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[StephenAnthony]

All right, so, I'm sure most of you have played a console-style RPG. Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy Whatever, Lufia, Mario RPG, etc... I haven't played many modern ones, but my understanding is they're still pretty traditional.

You'll notice they all have very similar battle systems, with a few nuances here and there. I'll spare you the details, but if you want to know how console-style RPG battles tend to work, ask me. One thing you DO need to know is that these types of battle systems tend to rely on lather, rinse, repeat gameplay. You do the same basic crap over and over again.

My game, also a console-style RPG, will have a similar battle system. However, it's going to use elements from Guild Wars. If you've played Guild Wars, feel free to skip the following paragraph.

GW is a psuedo-MMORPG and gives each character a primary and secondary class. The way to have a successful character is selecting 8 of a TON of skills to outfit your characters with. These skills are generally not just straight damage-dealing skills. There is a vast array of enchantments, hexes, stances, physical conditions and other various states that effect what you can do to your enemy, your party or what they can do to you. It's finely balanced and it's absolutely freaking brilliant. Every skill is meant to counter another skill or a certain situation, or can be countered by another skill or situation.

What I want to add to my battle system are skills that have unique functions. Skills that counter enemy actions and an enemy AI that will counter your actions. You'll also be limited on the number of skills you can bring into battle, forcing you to choose what to bring. If you go for straight damage skills, you'll be beaten. Various buffs and debuffs will be vital to winning...

Also, please note that of 7 characters, you can only bring 3 into battle.

So, let's just ASSUME I can pull this off brilliantly. I need opinions on three things.

A) Each character is limited as to how many skills they may equip for battle. Would this feel annoying to you, even if it DID make the battles more interesting? If so, can you think of any way to lessen this annoyance without changing the gameplay mechanic?

B) How do you feel about relying heavily on buffs and debuffs in a genre that hasn't typically done so in the past?

C) How do you feel about being limited to 3 of 7 party members in combat? Most SNES RPGs have done this effectively. Some explain in their story why it's done that way (See: Chrono Trigger), some do not. Which do you feel is more effective?

SOME THINGS I KNOW I HAVE TO LOOK OUT FOR (Assume I'm capable to counter these problems, if they can, in fact, be countered).

1) Battles moving slowly due to not dealing damage directly.
2) Selecting buffs/debuffs being tedious.
3) Battles are too grueling because everything must be countered (Most battles will be won with any number of skill or party configurations)
4) Assume that I'll be beta-testing this extensively and listening to feedback so that most annoyances outside of what I've mentioned above will be addressed.

SO! Try and picture how this would work in a turn-based, console-style RPG and tell me your thoughts on the three questions I asked. Other comments and criticism are welcome. Thanks ahead of time, guys. I really appreciate you helping me get some of this straightened out!

[Saint]

Hmm, it sounds like it could be interesting. The rock-paper-scissors style isn't that original by itself but from what you're saying it sounds like in your idea it is much more pronounced than in traditional games. I haven't played guild wars but I can see how the mechanic would work. I can give you some answers off the top of my head, they might be obvious to you but anyway...

A) No, probably not. Most of the Final Fantasy games and a good part of other CRPGs have done this in one way or another. If your point of the game is for players to adapt the skillset to each situation or each battle, you might have to re-work the way these skills are set up to make it easier to change between them - perhaps bind the skill-equip menu to a single button and/or allow the players to set up "sets" of skills so they can equip several skills at once.

B) I think it could be very interesting as long as you communicate well how this differs from what the players might expect; playtesting could help you with that (since it's turn-based you probably don't need to supervise it personally, just make sure you can record the game being played). The key issue as far as gameplay goes is if you can make it relevant without making everything else pointless - Usually systems like these get under-developed and marginalized so they seem pointless to the player. The other thing to watch out for is for it to end up like the elements in Suikoden Tactics; there's a bunc of cool stuff to do but you're more or less guaranteed victory as long as you stand on the right type of element so that's all you bother with.

C) This depends more on how much control you have over the characters' development and how much they differ. In most of the Final Fantasies any character can pick up any skill so the fact that you have a certain number of characters doesn't mean much - it's the total number of skill slots that count. But for other games, say Breath of Fire, where you have a 'Tank' character, a fighter, a cleric and a magic attacker; if you have to leave one out of the loop it might feel very limited. This can give you new options for gameplay but since you already have a pretty customizable system it might get confusing if each character has a class. Also, you might want to consider leveling up characters even when they aren't fighting so the player doesn't have to grind for half an hour when deciding to try out a new team.

[StephenAnthony]

Thanks for the reply! I'll go over some of what you said...

The rock-paper-scissors style isn't that original by itself but from what you're saying it sounds like in your idea it is much more pronounced than in traditional games.

I'm -hoping- it rarely becomes like a rock-paper-scissors thing, actually. There will be enough general usage skills that you can be successful early on with just about any party "build". The idea will be that you HAVE to pick your skills intelligently, however, almost any intelligent "build" will work. And every once in a while, you may need to change the party, as certain characters will be more suitable for certain situations.

The goal, here, is to let you play the characters you like best in the style you prefer. I feel like there ought to be some sort of bonus for trying out different party builds, but I'm not sure what that would be.

A quick example;

Character A has a skill that makes the next 5(or so) attacks by the party do additional damage.
Character B has a skill that allows him to do 3 attacks at once.
Character C has a skill that increases a character's strength by some amount.

Putting these skills together will be an efficient way to do a lot of additional damage. There will be a LOT of combinations and different ways to do this, so the player will often be able to pick their favorite. There will be no penalty for changing the party or for changing their skills (though it can be done only at save  points)

The other thing to watch out for is for it to end up like the elements in Suikoden Tactics; there's a bunc of cool stuff to do but you're more or less guaranteed victory as long as you stand on the right type of element so that's all you bother with.

That kind of stuff really bothers me. So many games have a lot of neat ways to deal with situations, but one simply works better than all the others. We're going to try to balance this and make everything useful... I'm sure, at some point, a superior tactic will emerge, but we'll try and test it to the point that it won't be obvious.

But for other games, say Breath of Fire, where you have a 'Tank' character, a fighter, a cleric and a magic attacker; if you have to leave one out of the loop it might feel very limited. This can give you new options for gameplay but since you already have a pretty customizable system it might get confusing if each character has a class.

Each character -does- have a class, yes, but most of them will have skills that allow them to function as off-classes as well. I'll try not to add a new character until you've become accustomed to the ones you have already, so -hopefully- it won't be terribly confusing. But that's a good point, thanks for bringing it up.

Also, you might want to consider leveling up characters even when they aren't fighting so the player doesn't have to grind for half an hour when deciding to try out a new team.

I was thinking about a compromise for this. Characters outside of combat would gain like... 60-70% of experience from combat, and they'd gain 100% experience from quests. What do you think of that?

[george]

A) Each character is limited as to how many skills they may equip for battle. Would this feel annoying to you, even if it DID make the battles more interesting? If so, can you think of any way to lessen this annoyance without changing the gameplay mechanic?

Like Saint alluded to I would definitely want some way to make skill sets or at least choose from say a dozen pre-made skill sets. I know this kind of defeats the purpose of a mechanic where you carefully choose your skills, but honestly there are times when I don't want to min-max, I just want to play the game. You could give the skill sets their own concepts, like Battle Dancer, or Flame Adept, or Void Walker, or whatever fits thematically with your setting. This would ease the learning curve for new players too.

[StephenAnthony]

Ahhh, right, I did forget to mention that. You'll be able to save skill and party configurations for sure, as well as some pre-made ones that will be grayed out until you have everything required to use them. Thanks for reminding me, though, I had totally forgotten we wanted to do that!

[Saint]

A quick example;

Character A has a skill that makes the next 5(or so) attacks by the party do additional damage.
Character B has a skill that allows him to do 3 attacks at once.
Character C has a skill that increases a character's strength by some amount.

Oh, I see.

As I see it, a potential problem with this kind of system is if it can still be used in a traditional manner; that is - the player doesn't have enough incentive to do anything but just attacking (which works well in oh-so-many CRPGs so you will have to fight some conventions).

I am not sure how much you've thought about this already so again this might be obvious, but I would personally try and emphasize the system in a number of ways;
- Have "macros" like in Phantasy Star IV that sets a specific order of actions for the entire party
- Having certain combinations of skills executed in succession by different characters produce new and better results than the individual skills - tell the player about some and leave others for experimentation
- Don't make any difference between "special" skills and traditional RPG-skills; either both attacking and increasing your number of attacks requires Mana, or none does, for example.
- Allow characters to swap skills in-fight or make escaping from battles a guaranteed success so they won't just stick with the "safe" skills so they won't have to die and replay so much
- Give in-game information to the player about how skills can be used effectively; you can of course have some of the information hidden or available only through experimentation but at least some of it should be presented through story progression to attract interest.

I was thinking about a compromise for this. Characters outside of combat would gain like... 60-70% of experience from combat, and they'd gain 100% experience from quests. What do you think of that?

Well, the thing you're trying to avoid is to make a player choose not to use different characters because it's such a hassle to train a new party. So that could work, or you could just make sure a character would receive exponentially more exp for enemies that are a lot stronger (on the other hand, a system were characters could be leveled quickly as long as the monsters are stronger could easily be abused)

[StephenAnthony]

All of those are good suggestions, thank you.

This is turning into something of a brainstorming session too, so bare with me... Thanks for your help, everyone. It's really useful to have some intelligent conversation about this.

A quick example;

Character A has a skill that makes the next 5(or so) attacks by the party do additional damage.
Character B has a skill that allows him to do 3 attacks at once.
Character C has a skill that increases a character's strength by some amount.

Something that may counter that "combo"...

Enemy A is using "Super Shield" which makes him a lot less vulnerable to physical attacks. Enemy A is also tanking for Enemy B, so you can't attack Enemy B until the "tank" is disabled.
Enemy B is a powerful healer who can also remove hexes and physical conditions.

This will totally invalidate the example I mentioned above.

The way to beat this may be to stun the healer and use magic on the tank. Or to use a skill that would lock out the healer's skills for a short while, disable the tank, then nuke the healer.

These are two small, simple examples off the top of my head. There will be a wide variety of situations like this, but they won't be so prevalent as to make them tedious. Situations where straight damage skills won't be the best means of winning will be comon, though. Or, well, let's just assume that, for the sake of this discussion, I'm capable of making them common and properly balanced.

If I DO deliver on it, so that you generally -can't- rely on pure nuking to win -most- battles, is that something that will be acceptable? Or will people be so used to nuking that doing this will throw them off? Would it throw you off?

More efficient ways to win battles will be buffs and/or debuffs, allowing you to win battles faster. The more efficient you are at beating your enemies, the less attrition you'll suffer from combat... (basically, using up items).

My ultimate goal is to have these mechanics be not subtle at all. Imagine there is a giant monster with razor sharp claws attacking you and if you don't lower his attack power, stun him, get your own shields up and/or improve your healer's ability to heal, he's going to tear you to shreds. I want -that- kind of thing to be common.

SOME THINGS I KNOW I HAVE TO WATCH FOR (again)

1) How to defeat most enemies being obvious (Enemy strengths and weaknesses will automatically display, as well as what buffs/debuffs they are affected by)
2) Allowing room for error, especially early on.
3) Balancing between using buffs/debuffs and dealing damage. (Not too much of one or the other)

[Saint]

Hmm, it's starting to sound less like a generic RPG-fighting system and more like a puzzle, which is intriguing. As long as you're clear about this you should be fine, but you might want to have some more obvious "solutions" than the one above if you plan to have lots of different skills since puzzles rise in difficulty the more pieces you have to choose from.

If I DO deliver on it, so that you generally -can't- rely on pure nuking to win -most- battles, is that something that will be acceptable? Or will people be so used to nuking that doing this will throw them off? Would it throw you off?

I think you'll have to make a choice and run with it here, because someone will be pissed either way. If you make it very hard or impossible to win by brute force, you will alienate the people who don't want to learn the system, whereas if you make it a valid option the skill system will either be pointless (if it's not "better" than brute force) or overpowered (if it is better and brute force is already not bad). As Derek so eloquently put it; "you can't make a game that's universally loved, you can only make one that's universally tolerated"

[StephenAnthony]

Yeah, that's true. But I do, at least, need to do what I can to make it more easily tolerated. I just have to do it without alienating the people who would enjoy the fundamental concept of it.

[Montoli]

Ok, this is really interesting.  It sounds like what you’re talking about is very similar to something I’m currently working on.  (With a few key differences, but there is enough overlap that I actually feel I can contribute something useful based on experience instead of speculation!  Woo!)

(I also happen to be in the middle of development of a turn-based battle-system-centric game, in which the themes are “interesting moves” and “forcing people to pick a  limited subset of them to bring with them at any time.”  Crazy!  Great minds think alike, and all that, I guess.  I’d describe it more, but the rest isn’t really as relevant to this conversation, and besides, we’re talking about YOUR ideas. )

So.  Some things I’ve discovered from early playtest sessions.

• Feedback is good.  If something is strong or weak against something, you can’t count on people to always pay attention to the numbers – an extra graphic or effect signifying that something is extra weak or strong to something is helpful.
• Information is good.  People hate feeling like they are making uninformed decisions, so providing as much information as possible.  (Especially when they have to make a choice with far-reaching consequences, such as choosing which skills to bring.)
• People hate having to dig to find said information.  If you include any “fluff” information, make sure that it is easy to separate out from actual game mechanics, and make sure that any game-mechanic information you give is as concise and easy-to-read as possible.
• If you have a bunch of status-effects that do weird and interesting things, make sure that there is some easy way for the user to associate the strange things they’re seeing with your status effect.
• If you have a bunch of weird status effects, make sure that there is also a good way for players to figure out where the effect came from.  Consistent graphical themes are good here, as are animations or indicators, making it really obvious just which of the 9 enemies on the screen put that curse of weakened tickling on your fighter.
• Moves that have more than one “interesting” property are more interesting than moves that only do one thing.

Also, some random thoughts based on what you’re describing:

• Why not just give everyone in the party full xp, even if they’re not one of the 3 in the active party?  It has the definite advantage, at least, of never making them feel like they have to adventure with a party-member they dislike just to level them up.
• Buffs and debuffs are kind of boring by themselves…  Or at least fights that revolve around them can be.  At the extreme at least, you get fights where both sides just sit and buff themselves up (and maybe throw a few debuffs around) before finally fighting.  This has the potential to make fights boring, as you have to wait for the buffs before the actual combat starts.  This works better in GuildWars, since you can buff before the fight starts, but in a turn-based system, are you worried about it taking too long?  (It also begins to sound like DragonBall-Z fighting – both sides sit and scream at each other, while glowing brighter and brighter, for 30 minutes before the actual fight.)
• Have you considered attaching Buffs/Debuffs to other attacks, instead of making them the focus?  So instead of having 2 attacks, “attack: 5 damage”, and “debuff: defense halved”, combine them?  End up with things more like “Attack: 3 damage, and debuff defense by 50%” or “Attack 4, with a 25% chance of halving their defense”?
• Prebuilt characters – I know you said you wanted to have some unlockable prebuilts, but you should seriously consider some that are unlocked from the outset.  Not everyone is going to want to sit down and go through character creation.  (Especially for 7 characters.)  Heck, in my playtests, I had trouble getting some people to care enough to do 3.  (Possibly because my presentation isn’t as slick, but still.)  Having a “prebuilt party” ready, that someone can just click “quick-play” and start with is a godsend.  That way, people who want to get into the game can do so, and after they’ve learned the game a bit better, if they’re interested, they can go customize their party a bit more now that they know the game rules.  (People are often uninterested in customizing the first time anyway, if they don’t feel they know the game.)

If you’re looking for more good sources of inspiration, I highly, highly, HIGHLY recommend you go play Pokemon.  Seriously.  There is a reason that they keep selling, and a lot of that revolves around the fact that there is actually a pretty solid game under all the cute art.  It’s a turn-based battle system with a surprising amount of depth, which also happens to involve many of the things you’re talking about, including forcing players to chose which moves to bring into battle.  (It’s also the only turn-based battle system I’ve seen in a commercial game that handles 1v1 fights well.)

Pokemon definitely does the “combine moves” thing I touched on earlier. (Moves that do several things, or have a chance of doing several things.)  Very few moves do only one thing, and almost all of them have at least some interesting or special property, even if it’s weird and specialized.

It also has some of the more interesting status effects in any game I’ve seen, and it really feels a lot like “anything goes”:  If some designer thought it would be fun, they coded it up.  It has a huge number of them, and they range from the standard (Poison: lose HP every round) to the crazy (Taunted: target can only use moves that deal damage, Tormented: target can’t use the same move twice in a row) to the weird.  (Infatuated – target’s moves have a 50% chance of failing, only works on members of the opposite sex, Leech Seeded – target loses HP every round, and the caster gains it.)

Anyway, this post is getting rather long, so I'll stop here.  Good luck on your project, it sounds neat!  I look forward to seeing where it goes!

[Montoli]

If I DO deliver on it, so that you generally -can't- rely on pure nuking to win -most- battles, is that something that will be acceptable? Or will people be so used to nuking that doing this will throw them off? Would it throw you off?

For dealing with “nuking vs. tactics”, I feel like that’s something that can be solved with pacing.  Start out with battles that are easy enough to win either way, and gradually move them to the place you want them.  That way people can start out brute-forcing their way through if that’s what they want to do, and then as things get harder to win with force alone, they’ll gradually start having to supplement it with more strategy.  It’s easier if it’s gradual – like you suggest, people are more likely to have problems if it’s a “jolt”.  (i. e. they expect to be able to succeed one way, and can’t.)

You can also throw some hints their way as well.  “Armor knights!  Those guys are hard to damage!  You’ll never win if you can’t find some way to soften them up first!”

[StephenAnthony]

Yeah, I'll try and do it that way. I had a previous game that required tactics in certain areas, but not for most of the rest of the game, so it really threw them off... my first conclusion was that cRPG players just didn't want to do anything but nuke... But having talked about it in this thread, I think it just needs to be an obvious and constant theme.

Early tutorials will teach you how to "out-smart" enemies that are too powerful for you, but early on, you'll be able to win most battles without bothering with it. The only time you'll -have- to use tactics would be for bosses, or secret enemies that may be guarding optional treasures and such.