Considering getting rid of random battles

[Arcturus]

Ok, as you can see in the title, I'm considering getting rid or random battles. What I was wondering was what the advantages are of using event battles instead of random battles. The ones I know of so far are the ability to track gold and such, and removing tedium from a game. Are there any other reasons for using event battles over random battles?

[tjoris9]

Re: Considering getting rid of random battles

Actually you can track gold from random encounters as well as random treasure drops, experience gained, etc. (See the "Tricks to spice up your game" topic stickied at the top of the page). It's just easier to do it with event battles.

One other advantage is you can include character battles in the mix, then give the appropriate gold and XP afterwards.

You can also easily change the degree of encounter difficulty and have a lot of control over how much the player can build up the party before moving on. Bear in mind it defeats the purpose of leveling up if all the monsters level up every time the party does.

You can also use event encounters in towns.

The downside, however, is that it takes up a lot more memory than random encounters, and you have limits on the number of events you can have on a dungeon level. You also can't copy events, so you have to program each one individually.

[Arcturus]

Re: Considering getting rid of random battles

I think I'm ok with having a limit on how many battles you can have in a particular area, I think it would add a sense of realism. How bad is the memory consumption though? If it takes too much then that might be a problem, as I kinda wanted this to be a decent length game.

[Ryner]

Re: Considering getting rid of random battles

I'm considering getting rid or random battles.

God bless you, sir. Sometimes you newbies make me so proud.

[Red Dragon]

Re: Considering getting rid of random battles

I wish it was easier to do in RPGM3. Alas not.

[Crythania]

Re: Considering getting rid of random battles

One event-based battle doesn't take up much memory. It should look like this...

. Play Melody - Encounter
. Screen Effect - Enemy Encounter
. Battles - Select monster party (or Character Battle)
. Battle Result Branch
. Win Branch
. . Display Off - Invisible battle event (so it doesn't happen again)
. . Revive Party - Near death (if you don't want to have churches to revive defeated characters)
. . End event
. Loss Branch
. . Game Over - Play a storyteller

That's not a whole lot of code. As with anything else, it's the volume of events that will devour memory. This is true of everything. A gazillion towns, maps, dungeons, characters, etc, and you're gonna hit 99% data usage very quickly. My advice is to go for quality over quantity in all things. And don't worry about the game's length. Making a 40+ hour epic is not a good reason to be making a 40+ hour epic.

"Raiders Of Lekunder" has event-based battles. I did away with experience gaining because it wasn't necessary. Characters gain Hp and Mp after each boss fight. Strength, defense, and such are gained from purchasing better equipment and/or from finding unique accessories. The 15-20 hour game is streamlined, with very few battles (compared to a game with random encounters). Most of the time, your characters are as strong as they need to be. Not too strong, not too weak. Sometimes your party has an edge over the opposition, sometimes they're closely matched.

It all depends on what you want to do with your battle system. I wanted to have "tough, smart battles" against opponents who put up a good fight. Each battle tends to run pretty long, so I didn't need to have oodles of them. Enough to give the impression that we're exploring a place where monsters live, but not so much that the battling dominates the gameplay. I think there are something like 50 battles in the entire game.

My advice is to keep the event battles to a minimum if possible, and vamp up the quality of each encounter. But that's just my personal preference.

Keep in mind that you won't be able to have battles on your field maps (unless you design very mountainous regions with choke points where battles can be placed).

As far as I'm concerned, "removing tedium from the game" is reason enough to go the event battle route.

[Arcturus]

Re: Considering getting rid of random battles

Thanks for the input Crythania. I like the idea of having no leveling up at all, and I might of even put in my game if it would work. But it wouldn't work because I have a style system. At a certain point in the game, you choose what style of combat/weaponry you use, and that affects your stat growth rate, abilities, powers etc. As I was reading your post, it reminded me of how much control I would have over what level the player would be at a certain point in the game. That really appealed to me because I was concerned about the player feeding off the same creatures over and over again which would make them to powerful for a boss or something. Also, I was having issues trying to get the lower level xp gaining just right. Using event battles makes all that not a problem. So thanks for replying, I think you aswered my questions.

[Linkman712]

Re: Considering getting rid of random battles

how do you plan on making a style system?

[Crythania]

Re: Considering getting rid of random battles

If you take out level gaining, you can still make it flexible. The style of combat/weaponry the player chooses can still affect his character's stats, abilities, even what spells he gets. You can design a custom-made system that operates all of that.

You can make it as flexible as you want. Provide optional accessories that give stat boosts, for example. Make it so the player has to find them or buy them from a shop. There are any number of things you can do to provide options and choices the player can make to optionally get stronger.

I put a lot of secrets in my game. You have to find optional bonus items that can give you an edge. Then, when you find one of 'em, you gotta decide which party member gets it. There's strategy involved.

I forgot to mention: Taking out random encounters means that there will be a finite amount of gold in the game (unless you provide something like an "Endless Bag Of Gold"). Make sure there's enough money to afford everything we need. We won't be able to go out and get into some REs if we run low on money.

In fact, the whole gaming atmosphere is different in a game that doesn't have REs. If your battle events are non-repeating (each encounter only happens once during the entire game), it's possible for the player to clear out an entire dungeon and then safely walk back through it with no monsters popping up along the way. This style of gaming is more exploration-based than battle-based (although there's no reason why it can't be battle-heavy).

The gaming strategy is different. It's based around clearing out an area rather than exploring an area where the bad guys never go away. If your battles are tough, the player will need to heal up his characters after each one, in anticipation of the next one (as opposed to fighting a large number of REs where the heroes generally aren't taking much damage). It'll also be possible for the player to safely leave a dungeon and return to town for more supplies at any time (no REs to go through to get there). It's a different gaming environment in so many ways.

[Arcturus]

Re: Considering getting rid of random battles

Well, it's already done actually. What I did was set up a character that was sort of your mentor. You start your training, and he asks you to choose a style. I have strength, defence, speed, and balance as styles. When you make a choice, the game takes out your current character, and replaces it with an exact duplicate of that character, except for the stat growth rate, abilities, and powers. It also gives you a different weapon for each style you choose.

Crythania, I was about to type up why I said that, but then I realized that you were right. For every boss I could just have it give a stat boost to every duplicate character, and just make the stat boosts different for each style. That is actually a truly excellent idea. I think I might even use it, if that's ok with you.

[Crythania]

Re: Considering getting rid of random battles

Crythania, I was about to type up why I said that, but then I realized that you were right. For every boss I could just have it give a stat boost to every duplicate character, and just make the stat boosts different for each style. That is actually a truly excellent idea. I think I might even use it, if that's ok with you.

Why wouldn't it be okay with me? Go ahead and do it!

[Arcturus]

Re: Considering getting rid of random battles

Well I was just trying not to be an idea stealer or anything lol. Anyway, I have another question for you, if you don't mind. How would I have accessories or weapons in my game without them being unbalancing? The reason why I ask this is that I try to base the enemies stats on the balanced style's stats. That way when you fight them with the other styles or my two other characters, there unique attributes become apparent. Also, for the weapons, it's kinda a problem since for the speed style, I have a weapon that none of the other weapons look like. It's in the regular sword category, and it's the small wavy one. I wouldn't know how to make it so you can get different weapons for that style.

[Crythania]

Re: Considering getting rid of random battles

I consider any gameplay ideas I post here to be in the public domain. Now characters, names, anything specific to a story or unique game, that's a different story. But general gameplay ideas, anyone should be able to use them.

I think the point of having optional accessories and stuff is to unbalance it. I created a good number of accessories. Each item boosts one of the four main stats (Strength, Magic, Def, Mag Def). There are items that boost it by just a bit, items that boost it by enough to give you a good edge over the opposition, and then some more powerful ones that boost multiple stats.

As I said, the player has to find most of this stuff. The weak items can be bought from the Armory, but you have to find the more powerful ones (by solving puzzles of a sort). I played through the game without getting any of this optional stuff. It was pretty challenging at times (but still well within the bounds of reason). The optional stuff makes the game much easier. The point was to provide the player with a pretty good reward for going out of his way to do the side quest stuff.

But you've got the right idea. Formulate the gameplay around the "balanced" style, and the others will be easier/harder, each in their own way.

What you really should do is think of the gameplay as being in a range of difficulty. So, if you're thinking "Okay, my 'balanced' guy should be doing 10 damage here", instead think of it in terms of "Mr. Balanced should be doing 10 to 15 damage here." That allows for optional equipment that can boost your power.

When I made my game, I wasn't really wanting it to be at a static difficulty level throughout the whole thing. Some parts are too easy, others are challenging. I think it's important to have segments of the game that are too easy. For example, we start out fighting goblins, orcs, and bats who all put up a good fight. Then we get a little stronger. The monsters aren't quite as threatening anymore. Then we get stronger again, and we outmatch those guys by a pretty wide margin. It's like, "These guys were giving us a hard time before, but now we're getting some comeuppance." Then, of course, we start meeting guys who are tougher and can keep up with us. And so it continues, with us getting tougher and outmatching guys who were giving us a hard time, then we meet new guys who give us a hard time.

If the game is statically difficult, that may become tedious after a while.

Another thing I did was: new spells are gained from "book on table" events. You find a book, the characters read the title, discuss who's going to open it, then one of them opens it and gains a new spell. I'm always trying to provide new things, and just when it starts to get a bit too tough, you'll find a new spell that turns the tables on it.

There's a balance between "challenging" and "easy" throughout.

[Arcturus]

Re: Considering getting rid of random battles

Holy crap, I have been trying to get on this website for about 5 hours now. Anyway, you answered pretty much all of my questions except for the thing about the weapons, but I just think I'm going to use daggers and knives and such, and then work my way up to the short sword. Thanks again Cryanthia for all the help you have been.

[ErikaFuzzbottom]

Re: Considering getting rid of random battles

As far as game length goes, make the game as long as you need to. If the story calls for a long game, so be it. No reason to force it smaller than you want, unless there's not enough memory for the whole thing. Even then, there's the data swap trick, though that's only recommended if the old locations in the game never get revisited.