Area Effect Battle system

[hitogoroshi]

So with the official supporting of PC RPGM here I figured I should think about getting XP/VX. And that got me thinking about game design again. I posed this question to myself-

While staying in the classic side by side turn based system, but assuming freedom otherwise, what would be a unique twist to battling?

I came up with the Area Effect system.

In a nutshell -

The main dynamic of battles is the ongoing effect. There can only be one at a time. Many spells are related to causing or otherwise influencing Area Effects. Many of the "traditional" spells (say, fireball), are contingent on a certain Area Effect in play. Another key part is the magnitude of the effect. An example from my tentative game idea-

Rorick uses Bright Star Magnitude One!

Area Effect: Light Level 1

(Rorick and Amelia immediatley heal a small bit of life, while Malficient takes a small bit of damage)

Amelia uses Bright Blade!

(Amelia receives an attack buff. Then both Rorick and Amelia heal a small bit of life again. Malficient also takes a small bit of damage again.)

Malficient uses Dark Wave Magnitude Two!

Area Effect: Dark Level 1

(Amelia and Rorick take a small bit of damage, Malfcient heals a bit.)

Rorick uses Bright Star Magnitude One!

Area Effect: Clear

Amelia attacks!

(The Bright Blade buff applies based on the buff at the time it was used - so, one turn. However, it lasts regardless of Area Effect changes in the interim.)

Also, do note the normal rehashed element system will not return. It's Bright and Dark as principal foes. Spirit, the mana system, can be the Area Effect and recovers both light and dark spirit. There are also the anti-effects, Salamander for health and Mal for spirit, that drain most unit types. Then, there is Dys, the demonic weapon, which drains spirit and health from all units except Demons (who heal, making Dys the ultimate weapon for them) and Animus warriors (who are not affected by any Area Effects).

There's more in my notebook, but I thought I'd get feedback on the concept before I beat you all with walls of text. xD

[Shard]

Re: Area Effect Battle system

That sounds like a blast to play. Is time a factor in the flow of battle? An additional element of strategy might be the ability to have your characters act sequentially, as opposed to whomever has the most speed(or whatever mechanic) going first.

[hitogoroshi]

Re: Area Effect Battle system

Oh, crap, thats a big thing I forgot to mention. Your Area Effect will lose levels over time, and eventually go away, but once it's established it takes much less Spirit to improve. The level decay goes like this - none the first turn, none the second turn, then one level a turn. However, if you ever bump up the level with the aforementioned nominal Spirit buff, there is a one turn immunity again before decay sets in. also, it takes two turns to go from level 1 to 0. But generally the conditions will be changed quicker than natural, unless you're out of spirit.

As for speed, I'd like a system where your entire team goes in any order you chose, and then your opponent (which means that it's very easy to act on your conditions, but very hard to keep them, which will be needed with FF-tactics style delays). I need to see if XP or VX would be easier to code for this.

[hitogoroshi]

Re: Area Effect Battle system

Bump -

Some of the unit types. Note that a unit type in brackets (for example, [DARK]), means that the unit type listed has the effects of the bracketed type plus additional ones. No Spirit means that it has no spirit bar, although sometimes units are affected by Spirit Area Effects in other ways.

• Unmagic. Unaffected by Spirit and Mal. Hurt by Bright, Dark, and all other damaging Area Effects. No Spirit.
• Bright. Healed by Bright, hurt by Dark.
• Dark. Healed by Dark, hurt by Bright.
• Spirit. Spirit and health merged. Healed by Spirit. Unaffected by Bright or Dark.
• Unhallowed. [SPIRIT] Hurt by Spirit, healed by Mal.
• Crusader. [BRIGHT] Unaffected by Dark.
• Shadowbringer. [DARK] Unaffected by Bright.
• Kolrik. Healed by Dark, Bright, and Spirit. No Spirit.
• Drancir. Drains Area Effect time. Hurt by Dark and Bright. No Spirit.
• Tarack. [BRIGHT] Increases the magnitude of allied Area Effect spells.
• Cosmic. [DARK] Unaffected by Astral.
• Flame-Hearted. Healed by Salamander. Unaffected by Dark or Bright.
• Vampiric. [DARK] Drains Life and Spirit from enemies. Loses Spirit from Spirit Area Effects, gains spirit through Mal Area Affects.
• Demonic. [FLAME-HEARTED] Gains Spirit through Mal and Life through Dys.
• Animus. Unaffected by all Area Effects and Vampiric Drain. No Spirit.

There are some of the unit types. I realize I reference Area Effects you don't know about...I'll post those soon. xD

[hitogoroshi]

Re: Area Effect Battle system

Triple post! Whatever. There's more to be said on Area Effects.

Here are most of the area effects I have planed. I have a few more rattling in my brain, but there's always room for ideas for Unit Types / Area Effects! :3

First, you get the main two, Bright and Dark. Boring, yes, but they form the basis of the system. Bright and Dark Area Effects heal the respective unit types, and hurt the opposite (although Bright and Dark do not damage Shadowbringers and Crusaders, respectively. That's why they're introduced - to make conflict a bit more intense between the "vanilla types.") Then you have Spirit, which is really a common ground between the two - both Bright and Dark units benefit from Spirit Area Effects, and both may have skills that require the Area Effect, so oftentimes you'll see "truces" where both sides will buff the Spirit Area Effect in play.

But both Bright and Dark units can get over their differences against the two "anti" Area Effects- Salamander (which hurts all units except for Flamehearted and Demonic) and Mal (which drains Spirit from all unit types except Unhallowed, Vampiric, and Demonic.) Oh, and obviously it doesn't drain Spiritless units that don't have Spirit tied to health (Drancir) and of course not Animus.

You'll notice Demonic is the only one that benefits from both "Anti-Effects". That's intentional. There are quite a few unit types that are hard to fight, but Demonic takes the cake for sheer evilness. Not only can they bust out both Anti-Effects, but they've got access to one that's even more evil - Dys. Fortunately, it's rare in the plotline. It drains health and spirit, and the only immune units besides the non-playable Demonics are Animus unit. Thusly, getting one in your party is a major boon.

Now to discuss the "secret weapons". See, the main plot is the forces of Bright and Dark (not good and evil! bright and dark! big difference!) fighting to put Permenant Effects on certain areas. They each have their own secret weapons. Bright warriors get Tarack units, which increases the magnitude of any Area Effect spell an ally uses. However, Dark gets cosmic unit types, which have their own secret weapon - the Astral Area Effect. This paralyzes all non-Cosmic units, giving free attacks to Cosmic warriors (unless they're fighting an Animus unit :3).

Then there are the "neutral" Area Effects that are really unit specific - Pain, which buffs physical attacks, Storm, which buffs and is required for powerful, neutral magick, Energy, which buffs the next Area Effect (in fact, many Taracks cast Energy, as their inherent buff increases the magnitude of an allied spell, and Energy used before can buff the level as well), and the two different types of Area Effect drains - Time which simply adds rounds to the effect, like Drancir units, and the powerful Clear which just straight up takes levels away.

Oh! I forgot to mention High Magick. It damages all units severely (except for Animus ). It also acts as a huge Spirit buff. So Mal units are really just hosed. xD

So, what do you think? Also note the minor changes to the unit type list.

[Wavelength]

Re: Area Effect Battle system

I think it sounds like an awesome system! Definitely a blast to play. How will effects like Bright and Dys (or Dark and Dys) balance each other out--if there's a level 2 Bright effect in play and you or an enemy use a level 2 Dys skill for example.

When you've got a system like this, you have to be careful not to let it go unbounded and get too powerful. Is it possible for players to get up to like level 17 bright and just run the table with Rorick and Amelia? If so, is it possible in VX/XP to make the enemies smart enough that they'll use a Clear skill or something if the player is threatening to do this?

[hitogoroshi]

Re: Area Effect Battle system

That's the beauty of the system. Yes, Dys is a hell of a lot better than Bright or Dark - but with magnitude, if you cast a Magnitude Two any skill besides Bright when it's a Bright Area Effect, it just clears. The differences in power only come into play when the effect is actually there.

And re: high levels, that would be possible, but it'd drain a ton of spirit (especially to counteract the time drain.) More importantly, many bosses get really high magnitude skills to make your life difficult. In fact, getting insanely high Area Effect Levels isn't imbalanced for Bright, it's needed to stay alive against quite a few bosses, and that's why they have Taracks. That's why Drancir units are the enemy of Bright Forces, while Dark has a harder time with Vampirics (they heal from Dark as well, and they can battle Mal vs Spirit well, while draining the whole time.)