A Question of Reinforcements during Battles

[Iceflame55]

I'm batting an Idea around that would in part depict war-scale battles, and that had me imagining how such a thing might be done using Rpgmaker MV/MZ. I'm sure there are several ways such a thing might be done, and I decided to post here to see if anyone had Ideas of their own, or suggestions for a newcomer to Rpgmaker.

I've seen a relative 'easy' method depicted in Fate/Grand Order, where occasionally you have more then three enemies in a 'wave', with the extras moving onto the field when one of the previous enemies was defeated.

 

[LUKElcs]

I haven't really thought about or experimented with anything like that, but I think the method you mentioned would probably work best.
I would try doing that, and seeing how well you can get it to work, and if not, then you might try some other ideas.
Note, by work, I don't mean functionally work the way you intend it to, I mean work well with the game you are making from a "is this fun?" perspective.
Another point to keep in mind, is that, for many people, the story is more engaging than the gameplay when it comes to many RPG's. Not to say you shouldn't try to still make the gameplay fun and interesting, and that there aren't people who especially love the gameplay of a classic turn-based RPG, but there are many who are more interested in the story, so my advice to you would be to make sure that you don't focus entirely on the gameplay, and try to create a memorable and enjoyable story especially.
I hope you found some of that helpful

 

[Iceflame55]

I appreciate your reply! Right now I've got a general Idea, and visualizing Mechanics that I haven't seen in an RPGmaker game, trying to consider what it might look like. As for story, I'm not going to say my thoughts are original; that said I'm hopeful my target audience might find it worth their attention! *Grins*

Now if Real Life will stop beating me over the head with a sledgehammer I'd be all set .

 

[bgillisp]

I hear ya, RL has beat me so hard I haven't worked on my game much.

Question for you now: Are you wanting feedback on if this should be done and advantages or disadvantages, or do you want to ask how to do it? If it is how to do it I should move this to the MZ forums.

 

[Iceflame55]

How to do it shouldn't be hard to figure out. As for should it be done, I'm unsure. So here's a bit of what I'm looking at as a Game Idea.

The MC is in a position similar to a player of Dungeon Keeper/Overlord is in.

Things I'm looking at: Dungeon/Base Building (and the defense of such a place); the war/battle thoughts that spawned this thread would be used to showcase actually taking over parts of a kingdom, without going into full out wargame (like Total War).

Now, the conquering a kingdom COULD be done in other ways (like having Public Order variables determine Conquest Achieved). At this point I'm trying to get an Idea of what might be fun as an option for someone.

P.S. I'm actually considering multiple options here towards Conquest, so a player won't be shoehorned into going into war when they're more interested in subversion.

 

[bgillisp]

Ok, thanks. I'll leave the thread here since it does seem more of a should I do this, though keep in mind you won't get project specific advice in this subforum. If it turns more project specific I or another mod may move it to Ideas and Prototypes.

 

[alice_gristle]

Didja ever play Romancing SaGa 3? If you chose that blond dude as a main character, you'd get to engage in a war scenario. Might be worth checking out? It was pretty cool, if memory serves, although I totally sucked in it...

 

[Iceflame55]

Didja ever play Romancing SaGa 3? If you chose that blond dude as a main character, you'd get to engage in a war scenario. Might be worth checking out? It was pretty cool, if memory serves, although I totally sucked in it...

Afraid I've not had the pleasure of playing that one . Might have to look it up when Real Life cuts me a bit of slack.

Another thought occured to me on the 'waging war' system. Everyone knows you can't right without resources (money, troops, etc.). So, let's say your nation/group gives you about 10,000 Gold (I'm planning on a silver based economy, so the Gold would count as a 'special' currency). You then use this to gather your army. Now, you could either flesh this out to grant actual 'red shirt' characters, with your MC's 'elite' characters as Captain/Commanders; or keep the army as a variable that unlocks certain 'missions' (quests) that chain. Example: you've got three towns between you and the next Main Quest. You get mainly spear units, Town A and Town B show up on the map as 'quest available'. Add a couple of sword units and a calvery unit, Town C shows as available.

You could even add in variable missions. Have the right number and type of units, and the mission could go from 'raid' to outright conquest of the town in question. It would add complexity, that could go deeper when you realize that you could make the army have to stay and become the new garrison. The player has to balance caution (just raid the town for now) for loot, versus just conquering the town but losing your force projecting until you go home and get more troops....

 

[alice_gristle]

Another thought occured to me on the 'waging war' system. Everyone knows you can't right without resources (money, troops, etc.). So, let's say your nation/group gives you about 10,000 Gold (I'm planning on a silver based economy, so the Gold would count as a 'special' currency). You then use this to gather your army. Now, you could either flesh this out to grant actual 'red shirt' characters, with your MC's 'elite' characters as Captain/Commanders; or keep the army as a variable that unlocks certain 'missions' (quests) that chain. Example: you've got three towns between you and the next Main Quest. You get mainly spear units, Town A and Town B show up on the map as 'quest available'. Add a couple of sword units and a calvery unit, Town C shows as available.

If I remember right, Romancing SaGa 3 did that economy part, like, you taxed your subjects and developed your army with the funds. Then in the actual battles you had different units, like foot soldiers and cavalry, and you arranged them in a formation... then it played out somehow semi-automatically, while you could give general orders like whether to retreat or to charge all out... Yeah, it's all fuzzy to me now, I'm afraid, and I mostly remember it was too hard for me.

As for ideas about what this war scenario could be like, I'd totally dig it if it wasn't a bland "conquer your neighbour", but something more like a civil war, where you have your cousin or whatever competing for the throne, and you have to fight your own dudes to beat him.

Also, what I'd like is if the whole war thing was closely tied to the main plot. Like, you'd get to adventure like in any general JRPG, but then you'd have both optional and mandatory battles where you'd have to lead your army, and you could get your general staff to develop the army in the meanwhile, aaannd... stuff. Like, there would be political scheming and plots and escaping from dungeons and stuff, and then there'd be large-scale battles and a big horn orchestra playing in the background. And, like, if you hated the managerial side of things, you could just delegate more of the responsibility to your trusted advisors and just lead personally from the front... just like a real prince/princess/whatever!

I dunno if that was what you were thinking at all, buuut... yeah. It's just me, that's the kind of game I'd love to play!

 

[Iceflame55]

I dunno if that was what you were thinking at all, buuut... yeah. It's just me, that's the kind of game I'd love to play!

This is part of the reason I posted this Game Mechanics Design, to see what kind of Ideas others might have when it comes to an area most RPGmaker games still has little development. I'm tossing Ideas in as I think of them to get other peoples POV on them, yes; but if even one person gets an inspiration that leads to a game I'll count this discussion a success *Grin*

And speaking of Ideas to discuss, here's one I mentioned earlier but didn't say much of. Base Building, and Base Defense. Almost all RPGmaker games have a base, but generally they are treated more like a static location, with minor 'enhancements'. And while there's nothing wrong with that, there are games that do more here. One of my Ideas is one I call "The Dungeon Master" scenario, as this was the type of story that got me thinking of; that said, it would be closer to the mark to call it a Castle/Dungeon Core scenario.

The MC's base is in many ways a part of him. This means among other things that he/she cannot die as long as his/her 'Core' exists. Once this becomes 'known' to his enemies though, that means they'll start trying to locate that Core. Eventually when they find the base, they will of course attack ASAP.

This is where the 'defense mission' comes into play. The attackers start in one (or more!) locations, and begin searching for the Core. The MC will (hopefully) have built numerous rooms, traps, and recruited minions and characters who will be 'stationed' around the base. When the attackers encounter a guarded location, a battle occurs.

This would continue until the attackers exhausted their strength. This would be one way to increase the diversity of encounter types beyond the norm. This would also grant the designer more freedom when designing difficulty ratings, because as long as the MC's 'Core' remained they could continue on. This could make it easier to create '5-star' missions that were highly dangerous, but with unique items/artifacts/prizes for success, without driving a player nuts with frustration.

 

[Frostorm]

Perhaps this is along the lines of what you were imagining?

There's even a demo/plugins!

 

[Iceflame55]

Perhaps this is along the lines of what you were imagining?

Not really no ; I will say thank you for showing me one I DIDN'T know had been made though. I've never played Mount and Blade, and definitely did not know there was a system based on it out there!

If I was better at programming, or more comfortable with it I'd likely pick something similar to Fire Emblem for war scenarios. Or an X-com style as they are similar to games I've played more often. Now as far as the base design/defense I was mentioning in my last post I was thinking more along the lines of the defenders having guard posts (or lairs in the case your a Dungeon Core) that any attackers searching for the Core would encounter as they delve deeper. The individual battles would trigger into regular RPGmaker battles.