ATB and Timed Hits

[Eschaton]

Like Super Mario RPG?

Super Mario RPG is indeed an influence, along with Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, the Legend of Zelda, the Elder Scrolls, and Mass Effect.

 

[Susan]

Now I'm a little confused.

Spoiler

- Super Mario RPG did have timed hits, but not ATB AFAIK;- Chrono Trigger was ATB but I don't remember there being timed hits;

- Did Earthbound have either?;

- The Legend of Zelda was an action RPG, right?

- The Elder Scrolls is a real time RPG;

- Don't know about Mass Effect.

Umm, what was the conversation about again?

Honestly, I'm lost now.

 

[Eschaton]

Mostly Mario RPG. Exploration aesthetics come from TES and Zelda (such as the screen transitions and as many side-quests as I have the patience to make, with a mostly optional main quest). Victor Sant's on-map battle, similar to Chrono Trigger - if I can make it work. Art style similar to Earthbound (thanks to the Old School tilesets available at the shop). Simplified but highly utilitarian move pool, like Mass Effect (the second one, specifically). Like Mass Effect, I wanna try and create a way of directing, but not specifically controlling your party members.

I want to use Victor Sant's ATB, because it's options allow me to create a battle system in which your Attacks can stagger or interrupt the enemy by canceling their attacks or damaging their ATB progress. If all goes right, a skilled player will be able to keep the enemy from inflicting any health damage at all.

 

[Susan]

Oh, I understand now. It's nice to see that you are trying to cater to both casual & veteran gamers. Good luck then!

 

[Eschaton]

I might consider using Yami's CATB, instead.

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

I do love ATB along the lines of Parasite Eve and Legend of Mana (PSX)

Last time I played Legend of Mana, it was Active Battle System, not ATB...

I like ATB's as long as there isn't an enemy with insanely high agi/atb_recharge that I can barely move (like FFX-2's Shiva unless you have high agi)... as for ATB with timed-hit, I was never a fan of timed-hits, my fingers are fast, but not fast enough especially if I need eye and hand coordination...

Also, it could be that the "hate" that ur talking about is because a lot of players who play these turn-based RPGs play them because the battle is not so exhausting in terms of the need to think fast since unless you select the action, the battle won't proceed anyways. So now break that with an ATB, then add a timed-hit mechanism too, then you could expect how the likers of the default turn based system would react...

 

[Susan]

I have to stop using abbreviations when I am half asleep. For some reason 'Active' was the only thing stuck in my mind. Thanks for the correction, Engr. Adiktuzmiko.

 

[Eschaton]

If I could pull it off, I'd like "Easy" to have "pause-to-select-action" and "Ludicrous" to have entirely real-time battle.

 

[servantb7]

It's actually not too hard to give players a choice between CATB and ATB systems. You just need a script call to activate/deactivate each battle style. I believe there are directions for how to do that in most battle system scripts

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

I think you mean CTB and ATB.

Depends on the battle system, though I think Hime has a script for doing that

Though I think what he was talking was both ATBs, one just pauses when ur selecting action, the other does not...

 

[Wavelength]

I'm not crazy about ATB's in general because I think it's like playing chess with five-second timers.  A lot of the really enjoyable things about strategic battle systems are just too hard to mess with if the enemies are going to keep taking turns while you navigate menus or pause to think.

On the other hand, adding a "temporal" element opens up a lot of new strategies, and a well-done ATB makes the action seem fast, frenetic, and fun, without being confusing or frustrating.  It's probably second only to a full ABS in terms of visceral pleasure.

I do like Timed Hits as long as they're either optional or infrequent (like on Limit Breaks only).  I enjoyed hitting a button every single turn when I was an 11-year-old playing Mario RPG, but these days having to do the same kind of button presses over and over in an RPG battle (or really in almost any kind of game) usually feels more like a chore than a joy.

On the other hand, I actually found myself enjoying hitting "Z" five times every time I queued up an attack in Sacred Hearts, so maybe it can still be a fun thing as long as the pressing of the button is a strategic decision rather than a demanding "minigame".

 

[Eschaton]

I didn't want consistenly successful times hits to be a requirement on easier difficulties. I thought about this mechanic in which certain enemies would have "protections" that ha to be "stripped" in order to take that enemy down faster. I wrote a few damage formulas that basically meant if you did a certain percentage of the target's HP in damage with one attack (facilitated by a successful timed hit), that protection would successfully be removed. Magic could remove the protection at a significantly higher cost, while another skill (called "sabotage") could lower the damage requirement to remove protection. Finally, whittling the target down to a certain percentage of HP would remove the protection anyway.

Times hits would only make combat go by faster for a skilled player. Everyone else could get by just fine without them, but wouldn't reap as many benefits. I would want to design a combat system that rewarded players for optimizing their strategy. On the harder difficulty, all enemies would have protections while bosses would have multiple protections that each would have to be stripped one at a time. Mastery of the combat system--even at low levels--would be paramount toward completing the game on the hardest difficulty.

There would be a small and universal paradigm for protections: armoered enemies lose their protections to fire and "heavy" hits, enemies with magic barriers lose their protections to electricity and "precise" hits, and agile enemies get slowed down by ice and "ranged" hits.

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

Depending on the balance of the battles, it could actually go from a bonus thing to a requirement... Like you could possibly have a really powerful boss that is so powerful with the protection that you need to wear it down ASAP if you ever want to beat that boss. That's what you have to avoid, else as I said, the timed hits would become a necessity.

 

[Eschaton]

Bosses won't have ungodly amounts of HP, unlike most RPGs. In fact, you will never fight one alone; it will always be supported by lesser enemies. Otherwise, they would die very quickly.

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

Then it might work out fine. The best way anyway is to try it first. :3

 

[Eschaton]

Haven't had a computer with RMAce one it for a while. Best I can do is do the math.