Turn-based Vs. Phased Combat

General Discussions
#1

I’m working on the design for a casual RPG, and I have a design decision to make. I want to use Phased combat, but I would like to get some other people’s opinions on this.

Note that real-time combat isn’t an option. I don’t want to deal with it.

Turn-based Combat:

In turn-based combat, you decide what your character does when it’s your character’s turn. This is the “normal” way to do things, and it allows you to make decisions based upon everything that’s already happened.

Phased Combat:

In phased combat, you decide what all your characters do at the beginning of the turn. This is more realistic in that the characters won’t be aware of what has happened in the past few split seconds, so you have to make your decisions without this knowledge.

It also has the advantage of allowing you to reuse your decisions from the last turn, only modifying the ones that need to be modified. The engine will be smart enough to change the targets so that you never attack someone who is dead.

The only recent game I’ve seen this in is Wizardry 8. It used to be fairly standard. It seems to me that it would at least be something different to include in the game even though it’s not entirely unique.

#2

I’m going to go with Phased because Skies of Arcadia used phased and I thought it was awesome =)

It just feels a little more strategic, making you account for more elements of chance, even in simpler fights.

#3

Phased feels a little bit more strategic to me too. I was really impressed the first time I played a turned-based game, but phased combat somehow seems more desirable to me now.

I would check out Skies of Arcadia, but I don’t have a Dreamcast. :frowning:

#4

I vote for phased too. We made our football game using that system…

#5

Someone on another forum (rpgdx.com) brought up an important issue.

Let’s say that character A is dead. You have character B cast Revive on him and character C cast Heal on him. Since you have to pick the actions before the turn starts, you can’t prevent character C from going before character B (which might happen alot if character C has a higher Agility). If character C goes before character B, the Heal spell will be wasted. Moreover, the next monster that hits character A will kill him because he wasn’t healed by character C. Hence, character A might not be able to come back to life simply because of the game mechanics.

In a turn-based game, you could just have whichever character goes first cast Revive and the next character cast Heal.

Does anyone have any solution for this? It just occurred to me that the player could be allowed to specify the order the characters act in, but it seems like that would be way too complex.

Does anyone know of any modern freeware/shareware RPGs that used a phased combat system? I’d be interested in seeing how they pulled it off.

#6

The way i have done it is instead of the character (character 1) acting directly on the other character (character 2), character 2 would maintain a list of commands/spells pending to be performed. You can then analyze the list and reorder if things don’t make sense (like the revive-heal thing).

Thats one way…

DP

#7

Or you could just have revive give the unit 1/4th to 1/2 to full depending on the level of the revive spell (or however you want the mechanics to work out). As long as it’s enough health to keep the person alive through a hit or two. Generally I think you wouldn’t be able to cast heal on a dead target, just like you can’t cast revive on a living target (in anticipation of it dieing).

OR, I’m not so sure about this, you could have some kinda duality where revive defaults to a matching level heal spell. Whether you actually select another existing spell or it just has a [revives to 250 health or heals 450 health] property would have to be decided. But I would probably keep it simple and go the way mentioned above. If you do add complexity, make sure it isn’t in-your-face scary that would divert confused newbies from figuring out the mechanics system and/or playing the game at all.

And Skies was also remade for the Gamecube, if you have one of those =).

#8

I want to make action-choosing simple, so having the player choose a list of actions for each character is out. There could be some kind of automatic substitution for spell-target combinations that don’t make sense (such as casting Heal instead of Revive on a living target).

I was planning on having a few different Revive spells, which would restore varying amounts of HP depending upon how powerful the spell is.

How about this solution? If a character is casting Heal on a dead character, the character will wait until that character is revived. Every time the next character is about to move, it checks a list of characters who couldn’t act because of a non-sensical command (such as casting Heal on a dead character). If it gets to a point where every character who hasn’t acted is blocked, they just do some default action. When possible, they might just retarget the action (i.e. healing a live character).

Certain actions might be handled differently. When attacking, it would retarget on-the-fly instead of blocking the action because it doesn’t matter too much who you attack.

This would take away a certain amount of freedom though. If there’s an enemy that explodes when attacked with a melee weapon, it could cause a problem.

#9

What about a turn-based action point system? Each character has a certain number of action points per turn, and each action costs a certain number of points. This would allow some characters to have multiple attacks or an attack and then a spell.

Fallout uses a system like this, though it includes walking around. The game I’m designing won’t include movement during combat because that would drastically increase the amount of artwork required.

#10

I’m not sure about your master plan, but action points without movement sounds unusual. Then again, maybe it will turn out totally awesome and will become the new standard for RPGs.

Also, I really think you should just not let people choose actions that would be “nonsensical” unless that action is available at that time. If it becomes impossible at that point, retarget or substitute something very similar.

#11

Action points would basically be a substitute for weapon speed and the casting time of spells. So it wouldn’t be entirely unusual.

Not allowing people to choose nonsensical actions makes sense, but that does limit you somewhat in phased combat for the Revive-Heal example mentioned earlier. Still, making Revive heal the target does solve that to a significant extent.

#12

Turn based with action points are used in Xenogears and Chrono
Cross, I found the system very funny.

In Chrono Cross each character had 7 points to use,it could attack
(light 1 pt, middle 2 pts, strong, 3pts) or call an spell with the 7 points.
If the char has 0 or less points it could not play until recovering.

I’m a fan of Active time Battle from Chrono Trigger (i.e. Turn based,
without wait). if you do not issue a command for the player, the CPU
retakes its turn and attacks.

Rafael.-

#13

Phased FTW!

Round combat often is a question of who can attack the opponent first (Note: not who gets to move first)

It also adds a lot more strategic possibilities seeing as you have to commit yourself to an action or set of actions. Something I have also thought about for possible titles.

But this all depends on the type of game. F.i. I could imagine turtle combat with such a system but for a zelda clone (expecially a casual version) it would be to much.

#14

I think I would like Chrono Cross’s system, but I’m never going to play it unless it comes out for the PC with mouse controls (which will never happen).

I don’t like Active Time Battle systems because I like to have time to think about my actions. Also, I don’t want to penalized if I have to go shove the dog outside or something.

I think for the casual game I had better use Turn-based combat. In fact, I think I had better not even have action points for it.

But when I make the hardcore RPG that I’ve always wanted to make, I’m either going to go with phased combat or turn-based with action points. I think phased with action points would just be too much planning ahead for anyone.

#15

I’ve been reading related posts on other forums, and the other forum with a poll seems to be predominately opposed to phased systems. I’m leaning more and more towards a turn-based system with action points for a hardcore game (and a simple turn-based system for a casual game - no action points or anything).

I really want phased combat to work, but the more posts I read about it, the more problems come up.

I think I’ll go with simple turn-based combat for casual RPGs and turn-based combat with action points for hardcore RPGs. Even so, I’d like to make a game with phased combat some day even if only to say that I have done it.

But I’ll leave that for the distant future when I’m not living practically in poverty. :slight_smile:

#16

Dunno if someone still cares:

You can also merge reatlime and turnbased by placing all entities in the same timeline. The usual turn based game goes like:
Side A makes turns with all units, then Side B makes all turns. This is basically unrealistic. If you attack with one unit and dont kill the target, you attack the same target with the next unit, until it is dead. If it dies after the first attack, you use the second unit on another target. Although you would consider to happen all actions in the same time, not in a sequence.

This is where phased combat is interesting, when commanding one unit you do not know the outcome of other units actions. You might waste an attack if you attack the same target with 2 units, or the target remains alive and can strike back, because one attack was not enough.

Final Fantasy X was turn based, but all units, friendly and enemy, where in one timeline. So the order of who can take action was mixed. Maybe you could attack with 2 people, then 2 enemies had the turn, and so on. Depending on which action a unit makes, it takes longer until it has the turn again.

It is more towards turn based, you know which units act next and you know when the same unit can act again, but you cannot act with all of your units. The combat is more interactive and you usally have to care for the enemy which will act soon. I found that many tactic games do not like the mess of realtime. Even if you give commands in pause, the execution in realtime (phased combat) can be chaotic. Combat Mission made it that you can replay a phase as often as you want, watching it from different views.

-JAW

#17

I will always care about this topic. As a matter of fact, I’m still finishing up my current project and haven’t even finished the design for the RPG yet.

So, basically, you’re idea is to have phased combat except that the actions all occur in a real-time phase aftwerwards.

I think that could be a little bit hard on the player watching the actions. I’ve played games where you can pause and then watch the game in real-time. Your idea is kind of like having it automatically pause after some unit of time. That actually sounds like an improvement to me.

I think it would work better for games with larger numbers of units that can do more though. The RPG I plan to make is on a much smaller scale, so I think it would be better if the player could sort of micromanage the units.

Our current design is to have the game be sort of a “casual” RPG for adults who don’t have alot of time but want to play an RPG that isn’t targetted towards children.

I’ve played a game called Septerra Core. In this game, you have a bar that fills up like in Final Fantasy 3. Instead of just allowing you to start your turn, you can act at any time, but how full the bar is determines what actions you can use. Septerra Core has 3 different divisions, but I was thinking of having 5 for my game. Depending on how many bars are filled up, you can do any of the following actions:

Action Points Required

Item 1
Stun 1 (non-lethal, low damage attack)
Spell 2
Attack 2
Battle Technique 2-5
Charged Spell 4 (requires twice the action points, but also has twice the effect - which usually is better)

I’ve attached a screenshot of Septerra Core in case someone would like to see it.

#18

That sounds like an interesting system.

I’ve been thinking about making a game similar to Jagged Alliance 2, but with multiplayer (even MMO). I liked the turn-based system in JA2, so I want to also make my game turn-based. However, waiting for the other players to take their turn might make the combat boring. Especially if there are over 10 players taking part into a combat, it’s not practical to keep the game strictly turn-based, where only one player at a time can give orders and move (under a time limit of 30-60 seconds).

The system that you mentioned, where action points (AP) are added as time goes on, and you can act at any moment when you have enough APs, might suit my JA2-clone-MMO game concept. The challenge is creating a system which (1) allows tactical playing, (2) does not force you to wait very long for the other players (when 10-20 or more players are in the same fight), (3) is fun to play and (4) easy for new players to learn. What do you think?

One detail in JA2 was the interrupt system, where occasionally you got a turn while the enemy was moving. For example, you have a character with leftover APs from your last turn, and during the CPU’s turn your character notices a new enemy to come into his direct field of vision, but the enemy has not noticed your character. At this point the game gives your character an (optional) extra turn so that you can surprise the enemy by shooting him in the middle of his move action. Would it be possible to implement this interrupt system in a multiplayer game?

#19

I’d say that whenever you have more than 2 players, you can’t have the game be turn-based unless it’s something where people are playing by email or something. I would never wait 10 minutes to start my next turn.

You would have to have some kind of real-time system. You could actually use something like the Septerra Core system. You would just have to make it so that the game doesn’t stop when someone is choosing an action (which is what happens in Septerra Core). It would be something like the active time battles in Final Fantasy 6 (a.k.a. Final Fantasy 3).

Having 10-20 players in the same fight with a real-time system would be utter chaos, but that’s better than having to wait forever to act. People would have to sit there eating popcorn while waiting for their turns to start.

I would think that the interrupt system would still work. The game being multiplayer means that you would just have to check more characters to see whether they interrupt the other characters’ turns. So long as this doesn’t actually pause the turn of the player who’s moving, it should be fine.

#20

Another alternative would be simultaneous planned movement kinda thing.
During each choice interval the player can decide what he wants his units to do in the next active interval.
Kinda like if you were playing MP C&C and the game were paused every 10 secs for 10 secs and you could only move your units in the pause time.

Annoying? yeah!

Also I would use the MovementPoints system so that your char can do/start actions that cost less points then are consumed in the interval.

Also for such a system I would do multiple action frames.
Say one for movement, one for actions
Then you can tell your char to move to the barrel, shooting all the while and then ducking behind it.

@Jackal von ÖRF:
The extra round system could just be done automatically. You have a guy with extra shots reserved (note: reserved != unspent) then the guy will blast at the first target he gets.
The OS-Ufo project does that.