I'm slowly working on a turn-based RPG hobby project based on the early final fantasy games (especially final fantasy I-III). I've had an idea on adding a dynamic to the game through the manipulation of the combat zone's environment. To start, here's an example of the combat zone:

Essentially the four player-controlled characters act as a separate 'hit box', where an enemy can either choose to attack one hit box (one character) or, if the attack allows it, multiple/all hit boxes. The combat doesn't evolve any further then that. You can only attack the hit box's and the rest of the environment only acts as aesthetics.

So I was playing nier recently (no don't leave! this is relevant) and from the very first boss battle I was completely enraptured. I loved the strange fluidity to the battles that treated the boss battle as a living event, rather than a singular instance. The environment, perspective and goals changed constantly throughout the different stages of the battle, creating this weirdly wonderful gameplay.

After playing it, I realised that my game has so much potential in this area. Especially because it is turn-based, it allows me to separate environmental changes into events that can constantly shift between one turn to the next. For example, a character may be able to change the environment to different elements buffing that element and weakening the polar element. Perhaps changing to a water environment increases lightning damage as well, or adds a stun effect to it. Or an enemy could drag one of the player characters into the air, shifting the viewpoint and creating a hit box (character) up in the air. If that character doesn't use an ability to safely land in 1-2 turns, he slams into the ground and takes fall damage. However perhaps he has an ability that could increase exponentially with gravity added to it, doubling the damage in the air and sacrificing his health for the fall in return. If I let my imagination free, I can imagine all sorts of crazy ideas in relation to the environment. Especially with boss battles, adding some crazy environment changes would liven them up. The dynamic gives freedom and variety to an otherwise methodical type of gameplay.

At the moment, I'm still in the 'I love this idea!' stage and I haven't done any testing or serious thought. I was just curious on other people's thoughts about it, and hoping to receive some feedback on the idea before I develop it further. An outside perspective is much better to give an objective viewpoint on the idea. I think one of the potential problems with it is that it may change from 'variety' to 'randomness' if I'm not careful, becoming more of a frustration to the player then fun. I should definitely focus on including clearly defined rules on how the environment affects the gameplay if I include it.

Hopefully I don't sound dumb here. I've just came back to game design after an extended break, so I'm very much naive in many areas.

I don't see any core problem with mechanics and I think the addition could make static battles more exciting (an issue which always dogs turn-based games). I can imagine that you have more art / animation requirements depending on how you're doing graphics. Is range a factor? Can a spell / attack create a flood of water pushing an enemy back, or open a chasm between attacker and target? This may be entirely in the wrong direction, but I can imagine per tile effects creating barriers or dangers, but then that might drop you into having to deal with positioning and movement even if it's just of hit boxes, which may be undesirable. If you did go that way, however, it would allow for more dynamism: You could have a trap-like battle area, range concerns, cover all within a more easily depicted 2D environment.

4 hours ago, Wavinator said:

I don't see any core problem with mechanics and I think the addition could make static battles more exciting (an issue which always dogs turn-based games). I can imagine that you have more art / animation requirements depending on how you're doing graphics. Is range a factor? Can a spell / attack create a flood of water pushing an enemy back, or open a chasm between attacker and target? This may be entirely in the wrong direction, but I can imagine per tile effects creating barriers or dangers, but then that might drop you into having to deal with positioning and movement even if it's just of hit boxes, which may be undesirable. If you did go that way, however, it would allow for more dynamism: You could have a trap-like battle area, range concerns, cover all within a more easily depicted 2D environment.

I also had thoughts on going in that direction, but I'm still a little tentative as I don't want to over-complicate the gameplay. The type of old-school turn-based gameplay I'm designing leads to a lot of grinding (fast and repetitive battles for basic monsters), so either I need to not impact the time it takes to finish a basic battle, or I need to make each individual battle more impactful.

Currently I'm leaning towards making the battles more impactful, so less but harder battles that offer greater rewards for completion. This way I can also make more interesting and varied enemies instead of 'cannon fodder' so to speak.

I think this is leading my game toward a good direction, but I'm also leaving the roots of those types of old-school turn-based RPG's. I'm not sure how this will impact my game in the long-term.

To include the environment, I'm thinking of expanding the 'hit boxes' and leading toward a simplified grid-based environment as per my example (with the game having three characters/enemies at one time):

With 1 being friendly, 2 being neutral (further separated by enemy neutral and friendly neutral) and 3 being enemy 'hit boxes'. It is further seperated by sky, field and ground (underground) environment levels. Is that easy to understand? Sorry if I made it confusing, I'm not good at explaining things.

The idea is to define an environment effect by quantifying what type of grid it impacts.  For example, an ability can impact the 'sky' 'friendly' (so top 1's) environment. Or another ability can impact the 'field' 'enemy neutral' environment (so left middle 2's). or it can impact all environments. This way I can decide on an effect and quantify its relationship to the battle zone. Do you think this system is a good idea? I can always fiddle around with what grid layout works best, but I thought the general concept was a good direction.

The only thing I'm worried about is taking things too far and turn it into a pseudo version of the isometric field-based gameplay that games like final fantasy tactics use, which I definitely don't want to do. It isn't the type of gameplay I want for this game.

As for art/animation, it would definitely be a large increase but I don't believe it would be too overwhelming. Just because the animations and art will only need to be drawn once because of the style of game it is, but I'll take it one step at a time.

Generally, a boss takes longer too beat, and, and adding some HP to a monster isn't hard design-wise.

I recommend to figure out the "environmental"-spells you want to implement, and think about HOW long they should last; not all should last indefinately.

Terrain changes are most interesting when players are frequently moving around; otherwise it's kind of just another way of saying "buff/debuff".  But I can see why you want to keep battles short; I can still play the SNES-era RPGs because battles are over so quickly.

What about a tug-of-war mechanic, where the battle line moves left and right across the battlefield depending on player/enemy advantage, and running the opponent off the screen is a win?  Like the Chocobo Eater battle in Final Fantasy X?  That combined with manipulable terrain is an interesting combination, because the characters/enemies are being pushed/pulled on and off buffed/debuffed terrain, and that sets up interesting decisions.  But it's still compatible with having quite fast battles; it's not like you have the freedom of movement and action that makes a SRPG tactical battle so much slower.

My 2 cents : I was like "oh, yeah, taht can be great" and then I read about the "buff/debugg" comment of valrus and I realized something.
It's totally like a buff/debuff, like, "you take damage if you don't land" => it's delayed "poison" damage, if you don't cure it => you'll take damages. Or am I wrong ?

I still think that can be a good idea and you can think of all your effect like "usuall effects" (an aura of water => less damage from fire) but with more visual representation. Can be cool.

Good luck !