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I've been working on my RPG game for some time. For those of you who don't know, I have been taking a hiatus this summer while I deal with some real-world issues - my new job, moving a couple thousand miles, and getting married to a beautiful girl Now that things are starting to settle down, I've been rethinking my design strategy, and getting a feel for how I want my game to progress.

The plot is largely fleshed out, but gameplay is still a HUGE issue to deal with. What I'm working on for the characters is a combination of recruitment and job-class transitions. Players don't have control over how most of their characters advance, instead they can recruit/defeat/hire new characters that have desirable stats and abilities.

For the battle system I was originally leaning towards a hybrid ATB/tactics interface. The player arranges his characters in a formation similar to Suikoden, except that the map had more influence - height and distance between the character and the enemy factored in, for instance. The overworld map was going to be a 3D grid-based system similar to the maps of Final Fantasy tactics. Movement was an issue in this, but it can probably be overcome with some clever mouse tricks.

While I was off the face of the earth for a couple months, I was thinking about a single-player RPG version of Worms. In particular, I looked at some of my favorite titles like the Final Fantasy series and Chrono Cross and thought about how this might effect the game. A friend of mine told me about Gunbound, a worms-like MMO title. Ballistics gameplay has been around for an eternity - I used to LOVE playing Scorched Earth.

The one significant drawback is melee combat. In gunbound and liero, melee doesn't even exist, and in worms, its mostly used as a humiliating method of defeating a foe. That could simply be because the melee weapons were relatively weak. Depending on how my game deals with terrain, melee can be either powerful (flat, continuous terrain) or nearly useless (bumpy terrain with lots of islands).

This style also offers some fun twists to the common turn-based or ATB-based style. There is a large variety of weapon effects that can be employed in spells - splash damage, area damage, spread shot, etc. and unique elements could be employed. Here's a list of some ideas I've come up with based on some common RPG themes:

- Palom and Porom's "Twin" tactic. Instead of having them cast a single powerful spell, each character would aim their attack separately, and where the two intersect is where the spell hits.

- Wind cave. In ballistics games there is usually some wind effect to screw things up and make your shots go awry. In a normal setting, the wind would change slowly over time - in a highly windy section, the wind would change quickly and unpredictably.

- Gigantic enemies. They're going to be easier to hit because they're so freakin' huge. They could have dynamic defense depending on where the hit lands - increasing the difficulty of the shot. An enemy like Adamantaimai (FFVII) might have terrific defense along its shell, but relatively little defense at the head.

Anyhow, thank you all for considering this poll. I just want to get an idea of what others think about some of my thoughts as I move this game along. I want it to be something that would be fun both to play and to design. Thanks for your help!

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Oh sure, I don't have to get kicked in the junk to activate it, but I like it anyway. -- Thief commenting on the difference between Throw and Blue Magic.

If you haven't played Growlanser 2, you should. It has a system that I think you'd like, based on your comments here.

Unfortuantely, since I don't know anything about the game you're making, I can't offer a real opinion. Different styles work for different games. It depends on what kinds of specials commands the characters have.

Also, elements can be good or not, depending on the things that are implemented alongside them. For instance, Suikoden III's Fire magic was incredibly useless due to the combination of it hitting an area in the combat (including your characters) and the fact that you couldn't specifically move your characters. (Some of the Chrono Trigger specials were less worthwhile for similar reasons.) Area effect spells like that are definitely best in a tactics style game.

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Veni, vidi, dormivi.

I love a tactical battle system.

In fact, while watching battles in Naruto episodes, I started dreaming up a 3D tactical battle system for a game set in the Naruto universe.

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

I really enjoy the tactics-style strategy battles. These have been the only games where battles didn't feel tedious or boring. (Random menu-based battles usually involve doing the same thing repeatedly, because each dungeon only contains a few different enemy parties.)

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The world before the fall...
Delightful is the light of dawn...
Noble is the heart of man...

Null-voted. Just as long as the system is fun and fast to get through. FF Tactics's battlesystem was boring as hell and often I'd finish my battles under 6 or more minutes, then I'd have to save the game after each random battle or boss battle because I took that long and I'm not going to recollect my exp and stuff again if I die.

I wouldn't mind tactical-style or atb-style, like I said.. Just as long as its straight forward and fun. And make sure you have the speed/turns system work perfectly, because most FFs had terrible speed programming (I mean sometimes characters get random amounts of extra speed in the beginning, often making a slower character go before the faster character omg!)

I definitely want the game to feel fast-paced - even if its not. This will hopefully be accomplished through both speed tuning and battle variety, no matter what system I use.

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Oh sure, I don't have to get kicked in the junk to activate it, but I like it anyway. -- Thief commenting on the difference between Throw and Blue Magic.

Alright, let me ask a slightly different question:

Would anyone be interested in a game that had multiple battle systems? The suikoden series comes to mind as being the only one I can think of to offer two battle systems. Even then, one battle system was clearly the "main" system.

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Oh sure, I don't have to get kicked in the junk to activate it, but I like it anyway. -- Thief commenting on the difference between Throw and Blue Magic.

Skies of Arcadia and Xenogears are two more games with "alternative" battle systems that come to mind. If the seperate systems are well-designed and well-implemented then why not?

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END SPOILER

Quote

Would anyone be interested in a game that had multiple battle systems? The suikoden series comes to mind as being the only one I can think of to offer two battle systems. Even then, one battle system was clearly the "main" system

SUIKODEN HAD 3 BATTLE SYSTEMS:

Possible spoilers: highlight to view

#1: the normal one. round-based monsters vs characters
#2: War. Faction vs Faction
#3: Character vs Character (1vs1). Example: when the main character fights general teo.

This post has been edited by FireStorm on 15th August 2006 16:28

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Quote (WildHalcyon @ 25th July 2006 17:58)

Alright, let me ask a slightly different question:

Would anyone be interested in a game that had multiple battle systems? The suikoden series comes to mind as being the only one I can think of to offer two battle systems. Even then, one battle system was clearly the "main" system.

Bahamut Lagoon does!

Sorry, I've been playing that game recently.

Thanks for the continued advice folks. I'm still thinking about what to do with this. I haven't had any time to sit down and write any code yet, so there's no big rush for me to do anything.

I'm also working on slightly revamping the character system. The original plan was to have character "advancement" occur through recruiting. Each character would be somewhat fixed in how good they were. As the story advanced, players would find more powerful individuals to recruit, with better classes, skills and statistics.

The new method is going to be more similar to a hybrid between Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy Tactics - the player can continue to recruit new individuals to hire onto their team, but what classes are available at any specific time will depend on whether the player has unlocked the class through various storyline plots.

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Oh sure, I don't have to get kicked in the junk to activate it, but I like it anyway. -- Thief commenting on the difference between Throw and Blue Magic.

I think that if you're making a game, keep it like FF battling. FFTA made it different and that didn't make it a whole lot interesting (besides the graphics) and FFCrystal Chronicles was good for the graphics and the music (I liked the music. Some of it was soothing night music that could lull you to bed and someone was music that you could just listen to enjoyably).

Anyways, sorry for getting off topic, just wanted to give that info., still, it would be always a good idea to go with the original battle system for FF because that's what all the FFs that came out did. So, therefore, the system is pretty popular among FF games and will probably stay that way since it makes the game interesting!!!

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Profanity is for those who lack the intelligence and imagination to otherwise express themselves.

Revelation 19-22
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Favorite FF -------------- FFVI
Favorite FF character - Unsure (Setzer or Vivi)
Favorite FF songs ----- FFVI
Favorite Esper: Ragnarok
Favorite Magic: Ultima

I'm looking forward to the way the battle system will turn out, even though I'm not completely confident on the way it will be yet.

One of the issues I'm working on right now is deciding what classes and ranks to have for the characters, and in turn work on ability lists as well.

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Oh sure, I don't have to get kicked in the junk to activate it, but I like it anyway. -- Thief commenting on the difference between Throw and Blue Magic.

Definitely a Tactics-style battle system

Alright, I've finished the rough outline of how my battle system will work. Thanks for everyone's suggestions! I was really debating whether I should have a ballistics-shooter style RPG, and I still might do something like that in the future (a sort of Mega-Man-meets-Final-Fantasy game...), but for my first foray into the realm of RPG programming, I'm sticking with something fairly traditional.

Im aiming for a nice blend between ATB and Tactics. Before battle, in the game menu, the player selects a formation for their group which designates how the characters will be positioned on the field when the battle starts.

At the start of the battle, the characters in your party are arranged on the battle field according to their formation. Once their stamina gauge fills up, characters can select an action - including deciding to move to another position.

One of the things I think is nice about my system is it allows relatively short, quick random encounters with a couple enemies to a long battle field with several dozen opponents lurking.

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Oh sure, I don't have to get kicked in the junk to activate it, but I like it anyway. -- Thief commenting on the difference between Throw and Blue Magic.

If you do the Megaman-like shooting thing, that woudl be pretty neat. You could equip the character with a weapon and they could use the weapon and as they kill enemies/bosses, you get points/exp. Then when you reach a certain amount, you gain a level and you could learn all the spells like in FF4. Then you could have each spell have a bar like in Megaman and use it like it is and/or power up the spell (like Megaman does) and unleash a more graphic attack of the certain spell.

That's a great idea WildHalcyon. You should do that!

This post has been edited by SetzerGabianni147 on 20th August 2006 22:29

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Profanity is for those who lack the intelligence and imagination to otherwise express themselves.

Revelation 19-22
----------------------------------------
Favorite FF -------------- FFVI
Favorite FF character - Unsure (Setzer or Vivi)
Favorite FF songs ----- FFVI
Favorite Esper: Ragnarok
Favorite Magic: Ultima

Quote (SetzerGabianni147 @ 20th August 2006 17:28)

If you do the Megaman-like shooting thing, that woudl be pretty neat. You could equip the character with a weapon and they could use the weapon and as they kill enemies/bosses, you get points/exp. Then when you reach a certain amount, you gain a level and you could learn all the spells like in FF4. Then you could have each spell have a bar like in Megaman and use it like it is and/or power up the spell (like Megaman does) and unleash a more graphic attack of the certain spell.

That's a great idea WildHalcyon. You should do that!

Thanks setzer! I'll work on it, but right now I really want to do a more classical style of fantasy game. Its something I've wanted to do ever since I played FFIV, and now I think I have the skillsets needed to make that happen.

Maybe, after the success or demise of this first project, I'll consider the Mega-Fantasy, or whatever. ;-)

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Oh sure, I don't have to get kicked in the junk to activate it, but I like it anyway. -- Thief commenting on the difference between Throw and Blue Magic.

The Tactics battle system is by far my favorite, complite freedom and realisum, flawless in my opinion.

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"You know that feeling you get when you're on a merry go 'round, and you want to jump off to make the spinning stop, but you know it'll suck when you land? I feel like that all the time"- Keno

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Quote (No-Name @ 21st August 2006 16:17)

The Tactics battle system is by far my favorite, complite freedom and realisum, flawless in my opinion.

It offers neither of those things, in fact - especially not with the modifier of "complete" added before them. Complete freedom would be 360-degree in varying increments, not a square grid. Complete realism would be real-time strategy, not a turn-based CT system to think things out.

Also its vary difficult from a design perspective to properly balance melee and long-range attacks in a tactics battle system.

Definitely not flawless. Its a good system, just not a flawless one.

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Oh sure, I don't have to get kicked in the junk to activate it, but I like it anyway. -- Thief commenting on the difference between Throw and Blue Magic.