SIDEVIEW: TURNBASED OR ATB?

Why would the view of battle have any bearing on the ATB?

I like either, but sideview is graphics, and has nothing to do with battle system at all. I ALWAYS use sideview battlers in any project I do, and I have done both ATB and CTB (and even used VX's default battlesys). So this question is kind of pointless.

ATB is a poorly used way to control battles. It's original purpose (based on FF4, the first game I know of that used it) was to break up the old party turns and to try and throw timing into battles but it did a pretty poor job at both. It works better when played to its strengths, like waiting for multiple characters to get a turn (dual/triple techs in Chrono Trigger) or... I'm sure there's other uses for it, I just can't think of any where the ATB would excel. FF10 and FFT's style of turns is pretty much better in every way. In a way they are ATB except there's no waiting for gauges to fill, the game pauses when a character gets a turn so you can plan out your actions, and you can see who's turn is coming up.

The best solution is to look at how you want battles to flow and pick the best way of controlling and timing battles to accommodate that flow. Don't pick one because of its momentum in other games; look at what that mentality did to FF9. This has been a curse of so many RPGs it's depressing to see another ATB game that uses it for no good reason beyond imitating FFs.

Quick question on that. Is there any way to 'force' the gamer into turn based on rm2k3?

I came up with a joke scenario where, in the beginning of the game, you're told to switch to wait OR ELSE!!

Then after you exit the menu, you're met with a boss fight where you have 1hp, and the boss has 1hp, and you're JUST barely faster than the boss, but if you're not in wait, there's no chance to survive.

I thought to myself, AHHAHAHAHAHAH EAT THAT!

Then I realized they can switch back anytime they want...


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On topic - the only time I felt that ATB was an advantage was playing FF10-2 where I could interrupt an enemy in the middle of its attack by 'saving' a party member's turn for the right moment.

Other than that, I can't think of any reason not to use turn based. ATB often turns into an optimizing fest where you don't think much and try to click as fast as possible.

author=Archeia_Nessiah
FFX and FFT are CTBs. (Count Time Battle System/Charge Time Battle)

Just so anyone else cares, another long term for CTB is "Conditional Turn-Based" battle system. (in reference to FFX only, anyway).

What I like about ATB is not being able to go make myself a sandwich during a battle, i.e. it resembles, a little more, a real battle, , illusion of action. In fact they're not very different as GRS points out, because the game pauses when an action is starting.

GRS is correct that the reason ATB was originally invented was to make battles feel more "actiony" so that timing and reflexes played a part. The goal was to make RPG combat more exciting.

My primary reason for using ATB in my RMXP game is quite different. I simply like having the ability for stats or status effects to modify how often you get a turn. My game is permanently set on wait mode and there is no option for active mode, because my goal is to promote strategic planning of turns, not to make the player think and react quickly without time to plan out a strategy. (Also, the turn gauges fill up about 15x faster than the RM2K3 turn gauges. Fuck RM2K3's turn gauges.)

An FF10 or FFT style system, which is usually called CTB, would do the same thing for me. Actually, a CTB system is just a wait-mode ATB system with a really fast turn gauge. So fast that it only takes 1 frame, and thus the game doesn't bother to show it.

Complaining that ATB is slow is a stupid complaint. ATB isn't slow. RM2K3's default battle system is what's slow. In any engine where you actually have a choice of battle systems, ATB can be whatever speed you want it to be.

Like Craze, I definitely like the use of time as a primary cost for abilities. However, WoW does something I really like - it has spells with different powers, different MP costs, and different time costs, all at different ratios. So you have one spell that has a normal power and low time cost but a high MP cost (making it the most time-efficient), one spell that has a high time cost and high power but normal MP cost (making it the most powerful spell), and one spell that has a normal power and normal time but low MP cost (making it the most MP-efficient). I think the use of multiple resources helps add a lot of strategy in a way that's both very simple to understand and also makes you think every turn about what resource you need to conserve more - and is my primary reason for preferring battle systems that use time as a resource, especially as a resource that different spells and abilities use different amounts of.

author=murray

author=Archeia_Nessiah
FF ATB or ATBs in general all look like some pointless waiting for actions. CTBs are better because the stronger the skills are, the more delay they add to your timer, the longer your turns take, etc. You can be incredibly creative with it.

Different skills having different delays is not a defining feature of CTB at all. Several ATB FFs including FF4 also had different delays for their skills.

I don't recall FF4 having the same skill effects like in Mana Khemia's CTB ( which is what I actually meant by being creative. If you watch it all, you'll see what I mean soon enough) and the ability to control your "delay"/"speed" freely. I was referring more to how you can move more...stream-liney than WAIT FOR TURN, Chooses an Action, Wait for a bar to fill in again for the action to happen (HELLO V&V) or yeah *shrugs*

I love ATB, because really, turn based, it's just you, select what your player does, then it goes onto playing, and sometimes it takes so much pp and takes so long, that it ends up being a button spamming time.
Sure those problems are in ATB too, but it looks way better, and it allows a strategy to form, where, instead of strategy based off of spells, attacks, and gaurding, ATB uses all that plus characters, EX.:

Turn-Based player:"Well, I have this fire spell, and we are up against an ice monster, I guess I'll use that and just attack normally with my ice mage!"
ATB player:"Well, my ice mage is going up first, and all the spells she has, plus anything she will do other than gaurding and row, will heal ice type beings...but I don't want her to gaurd because she has incredibly low defense, and has low hp, meaning evem while gaurding she'll die! Maybe I'll use her turn by pressing the row button and switching the characters out. then I can attack the monster with fire!"

Sure it doesn't give you enough time for strategy, but at least it will allow you to make a better strategy than a turn-based battle does with the turn-based restrictions!