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Combat in RPGs
Tcheldor
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hey all. As some of you may remember, I made a thread a few weeks ago about formulas used for combat and asked for some help in my efforts to create a balanced and engaging combat system. For reference we're talking about turn based systems here.
I hit a stumbling block because I ran into a cyclical problem. The damage dealt by a blow is only meaningful with reference to the amount of HP a character has (since a 10 dmg hit is a big deal if you have 30 hp, but meaningless if you have 3000). However, the HP a character has is only relevant to the damage he will sustain and how many blows he should be able to take. Of course the amount of blows you can take has to be based on how long combat can last.
Anyone my point is, I have to eventually actually define something, and I have decided the question to answer is:
How long should a given combat last?
To answer that: How many turns should combat take?
So my question to my fellow PAers. What turn based combat games have you played that felt good. Combat felt like it was not taking too long, but was not way too trivial either. I'd like to base my system off the length and feel of games that people like.
I hit a stumbling block because I ran into a cyclical problem. The damage dealt by a blow is only meaningful with reference to the amount of HP a character has (since a 10 dmg hit is a big deal if you have 30 hp, but meaningless if you have 3000). However, the HP a character has is only relevant to the damage he will sustain and how many blows he should be able to take. Of course the amount of blows you can take has to be based on how long combat can last.
Anyone my point is, I have to eventually actually define something, and I have decided the question to answer is:
How long should a given combat last?
To answer that: How many turns should combat take?
So my question to my fellow PAers. What turn based combat games have you played that felt good. Combat felt like it was not taking too long, but was not way too trivial either. I'd like to base my system off the length and feel of games that people like.
League of Legends: Sorakanmyworld
FFXIV: Tchel Fay
Nintendo ID: Tortalius
Steam: Tortalius
Stream: twitch.tv/tortalius
FFXIV: Tchel Fay
Nintendo ID: Tortalius
Steam: Tortalius
Stream: twitch.tv/tortalius
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To answer the actual question for examples, SMT's Press Turn system (Nocturne and Digital Devil Saga) is pretty close to perfection for a turn, non-speed based system.
// Switch: SW-5306-0651-6424 //
HP generally represents survivability, but what that can actually mean depends on how you calculate damage. If some antagonist can only cause 10 points of damage to a player character when the player character has 30 HP, then the player should pretty much look like a brick wall to this enemy when he has 3000 HP.
Personally, I prefer systems where lower level enemies will ignore or avoid PCs of a much higher level. There is nothing worse than having, say, 3000 HP and getting attacked by rats. At least have some kind of ability in the game that the player can activate (a spell or ability or amulet or whatever) that will decrease or negate the encounter rate when the player's level is vastly different from the average level of the possible encounter set in a given area.
Also, anything above 30 turns is annoying unless it's some kind of epic battle, and even then, 30 turns can be annoying if combat always hits that amount. I'd say for average combat, 5 is a good average. The more power a character has in relation to a potential encounter should slide that number closer to 1. If the player is underpowered, the combat should take longer (unless the player dies quickly).
I prefer battle systems where, if I am forced to fight fodder throughout the game, I can at least put up some kind of autoattack and breeze through it in a single turn.
Yep. And Persona 3/4.
Well, those aren't the Press Turn system, though are a related and simplified system. In press turn both you and the enemy team have a turns each of your round for each member alive in your party. If you hit a weakness or score a crit you don't use that turn and gain an extra half turn. If you are dodged or hit an immunity you lose an entire extra turn besides the ineffective one you just used. Passing a turn to the next teammate costs half a turn. Half-turns can be used just like normal turns but can't be passed without losing them (so speed is still important for your most important characters to be 1-2 in line on your team). The enemies play by the same rules 90% of the time: the only exception is bosses that have the ability to turn a turn into 2 or 4 half-turns.
Adding onto this, it's nice when bosses have attacks you need to make defenses against. Actually having to use the defend command when you notice a powerful attack coming or having to maintain status effects or debuffs on a boss or they risk overpowering you is a good thing.
// Switch: SW-5306-0651-6424 //
Depends how long a turn takes, how varied the enemies are, if combat contains any other elements of gameplay and how varied the combat gameplay itself is.
I worded my response poorly. I wasn't saying that P3/4 had the exact press turn system, but that it is also close to a perfect battle system IMO. I think they are two different but very similar systems and both are separately excellent.
Those games are built around a system where timed button presses during your attack / defense phases drastically change the way a battle plays out. Press the right button at the right time during an attack, and your damage doubles, triples, or even quadruples. Press the right button at the right time while BEING attacked, and you can take half damage or no damage at all. It's like constant QTEs, but actually fun.
The other thing is that those systems are designed in a way that you have multiple options for offense and defense. You can jump, use a hammer, toss a koopa shell, throw a fireball, etc. Different enemies have different weakpoints, and if you don't use the right attacks you may not do any damage at all (or even hurt yourself!). Alternatively, when you first get attacked by an enemy you always have to guess at what to do. Do you jump over the attack, or do you use the hammer to bat it away? What's the timing? Learning your enemies weakpoints and attack patterns is half the fun of the game -- you as the player are gaining "experience" along with Mario, and once you understand how your enemies tick you can defeat them within a turn.
Other great things about these systems:
- You have meaningful overworld "action" abilities. Jump on an enemy or smack it with a hammer, and you get a bonus attack at the outset of the attack. (And if the enemy is significantly lower level than you, defeat it outright.) Get jumped yourself, and your enemies get an extra attack themselves (that you can dodge with a well-timed QTE, if you're good enough).
- Because there are so many ways that both your damage AND your enemies damage can be negated, HP values are actually quite low. This keeps the challenge up and gets you involved in the fight -- no mashing "Attack" until the enemy dies.
- Items are actually useful. The games discourage hoarding because one botched defense QTE can leave you in need of a HP-restoring item, the attack-items are actually quite powerful, the stat-boosting items give you meaningful damage output or defensive capability, etc.
- Fights last only as long as you allow them to last. If you're good at the QTEs, a fight will be over in 1-2 turns. If you're not, it might take 3-5. Either way, you're involved the entire time... and the more you learn about your enemies' attack pattens and weaknesses, the shorter the fights are, which is quite rewarding.
Now, you may not really be interested in having a QTE-heavy action/turn-based hybrid like in these games. But I still think they have some interesting lessons. I really like the idea of having a few basic attack/defense options available, with proper strategy being key to doing/taking lots of damage or doing/taking none at all. I also like the idea of keeping the HP values quite low, in order to reward good strategy and discourage MP/item hoarding.
Here's a list of additional facts that you guys may find interesting. Please critique as well
1) HP/MP will recover to full between battles. This is to allow greater control over difficulty. I will also have 3 difficulty modes that can be changed anytime you're not in combat.
2)Combat is going to be the core game play and should be rather strategic. I can go in much much more detail should people want to hear about it, but I have 7 classes created with skills etc. I'm at the point where I have to put numbers to things, but everything else is good to go combatwise. Additionally there will be a main class and subclass system (where main class is going to be story based, but subclass can be chosen during the story. Think EO3's system except you can change it more easily)
3) I will not be doing timed hits or anything of that nature, as much as I do love those games.
4) Inventory will be limited to 9 of any given item.
5) Healing spells can rez the dead. However, I'm going to have a few turn rez sickness unless a special rez spell is used. This helps reduce the whole phoenix down spam that comes up sometimes.
6)Actions will be determined via AP. You earn a certain amount per char per turn. Each action costs a fixed amount and you can save some up between turns.
7) MP will be consumed 5, 10, or 15 per skill (based on the skill's strength basically. High end skills 15. Low end 5) and will recharge at a rate of 1 per turn. Attack command and items will not use MP. This is to add some tension to battles and prevent them from going on too long.
8)MP consumption items will cost A LOT of AP to use and be extremely rare.
9) Combat will take place on 2 3x3 grids. One for PC side, other for AI side. Rows in the front give offensive bonuses, the back row gives defensive. These bonuses will not be tiny, and one class will have a variety of skills to move characters around.
10) Healing spells will rarely just heal. If it just restores HP then it will have a high AP cost.
I think that hopefully gives you a decent lay out of some of my plans.
FFXIV: Tchel Fay
Nintendo ID: Tortalius
Steam: Tortalius
Stream: twitch.tv/tortalius
In Romancing SaGa, only in exceptional situations can either side go more than once. So one round entails your party doing their thing, the enemy party doing their thing, and that's it. The concept of a "round" in Radiant Historia is like 10 actions, as the order of actions is flexible between the enemy and friendly party.
Have you given any thought to a system of damage resistance that can be overcome through joint action rather than special moves or power?
Playtest, playtest, playtest, playtest, playtest, playtest, playtest, playtest, playtest.
This is the one and only valid answer to the vast majority of your questions. Just pick something and try it out (with somebody ELSE, not yourself, and not somebody who has tried it before). This is the ONLY way to get any meaningful data. Anything else may as well be masturbation.
Absolutely do not expect you will just get things good on paper first then implement it perfectly. That's how you get shitty games.
I do plan on play testing this to hell and back, trust me, but I thought I would poll a huge gaming community simultaneously. In the long run, I'm hoping many of you will have a chance to play this
FFXIV: Tchel Fay
Nintendo ID: Tortalius
Steam: Tortalius
Stream: twitch.tv/tortalius
My personal answer: as few turns as humanly possible without making combat frustrating for the player.
To that end, every action taken should hope to be one of the following:
Critical and satisfying; powerful yet limited abilities emphasizing choice.
Fast but exponential; smaller attacks and abilities linking together for chain reaction.
Actions that have little-to-no effect are boring, even more so when repeated thousands of times.
The real question is, how long can you make combat without it becoming tedious or boring?
Vanish, X-zone
Skillchain, Magic Burst
Level 5 Death
Ultima vs Mooks
Summons vs Mooks
Any BAS vs Mooks.
Old PA forum lookalike style for the new forums | My ko-fi donation thing.
Ultimately RPG fights boil down to Rock, Paper, Scissors. If X then use Y, if Z then use A on and on and on. Even if you have a game with thousands of monsters/spells/actions the player will eventually form the rules in their head (or read a gamefaq) to always win the fight. Always winning is boring.
In order to break that cycle randomness is needed. For me one of the best examples of this is FFVII. Throughout the game there were boss fights in which the boss had an attack that would completely decimate your party. Most of the time this attack was randomly used and you wouldn't know when it was coming or how many time they were going to use it. Each turn then became tense as you debated whether or not to heal up and prepare for the boss giving you a pounding or to carry on dishing out damage in the hopes of bringing it down before it got another killer attack in. Combine that with some stirring music and you have me sat on the edge of my seat sweating and praying that I can bring this thing down. At that point I want the battle to go on for as long as possible because it is an enjoyable experience.
The exact opposite of that experience is where the boss has an easily predictable pattern and you feel in no danger whatsoever because you know the exact steps to counter it (attack, attack, defend, attack, attack, defend, heal, attack etc etc). At that point I'm bored and you might as well just auto win the battle for me and let me move on with the story.
To sum up. Keep me guessing and I'm happy, make it predictable and I'm bored.