Battle engine, I can't decide.

Game Play & Game Design
#1

I’m torn on how to program this battle engine, because it’s going to have to be fun enough to keep people playing seeing as most of my game will revolve around dungeon exploring and combat.

The dungeon exploring is generated and what-not in a similar way to Kevin Glass’ dungeon generator.

When the player collides with an enemy object, he will be thrown into the battle state. Where the action takes place.

So, throw some ideas out. Right now I’m between real-time turn-based (like FFVII) or real-time action combat (Like KH, TWEWY)

#2

I think turn-based combat allows for more strategic gameplay, if you do it right.
You can have things as accuracy and fatigue, to help it.

#3

I like pausable real time, the way BioWare RPGs do it. Those actually use turns under the surface, just at single-second granularity

#4

If done right real time can be so addictive, but also become really repetitive. Unless this is avoided I prefer turn based, ff7 being my favourite.

#5

I’d like some original ideas thrown in too, because I want this to appeal to casual players too.

#6

have a look at Star Ocean 2 and 3

you encounter enemies like Final Fantasy (not completely random, you see them, like FF13)
in battle mode its very dynamic and with running around

its great

#7

It reminds me of the Persona 2’s.
Hmm.
That’s a brilliant idea!

#8

Also, one thing you could try is making really weak enemies be killed without you having to fight it. I have no idea how well that will work, but it would be a very nice thing to see.

#9

What, like this?
“A wild xxxxx appears!”
“It instantly explodes because of your intense stare.”

#10

I think that way is reserved for Chuck Norris ;D ;D ;D
Don’t try to copy him or you will explode

#11

Hmmm, the ‘Auto-battle’ is sort of like in Earth Bound, where weak enemies run away, and are automatically defeated if you enter battle with them (Tends to be more of a level VS level thing).

Persona 2’s movement was more of just a… Graphical effect than anything else. There wasn’t an AoE system to it. The movement just happened so that it wasn’t like many of the RPGs at the time, where you faced your enemies across the field and attacked, returning to where you were. I mean it was cool, but it was essentially just graphic element than a gameplay element.

#12

I love your ideas, thank you so much! I will start tonight on the graphics I will need (A lot of it is already done) and do the actual programming tomorrow perhaps. Depends on how tired I am after Track practice.

Here’s how it’s gonna work so far:

Player on left, enemies on right. Fight starts, and everyone’s time gauges starts filling, and when it fills, you can select what you want to do. If it’s an attack, he will run across the field to the enemy he’s attacking, and they can do the same. However, they can’t do anything unless their time gauge is full which is reset after commands are inputted.

If you collide with an enemy, in which generally engages a battle, and their level is laughable compared to yours, it will simply destroy them and throw some kind of generic message like, “You kick so much ass, they disintegrated in your presence.”

Lol, any battle mechanic ideas?

#13

Hmmm, mechanics?

Hmm, why not do a combination of something “active” and something quazi-TBS.

Like, say you have ‘radius’ and ‘line’ based AoE. So, at the start of the battle, your opponents are arranged some how. You run in, hit 'em, changing the field. Hits can have a “knock-back” ability, that will move enemies slightly. AoEs are done from the current character position rather than ‘moving to’ enemies. Don’t worry about movement costs or anything like that?

It’ll give it a little bit of strategy, like “We need to knock them together to AoE nuke 'em”, or “This enemy is healed by this AoE, so we need to knock it out of the area before we AoE”.

#14

Elaborate a bit more, I don’t understand what you mean.

#15

Well, let’s say you have a map. It’ll be something of a “grid” of course. So, your character’s start in some arrangement and your opponents start in some arrangement.

Attacks will have units (Characters/Enemies) run towards the targeted enemy and smack it.

Now, if you’re not worrying about where enemies are, aside from how the attacks get animated (The running to the enemy stage) this should be everything. Attacks will hit some predefined subset (Think like DQ where AoE spells hit the groupings listed in the enemy list), all enemies or a single enemy, regardless of where they are.

However, if you worry about placement, which can be fun, you can add fun stuff like directional AoEs and abilities that change enemy’s positions (Such as Knock Backs).

So, let’s assume we have three players and three enemies. The enemies are in a loose group, say in a row three units apart (The edge enemies will be six units apart). Your characters are arrayed five units apart in a row (So that the edge characters are ten units apart). If your edge characters can hit the edge enemies backwards, it’ll put them in a triangle, and probably knock them so that they’ll be closer than three units from the middle one.

Now, let’s say that the middle character has an AoE that hits in a radius of 2.5 around a target enemy. After that knock back, it’s liable that the AoE hits them. If they don’t, they’re not in range.

Now, let’s say you can get a character to move to where one of the edge enemies were, and the other enemies didn’t move during their turn. Then, if that character has a line AoE, he could hit the other two.

It’s less “Strategy”, because you should make it so that enemies can be defeated without worrying about position. But making it feel special that you managed to get this fantastic AoE combination.

If you need image examples, I’ll try. :smiley:

#16

No, I see what you mean.

Hmm. I’ll try and think of a way to implement it into what I have. I think I know how this will work.