Battles vs story/interesting quests

Started by Mouth for war, Fri 05/02/2016 10:38:22

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Mouth for war

Hey y'all! I was thinking about something. In my game I'm working on, there are turnbased battles like the older final fantasy games. I know it is easy to criticise yourself but my main concern is that people will find the battles boring after a while (NOT YOU RETROJAY I know you like them!!! :D ) It is what it is of course. You have your turn and you can do either a melée attack or shoot with one of the many firearms you'll find. You can use grenades,throwing knives use a bazooka etc. I don't feel that they are boring really. Probably because I am creating everything, it can feel repetitive and boring eventually when you test and test and test everything all the time over and over again...and then some more and more....hehe.

If a game (any RPG game) has an interesting story and good quests, would you still play it even if you'd feel that the battles could become a little tedious after a while? I did put in a skill you can upgrade that lets you skip battles though hehe. 3 times in the beginning but eventually, if you choose to upgrade that skill it will be limitless(or close to limitless at least) You must fight to level up though so....well...you're stuck anyway haha. Some minigames will earn you skill points too sometimes.

When you revisit areas because of a quest or whatever that has weak enemies in it, it's nice to be able to skip fighting I think. I am planning to have some other stuff sometimes too just to break the repetitiveness...maybe some QTE's or real time stuff (Like you're on a boat and shoot with a cannon at something in the water for example) So...do you give up if everything about a game is great except that you feel that the battles are not the best or do you keep playing? And again, I'm not saying that the battles in my game ARE boring, I just fear that people might think that the battles becomes boring and don't want to play because of it and that would suck when I have put so much energy and time in to this project! ;D So...let me hear your opinions about this
mass genocide is the most exhausting activity one can engage in, next to soccer

NickyNyce

This can be tricky. I like to see new things as I get deeper into a game.

Perhaps you can have different enemies, or more enemies that you need to fight at the same time that have less health. This should help break up the game from being too repetitive. Maybe you can have enemies that only take damage from certain weapons later in the game. Or enemies that multiply if you don't kill them quickly enough.

There are sneaky and creative ways to keep the game feeling fresh. I think it comes down to when you decide to throw some curve balls at the player.


Darth Mandarb

I have always preferred the old-school "turn based" mechanic!

I don't find it boring at all (perhaps a tad repetitive if you're grinding, but if you're grinding then just deal with it! (nod))

I mentioned this in Andail's thread (in the CL) but I have never really liked the game mechanic where you "level up" as you play and that the bad guys get harder/stronger as you progress.

It's always felt so unnatural to me. Why wouldn't the main bad guy just send the toughest baddies he has after you right from the start? Instead he sends his "equal" minions after you every step of the way letting you learn, grow and level up so that, by the time you reach him, you've learned/grown enough to defeat him! It makes me think there's a global bad-guy conspiracy where they actually want you to win!

TLDR; I don't think there's anything boring about the turn-based mechanic!

Radiant

Quote from: Mouth for war on Fri 05/02/2016 10:38:22
Hey y'all! I was thinking about something. In my game I'm working on, there are turnbased battles like the older final fantasy games. I know it is easy to criticise yourself but my main concern is that people will find the battles boring after a while
It strikes me that pretty much all successful RPGs have mechanics that allow battles to stay interesting. What you need is engaging tactics.

Babar

Balancing fighting mechanics so as to make them fun, interesting and still challenging (i.e. making it the main "gameplay") requires effort and a level of skill and know-how that I simply don't have, so I never tried it. HAVING certain options and abilities are just as important as placing them properly, having opposing options, and spacing them out properly, but I'm not sure there's a way to figure out what works best other than just lots and lots of testing.
There certainly are RPGs that people play also (or even sometimes mostly) for the combat/gameplay rather than just the story- I think Divinity- Original Sin is an example of that.
And yeah, weak or repetitive combat certainly can be overcome by good story- for example, I persevered through some of the small bits of Planescape: Torment's grindy bits because I was invested in the story. But of course, it is not an optimal situation.
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Mouth for war

#5
Yeah I'm not a big fan of enemy level scaling either and I hope I can manage to keep it interesting...there is a pretty cool drive by attack that can be done...IF you join the bandits (Yeah that's right Bethesda...you CAN join the "Raiders" in my game :D ) A reward from them at one point will be a walkie talkie that gives you a 50/50 chance of calling in some help and if it succeeds...a bandit comes up behind all enemies on a motorcycle doing a driveby shooting on all of them :D

Grenades have different effects so they will actually feel really useful for once. One is a normal exploding one. One is firebased that also removes a percentage of an enemy's defence. One has a blinding effect and one with paralyse. Throwingknives that can cause bleeding on enemies (like poison...lose hp every X seconds) So it's not only hit or shoot with guns at least. Enemies can also cause bleeding etc on the player. There's a adrenaline syringe you can use to speed up the battle gauge for a few rounds...but when it goes out of your system...the gauge will go up very slow for a while...so sometimes you must think if it's worth using stuff etc.
mass genocide is the most exhausting activity one can engage in, next to soccer

Mandle

Quote from: Darth Mandarb on Fri 05/02/2016 14:08:18
I have always preferred the old-school "turn based" mechanic!
I mentioned this in Andail's thread (in the CL) but I have never really liked the game mechanic where you "level up" as you play and that the bad guys get harder/stronger as you progress.

It's always felt so unnatural to me. Why wouldn't the main bad guy just send the toughest baddies he has after you right from the start? Instead he sends his "equal" minions after you every step of the way letting you learn, grow and level up so that, by the time you reach him, you've learned/grown enough to defeat him! It makes me think there's a global bad-guy conspiracy where they actually want you to win!

It could be explained partially if you have cutscenes where the big-bad hears there are some wimps going around making trouble, they underestimate the player, and say "Oh, just send some sandturtles to chew on their asses and they'll run home to mama...", then they send the first Boss attack when they realise the threat might be greater than they thought.

Or perhaps big-bad is fighting a war and they doesn't want to spare their elite troops. Or a bit of both.

Or maybe you don't even fight the big-bad's actual minions until you get closer to their lair, because big-bad hasn't heard of you yet.

(All excuses I know, but level-scaling is a necessary evil in some games...)

Mouth for war

Well I guess you can never please everyone when you make a game. You can just try your best and hope that most people will enjoy it :D
mass genocide is the most exhausting activity one can engage in, next to soccer

nihilyst

Especially in games where fights start randomly on a map, I hate going back to earlier stages of the game where I get interrupted all the time, but not being challenged or rewarded by the fights anymore. On the other hand, I don't like enemies scaling in power with you, because that, for me, defeats the purpose of leveling up in the first place (why would you level up if you do not experience yourself getting stronger? Just to see higher numbers in the attack animation?).

I really liked the approach EarthBound or Ni No Kuni chose. In EarthBound, when you'd encounter enemies that were far too weak in comparison, the game would just skip over the fight as it figured you'd win it anyway. In Ni No Kuni, fights didn't start randomly; the enemies walked around the map and engaged you, so that if you were fast enough, you could avoid the fight, but in the beginning, the enemies were always faster. As you progressed and had a high level in comparison, the enemies ran away from you. So you didn't have to engage a low-level fight anymore unless you wanted to, in which case you just tried to catch the enemy, thus starting the fight. I found that to be an enjoyable system.

Mouth for war

Yeah that sounds pretty good! that's why i put in the "skip battles" skill. An exclamation mark appears over your head when you have 5 steps left before a fight start. You just press a button then if you want to skip it :-)
mass genocide is the most exhausting activity one can engage in, next to soccer

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