Turn-Based combat can be super-fine, though. I mean, there are thousands of systems to choose from, or you can just make a new one that is actually good. It's not like the transfer to computers makes it impossible for combat to be strategic.
Can you think of a strategic one and how it worked? If you can't recall any examples off the top of your head it's alright but I'd be interested to know how a strategic turn-based system works (preferably a non-srpg one).
Yeah, I actually never really enjoyed SRPGs as much as I wanted to.
Seriously though, I think my favorite unused but perfect for computers system is Battletech. It takes postioning, heat, weight, jump capabilities, etc etc, and makes them all important aspects of combat. Plus, no heals. So if you screw up, you screw up.
But yeah, that whole thread is pretty much "Disgaea is fun dudes but what about a balanced game?".
Oh! Lost Odyssey! Funny thing is, I kept telling myself that what little story I've heard about this game will rock, because the premise piqued my interest. I was all like "the protagonist is immortal and is also amnesiac and it looks like the story could be steered in interesting directions!"
...only to have you reveal to me that it does indeed sound like the premise was ripped directly from Planescape: Torment. Goddamit, how could I forget that?
Oh! Lost Odyssey! Funny thing is, I kept telling myself that what little story I've heard about this game will rock, because the premise piqued my interest. I was all like "the protagonist is immortal and is also amnesiac and it looks like the story could be steered in interesting directions!"
...only to have you reveal to me that it does indeed sound like the premise was ripped directly from Planescape: Torment. Goddamit, how could I forget that?
Please, please, please tell me that they use a battle system different than the one used in Planescape? You can rip off Planescape all you want, just don't include the battle system...
Tw4win on
0
Casually HardcoreOnce an Asshole. Trying to be better.Registered Userregular
edited July 2007
Whats wrong with planescape combat system? Admittedly I probably only killed 2 or 3 guys in that game, but at least it wasnt 'OMG random battle!'. Though it was a bit of a waste having 25 stat points in everything and knowing all these super spells and never gotten a chance to use them.
As far as Lost Odyssey combat, from what I recall from a very early build preview, it was the same old press button, watch animation, wait 2 minutes, repeat.
Whats wrong with planescape combat system? Admittedly I probably only killed 2 or 3 guys in that game, but at least it wasnt 'OMG random battle!'. Though it was a bit of a waste having 25 stat points in everything and knowing all these super spells and never gotten a chance to use them.
As far as Lost Odyssey combat, from what I recall from a very early build preview, it was the same old press button, watch animation, wait 2 minutes, repeat.
As I've probably stated in this thread, I really dislike the Bioware combat system. It's "real time" but it's essentially turn based, just without the artificial pauses. A lot of people like that, I just don't. While you can pause the game yourself after everyone's action I find that cumbersome.
Again, a lot of people like the system and I'm probably one of the minority that doesn't. It really took away from my enjoyment of BG 1/2, Planescape, and KOTR. I especially didn't like it in the D&D games because it's my feeling that D&D combat should be turn based.
I'll also add that I dislike the Morrowind/Oblivion combat system as well. Real time combat in RPGs just doesn't work for me.
OK, my ultimate imaginary JRPGish combat system. Bear in mind while reading this that, similar to Grandia or FFX-2, the whole thing is semi-real time, in that there is a loose equivalent to the concept of a turn but there is nothing stopping multiple characters from carrying out their actions simultaneously.
You have four party members, each mapped to a face button. Across the top of the screen runs the event queue showing every little thing from when each character, ally or enemy, will next be able to act and/or finish charging a special action to when a status change will wear off in the order that they will happen, accompanied by the time until each one happens, measured in frames. Also accompanying each of your party members’ (and possibly the enemies’, dependant on certain character abilities) action events would be a note of what action they were currently set to perform. When a character becomes ready to act, they will immediately perform their set action if they have on, otherwise they will wait to be given one.
When you press a character’s corresponding face button while they are waiting to become ready to act or are ready but with no set action (but not while they are acting or charging a special action), it will pause the game and bring up their command menu. The first set of options on this menu should seem relatively familiar: attack, special, item, defend, move, teamwork, (context action), wait.
When selecting attack the player will be given further options as to how many combo hits (up to a character dependant maximum) they wish the attack to consist of, along with what (if any) extra effect they wish the attack to have. The recovery time before the character may act again after attacking is equal to a base time for the character plus a certain length per hit plus any time cost incurred for a special effect. In this way, while it is more efficient in terms of damage to time ratio for a character to perform an attack with many hits, doing so will allow the character less versatility in reacting to the changing course of events in the battle. Each character would have their own set of possible special effects, ranging from what the Grandia games term critical effect (which all or at least the vast majority of characters would possess, given that the idea for this system started out as an expansion on the one contained therein); cancelling the enemy’s action and forcing them straight into it’s recovery time if they were acting or charging a special action or delaying their next chance to act slightly if they were still recovering from their previous action; to things like launching an enemy into the air (allowing additional damage to be dealt by anything that hits them while they remain off the ground) or knocking them back a distance to increasing the SP gained from the attack to really wacky stuff like spending HP to increase the attack’s damage. After these options are chosen, the player is given the chance to choose the angle that they would prefer the attack to, if possible, be made from then the game unpauses and the attack is carried out (characters will automatically position themselves to carry out attacks). Successive comboed hits on a character, be they within the same attack or the result of multiple characters attacking in quick succession, will deal more damage (this also applies to special actions).
Special is, unsurprisingly, where special moves, magic spells, etc. can be found, along with any other character specific actions. Under this system, there is no direct analogue to MP, rather all equivalent costs are in the time taken to charge a given action, during which it may be cancelled. There is, however, a shared party pool of SP that starts the battle at zero builds with damage dealt and received, that may be spent to reduce charge times. Normally they may be reduced in this way right down to zero, however, some particularly powerful abilities (such as especially large AoEs) may have minimum charge times beyond which they may not be reduced. Some area of effect abilities may actually target areas rather than specific enemies in which case the player may position the AoE as they wish but if there are no appropriate targets in the selected area when it goes off then tough luck. Not all special actions have charge times to begin with. Most special actions have recovery times comparable to normal attacks, regardless of any charge time they may have. Very few attack animations will pause the rest of the battle while they play out, be they normal combos or special actions.
Different items have different recovery times, usually short.
When the player selects the defend command for a character they will be prompted to also decide how long the character will defend for, this will reward skill in judging precisely when a dangerous enemy attack will hit.
Move simply allows a character to be repositioned to anywhere on the battlefield. Moving has no real cost, as soon as a character reaches their destination they become ready to act again. Pretty much the soul purpose of this action is to provide some defence against positional stuff like AoEs or being slammed against a spiked wall or dropped off the edge of a raised platform on which the battle is taking place.
Selecting teamwork will prompt the player to select another action for the character, followed by another character to select an action for. In this way, any number of party members may be made to automatically time their actions to be simultaneous or in quick succession (in the order in which they were selected), whichever provides more benefit. Correct use of the teamwork command may unlock Chrono Trigger style cooperative special actions.
Context actions may be available in certain situations, these are normally none combatative actions necessary to achieve the party’s goal in a given encounter. For example, the party may be trying to untie a hostage so that they can escape together while fighting off endless waves of enemies (individual enemies’ arrivals in battle would be added to the action queue as others are defeated). A bar would represent how much of this task had been completed and while a character was busy untying the bar would gradually fill, this action could be cancelled at any time and a character would perform the action given as if they had previously been ready but not acting.
Selecting wait would cancel a character’s set action (but not cause any additional wait before they become ready to act).
I'd like to chime in and say that I don't think the turn-based colonial war system is unsalvagable. However, I do believe that it's been horribly misused. The main issue is the balance of power between the two opposing sides.
In your average Final Fantasy or Dragon Warrior style JRPG, there's a huge disparity between the power of the characters in your party and the power of your enemies. It's like your statistics work on entirely different systems. You'll run into grunt-style enemies with eight times the HP of one of your characters, but they die in a few shots because you do ten times their damage. Or, the reverse is true, where a boss just wipes you out because he just does more damage than you're able to take. I'll admit that it's extremely easy to go off one end or the other, but when it's done well the game becomes a lot more fun. For example, has anyone here played The Last Scenario? It's a freeware RPG done in RPG Maker, so it's got the colonial style of combat, but the game is balanced such that you're challenged most of the time without having to grind to get through it. You just have to make intelligent use of your resources.
The other big problem with the use of the colonial system is the relative stupidity of the enemies. Most enemies in these games pick random moves to use on random targets, even when that behavior isn't rational in the slightest. For instance, casting Silence on a character that's been exclusively using physical attacks since the start of the fight. Part of the reason that player-vs-player Pokemon is so popular is the fact that it's a challenge. Your opponent is going to be at least somewhat intelligent in their choices, and they've got access to the same resources that you do.
In short, I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with the line system for battles in RPGs from a gameplay perspective. It's a matter of the game developers not using the system to it's maximum potential, which results in the crutches that've been rightly disparaged thus far.
Kupi on
My favorite musical instrument is the air-raid siren.
I'd like to chime in and say that I don't think the turn-based colonial war system is unsalvagable. However, I do believe that it's been horribly misused. The main issue is the balance of power between the two opposing sides.
In your average Final Fantasy or Dragon Warrior style JRPG, there's a huge disparity between the power of the characters in your party and the power of your enemies. It's like your statistics work on entirely different systems. You'll run into grunt-style enemies with eight times the HP of one of your characters, but they die in a few shots because you do ten times their damage. Or, the reverse is true, where a boss just wipes you out because he just does more damage than you're able to take. I'll admit that it's extremely easy to go off one end or the other, but when it's done well the game becomes a lot more fun. For example, has anyone here played The Last Scenario? It's a freeware RPG done in RPG Maker, so it's got the colonial style of combat, but the game is balanced such that you're challenged most of the time without having to grind to get through it. You just have to make intelligent use of your resources.
The other big problem with the use of the colonial system is the relative stupidity of the enemies. Most enemies in these games pick random moves to use on random targets, even when that behavior isn't rational in the slightest. For instance, casting Silence on a character that's been exclusively using physical attacks since the start of the fight. Part of the reason that player-vs-player Pokemon is so popular is the fact that it's a challenge. Your opponent is going to be at least somewhat intelligent in their choices, and they've got access to the same resources that you do.
In short, I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with the line system for battles in RPGs from a gameplay perspective. It's a matter of the game developers not using the system to it's maximum potential, which results in the crutches that've been rightly disparaged thus far.
Yeah, actually. That's the other approach to fixing the gripe about random battles. The reason it grates on me is because most of the time, JRPGs have intriguing boss fights and the other 90% the time, the mechanics of the game are just not there. My most recent gripe was FFXII: you can deal more damage by using spells of an opposite element. Except, that never came up. You didn't get the ability to affect most elements by the end of the game, and sometimes never. The most powerful spell was non-elemental.
I agree, turn based combat just needs to make it less of a grind fighting either minions or bosses. Make it more like a fight between equals, or at least make it a fight between 4 badasses and 15 lowly minions that work together to provide a challange.
Also, exactly. AI is so key in these games, and it's never ever implemented. Hell, I don't think it's been properly implemented in any RPG, really. At the very least, the enemy should know the same rules I do. It's been a tired convention to have "boss patterns" for a while now.
Edit: Also, thanks for reminding me of The Last Scenario, I need to get to playing that.
I would like to see a difference in the AI between a dumb animal like a slime and a human or superintelligent god. The less intelligent AI should just keep on attacking a certain character while the more intelligent AI will actively use spells that make sense and try to take out your healer.
With all of this being said, I prefer standard turn-based to the "time bar" hybrid that some games have. I've found that when I have to act quick, or enemies will get extra turns, the sense of urgency added is not worth the tactical thinking that is removed.
With all of this being said, I prefer standard turn-based to the "time bar" hybrid that some games have. I've found that when I have to act quick, or enemies will get extra turns, the sense of urgency added is not worth the tactical thinking that is removed.
It's fine as long as I can at the very least dive into a sub menu in order to pause everything (what Chrono Trigger does) while I think about what I'm doing. Having to deal with menus in real time is horrible, with that I'll agree, hence why bringing one up at all pauses the game in the system I outlined above.
Posts
A key word, even.
Edit: I'm really not seeing it... there aren't any corpses.
http://www.rpgcodex.com/phpBB/newtopic.php?t=19563&highlight=torment&sid=a396e7a008f3abbb2b07273d1f8dc236
Gametrailers:http://www.gametrailers.com/player/21475.html
Oh! Lost Odyssey! Funny thing is, I kept telling myself that what little story I've heard about this game will rock, because the premise piqued my interest. I was all like "the protagonist is immortal and is also amnesiac and it looks like the story could be steered in interesting directions!"
...only to have you reveal to me that it does indeed sound like the premise was ripped directly from Planescape: Torment. Goddamit, how could I forget that?
Please, please, please tell me that they use a battle system different than the one used in Planescape? You can rip off Planescape all you want, just don't include the battle system...
As far as Lost Odyssey combat, from what I recall from a very early build preview, it was the same old press button, watch animation, wait 2 minutes, repeat.
As I've probably stated in this thread, I really dislike the Bioware combat system. It's "real time" but it's essentially turn based, just without the artificial pauses. A lot of people like that, I just don't. While you can pause the game yourself after everyone's action I find that cumbersome.
Again, a lot of people like the system and I'm probably one of the minority that doesn't. It really took away from my enjoyment of BG 1/2, Planescape, and KOTR. I especially didn't like it in the D&D games because it's my feeling that D&D combat should be turn based.
I'll also add that I dislike the Morrowind/Oblivion combat system as well. Real time combat in RPGs just doesn't work for me.
You have four party members, each mapped to a face button. Across the top of the screen runs the event queue showing every little thing from when each character, ally or enemy, will next be able to act and/or finish charging a special action to when a status change will wear off in the order that they will happen, accompanied by the time until each one happens, measured in frames. Also accompanying each of your party members’ (and possibly the enemies’, dependant on certain character abilities) action events would be a note of what action they were currently set to perform. When a character becomes ready to act, they will immediately perform their set action if they have on, otherwise they will wait to be given one.
When you press a character’s corresponding face button while they are waiting to become ready to act or are ready but with no set action (but not while they are acting or charging a special action), it will pause the game and bring up their command menu. The first set of options on this menu should seem relatively familiar: attack, special, item, defend, move, teamwork, (context action), wait.
When selecting attack the player will be given further options as to how many combo hits (up to a character dependant maximum) they wish the attack to consist of, along with what (if any) extra effect they wish the attack to have. The recovery time before the character may act again after attacking is equal to a base time for the character plus a certain length per hit plus any time cost incurred for a special effect. In this way, while it is more efficient in terms of damage to time ratio for a character to perform an attack with many hits, doing so will allow the character less versatility in reacting to the changing course of events in the battle. Each character would have their own set of possible special effects, ranging from what the Grandia games term critical effect (which all or at least the vast majority of characters would possess, given that the idea for this system started out as an expansion on the one contained therein); cancelling the enemy’s action and forcing them straight into it’s recovery time if they were acting or charging a special action or delaying their next chance to act slightly if they were still recovering from their previous action; to things like launching an enemy into the air (allowing additional damage to be dealt by anything that hits them while they remain off the ground) or knocking them back a distance to increasing the SP gained from the attack to really wacky stuff like spending HP to increase the attack’s damage. After these options are chosen, the player is given the chance to choose the angle that they would prefer the attack to, if possible, be made from then the game unpauses and the attack is carried out (characters will automatically position themselves to carry out attacks). Successive comboed hits on a character, be they within the same attack or the result of multiple characters attacking in quick succession, will deal more damage (this also applies to special actions).
Special is, unsurprisingly, where special moves, magic spells, etc. can be found, along with any other character specific actions. Under this system, there is no direct analogue to MP, rather all equivalent costs are in the time taken to charge a given action, during which it may be cancelled. There is, however, a shared party pool of SP that starts the battle at zero builds with damage dealt and received, that may be spent to reduce charge times. Normally they may be reduced in this way right down to zero, however, some particularly powerful abilities (such as especially large AoEs) may have minimum charge times beyond which they may not be reduced. Some area of effect abilities may actually target areas rather than specific enemies in which case the player may position the AoE as they wish but if there are no appropriate targets in the selected area when it goes off then tough luck. Not all special actions have charge times to begin with. Most special actions have recovery times comparable to normal attacks, regardless of any charge time they may have. Very few attack animations will pause the rest of the battle while they play out, be they normal combos or special actions.
Different items have different recovery times, usually short.
When the player selects the defend command for a character they will be prompted to also decide how long the character will defend for, this will reward skill in judging precisely when a dangerous enemy attack will hit.
Move simply allows a character to be repositioned to anywhere on the battlefield. Moving has no real cost, as soon as a character reaches their destination they become ready to act again. Pretty much the soul purpose of this action is to provide some defence against positional stuff like AoEs or being slammed against a spiked wall or dropped off the edge of a raised platform on which the battle is taking place.
Selecting teamwork will prompt the player to select another action for the character, followed by another character to select an action for. In this way, any number of party members may be made to automatically time their actions to be simultaneous or in quick succession (in the order in which they were selected), whichever provides more benefit. Correct use of the teamwork command may unlock Chrono Trigger style cooperative special actions.
Context actions may be available in certain situations, these are normally none combatative actions necessary to achieve the party’s goal in a given encounter. For example, the party may be trying to untie a hostage so that they can escape together while fighting off endless waves of enemies (individual enemies’ arrivals in battle would be added to the action queue as others are defeated). A bar would represent how much of this task had been completed and while a character was busy untying the bar would gradually fill, this action could be cancelled at any time and a character would perform the action given as if they had previously been ready but not acting.
Selecting wait would cancel a character’s set action (but not cause any additional wait before they become ready to act).
It sucked in both versions especially in Icewind Dale.
In your average Final Fantasy or Dragon Warrior style JRPG, there's a huge disparity between the power of the characters in your party and the power of your enemies. It's like your statistics work on entirely different systems. You'll run into grunt-style enemies with eight times the HP of one of your characters, but they die in a few shots because you do ten times their damage. Or, the reverse is true, where a boss just wipes you out because he just does more damage than you're able to take. I'll admit that it's extremely easy to go off one end or the other, but when it's done well the game becomes a lot more fun. For example, has anyone here played The Last Scenario? It's a freeware RPG done in RPG Maker, so it's got the colonial style of combat, but the game is balanced such that you're challenged most of the time without having to grind to get through it. You just have to make intelligent use of your resources.
The other big problem with the use of the colonial system is the relative stupidity of the enemies. Most enemies in these games pick random moves to use on random targets, even when that behavior isn't rational in the slightest. For instance, casting Silence on a character that's been exclusively using physical attacks since the start of the fight. Part of the reason that player-vs-player Pokemon is so popular is the fact that it's a challenge. Your opponent is going to be at least somewhat intelligent in their choices, and they've got access to the same resources that you do.
In short, I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with the line system for battles in RPGs from a gameplay perspective. It's a matter of the game developers not using the system to it's maximum potential, which results in the crutches that've been rightly disparaged thus far.
I agree, turn based combat just needs to make it less of a grind fighting either minions or bosses. Make it more like a fight between equals, or at least make it a fight between 4 badasses and 15 lowly minions that work together to provide a challange.
Also, exactly. AI is so key in these games, and it's never ever implemented. Hell, I don't think it's been properly implemented in any RPG, really. At the very least, the enemy should know the same rules I do. It's been a tired convention to have "boss patterns" for a while now.
Edit: Also, thanks for reminding me of The Last Scenario, I need to get to playing that.