ABS System for trash mobs and Traditional side battle system for bosses?

[Jellicoe]

Wanting feedback on a game system where trash mobs are killed with an active battle system (Phoenix Kage Desu’s ABs system),
And boss fights will be using a traditional JRPG style turn based battle with a battler picture of the boss.

My idea was that I plan to have a large party 5+ people. Fighting trash mobs such as the goblins occupying a castle would be tedious if I had to just keep selecting attack from a menu and just one-shotting all the mobs.

Withand ABS system, beating down the trash mobs would be fun. I want a dynasty warriors style feeling where you get a visceral enjoyment just hacking and slaughtering everything.

the ABS system will be simple since I am not that good at programming and will use existing features as much as possible. I was thinking the lead hero would be the only one controlled. The lead hero would just be hacking everything with a sword. The other party members would be auto shooting things in range with arrows or spells, and doing auto heal.

The boss battles would be using a traditional battler system for the boss, where you select attacks from a menu. A boss battle for my ABS system would be too simplistic since there won’t be too many options, that’s why I prefer the traditional battle system for bosses. The boss battles would be drawn out affairs where you have to understand weaknesses and using the right skills and spells to win. The enjoyment is figuring out this puzzle.

Let me know if having two different battle systems is too complicated or weird.

 

[Eschaton]

Two different battle systems is too complicated and weird. It would probably be best if you tried to figure out a fun core gameplay mechanic (such as BREAKing and destroying enemies on FFXIII) and developing your systems around that.

 

[Wavelength]

Personally, this sounds extremely fun to me. Adding speed and viscerality to the encounters that don't require (or even invite) strategy is a good way to not only "streamline" the dungeon crawl, but also to add enough change of pace to the equation that the player doesn't get bored with the turn-based battle system.

Just because it's a good idea doesn't necessarily mean that you should do it, though. There are some pitfalls here:

• You have to actually create two entire battle systems. While the total battle "content" won't increase dramatically, the total number of mechanics you'll need to integrate (and the amount of testing you'll need to do) will double. This means it will be a lot harder for you to complete development unless you keep the game's scope quite small.
• And you have to get both battle systems "right". If either one is imbalanced, unintuitive, or boring, it will screw up the feel of your whole game, and discourage users from continuing to see all the good stuff. (Additionally, players who hate either type of battle system will probably steer clear of your game.)
• You have to (or at least should) share stats, skills, items, and such between the battle systems. This is trickier that it might appear. For example, an item that slows enemies as they move around an ABS system would be extremely useful, whereas that same item used in turn-based combat against a boss (that will take a lot of rounds to take down) won't be nearly as useful. Small and large Areas of Effect are easy to implement in an ABS, but how will you integrate different-sized AoEs into a turn-based system?
• While it would be a lot of fun to watch your allies autonomously beating down enemies and supporting you while you take the lead, Ally AI is always pretty tricky to get right in an ABS. Your design (a multiple-member party in the turn-based side of things) sort of necessitates that your allies are pretty useful in the hack-and-slash segments too, and you have the right idea about how to make that happen - but you've also increased your degree of design difficulty a lot in doing so.

So yeah - if you can look at all these pitfalls and you still feel that the risk is worth the reward, go for it.

 

[Aoi Ninami]

I'd like to add, as well, that "non-boss enemies = trash = mash Attack" is an assumption, not a cast-iron rule. If you want, you can decide to challenge it and make sure that it's not true in your game.

 

[Doktor_Q]

As a necessary part of having two battle systems, the player's experience with them is going to be different as well- after spending an hour fighting regular enemies on the map, they probably won't be very proficient in your turn-based boss system.

It also helps if you can justify in-game why the two are different, which could also give you an opportunity to make non-boss (or just miniboss) turn-based battles that they can gain literal experience on. Maybe it's some kind of special duel, or maybe you're in a vehicle (or maybe the trash fights are done in a vehicle?).

 

[Jellicoe]

I'd like to add, as well, that "non-boss enemies = trash = mash Attack" is an assumption, not a cast-iron rule. If you want, you can decide to challenge it and make sure that it's not true in your game.

Yes, I was thinking I was more limited to how sophisticated my ABS system can be which isnnt very. I was thinking there could be a boss character which I kite different ways while shooting it. Maybe another where I activate traps

 

[Seacliff]

I think ABS and Turn Based combat could work in the same game, but I really think there should be an in-world explanation for the dramatic shift.

For example, Skies of Arcadia has two battle system. One for fighting on foot, and another for airship battles. Both are turn-based, but I think the approached can be applied here somehow. If the situation around the player changes enough, then I think the change of battle system is justified.

 

[Aesica]

While it would be a lot of fun to watch your allies autonomously beating down enemies and supporting you while you take the lead, Ally AI is always pretty tricky to get right in an ABS. Your design (a multiple-member party in the turn-based side of things) sort of necessitates that your allies are pretty useful in the hack-and-slash segments too, and you have the right idea about how to make that happen - but you've also increased your degree of design difficulty a lot in doing so.

This right here is the big one.

While the easy approach is to just let the hero (or whoever's in the frontmost position) hack and slash mooks to ribbons while everyone else silently rides along inside the backpack, it's extremely illogical. Worse is that ally AI is almost always bad in ABS systems--in SoM, I'd always control the girl manually because her healing was important, but the AI was stupid and would always get her killed. Even world of warcraft can't pull it off, and I suspect that's why they decided to have (in Legion) any bodyguard follower just auto-revive a few seconds after dying. Because they died a lot.

If you do go ahead with this split system idea, make sure to have several boss fights (more than normal) so that players can also get familiar with your side view system. There will also be pressure to make sure both systems are engaging, because if one is lacking, then players will regard it as the "boring" combat segments.