A PLAYER'S HUMBLE REQUEST.

Don't worry, I won't do touch encounters in my game. No way. Maybe when I start on the sequel, (WHICH IS PLANNED OUT ALREADY :3, which I won't start on until after the first is complete.)

author=halibabica
I love how people bash random battles and they all still adore Hero's Realm. Of course, there's more to it than that, but anyway...

A game can be subpar in one aspect and still be good overall! Disclaimer: I've never played Hero's Realm and also don't have anything against random battles, so the preceding sentence is less a defense of Hero's Realm and more a vague statement about the nature of the universe.

I do have something against repetitive battles, though.

Just because many imply doing random encounters means you don't work hard if at all, doesn't mean anything. It doesn't really make it true. Say you did a totally custom battle, someone can do hard work via random encounters via the default battle screen and it STILL turn out better than the custom one. There isn't any real logic behind why you all don't like random encounters. Though that is one of the building blocks to the RPG series. It can be done right, and can also out-do any custom one, or touch encounter one there is if done correctly. It surprises me how many of you think no work is really done to it, when Final Fantasy is one of the top selling rpg games, and back in the day, that is what they did. You all are not professional game designers. Not by a long shot. Most of you, anyway. Just because today's gaming doesn't follow up with it anymore, doesn't mean shit. If it were not at all for the old games, these games wouldn't be like they are.

I've said earlier that it takes far less time to add new monsters if you're not using an evented battle system than if you do. However, it strikes me that the more satisfying you make every monster, the more time it takes. For example, I can in no time take one monster, replace the graphics and then add minute changes such as giving it less HP, but more defense. I can also make a mage monster and apply a rule such as "against fighters it does as much damage as a physical monsters does against mages and against mages it does as much damage as physical monsters does against fighters" and get it done very quickly. The problem is, if I do all that, what I get is a load of monsters who are all fought the same way. So, the monsters aren't really that different.

So assuming a limited time budget, how much is different monsters worth to you? Shall the time be taken from mapping, dialog writing, music or something else? Or are you fine with having four monsters that are fought the same way as long as they look different and different stats and skills even if the difference is inconsequential when it comes to strategy?

That can work, but I see two conditions that has to be fulfilled.

1. You cannot have a dedicated black mage with access to all/most elements. If you do, then she/he will match elements, but the rest will spam the same skill over and over. Also, use Ice 1 instead of Fire 1 is hardly a difference to write home about.

2. The importance of matching elements has to be greater than normal. Chance is your best fighter is more than twice as good at inflicting physical damage than he is at inflicting magic damage. If so, then obviously dealing double damage by using the right spell will not be enough to motivate doing so. Also, even if the fighter do deal more damage with a spell of the right element, there's also the fact that you have to figure out which one it is. Every time you guess wrong, you deal less damage. Once you do find the weakness, the bonus has to be great enough to make up for the pains it toke to figure it out (and the effort to remember it or write it down).

The Digital Devil Saga series for example, do fulfill both conditions. However, most RPGs don't and giving the enemies different weaknesses won't make for a very substantial difference.

author=Crystalgate
That can work, but I see two conditions that has to be fulfilled.

1. You cannot have a dedicated black mage with access to all/most elements. If you do, then she/he will match elements, but the rest will spam the same skill over and over. Also, use Ice 1 instead of Fire 1 is hardly a difference to write home about.

2. The importance of matching elements has to be greater than normal. Chance is your best fighter is more than twice as good at inflicting physical damage than he is at inflicting magic damage. If so, then obviously dealing double damage by using the right spell will not be enough to motivate doing so. Also, even if the fighter do deal more damage with a spell of the right element, there's also the fact that you have to figure out which one it is. Every time you guess wrong, you deal less damage. Once you do find the weakness, the bonus has to be great enough to make up for the pains it toke to figure it out (and the effort to remember it or write it down).

The Digital Devil Saga series for example, do fulfill both conditions. However, most RPGs don't and giving the enemies different weaknesses won't make for a very substantial difference.

That's true, though RPG Maker also allows for weaknesses and strengths based on monster type, which can be a way to bring more strategy for the physical combatants as well. A character's normal physical attack might not do much against, say, a bird monster when compared to mage's wind spell, but if the former character has a technique that specifically targets birds then it balances things out.

The point is not strategy, it's variety in the movesets so you're not spamming the same move over and over. Depending on how you design it, sometimes using the enemy's weakness may not be the best move due to say... having to silence it to prevent a powerful attack.

author=Lucidstillness

author=LDanarkos

author=Lucidstillness
A character's normal physical attack might not do much against, say, a bird monster when compared to mage's wind spell, but if the former character has a technique that specifically targets birds then it balances things out.

I've never understood why so many people think obvious attack type weaknesses are strategic. Like "should I use the silver bullet on the werewolf? I dunno, tough strategic decision."

What if it isn't so obvious though? Just because a monster uses an ice attack doesn't mean it's automatically weak against fire. Again, just look at the Megaten games for some truly difficult elemental strength and weakness puzzles. In those games you have to pay careful attention to what an enemy does in order to claim victory, such as observing what kind of elemental defense an enemy uses on itself, waiting until it is gone or otherwise dispelling the defense, and then using the appropriate elemental attack, all while defending against the enemy's own elemental attack (and that's just the absolute simplest example). It rewards thought and planning, and it is a far cry from the 1980s-style fire-water wind-earth routine of turn based RPGs.

I want to prevent the player from repeatedly using the same attack and getting bored. I wouldn't be satisfied if that was just disrupted by giving them a constantly fluctuating obvious command. Like "This time, fire is definitely best," etc.. Not saying that I interpreted what you described as being that. It's difficult to find ways to make players struggle to find the correct course of action, and to keep that correct course of action fluctuating each turn. I'm still working on that, but here's some ideas...
-A 3+ enemy party could make it so that each enemy occasionally uses the block command (meaning wastes a turn to take reduced damage), and possibly also give them some sort of powerful attack that puts them off-balance, therefore taking extra damage until the next turn. In a way, you could say "well then it's obvious that you should attack the vulnerable ones and avoid attacking the blocking ones." Sure, but remember, it's usually ideal to focus all of your attacks on one enemy until that enemy dies, then move on to the next one (so that you're taking hits by one fewer enemies). So in a long battle, with enemies having shifting vulnerabilities, you have conflicting interests about whether to focus your attacks or spread them around.
-Any time the enemy hurts the heroes, you have to choose whether to heal or keep attacking.
-If an enemy party has one healer, the correct strategy is often to kill the healer first. But what if the enemies' behavior is such that all three enemies do healing sometimes, and the healing role rotates every 4 turns, and it takes about 9 hits to kill an enemy. It could be wise to figure out which enemy is going to be the healer 9 turns from now, start trying to kill it now, and if successful, the enemies will be without a healer for 4 turns.
-Perhaps enemies could have shifting magical / physical weaknesses, but they wouldn't be absolute weaknesses. For example, they could have an ability that does whatever desired effect (like hurting the heroes) with a side effect of improving magical resistance and reducing physical resistance, and then another ability that does the opposite. But they wouldn't go from absolutely weak against physical and strong against magic to the opposite, it would go from like magic defense 70, attack resistance 30 to magic defense 60, attack resistance 40. The resistances would change by like +/-10. You would have to maintain a vague idea of where each of their resistances stand, then estimate where they stand after shifting, take the probable course of action, but include one probing attack (i.e. you think physical attacks are better, so you hit them with 3 physical attacks and 1 magic attack, to maintain your reference of how effective magic is) then reevaluate where you think they are now.
-Imagine a party of 3 enemies, that are all wall-changing, and perhaps the wall changes are even explicitly stated (meaning you're told what the enemy is weak against now). But the curve ball is that whenever there's a wall change, the severity that its weak or strong against an element is not constant. For example, an enemy might become weak against ice (ice deals 160% normal damage). Then a second enemy becomes weak against fire (fire deals 190% normal damage). and it doesn't say what that percentage is, it's just randomly determined when there's a wall change, and it doesn't tell you the number. It might take some prodding to figure out which enemy has the more severe weakness, and therefore which is more optimal to attack. This would only be of great strategic importance in a long battle with multiple enemies, and perhaps if the enemies healed (not a heal to full) whichever member had the lowest HP, it would magnify the strategic importance. Otherwise, without the healing, you might say "eff it, I don't care which enemy is optimal, I'll just focus on one of them regardless."

So resistances that are subtle are better than a flame elemental that wears its weaknesses on its sleeve, shifting weaknesses are better for attack variety than static weaknesses, but also, ambiguous degrees of weakness take more detective work than absolute weaknesses. In the example of the rotating blocking, wall changes of randomly determined magnitude, and the rotating healer, it's great when weakness isn't a question of "which attack hurts this enemy the most," but it's a question of "I know which enemy I can deal the most absolute damage to, and I know which attack to hit each enemy with, but deciding which enemy to attack this turn is hard."