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HARD TO CHOOSE: ENGAGING MONSTER PARTIES 101
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Craze
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CloseThis topic assumes that you have read this article by Brickroad.
A battle system that doesn't have interesting monster groups is weak, no matter how FMV-like the animations are. A cool enemy can be worthless if you engage it by its lonesome, dying too quickly. Having eight of the same foe is typically dull, even if it is more challenging. Simple balancing of enemy roles and battle size can make the most basic battle system more fun. So, how do you make monster parties engaging?
(A lot of this is based on D&D 4e, by the way.)
What I like to do is follow a few rules:
-Enemy party size is equal to hero party size, plus or minus one
-Monsters have a designated role they try to fulfill
-Monster groups are not all archetypal structures
Enemy Party Size
Enemy parties get to "purchase" units with a number of points equal to the size of the hero party at that point in the game, plus or minus one. The normal distribution for an area, assuming a party size of four, would be three three-monster parties, three five-monster parties, and five four-monster parties. This inherently means that some are easier than others, and some are a little more difficult.
Having a number of enemies roughly equal to the amount of heroes means that area-of-effect skills tend to be useful, even with low damage; that you can poison one enemy and let it sit while you pick off others; that you have to choose who to pick off first. More on that last point later.
About points: have enemies worth different amount of points. Here's an example set of monsters for a lizardmen cavern.
Angry Rhino - 2 points
Microdragon - 2 points
Lizard Tamer - 1 point
Lizard Soldier - 1 point
Lizard Assassin - 1 point
Wyrmling - 1/2 point
Two wyrmlings are as powerful as a lizard assassin. Two lizard tamers are as powerful as an angry rhino. This helps diversify enemy parties and label certain enemies as "elite" - they're tougher to take down, but by costing the same as two normal enemies, the party won't necessarily be in too much hot water. It's simply a different challenge.
Monster Roles
So, your heroes have a defender, a rogue, a mage and a healer. Why do enemies have to all be "I have attack and one elemental spell," then? Let's work on that with a very basic list of enemy roles:
Tank - Soaks up damage with higher HP and defenses (either armor or evasion). Tries to cover allies or increase their defenses/resistances
Striker - Deals consistent damage, physical or magical. It's not a lot at once, but usually accurate. Also tends to have decent evasion and critical rates, to be more rogue-esque
Brute - Deals lots of physical damage, usually to a single target. Can sometimes charge up a powerful move
Nuker - Deals lots of magical damage, to a single target or an area; might be interesting to have your brutes focus on high single-target damage and your nukers on spreading out decent (but not killer) damage
Healer - Heals allies' HP, and cures ailments - put a blind-curing foe with a brute...?
Buffer - Raises the party's capabilities, raising the nuker's damage, the tank's evasion, the brute's accuracy, etc.
Debuffer - Hinders the party, slowing them, confusing them, etc.
By applying one or two of these roles to a foe, you make each enemy more memorable and interesting. You also have to decide who to pick off first - the one curing silence on its nuker allies, or the nukers themselves? What about the lone tank that is quietly raising its defense, metapod-style?
Let's apply roles to the previous lizardmen enemy set:
Angry Rhino - 2p; brute
Microdragon - 2p; nuker/tank
Lizard Tamer - 1p; healer/buffer
Lizard Soldier - 1p; tank
Lizard Assassin - 1p; striker/debuffer
Wyrmling - 1/2p; striker
It's a set low on brutes and nukers, so there's not a lot of concentrated damage, but the strikers working with the tanks will being the groupings will tend to stay alive while being consistent in their damage output. And, well, with set monster roles, you know battles will be more engaging, because the enemies will work together better. Put at least a little thought into AI patterns, and you'll have strong enemy groups.
Limit Archetypal Structures
Your game is going to get dull if every enemy group has the tank/healer/striker/nuker mix. Just because it's the "ideal" group doesn't mean it's entertaining every time! Throw the player for a loop on who to kill first - three brutes and two 1/2-point debuffers mean you have to balance mitigating damage taken with stopping the foes from making you vulnerable. Sure, have that archetypal setup once or twice in an area's group list, but vary it up from there.
Make the player think about who they have to kill first, and you're one step closer to a fun battle system, no matter how traditional or bizarre it is.
A battle system that doesn't have interesting monster groups is weak, no matter how FMV-like the animations are. A cool enemy can be worthless if you engage it by its lonesome, dying too quickly. Having eight of the same foe is typically dull, even if it is more challenging. Simple balancing of enemy roles and battle size can make the most basic battle system more fun. So, how do you make monster parties engaging?
(A lot of this is based on D&D 4e, by the way.)
What I like to do is follow a few rules:
-Enemy party size is equal to hero party size, plus or minus one
-Monsters have a designated role they try to fulfill
-Monster groups are not all archetypal structures
Enemy Party Size
Enemy parties get to "purchase" units with a number of points equal to the size of the hero party at that point in the game, plus or minus one. The normal distribution for an area, assuming a party size of four, would be three three-monster parties, three five-monster parties, and five four-monster parties. This inherently means that some are easier than others, and some are a little more difficult.
Having a number of enemies roughly equal to the amount of heroes means that area-of-effect skills tend to be useful, even with low damage; that you can poison one enemy and let it sit while you pick off others; that you have to choose who to pick off first. More on that last point later.
About points: have enemies worth different amount of points. Here's an example set of monsters for a lizardmen cavern.
Angry Rhino - 2 points
Microdragon - 2 points
Lizard Tamer - 1 point
Lizard Soldier - 1 point
Lizard Assassin - 1 point
Wyrmling - 1/2 point
Two wyrmlings are as powerful as a lizard assassin. Two lizard tamers are as powerful as an angry rhino. This helps diversify enemy parties and label certain enemies as "elite" - they're tougher to take down, but by costing the same as two normal enemies, the party won't necessarily be in too much hot water. It's simply a different challenge.
Monster Roles
So, your heroes have a defender, a rogue, a mage and a healer. Why do enemies have to all be "I have attack and one elemental spell," then? Let's work on that with a very basic list of enemy roles:
Tank - Soaks up damage with higher HP and defenses (either armor or evasion). Tries to cover allies or increase their defenses/resistances
Striker - Deals consistent damage, physical or magical. It's not a lot at once, but usually accurate. Also tends to have decent evasion and critical rates, to be more rogue-esque
Brute - Deals lots of physical damage, usually to a single target. Can sometimes charge up a powerful move
Nuker - Deals lots of magical damage, to a single target or an area; might be interesting to have your brutes focus on high single-target damage and your nukers on spreading out decent (but not killer) damage
Healer - Heals allies' HP, and cures ailments - put a blind-curing foe with a brute...?
Buffer - Raises the party's capabilities, raising the nuker's damage, the tank's evasion, the brute's accuracy, etc.
Debuffer - Hinders the party, slowing them, confusing them, etc.
By applying one or two of these roles to a foe, you make each enemy more memorable and interesting. You also have to decide who to pick off first - the one curing silence on its nuker allies, or the nukers themselves? What about the lone tank that is quietly raising its defense, metapod-style?
Let's apply roles to the previous lizardmen enemy set:
Angry Rhino - 2p; brute
Microdragon - 2p; nuker/tank
Lizard Tamer - 1p; healer/buffer
Lizard Soldier - 1p; tank
Lizard Assassin - 1p; striker/debuffer
Wyrmling - 1/2p; striker
It's a set low on brutes and nukers, so there's not a lot of concentrated damage, but the strikers working with the tanks will being the groupings will tend to stay alive while being consistent in their damage output. And, well, with set monster roles, you know battles will be more engaging, because the enemies will work together better. Put at least a little thought into AI patterns, and you'll have strong enemy groups.
Limit Archetypal Structures
Your game is going to get dull if every enemy group has the tank/healer/striker/nuker mix. Just because it's the "ideal" group doesn't mean it's entertaining every time! Throw the player for a loop on who to kill first - three brutes and two 1/2-point debuffers mean you have to balance mitigating damage taken with stopping the foes from making you vulnerable. Sure, have that archetypal setup once or twice in an area's group list, but vary it up from there.
***
Make the player think about who they have to kill first, and you're one step closer to a fun battle system, no matter how traditional or bizarre it is.
I agree with most of these general principles, although in recent months my respect for D&D 4E has waned and my respect for D&D 3E has increased significantly, although that's a story for another topic.
I tried to cleave fairly close to these basic principles in To Arms! although I'm not sure anyone noticed, with all the other things going on in that game's battles (odd party sizes, etc.).
It should be noted that these guidelines should be used as just guidelines.
All in all, good topic. People should read this and think about it.
I tried to cleave fairly close to these basic principles in To Arms! although I'm not sure anyone noticed, with all the other things going on in that game's battles (odd party sizes, etc.).
It should be noted that these guidelines should be used as just guidelines.
All in all, good topic. People should read this and think about it.
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
Definitely approve of giving monsters similar roles and abilities to players, instead of just one or two extremely basic skills each.
This feels like it should be an article, actually.
This feels like it should be an article, actually.
I like to make my articles topics first, and then post them as an article once any concerns come up and I edit the content appropriately. A forum topic is not necessarily left up for posterity - an article is.
Also, I want to know how other people do it!
Also, I want to know how other people do it!
This is definitely worthy of discussion...I just noticed that Craze's makerscore has surpassed mine. Gadzooks!
My approach for this has varied with every game I've made. Lots of those games I made 5+ years ago so unsurprisingly I don't remember so well now. 4E D&D was definitely an influence on To Arms! though, with many of the roles you defined above.
With several of my games, I try to make it so that humanoid monsters use the same 'rules' as PCs, i.e. the same pool of races, classes, abilities, and equipment where appropriate. This is an unusual approach and I don't think it's done a lot.
Also, I want to know how other people do it!
My approach for this has varied with every game I've made. Lots of those games I made 5+ years ago so unsurprisingly I don't remember so well now. 4E D&D was definitely an influence on To Arms! though, with many of the roles you defined above.
With several of my games, I try to make it so that humanoid monsters use the same 'rules' as PCs, i.e. the same pool of races, classes, abilities, and equipment where appropriate. This is an unusual approach and I don't think it's done a lot.
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
I like to pick enemy roles based not just on what groups mesh ideally and haven't been overused yet, but also based on what works well with the player abilities.
Earlier in the game, I like to create monsters with tactics that can be disabled by abilities the player has. For example, if the hero has access to a free self-heal and a sleep effect, I might put him in a chain of several non-stop battles with no chance to open the menu in between, to see if he can figure out how to restore to full health at the end of each battle. If the hero has just gained access to a stun ability, I'll include enemies that inflict massive Def Down effects on the hero or Attack Up effects on themselves. If you just gained an area lightning spell, I'll include an all-aquatic enemy group or two. This especially works well right after introducing a new character, since you know exactly what skills the player just got, and you want to train the player to use them correctly.
Later in the game, I do the opposite: I make enemies that deliberately counter the player's abilities, so that the player must improvise his strategy. If Protect and Shell statuses have proven extremely powerful, I'll start giving enemies the ability to dispel those effects. If you only have a single-target Esuna spell, I'll give enemies area status effects with high hitrates (low lethality effects: poison and blind, not confuse and paralyze). If some of your strongest abilities are multi-hit skills, I'll give some enemies counterattacks, so they get multiple counters if you use those skills. If the enemies are all weak to lightning, I'll make one of them able to cast a Reflect Lightning buff on the entire enemy party. At first I'll only do these types of things for bosses, but eventually I'll start doing them for normal enemies also. This makes the game get more challenging as it moves forward, and challenges the player to master his abilities and pay attention to his situation.
Earlier in the game, I like to create monsters with tactics that can be disabled by abilities the player has. For example, if the hero has access to a free self-heal and a sleep effect, I might put him in a chain of several non-stop battles with no chance to open the menu in between, to see if he can figure out how to restore to full health at the end of each battle. If the hero has just gained access to a stun ability, I'll include enemies that inflict massive Def Down effects on the hero or Attack Up effects on themselves. If you just gained an area lightning spell, I'll include an all-aquatic enemy group or two. This especially works well right after introducing a new character, since you know exactly what skills the player just got, and you want to train the player to use them correctly.
Later in the game, I do the opposite: I make enemies that deliberately counter the player's abilities, so that the player must improvise his strategy. If Protect and Shell statuses have proven extremely powerful, I'll start giving enemies the ability to dispel those effects. If you only have a single-target Esuna spell, I'll give enemies area status effects with high hitrates (low lethality effects: poison and blind, not confuse and paralyze). If some of your strongest abilities are multi-hit skills, I'll give some enemies counterattacks, so they get multiple counters if you use those skills. If the enemies are all weak to lightning, I'll make one of them able to cast a Reflect Lightning buff on the entire enemy party. At first I'll only do these types of things for bosses, but eventually I'll start doing them for normal enemies also. This makes the game get more challenging as it moves forward, and challenges the player to master his abilities and pay attention to his situation.
LockeZ
If you just gained an area lightning spell, I'll include an all-aquatic enemy group or two. This especially works well right after introducing a new character, since you know exactly what skills the player just got, and you want to train the player to use them correctly.
Training is excellent, and makes the player feel smart for exploiting a new character so quickly.
I also like having the odd 1-monster "party" but that monster is a bit of pain in the ass. Almost a mini-boss. Not all areas get a mini-boss like monster, but it is frequent enough.
Part of the purpose of monster encounters is to validate the leet skillz of the hero party, so you will have to construct monsters and monster parties that allow them to use these skills (so that they feel worthwhile).
Like, if you have a bunch of area effect (or group effect) skills, be sure to have encounters that allow those area effect skills to be useful! (This is why I thought that the Whip weapon in DQIX was useless/undervalued. There were never enough times where there was a large group of same enemies where the use of the whip would shine!) Other examples: lots of elemental affinity skills? Add elemental weaknesses to enemies/groups. lots of heavy damage dealing single target skills? Have an enemy with a lot o' HP. Armor-piercing skills or debuffs? High DEF/ATK/<stat> enemies! Sleep skill? Enemies with weakness/resistence to sleep! etc...
So anyway, back on the main topic, one other group of enemies I like to have is a large group of relatively weak enemies. (like 7 or 8 enemies to the hero party's 4). I also tend to have a lot of 2 monster parties, where the 2 monsters are designed to complement each other (but usually these are pretty easy battles).
Part of the purpose of monster encounters is to validate the leet skillz of the hero party, so you will have to construct monsters and monster parties that allow them to use these skills (so that they feel worthwhile).
Like, if you have a bunch of area effect (or group effect) skills, be sure to have encounters that allow those area effect skills to be useful! (This is why I thought that the Whip weapon in DQIX was useless/undervalued. There were never enough times where there was a large group of same enemies where the use of the whip would shine!) Other examples: lots of elemental affinity skills? Add elemental weaknesses to enemies/groups. lots of heavy damage dealing single target skills? Have an enemy with a lot o' HP. Armor-piercing skills or debuffs? High DEF/ATK/<stat> enemies! Sleep skill? Enemies with weakness/resistence to sleep! etc...
So anyway, back on the main topic, one other group of enemies I like to have is a large group of relatively weak enemies. (like 7 or 8 enemies to the hero party's 4). I also tend to have a lot of 2 monster parties, where the 2 monsters are designed to complement each other (but usually these are pretty easy battles).
For example, if the hero has access to a free self-heal and a sleep effect, I might put him in a chain of several non-stop battles with no chance to open the menu in between, to see if he can figure out how to restore to full health at the end of each battle.
I figured out, and it seems tedious to me. (Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's not clever. But something can be clever and tedious at the same time. Then again, props to you for even including a sleep spell that works.)
. If the enemies are all weak to lightning, I'll make one of them able to cast a Reflect Lightning buff on the entire enemy party
I hope your game includes dispel, otherwise this is just obnoxious. You're not requiring players to use strategy, you're locking it down.
Like, if you have a bunch of area effect (or group effect) skills, be sure to have encounters that allow those area effect skills to be useful! (This is why I thought that the Whip weapon in DQIX was useless/undervalued. There were never enough times where there was a large group of same enemies where the use of the whip would shine!) Other examples: lots of elemental affinity skills? Add elemental weaknesses to enemies/groups. lots of heavy damage dealing single target skills? Have an enemy with a lot o' HP. Armor-piercing skills or debuffs? High DEF/ATK/<stat> enemies! Sleep skill? Enemies with weakness/resistence to sleep! etc...
This is the kind of thing that I do so unconsciously I never would have thought to mention it, so I'm glad Kenton did.
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
If the enemies are all weak to lightning, I'll make one of them able to cast a Reflect Lightning buff on the entire enemy partyI hope your game includes dispel, otherwise this is just obnoxious. You're not requiring players to use strategy, you're locking it down.
Later in the game, to keep the game from being absurdly easy, you need to start locking down the obvious strategies, forcing the player to improvise with backup strategies. Your suggestion of dispelling the effect is a good example of a backup strategy, as is silencing the enemies before they can cast the reflect buff, or reflecting yourself and bouncing lightning back at them, or using lightning-elemental physical skills that don't reflect, or using a speed buff on your mage so he goes before the enemies, or casting a debuff that makes enemies weak to an additional element, etc. etc. Nearer to the end of the game, depending on the difficulty of the game, enemies might start countering some (but not all) of these backup strategies also.
Making enemies that are immune to everything but the attack command is definitely not an interesting mechanic, especially late in the game, and was not my intention.
I use both this and this when designing monsters and classes alike. Definitely make monsters act like weaker versions of the heroes. Enemy battles can be a great teaching tool in a way that most people don't often utilize; having the monsters use skills that are available to the heroes with synergy and strategy, essentially demonstrating it to them, adds a lot of depth to battles.
this
author=Max McGeeLike, if you have a bunch of area effect (or group effect) skills, be sure to have encounters that allow those area effect skills to be useful! (This is why I thought that the Whip weapon in DQIX was useless/undervalued. There were never enough times where there was a large group of same enemies where the use of the whip would shine!) Other examples: lots of elemental affinity skills? Add elemental weaknesses to enemies/groups. lots of heavy damage dealing single target skills? Have an enemy with a lot o' HP. Armor-piercing skills or debuffs? High DEF/ATK/<stat> enemies! Sleep skill? Enemies with weakness/resistence to sleep! etc...
This is the kind of thing that I do so unconsciously I never would have thought to mention it, so I'm glad Kenton did.
this
Crystalgate
694
It's hard to give a how description since I've found out you pretty much have to think it trough enemy for enemy, skill for skill. With that I don't mean you can't have any concepts that multiple enemies adhere to, but even if you do have those concepts, you still need to check every single enemy trough carefully. An idea which worked in one dungeon can suddenly stop working in another dungeon because something changed between those two dungeons, maybe a character got a skill that breaks the idea. You also need to check every skill you implement, if a single skill manages to obsolete three other skills, you just made a net loss of two skills as far as strategy goes.
Still, one concept I use for most games is that I make defense and evasion work against different enemies. Defense works well against enemies with high accuracy, but low attack, while evasion works well against the opposite. This comes into play when attacking and tanking. Then on top of that I throw buffs, debuffs and resource management. I get the feeling though that I have to make a game which I'll find easy since I know every strength and weakness of every enemy while the player won't.
Still, one concept I use for most games is that I make defense and evasion work against different enemies. Defense works well against enemies with high accuracy, but low attack, while evasion works well against the opposite. This comes into play when attacking and tanking. Then on top of that I throw buffs, debuffs and resource management. I get the feeling though that I have to make a game which I'll find easy since I know every strength and weakness of every enemy while the player won't.
Still, one concept I use for most games is that I make defense and evasion work against different enemies. Defense works well against enemies with high accuracy, but low attack, while evasion works well against the opposite. This comes into play when attacking and tanking. Then on top of that I throw buffs, debuffs and resource management. I get the feeling though that I have to make a game which I'll find easy since I know every strength and weakness of every enemy while the player won't.
Do you allow some enemies in your game to have good evasion, and others to have good defense, as well?
Crystalgate
694
Yes. Most enemies have either good evasion or good defense. There are still a lot of exceptions though.
What is the average weapon accuracy?
Do you encounter any player frustration when dealing with the more evasive enemies?
Do you encounter any player frustration when dealing with the more evasive enemies?
Crystalgate
694
Let's start with the second question. The way I'm making it, there are evasive enemies, but you will only miss if you do something wrong. You will still hit them 100% if you use an accurate weapon and a skill with a high hitrate. Spells also cannot be evaded. The idea with evasive enemies isn't that x% of your attacks will inevitable miss, rather the idea is to force you to adapt your strategies. It's by the way the same deal with high defense enemies, you will not deal low damage to them unless you use the wrong strategies.
I don't know if it will cause frustration, but I don't think so. Final Fantasy X had evasive enemies, but I've not heard of anyone complaining since they just used the methods the game provided to get past the evasion.
As for the average weapon accuracy, it's useless to provide a number since it doesn't translate to a percentage. For example, 50 accuracy can mean all from a 100% hit rate to a 0% hit rate depending on the evasion of the enemy.
I don't know if it will cause frustration, but I don't think so. Final Fantasy X had evasive enemies, but I've not heard of anyone complaining since they just used the methods the game provided to get past the evasion.
As for the average weapon accuracy, it's useless to provide a number since it doesn't translate to a percentage. For example, 50 accuracy can mean all from a 100% hit rate to a 0% hit rate depending on the evasion of the enemy.
Pokemaniac
3559
Yeah, Final Fantasy X handled evasiveness really well. Blindness especially was actually useful.
As for the average weapon accuracy, it's useless to provide a number since it doesn't translate to a percentage. For example, 50 accuracy can mean all from a 100% hit rate to a 0% hit rate depending on the evasion of the enemy.
Interesting.
What are you making your game in, Crystalgate?
While reading through this I'm sure many are thinking something along the lines of "that's common sense", but time and time again its pointers such as the ones outlined here that are totally non existent in most rpg maker games and nullify the point of battles in the first place. If all I need to do is mash attack because all enemies have one or two skills that are identical save for the name and animation and strategy goes out the window, tell me why the fuck am I even bothering with this game?
Take notes, learn, think, and apply.
Take notes, learn, think, and apply.
Crystalgate
694
author=Max McGee
What are you making your game in, Crystalgate?
It's VX with a modified to hit and damage formulas.
Your chance to hit, in percent, is: 160 - 80 * Evasion / Hit Rate.
For physical skills, replace Hit Rate with Hit Rate * Skill Hit Ratio / 100.
You're guaranteed to hit if your Hit Rate (renamed to accuracy) is 125% or of the enemy's Evasion and guaranteed to miss if your Hit Rate is half or less of the enemy's Evasion.
Anyway, more into what Craze was actually asking for. For the purpose of my game, let's redefine striker, brute and nuker a bit.
Striker has a high accuracy, but low attack.
Brute has a high attack, but low accuracy.
Nuker uses magic attacks.
Most enemies will have one of these three roles, but often also have other roles. A succubus for example, would be a striker and debuffer. A paladin like enemy, would probably be brute and either healer of buffer. Striker/nuker and brute/nuker combinations will also exist.
I also use a similar system to what craze described where stronger enemies can count as two and weaker as a half.
As mentioned earlier, most enemies also have either a high defense or a high evasion. High defense enemies are best dealt with by using high attack weapons combined with massive attacks that punches trough the defense. Evasive enemies are best dealt with by using high accuracy weapons combined with skills that have a high Hit Ratio. Magic will ignore both defense and evasion, but is subject to magic defense and elemental resistance. Even if the enemy in question doesn't have a high resistance or resists the element (each character has access to one element only) magic attacks uses up the same resource as healing spells does, while physical skills does not.
Roughly speaking, the idea is to bypass the enemies' defenses while making them attack whoever can best defend against them, i,e, tank brutes with an evasive character and strikers with a high defense character. You can also shut enemies down with status effects. However, enemies will soon start throwing wrenches into your plan. Let's take the succubus enemy I mentioned earlier as an example. She's best tanked against with a high defense character, but if she charms your tank, that strategy breaks. You need to somehow prevent her from charming the tank if you want to go the tanking route. Another problem comes when buffer raises the accuracy of a brute and it now becomes harder to evade its attacks. You need to take into account what the enemies can do and adapt you strategies thereafter.
At least that's the plan.
