Battle System Tease

[Redeye]

Re: Battle System Tease

That battle lasted around two hours.

[Wavelength]

Re: Battle System Tease

Man, that is so amazing. I can't believe how much more flexible and powerful the PC makers are, when compared to the console makers...even RM2.

Weapon EXP? Really?

I am amazed.

Now you're getting into Disgaea territory.

Your game is looking more and more incredible all the time!

Thanks a ton Obi!!

Yes, the Disgaea series (via Phantom Brave) was probably the reason I thought of Weapon Skills and Proficiencies. I thought it worked well there, and hopefully in a less grindy game like my own, will still be a winning system.

The fact that they straight-up let you use code (and specifically RGSS code, which was developed to make stuff like graphic handling relatively easy) is what makes the "completely custom" systems so much easier to implement well than in RM2. For me, it's also nice that they opened up most of the source code, since in a lot of places I was able to tweak or copy things that already exist rather than trying to create stuff from thin air.

I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE.

Yyyyyyyep. That thread is legend.

[Redeye]

Re: Battle System Tease

Well on the other hand, this system is almost like Skyrim, where you can have multiple types of weapons and if you want to be good with them like a Sword you need to improve your One Handed skill.

Anyways, i'll let this thread slide for a while, i've got an update ready to post for my game, but i'll give this another good two hours before I bury this thread.

[Ryner]

Re: Battle System Tease

Have you implemented or thought of ways to prevent the player from just picking one weapon skill per character and just sticking with those for the whole game?

[Wavelength]

Re: Battle System Tease

Anyways, i'll let this thread slide for a while, i've got an update ready to post for my game, but i'll give this another good two hours before I bury this thread.

Thanks - I appreciate you giving it a few hours in the front page limelight!

Have you implemented or thought of ways to prevent the player from just picking one weapon skill per character and just sticking with those for the whole game?

I'm not sure whether you're specifically referring to a single weapon skill, or a class of weapon proficiency (like "Swords"), but either way it's a good question, so I'll answer both.

As far as the single skill, there are two things preventing players from using a single skill ad nauseum. First is the fact that Weapon skills (while powerful) require a chain of basic attacks to become available, so for most Weapon Skills that's once every 3-5 turns. Secondly, every day that I work on stuff I try to finish up with a half-hour or so of battle balancing, just trying different things. So if a skill or strategy gets into "mindlessly spam it" territory, I'll do something to make it more situational.

If you mean players having a certain character stick with a certain class of weapon, however, it's something I'd actually like to see players do. It's the prime reason why I implemented the Proficiencies system! It's my compromise between allowing players to develop each character's battle style rather than having me flat-out dictate what it should be (I can't count the number of times I wanted to be able to hand the Staff Chick a "real weapon" in JRPG's), versus falling into the trap of taking away a character's battle style entirely by letting you rework them every moment. So, if a player wants to say "this guy's gonna be my swords specialist", that's fine with me and I'm not actively trying to prevent it.

What I am worried about is players choosing a party and sticking with it for the entire game. And I'm working on systems that encourage mixing and matching, such as having characters be unavailable for adventuring during certain times of the day/week based on their schedules, and sharing a percentage of EXP with members who aren't in your party (to avoid letting them get so far behind that it becomes impractical to start using them again), as well as more subtle stuff like making new skills common enough that gamers will hopefully want to switch around a lot just to try them all.

[Ryner]

Re: Battle System Tease

Sorry for the confusion, I did mean weapon proficiencies. In response to your response, the idea of letting players choose whatever weapon they want is fine, but are certain weapon types better for certain characters, such as Staves being best for Mages? If so you've got to be careful not to make your proficiency system irrelevant. If there's one best weapon type for each character then you're only giving the illusion of choice.

What I am worried about is players choosing a party and sticking with it for the entire game. And I'm working on systems that encourage mixing and matching, such as having characters be unavailable for adventuring during certain times of the day/week based on their schedules, and sharing a percentage of EXP with members who aren't in your party.

I would just go the Bioware method and give full experience to non-used members. Since KOTOR I've always used a rotation of all available characters, but that was only possible because the characters you didn't use still got 100% of the experience that the used characters did. Only giving a percentage will still set them too far behind.

[Wavelength]

Re: Battle System Tease

Sorry for the confusion, I did mean weapon proficiencies. In response to your response, the idea of letting players choose whatever weapon they want is fine, but are certain weapon types better for certain characters, such as Staves being best for Mages? If so you've got to be careful not to make your proficiency system irrelevant. If there's one best weapon type for each character then you're only giving the illusion of choice.

Good point. To answer your question... I hope not! It'll come down to how good I am as a systems designer.

Almost all the playable characters in NiB are magi, so I have been zealous about making sure that all stats are relevant and nothing's a throwaway.

Now each character has a very different style of magic, so (for example) staves or certain swords (which have good INT ratings) would be the more obvious picks for a Fire mage (heavy on direct damage), whereas my Time mage (controls the flow of battle) would generally be better off with projectiles or daggers (which have good AGI ratings), but it's a subtle effect.

The last wrinkle in this is that each character selects eight or nine skills from their pool to take with them into battle, kind of like Guild Wars 1. My goal is to include just enough variety in each "style" of magic that there are dozens of completely viable and unique builds available. If you learn a few new fire skills that cause Burning (fixed degen instead of direct damage), that would be a good time to consider a change to more defensive or speedy weapons.

That's what I'm hoping to do, at least. I won't know whether I've succeeded until people have had the chance to playtest and I can get their thoughts.

I would just go the Bioware method and give full experience to non-used members. Since KOTOR I've always used a rotation of all available characters, but that was only possible because the characters you didn't use still got 100% of the experience that the used characters did. Only giving a percentage will still set them too far behind.

Thanks for the suggestion - this really might be the best way to go. Although the power curve is gentle enough that even being on the bench for half the game shouldn't make a character completely irrelevant, I can't really see much downside to sharing 100% of the EXP.

[TheHonorableRyu]

Re: Battle System Tease

I like the addition of the weapon proficiency system. Very Disgaea-ean or Fire Emblem-ish.

Another game that comes to mind that has a notable customizable weapon proficiency system is Wizardry 7. All your player characters (if you didn't import characters from the prequels) started out with 0 out of 100 proficiency in every category, and then gained stats through usage. As their stat in that category increased, they hit more often, did more damage per hit, and had gained higher numbers of potential hits per turn. Even though your player characters started with 0 in each weapon category, there were smarter choices than others. Like, every race/class had a different number of weight points that determined how many items (including equipment) they could hold. A character's Agility was also lowered the more weight they had on them. Since swords were generally heavier than staffs or darts/throwing stars, it was generally a better idea to use swords with a beefy lizardman tank (that has a bunch of weight points and has low Agilty anyway) than a magical featherweight pixie.

...But I'm having trouble figuring out a good way to for characters to actually develop those proficiencies.

• They could develop proficiency based on the number of battles they fight with that weapon. This is the system I'm leaning towards right now. It gives a nice, controlled pace of progression over time - but it might encourage players to grind weak enemies.
• They could develop proficiency based on the Experience Points they accumulate while fighting with that weapon. It solves the "grind weak enemies" problem - but it would make it way too easy, late-game, to develop proficiency with a new weapon type.
• They could develop proficiency based on how many times they actually USE attacks and weapon skills with that weapon. It makes the most sense logically, and allows a fairly steady progression over time - but might encourage players to use lots of basic attacks near the end of battles rather than having fun with magic skills.

Any advice about this design issue, or other possible solutions for developing Weapon Proficiency, would be truly appreciated!!

I think that the developing weapon proficiency through usage is probably the best of the three options. You mentioned that one shortcoming to this would be that it could encourage players to use a lot of basic attacks near the end of battles instead of having fun with magic skills. One way you might be able to curb that is to add some kind of progression-through-usage element to magic or other skills besides weaponry, or provide some other incentive to use them.

Another option other than sheer usage is awarding a designated amount of skill points for every level up, which could then be applied to upgrading Weapon Proficiencies. The skill points could be general and used for many different things besides weapons, or there could be some skill points that are designated for Weapon Proficiencies only.

This system would prevent: 1) grinding against weaker enemies (since they award less EXP and EXP is the only thing needed to get more points towards upgrading Weapon Proficiencies), 2) easy end-game development with new weapons (since the skill points are applied based on character level ups, and they won't be leveling up any faster), and 3) overusing normal attacks instead of experimenting with magic, since the skill points awarded upon level up could be the same regardless of how many times they use weapon or normal attacks.

It could also further prevent unused or underused characters from becoming underpowered in Weapon Proficiencies. If Weapon Proficiencies were based solely on usage, then unused characters would not increase in Weapon Proficiencies even if they gain 100% EXP. But if points towards Weapon Proficiency were awarded with every level up, then those other characters would get the same Weapon Proficiency points as anybody else.

One disadvantage is with this system it that it might not be the most logical. If the player has the option of choosing what Weapon Proficiencies they get to assign the skill points toward, they might assign points to weapons the character has never even used. Or if the skill points are automatically applied to whatever weapon they have equipped upon level up, players could switch their weapon right before level up and have all the points go to that new weapon instead of that weapon they were using most of the time since their last level up.

So one way of handling this problem might be to keep track of how many battles a character has had each weapon type equipped since their last level up (whether the character is in the active party or not), and then upon level up automatically assigning a percentage amount of the total skill points awarded in proportion to the number of battles that each weapon was equipped. The reason for keeping track of number of battles regardless of participation in battle (as opposed to number of times the weapon is used in battle, or only the battles in which the character is in the active party) is that it solves the problem of where points should be assigned with characters who level up without being used. Still not exactly logical, but more logical than getting upgrades in Weapon Proficiencies different than the one(s) that the character is actively using, and no less logical than awarding unused characters the same EXP.

What I am worried about is players choosing a party and sticking with it for the entire game. And I'm working on systems that encourage mixing and matching, such as having characters be unavailable for adventuring during certain times of the day/week based on their schedules, and sharing a percentage of EXP with members who aren't in your party (to avoid letting them get so far behind that it becomes impractical to start using them again), as well as more subtle stuff like making new skills common enough that gamers will hopefully want to switch around a lot just to try them all.

Those all all good ideas. (I'm also assuming that you typically won't be able to switch out party members with depleted HP and MP for fresh ones in the middle of a dungeon. If not, that would be the most obvious reason a player would not always be using the same party.)

Another way of approaching it is to design everything so that no one character, or no one party, can become so powerful or versatile that they can do anything you need might them to do in any given scenario.

You might give characters unique skills that are needed in certain dungeons or battles. Like perhaps only one character has the ability to erase enemy barriers or buffs, or the ability to scan enemies for weaknesses, or to counter attack physical hits. In your game such strategies will actually matter, since there's not going to be a nigh-inexhaustible supply of healing spells and items that can undo all poor choices and mistakes.

Or you could create rules or limits that make it easier/quicker to master all the areas of magic with many characters than with the same maximum number of active party members. You could make the skill points per character needed to achieve mastery in an area more freely granted in earlier levels and more difficult to come by at later levels, or make it so that certain characters learn particular skills earlier in their skill tree than others, and/or for less skill points. So if the player wants to quickly gain access to new kinds of abilities or areas of magic they are encouraged to do it with a new/fresh character than with the same four characters.

The thing is that if everything I need to succeed can be mastered in four characters (or whatever the active maximum party limit will be) I'd much rather focus all my development on them instead of spread out development across more characters than can be used in a battle at one time.

[Wavelength]

Re: Battle System Tease

Ryu, thanks so much for your post and advice! The thread must have gotten buried quickly and I never saw the post until last night. These are some great ideas and will give me a lot of food for thought as I move forward with my gameplay mechanics!

I like the addition of the weapon proficiency system. Very Disgaea-ean or Fire Emblem-ish.

...

I think that the developing weapon proficiency through usage is probably the best of the three options. You mentioned that one shortcoming to this would be that it could encourage players to use a lot of basic attacks near the end of battles instead of having fun with magic skills. One way you might be able to curb that is to add some kind of progression-through-usage element to magic or other skills besides weaponry, or provide some other incentive to use them.

Thanks for your thoughts on this! I really like the idea of also having some sort of bonus for using magic - it would balance out the Weapon Proficiencies nicely, and the Upgrade Trees connect well with the idea. Aside from "general SP" that you can use on any line of the upgrade tree, you could also earn points that go towards a specific spell. It would be cool.

Before I came up with the Battle Challenges as the way to earn Skill Points for these trees, I was thinking about having Skill Points be earned via use of skills (the biggest problem was that there are a lot of spells that don't do damage and could be endlessly spammed once you're a hit away from winning a battle) or "successful use" of skills (slaying an enemy with a damage spell, healing an ally to full health with a healing spell, etc., but there were multiple problems inherent in this). Due to the problems that I think would manifest in play, I went with the Battle Challenges instead.

But now with the possibility of using this type of progression to balance out Weapon Proficiencies, I feel like I can make it into a win-win, if only there's a really good way to implement the progression.

Another option other than sheer usage is awarding a designated amount of skill points for every level up, which could then be applied to upgrading Weapon Proficiencies. The skill points could be general and used for many different things besides weapons, or there could be some skill points that are designated for Weapon Proficiencies only.

This system would prevent: 1) grinding against weaker enemies (since they award less EXP and EXP is the only thing needed to get more points towards upgrading Weapon Proficiencies), 2) easy end-game development with new weapons (since the skill points are applied based on character level ups, and they won't be leveling up any faster), and 3) overusing normal attacks instead of experimenting with magic, since the skill points awarded upon level up could be the same regardless of how many times they use weapon or normal attacks.

It could also further prevent unused or underused characters from becoming underpowered in Weapon Proficiencies. If Weapon Proficiencies were based solely on usage, then unused characters would not increase in Weapon Proficiencies even if they gain 100% EXP. But if points towards Weapon Proficiency were awarded with every level up, then those other characters would get the same Weapon Proficiency points as anybody else.

One disadvantage is with this system it that it might not be the most logical. If the player has the option of choosing what Weapon Proficiencies they get to assign the skill points toward, they might assign points to weapons the character has never even used. Or if the skill points are automatically applied to whatever weapon they have equipped upon level up, players could switch their weapon right before level up and have all the points go to that new weapon instead of that weapon they were using most of the time since their last level up.

So one way of handling this problem might be to keep track of how many battles a character has had each weapon type equipped since their last level up (whether the character is in the active party or not), and then upon level up automatically assigning a percentage amount of the total skill points awarded in proportion to the number of battles that each weapon was equipped. The reason for keeping track of number of battles regardless of participation in battle (as opposed to number of times the weapon is used in battle, or only the battles in which the character is in the active party) is that it solves the problem of where points should be assigned with characters who level up without being used. Still not exactly logical, but more logical than getting upgrades in Weapon Proficiencies different than the one(s) that the character is actively using, and no less logical than awarding unused characters the same EXP.

So I do like this idea a lot and I might go with it. Thanks! I'd give a few more points for the higher levels than the lower ones, but it would be a relatively flat curve. Yeah, this does solve all three of the problems we were looking at.

As I read through your thoughts here I thought back to my current "placeholder" system of giving weapon proficiency points to each character after battle, equal to the square root of the experience they earned that battle. (The late-game rubberband effect is still there, but in a more muted form.) I originally implemented it just because I needed to implement something simple in order to playtest the changes to the character's stats as they use weapons, but as I read your post it felt a lot like a version of your own solution, and I'd really like to know your thoughts!

Those all all good ideas. (I'm also assuming that you typically won't be able to switch out party members with depleted HP and MP for fresh ones in the middle of a dungeon. If not, that would be the most obvious reason a player would not always be using the same party.)

Right. As of now the plan is that you pick two other characters to join you when you set out on an adventure, and the other characters go home for the day and go on with their normal routine.

Another way of approaching it is to design everything so that no one character, or no one party, can become so powerful or versatile that they can do anything you need might them to do in any given scenario.

You might give characters unique skills that are needed in certain dungeons or battles. Like perhaps only one character has the ability to erase enemy barriers or buffs, or the ability to scan enemies for weaknesses, or to counter attack physical hits. In your game such strategies will actually matter, since there's not going to be a nigh-inexhaustible supply of healing spells and items that can undo all poor choices and mistakes.

...

The thing is that if everything I need to succeed can be mastered in four characters (or whatever the active maximum party limit will be) I'd much rather focus all my development on them instead of spread out development across more characters than can be used in a battle at one time.

This is great advice to keep in mind every time I design a new skill or a new enemy. I need to keep a laser-like focus on making sure that all of my characters will be able to fill niches that few, if any, others can fill.

Besides the elemental immunities and weaknesses, it is a goal of mine to make each type of magic have a really different feel to it (since each party member, aside from the main character, can use only one or two types). This seems like as good a place as any to spill some info, so here are the types I've got so far:

• Fire Magic: Lots of multi-target damage and a strong focus on using the Burning status for additional effects.
• Ice Magic: Generally single-target damage; many ways to slow or disable enemies.
• Energy Magic: The best magic type to use skills and spells in continuous chains; contains many spells which restore Adrenaline as additional effects.
• Water Magic: A jack-of-all-trades type of class based on setting up the right situations; skills are powerful but either slow or conditional.
• Nature Magic: Lots of tools for debuffing foes or creating things to take hits for you. Not much damage.
• Wind Magic: All about speed. Most of its spells help you take more turns than your enemies.
• Magia Magic ("Magic that acts on Magic"): Affects enemies' ability to use skills and spells, or deals damage in indirect ways.
• Material Magic: Otherwise-weak spells that can be buffed with "Technique" power-up skills that grant them powerful bonuses.
• Rock Magic: Mostly-defensive magic that powers up allies and prevents battles from going horribly wrong.
• Corpus Magic: ("Magic that acts on the Body"): The only really reliable magic for healing. Its damage spells are weak, but bypass enemy defenses.
• Alchemy Magic: Creates temporary items that can be used by any ally for a short time, or consume temporary items for additional effect.
• Psychic Magic: Generally targets mana/adrenaline in its attacks and heals, rather than health. Also makes extensive use of the Sleep status.
• Sound Magic: Contains a majority of game's spells that target all enemies (as opposed to simply "multiple" enemies), making it great for crowd control
• Time Magic: Focused on massively distorting the turn order in battle, as well as myriad support spells that allow you to make the most of other characters' skills.

With all that said, I'm pretty sure the characters will all feel different (and I hope players will simply want to try them all out!), but whether this will translate to needing to switch between them, I guess I don't know.


Last thought here - you can choose to "use" your battle skills outside of battle, at a Mana cost, and hope for an effect. In very few cases is this mandatory, but there are a lot of places you can access secret routes (use a fire spell to clear a gnarl of vines blocking a path) or make puzzles easier (use a rock-summoning spell to summon a boulder to push onto a switch, instead of trekking halfway across the dungeon to roll one back). So I'm definitely with you on the "need their unique skills" part!

Or you could create rules or limits that make it easier/quicker to master all the areas of magic with many characters than with the same maximum number of active party members. You could make the skill points per character needed to achieve mastery in an area more freely granted in earlier levels and more difficult to come by at later levels, or make it so that certain characters learn particular skills earlier in their skill tree than others, and/or for less skill points. So if the player wants to quickly gain access to new kinds of abilities or areas of magic they are encouraged to do it with a new/fresh character than with the same four characters.

Let me know if I seem to misunderstand you here, but it sounds like you're saying that I should make sure that the player would be able to obtain a new skill/item/proficiency X quicker by using all the characters as opposed to using the same characters you've been using all game? If that's what you're saying, I think I've already got it covered with the separation between different types of magic (and their different upgrade trees), though I feel like maybe you were trying to express something else?

Again, thank you so much for these gems of advice you gave me. Lots of good ideas for mechanics I can try to implement, and lots of food for thought.



"It's like a jewel box, upended on the sand."

[Nova]

Re: Battle System Tease

Hey, I know him~

[TheHonorableRyu]

Re: Battle System Tease

...But now with the possibility of using this type of progression to balance out Weapon Proficiencies, I feel like I can make it into a win-win, if only there's a really good way to implement the progression.

As I read through your thoughts here I thought back to my current "placeholder" system of giving weapon proficiency points to each character after battle, equal to the square root of the experience they earned that battle. (The late-game rubberband effect is still there, but in a more muted form.) I originally implemented it just because I needed to implement something simple in order to playtest the changes to the character's stats as they use weapons, but as I read your post it felt a lot like a version of your own solution, and I'd really like to know your thoughts!

I think the square root of experience earned idea is a very good solution, and simpler to implement. If you wanted to mute the late-game rubberband effect even further, you could add a cap or something to the weapon proficiency points can be earned in any one battle, or even make it so that the weapon proficiency points awarded would scale more slowly (a square root of a square root?) past a certain threshold.

The overall effect then would be that if the player wanted to try a new weapon late-game they could bring it up to a decent/usable/middle-ground level more quickly, but to really master a weapon they then would have to stick with it for the long haul. Conceivably then the player could chose to fight less powerful enemies that yield weapon proficiency points at the cap/threshold in order to raise weapon proficiencies more quickly up to a certain point, but they would be paying for it by gaining less regular experience for their time spent. It may even be a good thing to give players this kind of option.

If you do go with the square root of experience idea, then that would of course would not be a strict progression-through-usage mechanic and you would not need to come up with a corresponding incentive to repeatedly use Magic skills.

Let me know if I seem to misunderstand you here, but it sounds like you're saying that I should make sure that the player would be able to obtain a new skill/item/proficiency X quicker by using all the characters as opposed to using the same characters you've been using all game? If that's what you're saying, I think I've already got it covered with the separation between different types of magic (and their different upgrade trees), though I feel like maybe you were trying to express something else?

Yup, that’s essentially what I’m saying. I think you probably do have it covered, since I see now that you have 14+ magic types, and each party member besides the main character can only master one or two types.

Where I was going with those follow-up suggestions is that let’s say that you have decided upon, say, only 8 Magic types, and each of your characters could master 2 types. Then all 8 Magic types could be mastered in one party of the same 4 characters, and there would be little incentive to use more than 4 characters. For why spend timing accruing skill points towards Magic mastery with another character when I could just as easily have it all consolidated on one party composed of the same 4 characters that I can bring into dungeon or battle? In these circumstances you would need some design mechanic that would make it so that using more than four characters would make it quicker or easier to master everything, or gain useful skills x, y, and z, between all your characters.

As you have 14+ Magic types with each character limited to one or two types, much of the problem would be solved. I don’t think that it’s necessary to make it absolutely needed to master all the types in order to complete the game. But in order to create enough incentive for the player to use different party members, there should be enough disadvantages inherent to sticking with only 8 chosen Magic types, and not experimenting, to make it a good strategy to develop different characters for different situations.

Again, thank you so much for these gems of advice you gave me. Lots of good ideas for mechanics I can try to implement, and lots of food for thought.

No problem, but I'm not sure that it's "gems of advice" so much as food for thought or suggestions based on aspects of game design and RPGs that I'm interested in. You're putting a lot of thought into the game design and I'm responsive to that.