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[Ranordine]

As has been said, chance is used to add uncertainty to combat. If attacks always hit, and hits always do the same amount of damage, combat is reduced to a predictable mathematical formula (my attack, defense and HP vs the enemy's attack, defense and HP). Fun/excitement is added when something unexpected happens (you critically hit a stronger monster, increasing your chances of winning, or a weaker monster hits you, or w/e).

If taking chance out of the equation reduces your combat model to a predictable mathematical formula, then your combat model is poorly designed (unless you want it to be formulaic/quick to get through). Adding probabilities only turns it into a (predictably) unpredictable mathematical formula.  Dying just because the computer rolled low numbers for you when you made the best possible combat decisions may be acceptable for some, but it's hard to argue that it's good game design. Satisfying challenge comes from giving your character interesting (which implies a degree of predictability) choices.  Randomization is not the only way to spice up your combat. Consider adding stances, a movement grid, interrupts, ways to force your opponent into situations (or vice versa--think of chess), and widely varying enemies. If this is outside the scope of your game and you treat combat more as a locked door mechanic (with strength/equipment being the key), then randomization just encourages the player to reload until they win.

[JasonPickering]

Ranordine: well some of those ideas dont work in the confines of the game I have built so far. I cant really do movement or interrupts. The stance idea is kind of neat and I could combine that with something like what Destral said. where each stance has an attack and a defense value and then certain stances get bonuses against other ones. Could you elaborate more on the different "Situations" you mentioned. I also plan on having a pretty big variety of enemies, but those will be created once I have a specific combat system working and I see how I can change it.

[Gimym TILBERT]

@ranordine
Risk reward (uncertainty assessment) is the foundation of good game design, without uncertainty no risk reward is possible, random != probabilities.

@jason
It's been a while you are trying to get that battle system, and everytimes I read your post it look like random guess, I don't understand where you are getting with those guess

[JasonPickering]

yeah I mostly have the random in there, because I want some chance in combat without just giving a miss or a crit and the player not understanding why they got the hit.

I have been looking around for different ideas now and looking into Rock Paper Scissors. The double blind situation would give the chance I kind of want, and would make the player feel like they have an opponent instead of just numbers. I think that the hardest part of this idea would be enemy AI. I don't want the Enemy to just randomly pick one of 3 choices, so I think that would be my biggest hurdle without falling back on the idea of telegraphing moves, like oh enemy has red eyes now he's going to attack, but I think I have an idea of how I can make enemy AI. I think I might actually use this, but the problem is building it up so I have written down an entire list of ideas and now I am working on building the cycle.

I guess the main problem I have is I want combat that forces the player to make a choice. as a kid I played all the way through pokemon red and the combat just didn't work for me. tackle, tackle, tackle, tackle, tackle, enemy dead. while the computer is using things like leer, tail whip. they are affecting my stats, but not enough for it to make an actual difference in my opinion. damage would look like this. 5 5 5 4 3, while theirs looks like this 5 5 0 0 5. even though they lowered my attack, the pause of lowering it didn't actually help them any. and I feel it usually ends up the same in Rock Paper Scissors. the player will choose rock, but they dont know why they are choosing Rock. its not because they think that the enemy is going to choose scissor, they are just hoping they do. so that's what I am mostly fighting now.

How do you make a player need to think instead of just select attack?

[Gimym TILBERT]

You need to pause and think anout the dynamics first, you are stuck with mechanics and they are pointless because they do not support a dynamics, trust me RPS won't save you if you don't know what you want.

You also need to study a bit more feedback loop or else your system will only be an attrition system which you obviously don't want, attrition can be interesting if you design situation for like I had outline in your devlog once. You do so by balancing short term decision with medium term decision about potential and risk.

A battle is really a management system with resource in and out, you may need to look here to find bbasic idea of dynamics: http://www.jorisdormans.nl/machinations/wiki/index.php?title=Pattern_Library those are basic brick of every game dynamics.
look here for a little tut about feedback loop
http://www.jorisdormans.nl/machinations/wiki/index.php?title=Tutorial_1
Try the interactive schema "A Lock and Key Mechanism with Feedback 3" there:
http://www.jorisdormans.nl/machinations/wiki/index.php?title=Mission_Mechanics
See how a simple system have decision without ai with the use of feedback, if you had a pressure mechanics (health) it became a true challenge. You need to balance fighting, harvesting and upgrading (buff in a rpg) while enemy build up his strength, the feedback economy create an interesting situation.


Don't think in gterm of AI, but in term of behavior, set a goal and class enemy by type of challenge you want to provide, instead of looking for ai, you should look for cool moment for the player. Give advance enemy "mode" with different stance they may switch randomly with each stance having distinct strategy (and tougher one will have opposite counter strategy like actions that removed energy now give energy against them, if these action last multiple round, it became a risk reward). Thing like tail whip in pokemon can work great if their impact are significant and can reverse the attrition lead through dynamics only if there is counter move. Look for enemy faqs to seek interesting encounter strategy to replicate into your battle system.

Battle system is a fallacy, you only generalise an interface base on what type of encounter and fun you want the player to have, define this before digging too much into a battle system, under the fancy hood, most battle system are the same and use similar dynamics. Better, totally different game use the same dynamics under the hood. Battle system are only the dress up and most of times most mechanics are there to give superficial variety.

You have an interesting game, I would be sad to see it scrap like the previous one for the exact same reason.

[mirosurabu]

Adding probabilities only turns it into a (predictably) unpredictable mathematical formula.

Which is not really true. Chance doesn't [necessarily] imply unpredictability.

[Chromanoid]

A nice article about luck in games on Gamasutra: A Matter of Luck

Warhammer has plenty of luck in it. I like luck in multiplayer games or games w/o saving. In singleplayer with saving it often leads to reload until the right result gameplay.

[JasonPickering]

Gimmy Tilbert: those articles are insanely interesting. oddly enough I was playing around with something like a static engine but this has really helped. right now I am thinking something like an unpredictable/predictable static engine. I am thinking about situations now to put the Player in. I am dealing with relatively low numbers, so a upgrades aren't going to be really needed. one thing I kind of like is the idea of variable resource generation. so I figure the player can have two options in "stance" or distance one produces 1 mana the other produces 2 mana. the faster stance has weaker attacks though. this forces the player to make choices and requires them to switch back and forth. this of course is all very early as i am still mapping out the specific long term goals I want a player to have while playing and the situations I can put them in that directly oppose that goal with different short term goals.

[Gimym TILBERT]

Glad it help, I know you work on small number, it was more to make you back on the right track because I didn't see you were going the right way, also consider interaction between many battle, especially if the player can choose the next encounter, if enemy release loot you may have a buildup system by treating them as trade off of resource (risk vs loot). So the strategy is less about the battle but more about the encounter order.

[JasonPickering]

originally I wasn't going to have money, but I don't know now. originally the game was going to be like a mountain climb. get all you gear from the beginning and head out hoping you planned correctly, but i think shops in between might be better.

right now I am thinking something like:

get 2 - 3 Mana (mana saves from turn to turn)

weak attack - 3 mana - 2 to block
Heavy attack - 5 mana - 4 to block
counter - variable cost
Rest - gives you extra mana

so right now there is a trade off in the mana, you want to make sure you have mana to attack, but enough to block. this of course is kind of ehh, but the examples they give on those websites really help.
 

[JasonPickering]

so here is a small question. that I thought might spark a small chat. does the chance of missing make a game more exciting? what I am specifically talking about is:

attack vs defense
attack + d6 vs Defense + d6

no in the one you have specific knowledge, but I think the second one makes the feel of hitting an enemy much better.

[Gimym TILBERT]

In a game of attrition the math is simple, is the rate of attack in worst and best case is balance between the rate of the opponent? Worst case is always missing which is 0 damage dealt. Of course if the rnd is an offset you have a minimal damage dealt, it can still be greater than the rate of the enemy damage.

That's why static system are boring and encourage attack attack heal strategy, with heal acting like a miss. Now if you have the amount of one enemy health and the best/worst case rate, you have the range of turn the player will take to kill the enemy, with the health of the player you know how many turn it takes for the enemy to kill the player, the problem is that no matter what the player do he will lose energy, you can precisely predict the range in which the player will inevitably die along the encounter rate if he does not use health recovery, of course that's assuming he have a source of health. But there isn't much strategy there, it coule be cool to teach the basics to the player early on to play the attrition card with the player being progressively overwhelm and having to manage some resource like paying attention to how much potion he have (like the example I provided in your devlog using very simple stat and basic rpgmk system) but if that's the only type of encounter you have the game will be bland quickly.

Think about which resource the player have and how they affect the fight and enemy. The most basic battle system simply have parallel or mixed attrition system dubbed elemental weakness that force the player to manage which resource to carry on (potion, mana, herb, poison, etc...) to face enemy. The strategy is not necessarily on the battle but on the choice of the resource to carry on, resource is limited by price and gold the player farm from enemy, that's a converter engine with a static engine (infinite enemy). To avoid trapping the player in a dead end, there is a generic enemy "cannon fodder" with low risk reward that allow the player to power climb to more powerful enemy with more reward to buy more stuff to face tougher enemy (i'm deliberately leaving the influence of xp or inn). Most rpg are just that resource planning and management. Pokemon for exemple limit party to 6 pokemon and attack to 4 per pokemon, forcing the player to balance and rebalance his "deck" to face future situation (that's why you can only switch pokemon at town between 2 area).

[JasonPickering]

The static system is just a base underlay for the simpler guys like the mouse or goblin. what I am thinking the main resource in the game will be are Tokens (they need a much better name maybe Mana or Valor). fighting enemies will earn you tokens. tokens can be spent to use stronger attacks and add bonuses.

so right now an attack is decided by Attack + D6 vs. Defense + D6.
so you can look at your attack and the enemies defense and see what type of chance you have.
now attacks are special moves that might be Attack + 3 + D6 or maybe even Attack + D6 + D6. these each cost one token. however the second use is 2 tokens, then third 3 tokens, etc, etc. so the player will have quite a road ahead of him. it will be

2 enemies
town
3 enemies
town
4 enemies
town
boss

towns will allow you to heal, buy items, lower token cost on attacks or even upgrade your character. I don't know if I will use tokens for these purchases always or have tokens and coins. it seems if tokens purchase everything and they are somewhat limited, the player needs to think about their choices much more, but if there are coins they can have an easier time in the shop. I will probably start with just the tokens and see how that works, since it would be easier to code.

I think this gives a good balance, the player will worry about managing health and tokens along with an overall journey. I like to put short term and long term goals in opposition and I think the increasing token cost does that pretty well. yes the player can use that spell to kill the goblin now, but its going to cost more later when they fight the boss.

Edit: after prototyping this a Spell and an Item are very similar mechanic wise. I might do away with the spells and only give the player items. The two are so very similar and I dont see how I can change them to much to make  huge difference. Originally potions effected monsters and spells affected you, but its not super important. They will still earn tokens, but they will use those tokens to buy items. or course each item will increase every time it is purchased. this still leaves the basic mechanic there, but puts more thought into the players shopping. they need to think of it as stocking up on whatever items they need as they head out. I will also have a limited inventory space. so the player will really need to think should they take en extra attack potion or an extra heal potion? I will also have other stranger potions, one idea I had was a swap potion where you changed attack and defense with the monster, so a player could in theory take a weak guy through the whole game and then use a swap potion on the boss, giving the boss his weak stats for the easy kill, of course actually getting to the boss would probably be super hard this way.

[Gimym TILBERT]

I see what you did, there is so many best system you can make up your mind to choose one and is stuck into an indetermination loop.

Balancing a game mean you have an experience goal and you make mechanics to achieve that, but you are doing it the other way, finding mechanics and seeing if it create a good experience. Not the way to go. Decide pacing and structure upfront and see if it work and make a system for that.

Also you are not thinking in function, you are thinking with items, which is teh wrong way and you will end up with thing that does the same thing! It doesn't matter what do what, this is all dress up and theming, that's the easiest part once you figure up the function, whether you call the progression journey, affinity, map, or whatever does not matter in the dynamics.

You are the designer, you are the one who laid up resource source and sink. The system itself is not doing everything, the same gameplay can be tactical or just bryte force if you play with scarcity of resource, so don't think too hard. If you plan ahead each level and its goal experience as a designer, it became easy to define the system.

What's the game is about, what the player is suppose to feel, what is the main progression? what is the pacing? then design system and the level that support this.

[JasonPickering]

I actually wont have levels. the game is procedurally generated. so level design wont really be an option. right now the player will be given two sets of enemies and will have to choose which path to take. now I could design the sets of enemies but then this cuts out the replay I was hoping to give the player, if the sets are always the same. the main experience I want to give the player is having to plan ahead and adapt to whatever paths are placed in front of them. maybe they will be given a path with weaker enemies but they wont get as much XP, while the tougher path would give them more to spend.