WELL-DEFINED DBS OR PRIMITIVE CBS?

rpgmaker battles are filler. it doesn't even matter.

That applies to nearly every RPG, though. Not just RPGM games.


But to stay on topic, I never had a problem with the default, to be honest.

post=151911

rpgmaker battles are filler. it doesn't even matter.

That applies to nearly every RPG, though. Not just RPGM games.

A counter-example for me would be Final Fantasy XIII. Most battles in that game were an absolute blast and really opened my eyes to RPG battling in general. They don't HAVE to be junky filler content. Why not take the core thing that a player does in many RPGs (battle) and make it a ton of fun?

I haven't played FF13.

But my point -- as badly presented as it was -- was that most regular encounters in RPGs are essentially filler, in that they don't have any real impact on the game/they're rarely mentioned or talked about, if ever by the characters. But just because it's filler doesn't mean it's necessarily 'bad'. An RPG without battles would be boring, imo.

Then maybe you should take ashriot's advice and work on making battles interesting in their own right? I've seen people make Default battle systems fun.

Sure.

One of my favorite examples is The Tiamat Sacrament. In that one you kept track of a certain number of items in your inventory called "runes." These runes gave your main character the ability to unleash charged attacks, or could even let your party unleash combo attacks. This added a lot of flair and style to the combat for a fairly simple system. Each character in that game had a different way of learning and using skills as well.

Not everyone likes A Blurred Line's battle mechanics but I enjoyed them a lot. You drew skills from enemies, and generally each enemy would give you an ability ideal for defeating that particular enemy group. Drawing the skill enough times allowed your character to learn it permanently. Hunting down enemy groups to expand your ever growing collection of abilities became fun in its own right. This game also had every character have a different way of learning abilities.

Many games, such as Hellion or Rise of the Third Power allowed the player to learn a character's skills in any order they liked as they leveled up. Even giving the player a basic level of control of their characters' skills and abilities can make combat more fun, since you're playing your character, your way. However, be careful when balancing a system like this. Legacies of Dondaron had a similar system but it lead to severe balance problems later in the game.

Balmung Cycle had pretty long, drawn out battles but it made up for this somewhat by having "limit break"-style super attacks for each character that annihilated foes and were a lot of fun to use, and made the game less tedious.

Demon Tower let you switch out party members for reserve members at any time, and had characters learn skills in battle the more you used them. This would be trickier to pull off than most of the things I've mentioned here since they'd rely on scripting but with the newer makers it's far from impossible.

You'd be surprised what just a few simple tweaks can do for the DBS. It makes me sad how many people are willing to accept having boring battles in their game because they think there's no alternative or that battles don't matter.

Ok Soli, I'm convinced.

DBS is not bad, and it's hard to be topped in terms of complexity and variety. But it's just too overused. Come on, it's the BS from Final Fantasy, I've been playing it for over 15 years. Forgive me if I like some novelty. Of course I don't like the attitude of "should I make a shitty CBS instead of using the DBS?" If someone can think of a decent CBS, he can't make the DBS work decently as well. But if you're intelligent enough to make an interesting DBS, and you're flirting with the idea of making a CBS, why not? Even if it's not technically as good as the DBS, the novelyy aspect will generate interest.

post=151939
Ok Soli, I'm convinced.

DBS is not bad, and it's hard to be topped in terms of complexity and variety. But it's just too overused. Come on, it's the BS from Final Fantasy, I've been playing it for over 15 years. Forgive me if I like some novelty. Of course I don't like the attitude of "should I make a shitty CBS instead of using the DBS?" If someone can think of a decent CBS, he can't make the DBS work decently as well. But if you're intelligent enough to make an interesting DBS, and you're flirting with the idea of making a CBS, why not? Even if it's not technically as good as the DBS, the novelyy aspect will generate interest.

I pretty much agree with this.

Also, I'm starting to wonder if the actual question is a little lopsided. It's specifically stating that the DBS is very well made and that the CBS isn't particularly well made. Given those two exact choices, I'd probably rather play neither unless the storyline was interesting enough to warrant suffering through the bad gameplay.

I think the main problem is not enough people are playing other RM games so they don't know what its really capable of.

Since we are on the topic here, can anyone post a link on tips of how to modify one's DBS?

Basically, I would pick whichever one lets you make more balanced, challenging, enjoyable battles. The problem with the DBS is not that it's overused - it's that it has severe limitations that you could potentially overcome by creating your own system. But if you don't really have the programming knowledge, or the need, or the time to create a battle system that overcomes these limitations in a way that improves the game, then there's no point.

And you also have to balance the amount of time and energy you're willing to expend on system development versus content development. If making a good, balanced battle system would use up all your time or energy, and force you to put less effort into creating good, balanced battles, then the benefit is lost.