Combat system advice?

[Tsundere Lightning]

A lot of my projects are RPG-VN hybrids, and I was wondering what advice you'd give about RPG combat systems.

What do you like in Final Fantasy style combat systems, and what do you like in grid-based combat systems?

What would you avoid like the plague?

Any pet peeves about particular games, or examples of RPGS that did it gloriously right?

[papillon]

Ooo, pet peeves! *unrolls the list*

Learning a long list of skills which don't scale with level, so that your early attacks are completely useless later in the game and you still have to scroll past them in order to select anything useful.

Endlessly upgrading equipment which isn't in any way different or interesting, just the same as what I have with slightly bigger pluses on it - especially when it means I have to carefully compare new items to worn items and swap things out for tiny number differences. I'd be happier if I had to go have my existing armor enchanted or add gems to it or something, instead of always replacing it. Or if I were making meaningful choices between armor that's good in different ways.

Being stuck in combats that are either hopelessly hard or hopelessly easy. If I *know* I'm outclassed but can't either flee or load an old save and have to wait as I'm slowly whittled down, it's annoying. If the monster is clearly way below my level but I have to waste time selecting attacks on all my characters before I can squish it and move on, that's annoying. Level 1 spiders should flee from me in terror, not get in my way! (The option of letting the AI do auto-battle for low level monsters is nice too...)

[Meems]

My pet peeves would be:

Triggering random encounters every five seconds. (The Mushroom Rock Road sequence in Final Fantasy X comes to mind here.) Battles are fun, but when I can't take more than two or three steps without starting ANOTHER one it gets annoying.

Games that FORCE you to level grind. It may just be me, but I have little patience for excessive level grinding. I want to get on with the plot; if I have to stay in one area running about for hours until I gain enough experience so that I don't get flattened by the next boss I get frustrated.

[LVUER]

Top 5 Things that I Hate to Happened in RPG (and they happened all the time -_- )
1. Low Level Random Encounter. My characters are over-leveled and yet I still need to deal with a random encounter every 5 steps or so, to fight against enemies that I could decimate in less than 5 seconds with normal attacks... and to load every encounter, we need about 5 seconds too... talk about testing my patience...
2. Sudden boss fight with no save points, and game over means restart from last save (not save point, but saved game). It's still ok for an action game, but for an RPG... imagine if after 3 hours exploring a dungeon, and suddenly (out of blue) you are presented with a hard boss fight. You don't know attack pattern of the boss, you don't know a thing... and you lost, you have to repeat those 3 hours...
3. Permanent Status Down. I think there are no more game like this, but in the past, there are several games (like Earthbound) that have enemies with skill that could actually decrease your stats PERMANENTLY! You only get 1-3 stats up per level and with a simple skill, enemies could decrease your stats by 1-3?! Get real!!!
4. No exp. Some status ailments that will decrease or make your character don't get any exp from a battle (like WA3). Now I really hate that if it happen in a boss fight.
5. Item limit. Some games deliberately limit your items to 15. Why don't they use the usual 99? And some game even limit your inventory... And I hate most when the game don't tell you anything when you have hit the limit (and lost all the items... and it happened so many times to me).

And I don't think I need to add this, but I bet every one hate level grinding. Not that I really hate it, but I still hate excessive level grinding where I need to grind for 5 hours every time. Like this :
- 2 hours of dying and 3 hours of leveling up in the beginning of game
- 2 hours of dying and 3 hours of leveling up before entering first dungeon
- 2 hours of dying and 3 hours of leveling up in the first dungeon
- repeat when you already make a new progress in the story (like going to a new city, or reaching the next dungeon).

For me, grinding is just enough with deal/beat all the enemies in that particular dungeon (never escape in any battle).

[Jake]

What do you like in Final Fantasy style combat systems, and what do you like in grid-based combat systems?

I would start by saying that generally, games I've enjoyed with FF-style battle systems I've enjoyed because of the story and characters and world, while games I've enjoyed with grid-based battle systems I've enjoyed because of the battle systems. I'm thoroughly enjoying both Xenogears and Jeanne d'Arc on my PSP at the moment; if Xenogears didn't have any random battles I'd still be playing it... and I don't care much about the characters or story in Jeanne d'Arc, but I love the mechanics. Hell, technically Advance Wars has a story, but I don't remember any of the characters, factions or plot points... but I recollect exactly how to play the game and really like the series.

That's not to say that it's impossible to make a grid-based battle game with a decent story, but grid battles are highly likely to take significantly longer than FF-style battles, and involve more combatants, so even if the proportion is actually quite similar, it'll feel like more time is being spent on the battles in a grid-based game, so I guess that's probably why the system feels like the important part.

What would you avoid like the plague?

One big problem that we had in MorningStar is that we wanted battles to be believable, so we gave the enemies similar stats and similar attacks to the protagonist (since they were all supposed to be students at the same school)... this made battles incredibly long - it wasn't unheard of for the first battle the player fought to go on five minutes or more. It was like fighting a long series of boss fights with no regular battles in between. So one thing I'd suggest would be making sure that you give the player a sprinkling of low-level battles they can sweep through relatively easily to build their confidence every now and again... or alternatively, make the battles few and far between, so they don't completely dominate the time spent playing the game.

examples of RPGS that did it gloriously right?

One really nice thing about Xenogears, IMO, is that the 'attack' option doesn't just have your guy jump over and hit the enemy once, but you enter Tekken-style combos of different-strength attacks, up to a certain AP total. There's two parts to why this is better than the traditional FF approach:
- Firstly, there's a tradeoff that means you have to think about even your vanilla attacks; heavy blows (3AP) do a little more damage than three light blows (1AP ea.) but they're also easier for the enemy to dodge, and vice versa. So you're considering how agile the enemy is, how likely you are to hit, and how you can get the most damage out of your AP based on those variables.
- Secondly, new 'deathblows' - special moves - are unlocked by performing certain (not pre-known) strings of button-presses. Which means that even when I'm fighting low-level grunt enemies, I'm more engaged in the battle system because I still have something new to do - I'm trying new sequences of button presses and seeing if any of my unlearned deathblows are levelling up. Once you've learned the deathblows they're free to use in regular battles and generally do more damage than the attacks that make up the sequence would, so it's worth exploring the moves and unlocking them.

Now, there's lots of other nice things about Xenogears, but this system alone makes the battles more enjoyable than your average FF game, without really being that much of a departure, remaining easy to learn, and not distracting the player with too many options right at the start of the game.



In another direction completely, I also really like Grandia's battle system, in that it's not just turn-based but positional. You attack a monster, your guy runs towards that monster and stays there, swinging away; if the monster is too far away you may even waste your turn running. Monsters also run around, area effect spells literally work based on those positions, etc. ... Skies of Arcadia and Eternal Sonata, off the top of my head, both had variants on Grandia's approach - Eternal Sonata takes it to an extreme and actually makes you carry out your turn real-time within a fixed limit, allowing you as many hits as you can swing before your time runs out.

[jack_norton]

I've recently finished Dragon Age and that's probably the best RPG I've ever played on any platform. A few key points it has:
- shared inventory (some "purists" might not like this, but is much easier to swap item/weapons between players)
- auto-leveling enemies. There are no easy encounters until late in the game when you got all the skills etc. At first I was pissed because I lost some battles, but actually I was using wrong tactics in the battle. Once I got it, it was perfectly balanced.
- difficulty setting : every RPG should have that. Is impossible to find the "right" difficulty for everyone. Some like to read the story so want easy-average battles, others prefer to have challenge,etc
- autosave: it was autosaving before each "big battle". That was really a good choice
- real NPC: they seem alive, make comments on player decisions, talk during dialogues, have a relationship status with you, you can romance them, etc. Quite a step from the standard "robotized" NPC without feeling

now about my personal tastes, I simply hate "puzzles" in RPGs. For example, was playing Lost Odyssey for Xbox, and I gave up towards the ending because of some insanely annoying puzzles. Not "difficult", simply stupid/annoying, like to move characters around 150 locations, with random battles appearing every step, to switch some levels around... If you add that in a RPG I'm sure you're going to piss off lots of people (me for sure!)
edit: oh about random battles: they're cool but if made like in Dragon Age. That is, you travel from another location, and you'll encounter ONE random battle. Not like some japanese rpg where every 2 steps you HAVE to do a random battle!

[luminarious]

About travelling and random encounters.. Fallout 2 was really interesting because the random battles were avoidable (you could just continue your journey) and some were non-battle special encouters.

What I hate? Generic levelling. I much prefer the kind of system where your skills get better as you use them. I mean, levelling is ok but does it have to be so explicit? Numbers are boring.. >_<

[jack_norton]

What I hate? Generic levelling. I much prefer the kind of system where your skills get better as you use them. I mean, levelling is ok but does it have to be so explicit? Numbers are boring.. >_<

that kind of system is very hard to balance, game-design wise. I remember there were lots of exploits for Oblivion for example...

[Meems]

Fallout 2 was really interesting because the random battles were avoidable (you could just continue your journey)

Final Fantasy XII has something similar, IIRC (you can run from battles quite easily), but it puts you behind in experience in a game that already requires a lot of level grinding. Which, of course, made it so you'd be running from even more battles just to survive.

[luminarious]

I've been feeling some ambivalence towards RPG-s in general lately. At some point I realized that my life is an RPG itself, and thus if I spend time levelling a pixellated representation of myself, I am actually wasting my precious lifetime.

Obvious result of this line of thinking is that I now wish there were more games like Puzzle Quest, where the battle is between the real me and the computer opponent. Pretty much all games that require levelling to advance -- to the point of having to grind -- actually reward you with progress according to the time you have spent playing. Nonsensical..

[Wintermoon]

There are three types of combat systems: those with a strong action element, those with a strong strategy element, and those with neither.

I enjoy combat systems with a strong action element, so long as it is well done and not too difficult. The combat in Swordcraft Story was just plain fun, even if it was highly repetitive.

I also enjoy strategic combat, but only so long as I can make interesting strategic decisions. If I can just reuse the same strategy that I used the last time, the battle is boring. Once I have the upper hand, the rest of the battle is boring. If the obvious strategy works, the battle is boring. If the ideal strategy takes too much time, the battle is boring. Strategic combat is fun, but it requires a lot of variety and careful balancing in order to remain fun.

I don't enjoy combat systems that have neither action nor strategy, although I am willing to tolerate them to some extent if the rest of the game is good enough.

[LVUER]

One really nice thing about Xenogears, IMO, is that the 'attack' option doesn't just have your guy jump over and hit the enemy once, but you enter Tekken-style combos of different-strength attacks, up to a certain AP total. There's two parts to why this is better than the traditional FF approach:
- Firstly, there's a tradeoff that means you have to think about even your vanilla attacks; heavy blows (3AP) do a little more damage than three light blows (1AP ea.) but they're also easier for the enemy to dodge, and vice versa. So you're considering how agile the enemy is, how likely you are to hit, and how you can get the most damage out of your AP based on those variables.
- Secondly, new 'deathblows' - special moves - are unlocked by performing certain (not pre-known) strings of button-presses. Which means that even when I'm fighting low-level grunt enemies, I'm more engaged in the battle system because I still have something new to do - I'm trying new sequences of button presses and seeing if any of my unlearned deathblows are levelling up. Once you've learned the deathblows they're free to use in regular battles and generally do more damage than the attacks that make up the sequence would, so it's worth exploring the moves and unlocking them.

Now, there's lots of other nice things about Xenogears, but this system alone makes the battles more enjoyable than your average FF game, without really being that much of a departure, remaining easy to learn, and not distracting the player with too many options right at the start of the game.



In another direction completely, I also really like Grandia's battle system, in that it's not just turn-based but positional. You attack a monster, your guy runs towards that monster and stays there, swinging away; if the monster is too far away you may even waste your turn running. Monsters also run around, area effect spells literally work based on those positions, etc. ... Skies of Arcadia and Eternal Sonata, off the top of my head, both had variants on Grandia's approach - Eternal Sonata takes it to an extreme and actually makes you carry out your turn real-time within a fixed limit, allowing you as many hits as you can swing before your time runs out.

Xenogears is indeed good with 1, 2, and 3AP attacks. But other than attack power vs number of attacks like you said, that kind of normal attacks don't have other functions (and people will use deathblow rather than normal attacks). And even the deathblow skills are too many and similar (makes them almost useless). I only use 2 (or perhaps 3) of them. There are also option to store your AP (up to 20 I think), but it's also almost useless other than the cool factor.

Well, all of those issues have been fixed in Xenosaga. Instead of 8AP, you only need 3-4 AP (and there is also high speed "deathblow" so you could use them every turn). And rather than 1, 2 ,3 AP attacks, you get physical, ether, or beam based attacks (and enemies have their own weaknesses: biology, robot, gynosis based enemies). And almost all Xenosaga deathblow is unique and still usable even later in the game (since they grow stronger and you could power up your deathblow).

Grandia ^_^ One of my favorites game and fighting system. If you good, you could connect combo like crazy (and enemies never/rarely hit your party member). If you bad though, you'll be squashed like crazy by the monsters. And Grandia 3 has the best system among all where you could really connect insane combos, including air combos. I never get bored in battle... or rather I never feel I'm grinding my party level since the battles are so fun. The only 2 other games that make me like this are the recent SRW OG EF (yes, it's an RPG not turn based strategy) and an old Tales of Eternia (only Tales of Eternia, not other Tales games).

Too bad Grandia 3 also have THE worst story and characters among all Grandia... and one of the worst among all other RPGs.

Fallout 2 was really interesting because the random battles were avoidable (you could just continue your journey)

Final Fantasy XII has something similar, IIRC (you can run from battles quite easily), but it puts you behind in experience in a game that already requires a lot of level grinding. Which, of course, made it so you'd be running from even more battles just to survive.

I like Chrono Trigger for having battle in same field (not switching screen like other RPG) so you could further "avoid" the already non-random battles. Seeing enemies before hand means you could prepare your party before running through enemies blindly. Breath of Fire Dragon Quarter offer one of the best fighting system (though the most difficult one too). Where you could even prepare traps before you engage your enemies.

I also love Fallout 2. If you want, your protagonist could never fired even a single bullet in finishing the game. Cool, huh!?

FFXII not only need heavy level grinding, you also need to grind for item/equipment and even for the treasure chest (probability chest so you need to save/load often... and a good walkthrough). This is all due to make your offline RPG experience likes those online MMORPG one. Do you, people in Square, think we, gamers, LOVE spending tens of hours pointlessly (even in online games)?

Oh, and FFXII have one of the worst (if not really the worst) summon monster and systems among all FF games. Indeed that there are times that the summon is actually useful... but that only for 1% of the entire game... And I only use two of them ONCE in my entire game.

[Jake]

Xenogears is indeed good with 1, 2, and 3AP attacks. But other than attack power vs number of attacks like you said, that kind of normal attacks don't have other functions (and people will use deathblow rather than normal attacks). And even the deathblow skills are too many and similar (makes them almost useless). I only use 2 (or perhaps 3) of them. There are also option to store your AP (up to 20 I think), but it's also almost useless other than the cool factor.

Deathblows - sure, there's lots of them, but they broadly go up in power; as you learn new ones, the old ones are less useful (unless you're trying to hoard AP and still do decent damage). If you don't use the normal attacks when you have the opportunity, you don't learn new deathblows so you can't deal so much damage, so there's still a point to having them. And there's definitely plenty of use in storing up your AP; it allows you to deal a long combo of deathblows in one turn, which has been pretty useful more than once so far (I'm about 38 hours in, right now) for taking out bosses who heal themselves. It's not worth doing in every single fight, but there are cases where it's a pretty good strategy.

But really, my point is simply that the fact there are more options than just 'attack', and these options vary in utility depending on the enemy you're facing and other situational factors, means that I'm paying more attention and thinking about and enjoying the fights more often than I did in - say - FFVII. It's still the case that I'll get used to certain enemies or not think at all while despatching low-level bad guys 'cause I wandered into an earlier portion of the world map, but it's a better situation than many games.


(Conversely, I find Eternal Sonata a little annoying in this regard, despite largely enjoying the battle system more than most. I like the mechanics, but if you are facing off against an enemy you know exactly how to beat or outclass to the point it's barely worth fighting them, it takes longer to get the battle over with in Eternal Sonata's system than it would with a straight FF-style 'hit bad guy' button.)

[LVUER]

I don't mean Xenogear is bad. It's pretty creative in its time since it's probably the first to feature 3 kind of normal attacks. And yes, without using normal attacks (doing same combination for a particular deathblow over and over to unlock new deathblows). What I want to say is that after you unlock all deathblows, you just don't want to use normal attacks anymore. And even the deathblows, older deathblows won't be used any more after you acquire newer deathblows (kinda a waste). So in the end, you only use about 2 or 3 deathblows from more than 8-10 deathblows per characters.

Well, not that bad though, since they're old RPG. What I want to say is... all that was fixed in Xenosaga. Fewer deathblows but unique and all useful. Upgradeable deathblows. Fewer AP. Different type of attacks rather than light/normal/heavy blows.

Oh, and the latest monolith RPG: SRW OG Endless Frontier is my fav. games ^_^ with battle system similar to Xenogear/Xenosaga! In this games, there's only one button involved in attacks (contrary to 3 in Xenogear and 2 in Xenosaga). And timing is very very crucial in this game (kinda like fighting games) so people with bad reflexes or simply hates fighting games will probably hate this game. Perhaps I could describe them here :

WARNING : This game have LOTS of fan-services (and sexual offensive conversation though nothing serious), ex: sexy/revealing female characters, bouncing breast, (light to mild) foul language. So for those who are easily offended with that material, I suggest to not play the game.

1. No deathblows. Normal attacks are deathblows. Right now, all my characters just got 3 normal attacks but I'm pretty sure all of them will get more.
2. You attack with A button. You could arrange your attack (skill list) roster with all kind of attacks you have (numbered from 1-5). And in battle, you could press A repeatedly to unleash attacks according to the list (number 1 first and then 2, 3, 4, 5) as long as you still have COM left.
3. Each normal attacks are unique (and nicely animated, just what you expected from SRW games) so you'll use even the first attacks you have later in the game. Every attack have following attribute: ATTACK, F. GAUGE, COM. Attack determines damage, F.Gauge is how much you fill your super-meter (which you'll want to fill ASAP). Com is how many more attacks you'll able to perform. Since you only have 100% COM max per character (and only recover about 20% COM per turn), you'll want to vary your attack roster. If all 5 your attacks cost more than 100% COM, you'll be unable to attacks for several next turn.
4. Combo is your friends! Because of that, older attacks still useful since they have different animation (I mean different juggles), different amount of hits, and different height (I mean how high you launch your enemies to air). Some attacks even launch/knock enemies back, buying you some times for more combos. The higher hit you accumulate, the easier you deal critical hit.
5. Juggles, juggles, and juggles. Just like I said, combos are your friends. And every time possible, keep your enemies in the air. Why? First it keeps the enemy from building their guards (some even have complete block which negates damage for several hits) and also keeps enemy from activating their forced evasion (that forced you to end your current turn). So arrange your attacks so enemy never touch the ground while you juggle them.
6. Cancel, use them accordingly. If you never use cancel, while you deal MUCH more damage (especially with mover with high ATTACK rating) it takes forever to build F.Gauge. If you use cancel (by pressing A button at specific moments when you're still in attack animations), you build up F.Gauge much more faster.
7. Because of all those combo, juggles, and cancel, it's very advised that you not mashing A buttons like crazy. Wrong timing in pressing A buttons will make you waste COM/attacks. So careful timing is crucial.
8. Frontier Gauge (F.Gauge) is basically like Super Meter in fighting games. Fill it up to 100% and you could unleash an over-drive attack (every character have their own over-drive attack). OD attacks deals insane damage, high hit (some even up to 64 hits), high critical rate, and grandiose animation ^_^ Again, this is what you expected from SRW games. Oh, and be warned that this game have LOTS of fan-service. So activating an OD attacks will give you a nice eye candy, like bouncing breast, exposed skin, etc.
9. You also could switch characters. As long as the next person in turn roster is your characters, you could press right to switch characters (so more barrage). Switching will give you some F.Gauge and COM boost so it's a good thing. But just remember that you could only attack one enemy at a time.
10. And then there is support. Every characters are given 2 support attack (for every attack turn they have). Using support costs 5 Sp and will have the supporting character appear and do some attacks (which is independent with your button so you could keep pounding enemies while supporting character do their own attacks).
11. Every characters have spirit (or magic in FF) that uses SP (spirit points) and just like SRW, you could activate them before normal attacks (and don't cost you a turn). Using item(s) also don't cost you a turn. Nice ^_^

There should be mecha in this game (what is SRW without Robot in it?) but I still haven't gone that far yet. Makes me wonder how is the mecha battle? Now if you think about it, this game is really similar with Xeno series, isn't it ^_^

Well, I hope this could help you in building better RPG battle system ^_^

[Tsundere Lightning]

Wow! Thanks for all the feedback and advice.

One thing that I'm getting REALLY strongly is that people hate unavoidable random encounters, particularly if they're too common; and that grinding sucks rocks. I'll be sure to work the level systems so that a normal amount of combat should be enough to get you though the main game to a good ending, with no problem.

I also heard that Xenosaga rocks XD because the 'fight' command also allowed for some interesting tactical decisions - light versus heavy attacks with different Action Point costs. I hadn't considered implementing that kind of a system, but now it seems kind of obvious.

Again, thanks for the great feedback on that.

What about special abilities? Magic/Psi/Tech, whatever?

I know that one of my pet peeves is how freaking weak status effects are in most games; there is no reason to EVER cast Sleep or Poison on an enemy. 4 points of damage a turn if it succeeds, whoop-de-do.

On the other hand, in Mother 3 (the sequel to Earthbound), against certain types of enemies status-affecting abilities ALWAYS work, and are critical to winning tough battles. I LIKE that a lot. It's always so gratifying to put a bad guy to sleep, then use that to inflict critical hits on everything (you can 'hear their heartbeat,' making it easier to time attacks to the music).