SYMMETRY IN BATTLE SYSTEMS

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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 was an event you apparently missed! We decided we were going to have a game design battle against each-other. So we each came up with a team of four characters, and posted descriptions publically of those characters' strengths and weaknesses, and a list of their skills and what those skills did.

We decided ahead of time on some basic game mechanics we were going to share, like the basics of the battle system, and picked a setting and basic premise for the story. And we created the final boss chamber that we'd both use ahead of time.

Then I created a game where my team fought through the dungeon and his team was the final boss. And he created a game where his team fought through the dungeon and my team was the final boss. And we posted them at the same time, and had players vote on which version was better.

It was probably the most fun I've ever had on this forum.
I second this. Maybe with a less difficult to read font next time. Also, more time to make the game so there can be more content.

Heroes may always save the day, but villains always live to take over the world next week.
author=LockeZ
It was an event you apparently missed!

Kind of! I do remember seeing something about it now that you've refreshed me on it, and it seems like it was a really interesting exercise in symmetry. Plus, I'm just a sucker for multiple, intertwined scenarios.

If your gut is telling you to do another one, definitely go with that!
To the original comment, I am actually attempting to make a symmetrical system in Binding Wyrds. A major factor in this so far has been keeping the numbers low, damage, hp, and defense wise. So far this has allowed me to keep characters balanced with each other (and I have a lot of them, so that's rather important), and give a baseline where monster stats aren't too far out of line with character stats. There are outliers of course, I have to adjust for the fact that characters have upgradeable gear, and monsters do not, etc.

To the Magus related discussion, I found the major factor is that when you fight a boss, it tends to be a team versus a single character. Naturally in Chrono Trigger, if you went all out immediately and he had the stats he has later, he'd go down very quickly. He also wouldn't have all his barrier-changing fun, as he doesn't have that later. Of course, he also joins the party at a much later point, so logically he should also be doing more damage.

I've been working on various ways of dealing with this, and I find if I make monsters that are functionally identical to the characters (IE, a mirror match, same abilities/stats), the game basically becomes rocket-tag. The player is naturally going to focus down one enemy, and if you have the enemy do that as well it just becomes who gets there first. So far the only implemented fight I have is against a character who, if you let her join, is extremely powerful on purpose (end of a long sidequest, major drawbacks if you let her join, evil wench, etc), and if you choose to fight her, is a serious gamble, as a lot of her abilities are powerful enough on their own to kill a character outright (my game has perma-death, so that's a serious threat to take into account). I'm still fiddling with her, as if it comes down to a fight I don't want it to be a roulette of 'Can I deal enough damage to take her down before she one/two shots a character', which so far the answer is 'yes, if you have the right team and go all out first turn'.

Of course, a way to even things out game wise and still make boss fights feel bossy, is to wear down the character's team beforehand. If you have limited restoration, a fairly powerful PC-statted character fighting a team can still feel even. He's fresh, and you've just had to work through a dozen of his slightly lower statted minions. At least, that's the theory I'm working on right now.
Jeroen_Sol
Nothing reveals Humanity so well as the games it plays. A game of betrayal, where the most suspicious person is brutally murdered? How savage.
3885
I'm not sure I agree that wearing the player down with earlier battles is a good way of having symmetric battles be challenging. That kind of forces the player to forfeit tactics and just spam attack on the small fry in order to conserve MP for the boss. (If MP is a stat that exists) I think giving the boss minions like in FFT makes more sense. If the boss party has a healer and support, that makes the battle much more challenging than if it were just the boss alone.
In most standard RPGs, that'd be the case, hell its what we do anyway even when bosses aren't even, we maul enemies with regular attacks, pull out special ones to kill the tougher random encounters, and then restock on MP before a bossfight if you see a save point.

The example might be only particular to my game, as HP is also a rare resource, in that healing items are costly (require crafting ingredients and an accessory slot), and healing spells are uber-rare. So in essence, when fighting the smaller enemies (smaller, meaning having a bit smaller stats than a final fight, not one hit=death), the player is still choosing between HP or MP when deciding to take them down fast or use normal attacks.

The problem with the team battle idea is that players will naturally pick out the easier characters to kill, focus them down, and the battle is unbalanced again. As I said earlier, if you make the enemies do that, it quickly becomes frustrating for the player, and not fun. The team aspect is a good idea, and can be balanced well to make interesting boss fights (WoW did it well with its enemy arena teams in a raid), but the best examples are still not 'even' as in the stats and numbers are on par with PCs.
Jeroen_Sol
Nothing reveals Humanity so well as the games it plays. A game of betrayal, where the most suspicious person is brutally murdered? How savage.
3885
Thinking about it some more, you're right. It might not work as well in games that don't have a strategy battle system. In games that do, enemies do tend to focus down on one character, but that doesn't feel unbalanced, because you can move your healers out of harm's way and make your armoured units face the many attacks. Dealing with an intelligent AI can be part of the gameplay there, but not so much in other battle systems.
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