BUTTON MASH - FORCING THE PLAYER TO USE DIFFERENT SKILLS

Just to drop a name, the Mario RPGs have managed to reduce the boringness of repeated battles by simply making you press the attack button twice - with correct timing. Maybe adding some action to our RPGs is not a bad thing.

But in a solely turn-based game, maybe you shouldn't even add an "Attack" button. Maybe add two or three simple "Attacks" to each character - each with a different effect - that can be used every turn, and don't consume resources like MP. For example, your Soldier has a poison attack, an attack that deals less damage but heals the Soldier, and an attack that slightly delays the target's next turn.

Now all of a sudden there's a little dynamic. If the poison lasts 3 turns, you want to hit with that attack every three turns. Typically if the enemy is poisoned, you'll rely on the delay attack (to decrease the enemy's damage done to you) unless your Soldier is missing HP, at which point you'll start with the healing attack. It's a simple combo, but at least it requires a little management and thought process behind it.

Of course, like people have said, if you're going to have numerous battles, they can all have their own strategy - hopefully, the strategy is recognizable fairly quickly - and the player will do his best to learn and execute it. For example, an enemy might be immune to the poison attack, or might deal enough damage that the Soldier needs to constantly drain life to stay alive.

I've heard people complain about reptitiveness while playing World of Warcraft, but WoW does its best to address the problem. There is usually by and far an optimal, maximum-damage strategy for every class (Ex. Rogues Mutilate to 5 combo points, Envenom, making sure to refresh Rupture and Slice and Dice) but this strategy is hampered or must be adjusted to fit the boss's attack pattern - maybe he summons minions you have to kill or avoid, maybe he lights the floor on fire and you have to run away to dodge it, or maybe he has a 10-second period where he suffers triple damage. Most of WoW's bosses are like this, meaning that you're never JUST executing the optimal strategy - you have to adjust it to compensate for the boss.

A side note: The strategy has to be effective enough to make a noticeable difference in battle - in WoW, a player may be happy if he's skilled enough to utilize a boss's weakness and do +10% damage, but in a typical RPG, strategies often have to be much more obviously effective - for example, 50% - to convince a player to do them on a regular basis. Again, take Paper Mario: would you ever not try to get the Timed Hit? Of course not, it does double damage! You want that timed hit! You're willing to work for it! Players should feel the same about strategies in your game. Or so the theory goes.

Second side note: Finally, if a player gets the strategy right, he should win the battle fairly easily (or that phase of the battle easily). Once he's got the mechanics down, the player will get bored and his mind will tire if he has to consistently apply intense strategies to every single enemy. Enemies with overly complex strategies should be used sparingly, to create an intense boss fight, for example. Normal enemies should either be fairly simple (but still somewhat involving) or few in number. If the player has to give 110% constantly just to stay alive in your game, he will get exhausted. A good game has relaxing points as well as spikes.

TLDR:

1) Paper Mario games require you to used timed hits, adding flavor to battles.
2) Replacing an "Attack" command with a more involving, strategic choice to be made may be a solution to boring battles.
3) Battles should differ with each enemy. Strategies for fighting an enemy should be recognizable and the player should have the tools to utilize them.
4) WoW uses raid bosses to mix up fights - each class has its own optimal strategy, but must adapt to the boss's mechanics to win the fight.
5) Addendum: Strategies must be effective enough (read: extremely effective) so that players are convinced to spend time executing them.
6) Don't tire out your player by requiring perfect strategy application on every single mob. Either reduce random mobs or make them simple (but still somewhat involving) to fight.

Alternatively, learning the strategy is necessary to beat the battle at all.

this is looping back around dangerously close to one-trick bosses you cannot defeat with your own creative strategies (Zelda)

There may be a "best" strategy, but I think that bosses should allow for a few creative options. And I don't just mean the old fallback of "grind 10+ levels" although that certainly can be one.

Corti, I agree with you completely. I now have to go look back at the game I am working on, and see if that is true.

author=Crystalgate
Actually, I can add another boring:
- The same combination being the most effective for most encounters.

Even if you make the optimal damage output a complex series of skills, if said series proves to be the optimal strategy against most targets, it will still get boring. This includes minor alterations such as replacing fire spells with ice spells. To keep battles fresh, you have to make it so that the optimal strategy changes depending on the encounter. So far, less than 10% of every RPG I've played manage that.

First i'd like to mention that i dont think series of skills need to be, or should be complex or even complicated. If the battles aren't simple "stand there and beat it to death"-style, the characters have a lot more to do than do their "rotation" of skills, like situative utilities, interrupts, item-use, defending etc. It would discourage the player from using clever stuff if it had a heavy bad impact on the average damage performance. I think a relatively small number of skills can be quite challenging to use "to the maximum" in changing battle situation.
Plus, a player has to take care of more than one character very often, that is also to be considered.

A well made set of skills could allow a character to do different patterns and tactics for different situation, may it be singletarget vs multitarget damage, quick burn phases, doing his damage while reacting to a pattern of boss-action, controlling certain monsters.

To be honest i'm not a big fan of characters that have 40+skills with 3 of them being effective per battle, the "guess the vulnerable element"-style of battles.

Also, the player needs to be encouraged to actually plan a strategy instead of trying to level up more (I do that very often in RPGs).

"You bastards, what do you think you're doing, dilly-dallying in a place like this!? Run away like little rats or die here by my axe! What's it going to be!?"

But I digress, the player is probably used to grind-heavy games and won't realise that his (possible) wipe came from a lack of skill.

I happen to like mashing the action button when I play rpgs. I usually just find the best grinding spot train until I am over leveled and then just button mash my way till the end of the dungeon, cave, etc. I like tactical fights too, but then I would rather play a tactical rpg like fire emblem or final fantasy tactics.

You could make a form of fatigue, where using a command reduced that character's effectiveness with using that particular command by X% for the remainder of the battle.

Or, if you felt like wasting a few variables of space, you could have the enemies keep track of how much each player uses a command, then the enemy passively predicts what command you're going to use, and has a decent chance of dodging if it predicts correctly. i.e. if you've used 3 hooks, 1 jab, and 1 cross, then there's a 60% chance the enemy will predict a hook next, 20% that the enemy will predict a jab next, 20% that the enemy will predict a cross next, and 0% that the enemy will predict an uppercut next. Then when you choose your attack command, the enemy's evade rate is boosted if it predicted the same command that you select (the player isn't informed of which command has been predicted).

You could make at least one battle, perhaps many, where an enemy has a sort of discouragement countermeasure for each of your commands that last for the remainder of the battle, and uses them after every command you use, and they stack. So if you attack him, he grows a few spikes, and then future attacks will reflect 2% damage back on the attacker. You attack him again, he grows more spikes, now future attacks reflect 4% damage, etc.. He's got a counter like this for each of your commands. Therefore, if fight is say, 10% better than a command called kick, you might use fight 5 times, then kick once, then alternate between fight and kick. Except you would be doing this balancing act with a majority of the commands you have access to, not just two.

My preference is just balanced variety. You can have a regular attack, then a command that only attacks with 90% strength but it ignores the enemy's defense, a command that only attacks with 90% strength but it never misses, a command that attacks every enemy simultaneously but divides the damage amongst them (probably for a total of 120% of normal damage, otherwise it would be strategically poor), a jab that deals about 50% of normal damage but only sets your initiative back by 50% instead of the full 100%, an ability that builds power for X turns and finally unleashes an attack that deals more than X times the damage of a regular attack, etc.. Give a warrior access to all of these abilities, and the player is less likely to just spam the basic attack against every enemy.

Btw, good thread. I read the whole thing and probably created about 15 new commands for my game while reading.