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Battle system updates and suggestions

I finally caved and decided to update the script which the battle system runs on. Naturally, since the version I use is viciously hacked together as a result of poor planning on my part, this is basically requiring me to rewrite everything from scratch. As annoying as that is, it's also giving me a prime chance to add new functionality to the battle system.

So, I'm looking for suggestions for new additions to the battle system. I'm particularly concerned with making physical attacking more interesting (you know how uninteresting it is to use Ray). I've thought about making attack techniques which cost HP a la Shin Megami Tensei. I'm hesitant to just add physical techniques, because if they're more powerful than regular attacks, then there's no reason to ever *not* use them.

I'm also looking for ways to make defense characters more interesting; I'm thinking of adding a cover reaction for characters like Rayonne and Vanquish which lets them take attacks for other people.

Any suggestions are welcome, regardless of how radical they might be. Now's the time to make big changes if it's going to happen.

Posts

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Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
I'm hesitant to just add physical techniques, because if they're more powerful than regular attacks, then there's no reason to ever *not* use them.


I just wrote a tutorial about this phenomenon, but that's more about the default combat engine of RPRM-VX than a custom combat engine in RPGM-XP.

As for making defense-build characters more viable, if it's at all feasible, is have them take attacks for other teammates, then perform a counter-attack. Call it Counter Vengeance, if you will. Perhaps it might not be an innate/starting ability, but a reaction they'd get with enough levels or continuous battles in the standard "Defend" reaction. I dunno. Just musing here.
Sailerius
did someone say angels
3214
author=Marrend
I'm hesitant to just add physical techniques, because if they're more powerful than regular attacks, then there's no reason to ever *not* use them.
I just wrote a tutorial about this phenomenon, but that's more about the default combat engine of RPRM-VX than a custom combat engine in RPGM-XP.

As for making defense-build characters more viable, if it's at all feasible, is have them take attacks for other teammates, then perform a counter-attack. Call it Counter Vengeance, if you will. Perhaps it might not be an innate/starting ability, but a reaction they'd get with enough levels or continuous battles in the standard "Defend" reaction. I dunno. Just musing here.


I was thinking of making Cover a separate reaction chain from Guard where you only take the hit and reduce damage. It seems kind of overpowered to combine both counter and cover, especially if the person using it has Regen.

I've also been thinking about whether I want to ditch the Charge system for a limit break system and giving everyone an ultimate move or two. One of the problems with differentiating moves is that there's no real elemental strengths/weaknesses since only three people learn elementally-attuned abilities.
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
It seems kind of overpowered to combine both counter and cover, especially if the person using it has Regen.


How about if you disallow Regen if the counter-cover reaction is used? Or make Regen a reaction onto itself? As in you take damage as per normal, but regenerate a certain amount according to the character's DEF value?

Where did I get these ideas from? Seriously, this is right of the top of my head!
Sailerius
did someone say angels
3214
author=Marrend
It seems kind of overpowered to combine both counter and cover, especially if the person using it has Regen.
How about if you disallow Regen if the counter-cover reaction is used? Or make Regen a reaction onto itself? As in you take damage as per normal, but regenerate a certain amount according to the character's DEF value?

Where did I get these ideas from? Seriously, this is right of the top of my head!

Hmm...I suppose Regen could work as a reaction. My initial hesitation was that it's effectively the same thing as Guard except distributed instead of taking effect each time it lands. I'm not sold on the idea, though; I'd need to run some numbers on it first. It also doesn't really make "sense" as a reaction, since reactions are the action you take when targeted.

And just disabling Regen if you were counter-covering is a really bandaid-y fix. I'd prefer a more elegant solution. Maybe one way to do it would be to have cover give you a % chance of gaining a counter and that chance raises as the level of mastery rises.
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
Maybe one way to do it would be to have cover give you a % chance of gaining a counter and that chance raises as the level of mastery rises.


That sounds better, actually. I'm not exactly sure what the highest counter-rate should be in this scenario, but I doubt you want it to be 100%.
I'm personally fond of the Charge system; I prefer it over Limit Breaks, if simply because it allows you to choose when to use the skills rather than having it largely decided for you. Why not add a few Charge skills to some of the physical characters, like Ray or Blaise? Ray's Enrage skill would have good synergy with a Charge move, for example.

On the topic of making physical attacking more interesting, you could also implement a physical version of the reaction system. Balanced, higher accuracy and lower damage, lower accuracy and higher critical? You could also potentially move Counter to offensive reactions and make Cover the fourth defensive reaction. (Of course, then you still have the problem of people using both...) Multiple types of normal attack might do a decent bit to help the high accuracy characters in the mid-game and the low accuracy characters at end-game; both groups struggle a bit at those points. It's not too interesting by itself, but it's a potential supplement.

If Ray and Vanquish are meant as the "defensive" physical characters, you could also differentiate them into "active" and "passive" defense. Vanquish heals and has defensive buffs. Ray could have moves where he reduces damage from or counters physical attacks aimed at party members or magical attacks aimed at party members, so that his ability to defend your party is based on prediction. Low-level versions might be defend against or counter the next skill, while better versions might last until his next turn. A skill in a similar vein might be "block all statuses this turn" or the like.

Let Blaise be Charge-based. He uses guns, so it even works thematically. Vel I have no real opinions on in terms of changes. She could use either a little more offensive power - I'd like Truth Perception on her! - or get most of her buffs a little earlier. She gets her good stuff quite late. Laaik is fine, though an offensive skill or two on him would be nice; once everyone else's equipment starts catching up, I'd say Vanquish is strictly better as-is by virtue of group healing. There's more reason to use Laaik over Vanquish if Laaik's a better attacker. (Laaik can also apparently can dual-wield a holy sword and a carbine. I'm not sure why he's the only other character who can use sidearms but it's still a pretty badass image, and that meant I kept him in my party for longer than was probably strategically sound.)

Rien is good. Not to my tastes (I'm too defensive) but good. Zaqris could use more on the magic damage end, especially with Rien being the only real 'mage' for most of the game. (Water magic comes a little late!) He's otherwise good, especially since his build seems like a good one if you keep his equipment current. (And unless the new paths change things Zaqris changes aren't too high in priority.) Seri and SUPER SECRET GUEST STAR are near the top in usability as-is, so I can't see much cause for change.

Just my two cents. I'm looking forward to the new versions!
Sailerius
did someone say angels
3214
author=Einander
I'm personally fond of the Charge system; I prefer it over Limit Breaks, if simply because it allows you to choose when to use the skills rather than having it largely decided for you. Why not add a few Charge skills to some of the physical characters, like Ray or Blaise? Ray's Enrage skill would have good synergy with a Charge move, for example.

On the topic of making physical attacking more interesting, you could also implement a physical version of the reaction system. Balanced, higher accuracy and lower damage, lower accuracy and higher critical? You could also potentially move Counter to offensive reactions and make Cover the fourth defensive reaction. (Of course, then you still have the problem of people using both...) Multiple types of normal attack might do a decent bit to help the high accuracy characters in the mid-game and the low accuracy characters at end-game; both groups struggle a bit at those points. It's not too interesting by itself, but it's a potential supplement.

If Ray and Vanquish are meant as the "defensive" physical characters, you could also differentiate them into "active" and "passive" defense. Vanquish heals and has defensive buffs. Ray could have moves where he reduces damage from or counters physical attacks aimed at party members or magical attacks aimed at party members, so that his ability to defend your party is based on prediction. Low-level versions might be defend against or counter the next skill, while better versions might last until his next turn. A skill in a similar vein might be "block all statuses this turn" or the like.

Let Blaise be Charge-based. He uses guns, so it even works thematically. Vel I have no real opinions on in terms of changes. She could use either a little more offensive power - I'd like Truth Perception on her! - or get most of her buffs a little earlier. She gets her good stuff quite late. Laaik is fine, though an offensive skill or two on him would be nice; once everyone else's equipment starts catching up, I'd say Vanquish is strictly better as-is by virtue of group healing. There's more reason to use Laaik over Vanquish if Laaik's a better attacker. (Laaik can also apparently can dual-wield a holy sword and a carbine. I'm not sure why he's the only other character who can use sidearms but it's still a pretty badass image, and that meant I kept him in my party for longer than was probably strategically sound.)

Rien is good. Not to my tastes (I'm too defensive) but good. Zaqris could use more on the magic damage end, especially with Rien being the only real 'mage' for most of the game. (Water magic comes a little late!) He's otherwise good, especially since his build seems like a good one if you keep his equipment current. (And unless the new paths change things Zaqris changes aren't too high in priority.) Seri and SUPER SECRET GUEST STAR are near the top in usability as-is, so I can't see much cause for change.

Just my two cents. I'm looking forward to the new versions!

Thanks for the in-depth response! I really appreciate it. Some thoughts:

- I was thinking that if I gave more people charge moves that I'd give the party a communal pool of charges. One of the advantages of this is that if everyone can use the Charge skill, there's no reason to waste a turn (in case the enemy has counter and regen and you don't want, say, Vel, to attack them).

- The hard part with coming up with Charge skills is that there's not really different types of damage, so there's no way to differentiate them. Auria's charge moves seem interesting since they're all different types of attacks, but what kind of moves could I come up with for Ray? That's the problem I'm looking at.

- I'm not sure how I feel about a physical reaction system. Typically, party members have one of either ATK or ACC high and the other low, so switching between modes wouldn't really benefit them a lot.

- That's not a bad idea. If I added the Cover reaction, I was planning to give it to each of Ray, Vanquish, and Laaik, but only Ray would get the high end forms of it.

- I'm not sure what kind of Charge moves Blaise would have. I suppose ones that hit multiple times would be handy for him, allowing him to fully exploit his high ATK and ACC.

- Vel's not meant to be an offensive character at all, but I see your point about giving her buffs sooner. One new feature I could do is giving her the ability to transform into other party members, including ones who are for one reason or another not available in your party at the current moment.

- Good point about Laaik. His selling point was his trio of ATK/ACC/DEF. Maybe giving him a powerful Charge move would raise his effectiveness. Also, Blaise and the other guest star can equip sidearms as well.
My thinking on the physical reactions is that it effectively allows you to scale how extreme your character's build is, moving them one way or the other on a "accurate&weak" to "strong&inaccurate" scale. Seri can obviously go further on the "accurate" side than the "strong" side, since she can move on that scale on top of her natural character build, but if the enemy is particularly inevasive, she could adjust to do more damage. Similarly, if Vanquish is having a hard time hitting an enemy, then he can take a damage penalty for more consistency. It's not particularly interesting, though, so other ways are definitely preferential for balance.

Hmm. Ray's charge moves... One would definitely have to scale with remaining HP, doing more damage when he's closer to death, that's an obvious one. One that does more damage while he has a status, maybe? And then one that scales up with the number of unconscious party members. That's three abilities with a consistent theme that fit inside his character model, and there's probably room for more in that style. (And it also fits his occasional story tending towards "crouching moron hidden badass.") Make his decently powerful normally but especially powerful when the situation is bad.

Multi-hit sounds good for Blaise; since his crowd control ability is one of his selling points, a random-target multi-hit ability would be an interesting one. Potentially also one that does more damage if the enemy is buffed, or if they attacked him personally last round? (The last two going off of his in-story short temper.) But multi-hit sounds like the way to go for general purpose.

Laaik would probably be a good choice for a "does damage and heals self" Charge move. Maybe a "damage and buff self" move, kind of like an inverse of Curse? Moves that complement his "balanced offense and support" build by doing both.

If you implement Vel's transformation as an in-battle ability, why not make it so it only gives access to the character's skillset while keeping her stats? That makes it powerful but not excessively so, while cementing her role as "best overall support." If she has the ability to outright sub as another character, then she's a shoe-in unless the cost is really exceptional. (Two copies of end-game Seri or Auria? That would do horrible - if enjoyable! - things to balance.)

And yeah, I knew Blaise could equip the sidearms as well, I meant "the only character other than Blaise." I did forget about the Guest Star; it was part of the reason I ranked him highly, to think about it... They're excellent offensive items.

Hopefully this gives you an interesting idea or two!
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