new idea for turn-based RPG battle

Didjargo

Member
I've had an idea for a turn-based RPG battle system. Don't really have a game to develop around it, though I might prototype it for fun. Just want to get you guy's feedback on it, tell me if it sounds broken, lacking, or a total rip-off of something someone has already done...

Largely inspired by Persona 4's and Bravely Default's battle engine. Turns switch between the ally's side and the enemy's side- so when it is your ally's turn, you can choose which characters to use in whatever order or not use any of them at all (kind of like the Steven Universe: Attack the Light system), the turn ends when either you choose to end it or when no more ally characters can act. A combatant with full SP at the end of their turn will automatically raise its guard.

Each combatant (allies and enemies) have stamina points (SP) with a maximum of 10. Each action costs a certain amount of stamina to perform, and a combatant can only perform actions when their SP is full. So if the ally's side comes up and an ally does not have full SP, they cannot be used. Each combatant replenishes 1 SP every time that the turn changes. So switching from ally to enemy turn or vice versa gains each combatant 1 SP. If a side's turn comes up yet none of them have full SP, then the turn goes back to the other side. It switches back and forth until at least one combatant on the side who's turn it is has full SP. What this all means is that you can go all out and have your entire party use their strongest attacks on the first turn, but doing so risks having them be sitting ducks for the next several turns.

There is a way to cut down on a combatant's recovery time and even give them extra actions in a turn. Each combatant has an elemental weakness. Attacking a combatant with their elemental weakness (called "exploiting") instantly replenishes half of the SP the attacker used in that action. More so, landing a critical hit also replenishes half of the used SP. So if you exploit a weakness and land a critical hit in the same action, you replenish all of the SP used. Doing this means that the combatant can act more than once in a turn.

Also, critical hits are achieved with timed button presses for attacks. More advanced attacks have harder to achieve button presses. Much like "South Park: Stick of Truth" or "Steven Universe".
 

JackTurbo

Member
I've not played any of the example games you mention, but it sounds like it could be developed into a good system.

How large a party do you envision this being for? - if its a large group then that makes sense, if its the usual rpg standard of 3-4 then I feel like it might get a bit slow with character's recovery potentially taking 5 rounds of combat.

Anyway like I said it sounds like a good basis for a system, only play testing will allow to to nail the details.
 
J

Jacob T Wharton

Guest
With each player only restoring 1 SP per turn, there is not really any room for differences in speed between characters. But I like the idea, especially of allowing the players the restore SP when they land a critical hit or exploit a weakness. That sounds satisfying.

I would suggest having turns on which nobody moves, instantly pass by. So the game immediately moves to the next moment of action when someone can move. This would keep the game moving.

Also I think it would be cool to see lots of items in the game that mess with the timing system, like a rare consumable item that restores a player's SP to maximum; or a weapon that does double damage if you hit the enemy with full SP. Maybe also some incentives to drain your SP instead of saving it, like at the end of the battle there is no penalty to giving it your all and using all SP among all characters since the fight will be over next turn.

The only thing I can see kinda being a problem is: 10 SP SOUNDS like a lot. If your team can wreak everything in one turn before running out of SP, obviously they have too much SP.

In my own turn based game I am using a similar system. But instead of being able to move when SP is at maximum, you can move as long as SP is above 0. Then it drops below 0 and you can't move again until potential is above 0 again. Every turn potential gets up according to the entity's speed, so faster enemies attack more frequently, sometimes attacking twice on a turn you can only attack once, etc. This allows for very time-heavy events which are not completed until potential is above 0 again, as well as instant actions (typical attack) which take place immediately but have a "cooldown" period before the player can do anything again (unless they still have some potential left to spend this turn.)

Players can never have potential greater than their speed, so being interrupted from an action does not allow you to suddenly burst out 10 different attacks or moves. It's like you just sat their all that time accomplishing nothing since you didn't finish the action (you were interrupted). Anyway I'm rambling about my own system now. Just wanted to share the similarites and differences.

I like both ideas.

Note: in my game, most entities have only enough speed to move once per turn, if even that. This ensures each turn update is gradual and the game unfolds as both sides slowly change the battlefield rather than one side suddenly unleashing everything it has and changing everything. Like I said both systems are good for different purposes. Good luck with your game! I hope I have inspired you a little.
 
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Genetix

Member
Definitely a decent idea with some tweaking. Certain characters could gain more SP each turn then others, but also have less attack and HP. Slower characters could be much stronger, but gain SP slower and such forth.
 
Z

Zinx

Guest
With each player only restoring 1 SP per turn, there is not really any room for differences in speed between characters. But I like the idea, especially of allowing the players the restore SP when they land a critical hit or exploit a weakness. That sounds satisfying.

I would suggest having turns on which nobody moves, instantly pass by. So the game immediately moves to the next moment of action when someone can move. This would keep the game moving.

Also I think it would be cool to see lots of items in the game that mess with the timing system, like a rare consumable item that restores a player's SP to maximum; or a weapon that does double damage if you hit the enemy with full SP. Maybe also some incentives to drain your SP instead of saving it, like at the end of the battle there is no penalty to giving it your all and using all SP among all characters since the fight will be over next turn.

The only thing I can see kinda being a problem is: 10 SP SOUNDS like a lot. If your team can wreak everything in one turn before running out of SP, obviously they have too much SP.

In my own turn based game I am using a similar system. But instead of being able to move when SP is at maximum, you can move as long as SP is above 0. Then it drops below 0 and you can't move again until potential is above 0 again. Every turn potential gets up according to the entity's speed, so faster enemies attack more frequently, sometimes attacking twice on a turn you can only attack once, etc. This allows for very time-heavy events which are not completed until potential is above 0 again, as well as instant actions (typical attack) which take place immediately but have a "cooldown" period before the player can do anything again (unless they still have some potential left to spend this turn.)

Players can never have potential greater than their speed, so being interrupted from an action does not allow you to suddenly burst out 10 different attacks or moves. It's like you just sat their all that time accomplishing nothing since you didn't finish the action (you were interrupted). Anyway I'm rambling about my own system now. Just wanted to share the similarites and differences.

I like both ideas.

Note: in my game, most entities have only enough speed to move once per turn, if even that. This ensures each turn update is gradual and the game unfolds as both sides slowly change the battlefield rather than one side suddenly unleashing everything it has and changing everything. Like I said both systems are good for different purposes. Good luck with your game! I hope I have inspired you a little.
Nice reply, however, OP makes it sounds to me that you can't do a move unless your SP is at 10. Therefore, a consumable that restores SP to max is worthless unless it is used to essentially give an ally (preferably a super slow yet powerful ally) max SP as you wouldn't be able to use that item unless you were already at 10 SP.
 

Didjargo

Member
I've not played any of the example games you mention, but it sounds like it could be developed into a good system.

How large a party do you envision this being for? - if its a large group then that makes sense, if its the usual rpg standard of 3-4 then I feel like it might get a bit slow with character's recovery potentially taking 5 rounds of combat.

Anyway like I said it sounds like a good basis for a system, only play testing will allow to to nail the details.
I'm thinking that it would be for a party of 3 to 4 characters. Any larger than that and the turns will last too long, especially if the player is compelled to maximize their crit-exploits to keep the turn going. With that in mind, only the strongest end-game abilities would consume 10 SP to perform. And unless the opposing side only uses weak attacks with quick recovery, then a combatant down 10 SP will only be a sitting duck for a few turns. And if it comes to that, there will be items that other party members can use to replenish their SP. By the way, I have decided that each ability a combatant has can only be used once per turn. This would be to prevent the player from spamming the same attacks with easy crit-exploits over and over again in the same turn.
 

Didjargo

Member
With each player only restoring 1 SP per turn, there is not really any room for differences in speed between characters. But I like the idea, especially of allowing the players the restore SP when they land a critical hit or exploit a weakness. That sounds satisfying.

I would suggest having turns on which nobody moves, instantly pass by. So the game immediately moves to the next moment of action when someone can move. This would keep the game moving.

Also I think it would be cool to see lots of items in the game that mess with the timing system, like a rare consumable item that restores a player's SP to maximum; or a weapon that does double damage if you hit the enemy with full SP. Maybe also some incentives to drain your SP instead of saving it, like at the end of the battle there is no penalty to giving it your all and using all SP among all characters since the fight will be over next turn.

The only thing I can see kinda being a problem is: 10 SP SOUNDS like a lot. If your team can wreak everything in one turn before running out of SP, obviously they have too much SP.

In my own turn based game I am using a similar system. But instead of being able to move when SP is at maximum, you can move as long as SP is above 0. Then it drops below 0 and you can't move again until potential is above 0 again. Every turn potential gets up according to the entity's speed, so faster enemies attack more frequently, sometimes attacking twice on a turn you can only attack once, etc. This allows for very time-heavy events which are not completed until potential is above 0 again, as well as instant actions (typical attack) which take place immediately but have a "cooldown" period before the player can do anything again (unless they still have some potential left to spend this turn.)

Players can never have potential greater than their speed, so being interrupted from an action does not allow you to suddenly burst out 10 different attacks or moves. It's like you just sat their all that time accomplishing nothing since you didn't finish the action (you were interrupted). Anyway I'm rambling about my own system now. Just wanted to share the similarites and differences.

I like both ideas.

Note: in my game, most entities have only enough speed to move once per turn, if even that. This ensures each turn update is gradual and the game unfolds as both sides slowly change the battlefield rather than one side suddenly unleashing everything it has and changing everything. Like I said both systems are good for different purposes. Good luck with your game! I hope I have inspired you a little.

Definitly, turns where nobody moves will cycle through rapidly. I like the idea of having insensitive to drain your SP at the end of battle. I imagine a simple experience bonus or extra loot gained by "overkilling" an enemy. You make a good point about how the team could potentially wreck everything in the first turn if they just drain all of their SP on powerful attacks at once. I guess that would have to come down to balancing, perhaps by having some abilities only usable after so much SP is replenished. Meaning that the character would have to use SP to replenish SP to unlock the big powerful abilties that could wipe out entire ranks of enemies. Or simply not have any ability that overpowered to begin with.
 
J

Jacob T Wharton

Guest
@Didjargo:
Or maybe don't start each fight at max SP? SP could start at half or something, like 5 or so and that way there is less ability to spam powerful attacks with no punishment; powerful attacks are still available, but you have to charge up for them by waiting a few turns.

And/or:
If you begin a fight normally you start with like 5 SP. BUT, if you start a fight with the initiative, like you "surprised" the enemy, then your team starts the battle with full SP. And likewise the enemy can surprise your team and start with more SP. Just throwing some ideas out there to chew over.

Edit: I see that in your system you can't move unless your SP is full, so my ideas might not work in your system without tweaking.
 

Didjargo

Member
@Didjargo:
Or maybe don't start each fight at max SP? SP could start at half or something, like 5 or so and that way there is less ability to spam powerful attacks with no punishment; powerful attacks are still available, but you have to charge up for them by waiting a few turns.

And/or:
If you begin a fight normally you start with like 5 SP. BUT, if you start a fight with the initiative, like you "surprised" the enemy, then your team starts the battle with full SP. And likewise the enemy can surprise your team and start with more SP. Just throwing some ideas out there to chew over.

Edit: I see that in your system you can't move unless your SP is full, so my ideas might not work in your system without tweaking.
Yeah, there would need to be a lot of balancing to prevent spamming. There could be detriments to ultra powerful attacks in of themselves, such as a big nuke-em-all attack would be non-elemental with an extremely difficult to pull of button press sequence to crit. Meaning that you would not get any exploit SP regained and will be difficult to regain half SP from the crit. Or there could be a big punishment for attacking an enemy with their elemental strength. Such as they absorb or reflect the damage. Meaning that not every powerful attack will be useful in every situation. So your best hit-all fire attack will only be wise to use if none of the enemies in the crowd are strong to fire.

I also have an idea that all abilities would have a cooldown, typically of just 1 turn with more powerful ones having a longer cooldown. All abilities having at least 1 turn cooldown means that if the ally expoit-crits and regains all of their stamina, they cannot use the same ability again in that turn. This would prevent the player from just spanning the same ability with easy exploit-crit over and over again in one turn. When I played Persona 4, near the end of the game when MP replenishing items were so affordable that you never had to worry about holding back, and you were decked out with the strongest skills, the enemies still stood as a challenge because they had a load of tricks to make it very difficult to exploit their weaknesses.
 
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