, the player can get into progressively worse states as he continues to lose in battle. Character deaths help clearly communicate when things have gone disastrously wrong, and create a major penalty, but the player can still win. Additionally, when things are going south, the player's healing choices can give him a degree of control over who dies, which adds another element of depth to combat.
Formation and Gear Choices: Between battles, many games let the player choose certain party members who will be better protected, by assigning them to the back row or by giving the best armor to them. Players can use this to decide that certain characters have more important roles and therefore need to stay alive longer, or they can use this to make up for certain characters' defensive weaknesses.
Disabling Status Effects: Enemies in games with larger parties can use status effects that completely paralyze a character. In a party of four characters, this means that 25% of the player's actions become unavailable, and they have a choice of either spending a round with one of their three remaining characters to remove this effect or working around the penalty to finish the battle. In a single-character party, though, you just have to not include paralyzing effects in your game.
Now, obviously, removing all these dimensions of combat (and others I didn't list) causes it to be drastically simpler. The player has far less to think about and the options he has in battle have far fewer side-effects. That doesn't have to mean your game becomes super easy and boring though!
- You can add new dimensions to combat to make up for these. Something like timing your attacks to stop enemy actions could work - if the enemies have to charge up before certain attacks, you could give the player a single-turn damage+stun skill that's on a cooldown, forcing them to manage that skill properly in order to interrupt the enemy. Adding multiple different spellcasting resources can also help a lot (MP, Weapon Durability, Limit Break, Cooldowns).
- You can also find ways to sort of mirror those elements of combat in a single-player game - for example, perhaps the player has both HP and Exhaustion stats. Some enemy attacks might reduce your HP while other attacks increase your exhaustion (or do both). The player would not die until HP is at 0, but if exhaustion gets to 100 the player would lose access to certain types of skills. This would sort of mimic the effect of losing a party member, adding a new dimension to combat to replace the element of party member deaths that was lost.
- Some existing elements of combat are often only barely used in most RPGs. You could ramp up their importance. For example, choosing which enemy to target isn't usually a big deal in many RPGs - as long as you focus down enemies one at a time, it doesn't matter too much which goes down first, with the exception of bosses. If you create a lot of battles that involve enemies summoning additional enemies into the battle, though, then suddenly the targeting becomes both more important and more complex.
In addition to all this, player healing becomes way more obnoxious to balance. Without any targeting, the formula for whether the player can outheal the enemy's damage is much, much simpler. If players can freely cast their heal spells two out of every three turns to keep up with enemy damage, the combat gets stupid fast. In the absense of status effects and stuff, the only way enemies have any possible chance to kill the player is if they can outdamage their healing, at which point the healing spell might as well not exist. You kinda have to design a method of healing that requires the player to create openings or something.
If you're looking for examples of games that have only a single character in turn-based battles, try... Pokemon? It doesn't technically qualify, but it only has one character fighting at a time. If your character could change between six difference stances, each of which had its own set of four abilities and its own elemental weaknesses, you could do a pretty good approximation of Pokemon battles.
I'm also narcissism-bound to recommend playing the first two dungeons of my RPG Maker XP game, Iniquity & Vindication. Only the second dungeon makes any attempt at solving the healing issue though - I do it by giving enemies healing debuffs, and doing weird things with MP regeneration.
author=LockeZ
In addition to all this, player healing becomes way more obnoxious to balance. Without any targeting, the formula for whether the player can outheal the enemy's damage is much, much simpler. If players can freely cast their heal spells two out of every three turns to keep up with enemy damage, the combat gets stupid fast. In the absense of status effects and stuff, the only way enemies have any possible chance to kill the player is if they can outdamage their healing, at which point the healing spell might as well not exist. You kinda have to design a method of healing that requires the player to create openings or something.
Life leeching attacks, Regenerate HP over time skills, heal based on a percentage of damage taken, damage mitigation skills, skills that increase the Max HP temporarily, auto-revive safety net skills, evade skills, heal skills that have criticals (so while the skill on its own might not save you, if you boost your crit rate it can), status effects on enemies that allow you to steal HP when you attack them...
Those are all excellent ideas, LockeZ
@LockeZ: This is A LOT of great advice! Thank you, LockeZ! I'll have those tips in mind.
@kentona: Oh, and thanks for the ideas, boss!
@kentona: Oh, and thanks for the ideas, boss!
author=Ilan14
@Red_Nova: Wait, yeah! Of course I remember Okiku! I even played that game! I wonder how did I forget that...
You're... you're kidding, right?
author=unity
I KNEW I was forgetting something! Yes, Okkiku does it brilliantly. It also helps that she's such a fun character!
You're forgiven THIS TIME!
Anyway, in regards to character personality, I think it would really help to have a fun character to play as, though said player can have whatever personality. For example, I love playing as Ashley Riot (Vagrant Story) because of the gameplay, but I couldn't tell you much about his actual character (the game is pretty weird about this). Then there's Mint (Threads of Fate) who is freaking hilarious, and is also a blast to play as
Aside: I had half a mind to to the first two statements of this post in the Okiku style.
Sorry Marrend... I temporarily forgot about it... But if that makes you feel better, I really enjoyed that game!
Yes.
This concept (turn based game with a single playable character) accurately describes almost half of the RM projects I have ever attempted--and it accurately describes as far as I got with a lot of the rest (i.e. there were going to be additional characters eventually but I never got that far). It is totally doable, but it is a very different exercise in game balance from balancing a game with three to four characters. In a sense, it is 'hard mode' for the developer, at least the one in charge of battle design and mechanics.
Additionally, you're almost certainly going to want to give the player more than one action per turn. Fortunately, that is also totally doable, in a variety of ways.
You can totally talk to a ton of people in single character games, they just don't need to join the party. You talk to lots and lots of people in Deus Ex, for instance.
This concept (turn based game with a single playable character) accurately describes almost half of the RM projects I have ever attempted--and it accurately describes as far as I got with a lot of the rest (i.e. there were going to be additional characters eventually but I never got that far). It is totally doable, but it is a very different exercise in game balance from balancing a game with three to four characters. In a sense, it is 'hard mode' for the developer, at least the one in charge of battle design and mechanics.
Additionally, you're almost certainly going to want to give the player more than one action per turn. Fortunately, that is also totally doable, in a variety of ways.
EDIT: I personally don't care for it as much, as more companions = more people to talk = more character exploration and growth.
You can totally talk to a ton of people in single character games, they just don't need to join the party. You talk to lots and lots of people in Deus Ex, for instance.
Nothing's stopping you from having a wagonload of noncombat party members, either, such as a smith to forge weapons for you.
They could either travel with the player in a caravan or reside at some sort of home base.
They could either travel with the player in a caravan or reside at some sort of home base.
Aegix_Drakan
6037
As others have said, yes, you can do it and make it good.
It just requires some extra thinking, that's all.
It just requires some extra thinking, that's all.
I tried doing this a few years back. The core mechanic was around something like stance dancing: The player had a few movesets w/ passives that they could switch between freely but the longer you stayed in a moveset the stronger the abilities got (logarithmically). The moveset to pick would be chosen based on the type of offense the player wanted to do and how to address the enemy's tell: The player's turn came between the enemy deciding what to do and actually executing it and they would give a tell based on that (See Lunar EBC for a rough example).
I don't remember most of the details. You could temporarily carry over passives to other movesets. Damage was represented in dice format ('# of dice' d 'faces on die', so 2d6 is 1-6 + 1-6) and defensive abilities would manipulate these rolls (discard all damace dice in lower quartiles, first upper half die roll needs to be confirmed, reduce die size by 2, etc.). Instead of elements skills were thrown into groups that would represent types of damage (low die high face count, high die count low face count, die modifiers, etc.) and the player had to choose good defensive abilities against the die loadouts of the enemy's attacks. There was no healing besides a small handful of full heals available in battle with a lifespan of the dungeon. Level ups were based on dungeon completion and gave HP and a player selectable upgrade on each moveset.
I made a prototype for it, forget what in, but found it boring and unfun. Probably square peg in round hole 'n all that. I ended up throwing it out. Hopefully you'll have better luck (and skills) than I did!
Hmm, I should see if I can find the docs for it and steal what I can from it
I don't remember most of the details. You could temporarily carry over passives to other movesets. Damage was represented in dice format ('# of dice' d 'faces on die', so 2d6 is 1-6 + 1-6) and defensive abilities would manipulate these rolls (discard all damace dice in lower quartiles, first upper half die roll needs to be confirmed, reduce die size by 2, etc.). Instead of elements skills were thrown into groups that would represent types of damage (low die high face count, high die count low face count, die modifiers, etc.) and the player had to choose good defensive abilities against the die loadouts of the enemy's attacks. There was no healing besides a small handful of full heals available in battle with a lifespan of the dungeon. Level ups were based on dungeon completion and gave HP and a player selectable upgrade on each moveset.
I made a prototype for it, forget what in, but found it boring and unfun. Probably square peg in round hole 'n all that. I ended up throwing it out. Hopefully you'll have better luck (and skills) than I did!
Hmm, I should see if I can find the docs for it and steal what I can from it
It's definitely possible! But you've gotta be prepared to rework a lot of the conventional RPG mechanics. You can't rely on stuff like the typical warrior, mage and healer trifecta. If you're sticking with a typical turn-based battle system, your lone character will need to be able to handle everything themselves. This means they might need more actions and more interesting choices - because nothing's more frustrating than spending your one action a round healing or defending instead of making progress. This also means things like less enemies in battle, or enemies that die more quickly, since there's less damage being dealt and you don't want the fights to last too long.
I'm currently working on a pretty basic system where the one character has access to two moves a turn: first a support ability, then an offensive ability. Oftentimes, the support move will buff whichever attack you use that turn - such as making it inflict poison - but it may be something as simple as a healing spell. This gives people a couple choices to make per round, plus encourages (requires) the use of support spells, which typically go unused in RPGs, since their effects aren't as immediately obvious.
Anyway, your battles will definitely need to be designed around this and a lot of conventions thrown out the window, but it's totally doable and potentially very fun.
I'm currently working on a pretty basic system where the one character has access to two moves a turn: first a support ability, then an offensive ability. Oftentimes, the support move will buff whichever attack you use that turn - such as making it inflict poison - but it may be something as simple as a healing spell. This gives people a couple choices to make per round, plus encourages (requires) the use of support spells, which typically go unused in RPGs, since their effects aren't as immediately obvious.
Anyway, your battles will definitely need to be designed around this and a lot of conventions thrown out the window, but it's totally doable and potentially very fun.
grindalf
3556
not read all the comments so sorry if this has already been mentioned.
In a way pokemon is a single character battle system. I know you can switch pokemon in battle but you still only fight with one.
That system could be taken to a single character battle. The character could switch abilities mid battle giving new strengths and weaknesses
For instance changing sword during battle from an ice sword to a fire sword would change your stats from
Attack element - Ice
Defense element - Ice
weakness - Fire
to
Attack element - Fire
Defense element - Fire
weakness - Ice
this is of course a very obvious view of changing abilities you could have skills that have split abilities.
this whole system gives a little more strategy to an overwise very boring battle system. Especially when facing multiple enemies with different strengths/weakness
Imagine facing the dragon with one fire head and one ice head.
Another idea is a second turn per round I used that in the wizards tower as that is a single character game.
In a way pokemon is a single character battle system. I know you can switch pokemon in battle but you still only fight with one.
That system could be taken to a single character battle. The character could switch abilities mid battle giving new strengths and weaknesses
For instance changing sword during battle from an ice sword to a fire sword would change your stats from
Attack element - Ice
Defense element - Ice
weakness - Fire
to
Attack element - Fire
Defense element - Fire
weakness - Ice
this is of course a very obvious view of changing abilities you could have skills that have split abilities.
this whole system gives a little more strategy to an overwise very boring battle system. Especially when facing multiple enemies with different strengths/weakness
Imagine facing the dragon with one fire head and one ice head.
Another idea is a second turn per round I used that in the wizards tower as that is a single character game.
suzy_cheesedreams
1480
Arguably the only enjoyable aspect of FF XIII Lightning Returns was the combat. Lots of equipment to experiment with that gave Lightning different abilities and stat bonuses... if you didn't come up with the right combination, your opponents would flatten you/it would be a long, pretty pointless battle as you wouldn't be able to stagger them quickly enough to deal any real damage.
