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How do you design your battle system?

I'm currently in the process of designing a battle system - and it will probably be awful at least at first...

I've considered the following points:

1. What's the concept for the game -> what sort of combat system would work

2. What games have I played with that kind of system -> what would be a good starting point

3. What did I like (and what did I not like) about the systems I've played also where do they and don't they fit with the concept

4. What's possible

My current draft is as follows:

1. concept for game will involve a small army of individually overpowered soldiers fighting increasingly larger armies
-> I want a way to have numbers be significant -> not standard party vs party combat
-> I want to have individuals and a level-ing system
-> this is sounding like a strategic RPG/turn based strategy

2. Fire Emblem jumps out immediately.

3. Fire Emblem -> I liked everything other than the random numbers. How can I fix random numbers -> Xenoblade style QTEs or Shadow hearts style?
Fire Emblem doesn't show the overpowered-ness of units in the way I'd like - it is purely based on higher numbers I want a mechanical difference -> bring in some kind of AP system (think Fallout 1) so the more powerful units can take extra actions in a turn?

4. I should be able to do all the above things so no issues here.

-> Let's make it.... (still just scratching the surface here but hey I know the path)

Hybrid game idea/concept discussion

I'm still very interested in other people's thoughts on the ideas in the above posts I don't think I've seen an SRPG combined with any other game type before and I'm bit nervous there could be an important factor I'm missing.

I've made a bit more progress - I've written the maths for spinning objects - to use for selection markers and space fillers, I've built the foundations of a menu system and I'm currently looking at implementing configuration options including changing screen resolution and window colours etc. I've also found some free to use graphics that seem pretty good.

Hybrid game idea/concept discussion

So abridging the above, currently planned features:
1. town management
2. army management
3. battles to defend the town (using a turn based strategy system with QTEs)
4. quests (possible extra to be considered later on)

Progress
1. Port latest version of Sphere to Mac so I can develop for Mac/Windows/Linux from my mac -> COMPLETE, it now works :)
2. Script a decent QTE system -> COMPLETE
3. Write some basic menus -> started

Hybrid game idea/concept discussion

author=Dragnfly
As much as I love combat systems that let me do things in combat (Ar series, Shadow Hearts, MarioRPG, Namco x Capcom, etc) be cautious with timed button presses in RM. I've never used it myself but I've played some games where the timing was very noticeably off so I suspected RM just didn't dit well.
I'm using Sphere not RPG Maker - in Sphere I can do timed button presses easily; in fact I'm working on a scripting QTEs now as my first piece for the project as it's an interesting exercise in maths and code.

Hybrid game idea/concept discussion

author=Dragnfly
There was some Japan-only PSP game where a tiny group of super-powered knights were left to defend a castle when the entire army went on full march to meet the enemy. So turns out the army fell for a big trap and the small group is left to defend the castle against the enemy's entire main force. It focused a lot on the characters since there were only 7 or 8 of them. You basically trained up, spent time to learn about everyone, and then had to fend off enemy waves. Not unlike Trillion God of Destruction except in Trillion enemy waves are replaced with a single crazy boss that you chip away at over time.

I'm fine with town defence. What makes defence missions annoying is when you need to rely on AI, because AI is always shit. Like that limousine in Mechwarrior 2 that you need to protect but it just can't stop piling on the breaks when a 75-ton war machine is tromping along behind it at 60kph.
I wasn't intending any AI in combat (except for controlling the enemy); if I had a defence objective on the map during combat it would likely be one side of the map to stop the enemy from reaching; not a character to defend.

-Training and growing your army is fine. Though you may want to decide on if you prefer the tactical satisfaction of having a well-tuned army or the power-hungry satisfaction of one of these mages being the equivalent of several thousand soldiers (like in that unknown PSP game I mentioned). Both are very satisfying to the player but for very different reasons, and it completely changes the mood of the setting.
My intent was to make it so you needed multiple crazily powerful characters to survive - sure you can train someone to the point that they can fight 100 enemies.... NOW THERE ARE 2000 ENEMIES ON SCREEN... (maybe scale that down by a factor of 5-10 to make the game work better) - I guess my question above was more on how much of a game should be about that and how should it work - should it just be a case of gaining exp in battles or should there be a system where you specify a training schedule which results in certain increases or the like.

-Town building and management is one of my favourite things. Neopshere of the Deep-Blue Sky almost had it right and I've always wanted an Atelier game with a big focus on town building. As for population growth, I don't think that's necessary. If you're talking about surviving a siege for several generations, that seems pretty unbelievable to me. Actually, there's a Film Theory episode about the anime Attack on Titan which is very useful for that in that it goes very deep into how much farmland and facilities you need for a certain population size.
This side of things is one of the areas that I think would be hardest to make work; the backstory I've devised leaves a situation where the known world is dominated by these monsters/demons and this town is the only known survivors of the human race - maybe the game should run until you have rebuffed the first six months or maybe year's worth of attacks and then have a story driven reason for ending the game without resolving the conflict

-Town management and especially town development are always welcome.
With the ease of eventing, town development is very easy in RM and often very fun for the player. Neopshere of the Deep-Blue Sky is an example of one that was on the right track but IMO could have been done better. The key problem when coupling base defence with base management is that you can lock yourself into an impossible-to-win scenario easily. I've done it many times.
If there isn't going to be along term population growth aspect I'm not sure how well town management would fit with the rest of the game particularly if I set it over a short period of time; I'm not too concerned about a player being able to reach an "impossible to win" scenario, though I may try to have some prompts to prevent saving over yoour last save in such a scenario...

-I'd decide if you felt it needed exploration or not. That's adding a huge element. Sure it's fun but will it add more than it takes away? Azure Dreams had town building and dungeon crawling (though no town defence) and was extremely fun for it but then you had Shining Force EXA which had base defense and dungeon crawling (more of a diablo sense) and your base kept getting overrun while you were out exploring.
I had been intending that defending the town would always be a scripted event - if you're away from the town exploring and the time comes for a battle at the town it would cut back to the town and you'd just have your army less the men out exploring - so hopefully you didn't send too many of your best... If I plan this as a feature I'd probably try and make it so you are more likely than not to face an invasion when men are away and give the player tools to ensure they could handle this without a game over + make an auto save whenever you send out an expedition AND make most of the expeditions relatively short so that if you lose a battle during one you won't lose too much.

-I've never played a Fire Emblem but I have played a bazillion turn-based strategy games and S-RPGs. You mention the Dynasty Warriors-esque power level of the mages here so where do the soldiers you mentioned earlier fit in?
My plan would be to have all the soldiers using the magic - the magic system would include magic you could configure to always be active to make someone stronger and faster, not just throwing spells at people i.e. take a basic soldier who hasn't trained in magic yet and they can move 3 spaces in a turn and attack once with attack power of say 5. give them two levels in magic focussed on speed and damage and now in a turn they can move 5 spaces and attack twice with an attack power of 8 - this would likely take some balancing and fiddling.

-I'm pro-management screen for the town and then playing as a mage or group of mages for combat. Playing as the guy who discovered magic isn't bad either. He writes up his orders for people and then goes about his own business, simple as that. There are loads of games where you play as people of authority who are fine to leave their kingdom in the hands of their butler. At least leaving orders for everyone on a regular basis is more believable than going "Jeeves, I'm going to go help out these other dragoons. Watch the castle for me."
If the game focussed on a more junior character the idea was that you wouldn't be running everything, you'd be someone who goes adventuring or something and not the guy making all the decisions - where this wouldn't fit would be with the town defence battles where suddenly you're controlling the whole army. The more I think of it there more the idea of some kind of base management screen as the main interaction outside of combat make sense.

Another way to consider the interface for town/time management is to look at a Princess Maker game. In case you don't know them, they're raising simulators. You raise a daughter by deciding on her schedule and dealing with problems that come up. In one of the games there are even RPG-style dungeons complete with treasure, special locations and combat. But for the bulk of the game its sending her to work, school or play to alter her stats. When time runs out (usually 8 game years) you get an ending decided by her stats and what key events were triggered.

I bring this up because this type of game is extremely simple to make. It all boils down to raw numbers and you can sort of see the daughter in a Princess Maker like you would the town in this. Simply adjusting stats for various things.
I think I'm leaning towards what I said above now; a base management screen of sorts where you give instructions and specify what should be happening + the town defence battles + MAYBE a dungeon crawler as well - perhaps you can dispatch a group to visit a nearby dungeon and then control them while they do it OR perhaps you don't control them, you just send them off and then they arrive back a while later with the results of the mission - this would reduce the complexity significantly BUT would also mean that these missions would need to be less significant as the player wouldn't be that directly involved in them.

-How much is too much is decided by your balance. Ignoring feasibility of design and going balls-to-the-wall here, I'd say you most need to consider how much time you want the player to spend on different aspects.
The more I think about it there more I want the focus to be a) defending the town AND b) training the army (so it can defend the town) - though there would need to be something else as well as I don't see any "victory" from defence only.

Suggestion: Defend town, harvest monster parts, research monsters, develop methods to expand your defensive line, expand resource production and learn lore, eventually strike back.

Additional: Include lots of lore and fluff research too. Players love to collect things and database entries are included in that. Another option, if you're very skilled at character writing, is to have that be a big focus. Possibly have multiple endings. One for if you fail, one for if you hit a certain deadline without defeating the source of the monsters an one for if you discover or defeat the source.

It's a very common oldskool-Xcom-esque style of gameplay but it is loads of fun.
Thanks for all the ideas you've given me a lot to think about - I'm hoping I'll at least be able to make a demo for this if not the full game; currently slightly delayed though as my plan is to make it in Sphere on a Mac and the Mac port of sphere is broken so I'm dusting off my c programming/compiling/porting skills to try and get Sphere running on Mac again before I can do any development of the game itself.

Another point I'm thinking of - QTEs in combat?
Despite having a very positive view of fire emblem and thinking it's probably the best base I can use for this game's combat system one thing I don't like about it is the level of RNG. Each time you attack someone it involves at a minimum 4 random numbers:
1. random number to determine if you hit
2. random number to determine if you crit
3. random number to determine if the counter hits you
4. random number to determine if the counter is a crit

Now when you throw in skills and double attacks the number of random numbers goes up even more. What if instead of RNG you have a quick time event; figure something like Xenoblade's B button presses (when certain conditions are met a B button prompt appears on the screen with a circle moving inwards, press B whilst the moving circle overlaps another circle and you get a bonus of some kind) - instead of stats determining what range the random number needs to fall in stats could determine the speed of moving prompt/how long you have to press the button - this could be a more interesting system for determining whether you hit or miss + whether the enemy hits or misses you. One question though would be how much is too much - I probably couldn't use it for hit and crit unless it was press the button in one range for a crit and another for just a hit (figure the judgement ring from shadow hearts) or the good/perfect from xenoblade x.

Hybrid game idea/concept discussion

Intro: Some of you may remember me from a while ago I was active briefly on these forums around 5 years ago then real life took me away... Anyway I have a game idea I wanted to think about and would be interested in other people's thoughts/suggestions for; there is a high chance I will not actually make this game - I'd like to but the time to actually complete a project is something I may not have, we'll see though; it will at least be fun to think and plan and make a start.

Concept for the game: The game (which currently has no name) would be set in a world where human civilisation has largely been destroyed by some kind of demon/monster invasion as the player you would be aware of only one surviving human town (where the game would be based)

The town survived due to one individual who had discovered magic and taught it to maybe 20 others, this group were able to kill the monsters that would have destroyed this town but there weren't enough of them to protect anywhere else - outside of this town the rest of the world (as far as the player knows) is overrun by/controlled by the monsters.

Potential aspects of the game:
1. Defending the town - as a surviving human settlement the town would be attacked more and more clearly defence would be a key aspect of the game
2. Training soldiers - considering that the enemy would likely throw more and more monsters at the town training more soldiers and increasing the skills of existing ones would be an important mechanic
3. Town management - providing food for the people and expanding the town could be an interesting mechanic (and clearly would be relevant to the scenario) - population growth would be a tricky thing to implement well as significant immigration wouldn't make sense in the context and obviously if you're relying on children being born and growing up the game would have to last a very long time for any significant growth to occur there could be a fast forward or perhaps large time skips.
4. Exploring/adventuring outside of the town - dangerous world overrun with monsters... easy premise for interesting adventures.

Key gameplay decisions to make
1. Combat system - I was thinking in terms of something akin to fire emblem as the most obvious match using a small armour of overpowered individuals to fight off large hoards; probably with something like 3 distinct classes that work in very different ways requiring some measure of strategy and balance - where this may not work so well is if you're going out on quests with smaller numbers. Another thought I had was a hybrid system like Bahamut Lagoon (think a cross between Dragon Quest and Fire Emblem...)

2. How should the gameplay work outside of combat, the concept gives a lot of options - it could:
a) play something akin to a traditional RPG with you playing as one of the town's soldiers going on quests to obtain resources or the like.
b) have you play as the guy who discovered magic (though as he'll be running everything, to play as him walking around probably would be a bit weird)
c) run from some kind of management screen where you manage the status of the town/army, schedule events and other things and then allow you to step into controlling a small group for combat or quests.

3. How much is too much - there's a lot in the concept but including all of these aspects may make a game too complex/hard to get into.

Thoughts/ideas So here's the point of the topic I'm looking for other people's views on each of the 3 areas I've talked about above and also whether they think this sounds like an interesting concept for a game or not.


1. Please don't comment on feasibility of making anything, that's not the topic at this stage.
2. If you make suggestions in this topic it means you're ok with me using your suggestions in this game (if I actually make it)

Sphere Scripting Tutorial part 2

I'm really sorry for having not got part 3 up yet, it's not finished yet, I've been giving most of my time to preparing for my university final exams and completing my final year project. Goos excuses though they may be I gave my word and I've broken it, so I'm sorry, and I will try and have part 3 up soon.

Mafia...IN SPACE

If the set up I made favoured mafia I think this one favoured them even more. Starting with night means a death before any discussion, so effectively it's 2 vs 4 unless the cop survives and gets a useful verdict on that first night in which case it's slightly different.

Sphere Scripting Tutorial part 2

(I'm sititing in front of a computer for the last time before my trip away, so any further questions I won't be able to answer untill wednesday)

If you work through the two parts of the tutorial that I've so far written you'll see that I teach how to make simple text boxes and menus, as sphere does not have that sort of functionality built in.

It has functions for displaying text (either word-wrapped or in a line) it has a function for drawing a box, it has a function for displaying an image, it has a function for playing sound, it has a built in map engine, but yeah, it is largely a grounds up job, however when this tutorial is complete it will take you from nothing to making a battle system.

Sphere has the default javascript functions (minus the specificly web orientated stuff) and then on top of that it has the functions listed ina file called api.txt that comes with sphere: docs/development/api.txt if it's not in there and it isn't some innate feature of javascript sphere probably can't do it directly, if you know what you're doing though you can code almost anything.... (hence where the tutorial comes in).

(I'm tired hence writing too much...)

Genesis_3.png

You could use a separate text box that starts after "Location:" of course you would possibly then need more space.