I''ve always favored turn-based strategy, like in Shining Force, Arc the Lad, or FFTactics. So, anywho, here''s my battle system ideas so far.

First of all, it''s going to be a bit like Arc the Lad II, no separate battle screen, battles just occur where enemies are. It''s also not going to be grid based, so you have a certain circular range.. I call this free motion. Anywho, on a character''s turn, they can move around, attack an enemy, stuff like that. If they''re on a cliff above an enemy, they can also do a jump attack to cause more damage.

Spells have different ranges, from all enemies to a line of enemies or a small area or just a single enemy, sorta like Skies of Arcadia.

Magic Density Meter, in the game, whenever spells are cast, this meter goes up. When it''s kinda full, strange effects can randomly happen do to higher than normal magical density. When completely full, a big blast will result due to an overload of magic density.

All characters have abilities unique to them.

Anywho, there''s more, but I''m too lazy to put it there.

Nothing lasts forever...
Except styrofoam.

quote: Original post by Vyse of Arcadia
Magic Density Meter, in the game, whenever spells are cast, this meter goes up. When it''s kinda full, strange effects can randomly happen do to higher than normal magical density. When completely full, a big blast will result due to an overload of magic density.

Nothing lasts forever...
Except styrofoam.

I must comment, that is a very neat idea. Most of the time I think about magic, I think about the caster only.

I like real-time, as in counter-strike realtime, not point-and-click like dungeon siege. I like low hitpoint, high damage, high risk, fast pace, and user skill dependent (instead of character level dependent).

In higher levels, enemies should become more and more resistant to attacks and magics that they are not vulnerable of. To reduce repetition, I think more limited resources (resources used for casting and attacks or healing) and better enemy AI should solve the problem (for example, when you do mostly fire damage to them, the enemies equip themselves with fire resistant armor before encounter). For magic system, early one magics should be more general, and high level magics cost less (in terms of mana) more powerful, but at the same time more specialized against certain enemies or situations.

I don''t favor designing battle system. I think a good battle system comes naturally by modelling reality.

About complexity:
I think that the end effect of the battle system should be complex, but the implementation should be elegant. What I mean is that the effects of an attack or dmg calculations should not be based on "rules" but properties. For example, to introduce the notion that a combo does more dmg, the game engine should have nothing that says "If this is a i''th hit of a combo then add x(i) bonus dmg", instead, it should be based on some fundamental differences between a first hit and a second hit. Such as the enemy lost his defensive posture, allowing you to hit more critical parts (I am speaking of a 3D engine), or the movement caused by the first hit causes his body part to go towards your second hit, adding to the impact force.

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
When you go with a strict realtime system, you''re often reduced to who can mash the attack and potion buttons the fastest, such as Baldur''s Gate: Dark Alliance.

I disagree here. I thought BG''s developers did a pretty good job. At no point in the game did I feel I had to mash buttons as fast as possible to win. Battle is simple because there are only two attack options, but if you use some tactics it is much more than button mashing. If you go toe to toe with all the monsters in this game you''ll die or use lots of potions as you say. Multiplayer made it much more fun and necessary to use tactics in battle.

Real time battle systems could be a lot more complicated, but I think they aren''t because a lot of RPG players don''t want them to be. This way even if the player doesn''t have terrific hand eye coordination it is still possible for them to kick butt as the player lives through his character. I think that is all part of playing a role in the case of most games.



--
http://www.3dcgi.com/

I found the battle system in the Grandia games very interesting.

First, the game takes positioning in account, what is a good thing. The characters have to run and dodge obstacles (other enemies and party members) to reach their targets, and since each character has a limited movemment range, determinated by his/her agility, if the enemy happens to be too far, or behind loads of obstacles, the character can't hit it and get's tired mid-way. Also, if the enemy is close, after laying the attack, the characters can use the remaining movement points to reposition themselves.

The game is half turn based, half real time. The game has a time bar in the bottom, with the party members and the monsters portraits in it. At 75% of the bar there is a COMMAND mark, and there is an ACTION mark at 100%. The portraits move from left to right, until reaching the COMMAND mark. If a party member reaches the command point, the game pauses and he menu appears so you can choose your command. The command will only be executed when the character portrait reaches the ACTION mark, and, obviously, the speed the portrait will move depends on the command you choose, so is the speed it'll take to run through the bar again after executing the move.

Using a normal attack will make the character start running towards the target instantly, whereas casting that new keen spell you just learned will take a few seconds to execute. While a movemement is being executed, the game will *NOT* pause. This is the coolest part. It only pauses during menu choices and spell effects (only one spell is cast at a time). When a character hits an enemy, it's portrait is knocked back in the time bar, alowing you to delay off enemies by hitting them.

If an enemy/party member is charing a spell, they can be knocked off in the last second if they are hit hard enough. This adds LOADS of strategy to the game, and makes the battles very, very fun.

The only problem in the Grandia games is that the battle system is so good, and allows so much strategies, that the enemies become too easy when you get experienced in it. When you learn how to time your party members' attacks, doing some kickass teamwork, the enemies become helpess. Harder enemies or better AI could solve the problem.

[edited by - M3d10n on May 15, 2003 8:19:08 AM]

I don't think you can say Turn-Based and Real-time are better/worse than each other since both have different aspects and attract different types of gamer.

Turn-based in the fact you can think out what you want to do and Real-time in the realism and fast-paced gaming aspect. And both can be simple or complicated.

I got bored with the point-and-click real-time games like Diablo and Diablo II very quickly since it was just that. Point and click. Apart from trying to equip my character with the best skills and items I found it very boring. Which is what I feel is Diablo II's weak point.

I like most of the turn-based RPGs, but the same as with Diablo, I get pretty bored with repetitive tasks, such as if I keep fighting the same enemies (as in all the FF series) or I keep using the same combo/attack on everything or watch the same animation sequence (such as that long sequence for "knights of the round" in FF7)

I think the best real-time RPG system I've played was infact a Sci-fi FPS with RPG elements (I can't for the life of me remember the game's name) and I would like to see it recreated using todays engines. Basically it was like Heretic but with NPCs, items, and quests. (Red Faction, Deux Ex and Half-life have pretty much managed to pull this off to an extent)

I liked the real-time fighting system in Blood Omen 2 since it provided for blocking, variations in attack, magic and skills. I found fighting the same enemies got repetitive though since you could use the same tactics all the time and win easily, also the camera algorithms were a bit awful often with me not being able to see whats going on but thats game specific issue not fighting style.

And for those of you who complain about thinking and tactics, real-time games can be slow paced enough to give you time to think things over or give you fore-warning of an event so that you can prepare for it (such as seeing 2 guards in the distance), such as I see 2 skeletons and a zombie approching/in the distance so I can get 2 holy items ready 1 for the skeletons, then one ready to switch for the zombie. (or alternatively prepare skills/magic/set traps)

[edited by - DragonWolf on May 15, 2003 9:40:01 AM]

quote: Original post by 3dcgi

Original post by Anonymous Poster
When you go with a strict realtime system, you''re often reduced to who can mash the attack and potion buttons the fastest, such as Baldur''s Gate: Dark Alliance.

I disagree here. I thought BG''s developers did a pretty good job. At no point in the game did I feel I had to mash buttons as fast as possible to win. Battle is simple because there are only two attack options, but if you use some tactics it is much more than button mashing. If you go toe to toe with all the monsters in this game you''ll die or use lots of potions as you say. Multiplayer made it much more fun and necessary to use tactics in battle.

Real time battle systems could be a lot more complicated, but I think they aren''t because a lot of RPG players don''t want them to be. This way even if the player doesn''t have terrific hand eye coordination it is still possible for them to kick butt as the player lives through his character. I think that is all part of playing a role in the case of most games.


The design of BG:DA''s combat system yielded no forethought to my action, even when going through extreme mode or playing as Drizzt. I never once had to consider my course of action, I''d shoot a few times with the bow and hit whoever, make sure my health was high, and then go into alternating attack-shield and the occasional potion button press. You may consider that strategy, but to me it''s following the formula the designers had intended.

Real time battle engines aren''t as complicated as they could be, because designers fear that players will shy away from having to use their common sense. Everyone knows you don''t stab stone golems with a dagger, or try to shoot them with arrows. Were it real life, you''d get a hearty laugh out of your foe before having your ass handed to you in a bag. That should be represented in games as well, but it isn''t. For some reason, recent designers have the idea in their head that playing the game should be totally simple. That is, nothing to figure out, no real challenge.. etc. I disagree with this entirely, the player should really be thinking about a fight and not just making routine checks before going into combat. With a meager degree of environment interaction, enemies that can and will use the environment and exploit flaws in your attacking style (IE, waiting for a huge hammer strike and dodging to the side, attacking swiftly while you''re incapacitated, or creatures that look like rocks hiding in the rocks until you''re walking right past them when they jump out and sting you with poison and run away again) Take for example this simple control setup (Ps2 example):

Up, Down, Left, Right: Move

X: Attack (Changed by currently moving direction sort of like TES games: up generates a thrust, left is a side strike, right is an alternate side strike, down causes sort of an uppercut, and standing still generates a generic attack) The harder you mash it, the harder your hit is. (See Evergrace for a sort of sloppy example)

Square: Block. If you don''t have a shield, this must be timed exactly so that you use your weapon to block as the enemy is attacking. There should be a 1 to 2 second window of opportunity to block with impunity.

Circle: Generic item/magic usage.

R1-L2: Hotkeys for "belted" weapons.

Now, for the battle example. Your character, Sir Rantsalot is journeying through the woods whistling to himself while trying to think of where the next Golden Crystal of the Holy Legendary Grail might be, when he is ambushed by a group of imps. The first thing the player considers is switching to a lighter, more maneuverable combat weapon than his Two Handed Ogre''s Axe of Brutality. If he were to continue using this weapon, he would continually be at the mercy of the far faster imps, and he would occasionally even get his axe lodged in an unsuspecting tree. He chooses the Silver Shortsword in a split second (R1) and makes a quick glance at his health to make sure he is healthy enough to stay and fight. By now the imps are right near him. One carries a large shield on his left, another is completely unarmed, and yet another has a short sword. Assuming it will take two hits with the shortsword to kill one imp, and three hits for the imps to kill you, the following are examples of courses of action:

If the player stands still rotating to hit the imps as they charge him, he may leave one spot open which pretty much gives another imp free charge to leave a devastating attack where the player wasn''t looking. If the player''s health is full, he might survive this conflict but then another one down the road might lead to disaster. Of course, this is hoping that the player did some advance leveling and is now brutally strong compared to his current position in the game.

If the player charges one of the imps, he risks the other imps attacking him from behind. This could also be extremely deadly. One of the imps has a tower shield, so slashes to the right will prove utterly useless. A downward chop might glance the shield, and reduce damage, now requiring three hits to kill the imp. A thrust might also glance the shield, so the best choice is obviously a chop to the left. Had the player chosen to use a mace, he might break the shield (if it was brittle or wooden) to make his decision a little easier. If he charges the unarmed imp, he leaves far too much room for the other two armed imps to wreak havoc on his exposed backside. If he charges the short sworder, he runs into the risk that the swordsman parrys all of his attacks which gives the other three imps time to arrive and then the player is stuck with being forced to use the rotate strategy.

These strategies of course leave the inevitable occurance of damage and possible defeat. So instead, the player decides to use his equipped item as he invokes the charge strategy.. the item of course is a distracting flash orb, which causes the imps to be immobilized so they cannot recover the distance and join the battle before the first imp (of choice, dosn''t matter) is taken out. Now that they have been distracted once however, it won''t happen again so thus you are left with two imps now enraged over the death of their comrade (could be symbolized by rage bubbles over their head, or something) so they lose all semblance of an organized group and charge straight at you, allowing a now easy victory. Thrusting the unarmed imp will give you the chance to quickly slash again, catching the unarmed imp with a death blow and possibly hitting the swordsman imp (now demoralized to the point where he forgets to block) for half of his health. It''s then a simple matter of turning to hit the imp and killing him.

You might say, well that''s how all designers consider the real playing value of the game. But you know what I say back? They have one fatal flaw in all of this: the enemies are too easy. The design might call for the above strategies, but the developers often are too afraid to give "trivial" enemies enough strength to destroy the player if he makes a series of bad choices.

-Bajiroshi

I''ve always felt that Turn-Based medium to large scale combat is a bit cheap -- you have way too much time to make a tactical decision. Combat is fast-paced by nature. There are two kinds of maneuvers in combat -- Planning and Reaction. Planning is the ideal, because you can decide beforehand how to react. Reaction without planning is unpredictable.

Turn-based is just fine for the planning stage. I would like to see a combat system where you can plan out your actions beforehand in a turn-based mode, then execute it in real time. AI units act as you have instructed them too, but react logically, but you can still control them in real time, effectively giving them new orders in the heat of combat.

I hate football, but the play-by-play model could work well for an RPG -- define your strategy first, then attack or defend in real time.

As for one-on-one combat, I see no reason to resort to turn-based. There is plenty of tactical manuevering involved already in real time games like Diablo and Ultima Online, not to mention Counterstrike and Rainbow Six. No, I don''t agree that these are all complex tactical simulators but they work well enough for keeping things fun and fast-paced.

****************************************

Brian Lacy
ForeverDream Studios

Comments? Questions? Curious?
brian@foreverdreamstudios.com

"I create. Therefore I am."

Yes, some/most designer do argue that turn-base can be cheap due to the unlimited time for planning. A simple solution to this issue is to simply implement a fighting system called time-base battle system. This eliminates the "speed" or agility statistic. Your players move according to time and their planning during combat will be timed also. How can one player be faster than another? Simple, if they have the power to control time then they have the speed advantage during combat. That is all I have come up with for my small RPG game. I hope you guys like the idea. I also forgot to mention that time-base movement eliminates the purpose of taking turns. I don''t really think the idea will work. It is a idea that sounds good but will probably not be implemented right, Suikoden III''s battle system comes to mind.



"....If heaven was around the way.......a fiend who wants to get high, would he stop smoking? Knowing on his own two feet we could just stroll in......and escape from craziness and I bet you theres a heaven for an atheist." - Nasir *NaZ* Jones(courtesy of "God''s Son")

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