Enemy/Encounter Mechanics Idea List (Updated 12/9/2015)

[hadecynn]

UPDATE: I'll continue to add my ideas to this first post so its easier to use as reference for anybody that wishes. If you are willing to give me permission to add your ideas as well, send me a PM and I'll do so.

Last update: 12/9/2015

Since the days of browsing RM2K boards and websites, I've seen endless discussions and topics on how to make battles interesting. Curiously, (though perhaps understandably), most of these discussions focus on the player's point of view, including things from class balance, skill balance, to status-granting weapons/items, etc.

But regardless of what the players can or cannot do with their characters, that only makes up half of the battle gameplay experience.

What about enemy/encounter mechanics?

Here are some ideas I'm looking to implement in my game. Inspirations stem from both console single-player RPGs and MMOs. 

I'm hoping that this can help generate even more ideas that we can all benefit from to make our games better.

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1. "Targeted" Mechanic

Spoiler

How it plays:

Enemy Turn N - Enemy randomly targets 1 ~ 2 party members and afflicts them with "Targeted" status.

Player Turn N+1 - The non-targeted characters gain temporary access to the command "Cover" that can be used on one ally to change the "Targeted" status to "Covered" status.

Enemy Turn N+1 - Enemy will use target-all attack that deals 400% base damage to anyone with "Targeted" status, and 100% damage to anything without any status, and 75% damage to anyone with "Covered" status.

How it works:

Adds depth to the encounter because it forces players to make decisions that breaks from the routine of their favorite battle routine (be it spam Attack or whatever). Its presents a tactically interesting problem because if the tank was the one hit with "Targeted", and the player knows that they can withstand the attack, they could opt to ignore the mechanic to dish out more damage.

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2. "Damage Share" Mechanic

Spoiler

How it plays:

Enemy Turn N - Enemy afflicts all party members with 2 stacks each of "Vulnerable" debuff status.

Player Turn N+1 - Each characters gain temporary access to the instant-cast command "Hide Behind" that they can use on any one ally. With each use, this command removes one stack of "Vulnerable" from the user and adds the stack to the targeted character.

Enemy TurnN N+1 - Enemy will use target-all attack that deals damage depending on stacks of "Vulnerable"

     (Example: 8 Stacks = 1000%, 7 = 875%, 6 = 750%, 5 = 625%, 4 = 500%, 3 - 375%, 2 - 250%, 1 - 125%, 0 - 10%)

How it works:

This kind of mechanic allows you to put your Tank class party members in the spotlight, and also adds yet another layer of tactical depth. Obviously everything depends on how well you balance all the numbers, but by default we can already see that players can choose to have multiple end-states depending on their party's strengths and weaknesses. They could:

      1. Have one sacrificial lamb that gets all 8 stacks, that the player knows they will need to revive the next round.

      2. Split the stacks into 4/4/0/0 if they are confident that two characters can withstand the attack

      3. Go with 3/2/2/1 to have a more well-rounded approach, perhaps having the Tank cover the Glass Cannon or Healer

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3. "Energy Diffusion" Mechanic



How it plays:

Enemy Turn N - Enemy casts "Focusing Energy" skill that adds 10 stacks of "Energy" buffs to itself.

Players have X number of turns before Enemy uses "Unleash Energy" attack that does damage corresponding to how many stacks of the "Energy" buff the enemy has at the time of casting.

For every Y amount of damage dealt to the Enemy, one stack of "Energy" buff is lost.

How it works:

A straight-forward "DPS Check" mechanic implemented into the traditional framework. This can cause a sense of urgency and make players consider unleashing special attacks that they've been saving, or to hold off from healing and use their Healer to contribute to dealing damage.

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4. "Pain Outbreak" Mechanic - Corrected 12/9/2015 - Thanks to lilyWhite for pointing out the mistake

Spoiler

How it plays:

Enemy Turn N - Enemy places "Pain" State on one randomly selected character.

State Description - When this state is added, the afflicted actor's HP value is stored at the start of each turn. At the end of the turn, have the variable calculate the difference between Turn-start HP and Turn-end HP and record the value if its positive (an indication of HP loss during that turn). After X turns the State falls off; when it does, it takes the difference from each turn, sum them up, then * 500% and deals that damage to all party members. 

How it works:

Definitely something suitable for a high-tier boss. Once the actor is hit with this state, you force the player to pay attention to how much the actor is taking damage, especially if you make the State duration a little random (like 3 - 5 turns). If the player neglects to heal, the entire party could be wiped; but it is by no means an unfair mechanic because it could end up doing 0 damage. How much damage is mitigated/dealt depends entirely on how the player decides to handle the situation. 

Bonus! How it implements:

You might be wondering how to introduce this mechanic to players. An interesting way you could teach this is to actually have it placed on enemies first.

Design an encounter with 2 enemies, A and B. Both enemies have rather large HP pools, but are otherwise pretty weak. In addition to having a lot of HP (and thus taking a number of turns to kill), have one of them (say "B") have super high defense. 

Now, during the first turn, have enemy A cast this "Pain" state on ITSELF (pretend this was a newly-turned-monster or zombie or something, which would make sense lore-wise). At this point the player has no idea what this does, and might choose to attack either targets. Upon seeing how little damage is being dealt to enemy B (which is easily conveyed if you use an HP bar for monsters), the player will eventually turn to focusing attacks on enemy A. Then after a few turns (or maybe set as a conditional, when enemy A's HP falls under Y%), just when the player starts to get frustrated over how long this fight is taking/is going to take, they see the "Suffering" state fall off (play an animation or something for bonus dramatic effect) and then the resulting damage kills both enemy A and B.

With this type of delivery, you are guaranteed to leave a solid impression of this mechanic in the player's mind. Players might find it amusing and even comical...

...until they see a boss spring this on them during a later fight. What goes around comes around.

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5. "Advanced Self-Destruct" Mechanic - Added 12/9/2015

How it plays:

(All numbers used for illustrative purposes; replace as you see fit)

Upon dipping below 50% HP, the enemy starts a 2-turn countdown to use a Self-Destruct attack that deals damage equal to whatever HP it has left at the time of cast. Nothing new so far. But, if the enemy is killed during the countdown, it revives and gains full health (or 49%, if you want to be really nasty) over and over again. The only way to actually "kill" this enemy is to let it successfully Self-Destruct. This could be used for a zombie version of the Bomb family of enemies in the Final Fantasy franchise.

How it works:

This puts a new spin on how players will need to deal with self-destructive enemies. Instead of just burning them down as quickly as possible, players now have to be cautious and deal the "right" amount of damage. (with "right" being different for each player. Some might not mind the healing required afterwards as long as they are not wiped out. However, if this was implemented in a boss fight, where these self-destructing mobs spawn after X turns in multiple numbers and the boss hits hard, then you really challenge players to control quickly and effectively their damage output)

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6. "Lightning" Mechanic - Added 12/9/2015

How it plays:

Lots of pseudo-science fantasy here, feel free to replace with concepts you find more fitting.

There are 3 enemies for this mechanic: "Proton Cloud" "Electron Cloud", and Boss. Set the two "clouds" to be invulnerable, so they always persist... or not...

During the end of every turn (this is important), "Proton Cloud" will randomly target one actor and inflict "Proton" state. There is no other effect for this skill. Similarly, the "Electron Cloud" will randomly target one actor and inflict "Electron" state. Also no-damage.

In addition to having actors randomly targeted every turn, the players can choose to have the state they want by attacking the respective Cloud (they will be hit with a no-damage counter that puts them in the state.) Therefore, if you want to get the "Proton" state or you want to replace "Electron" with "Proton", you just need to use your turn to attack "Proton Cloud".

If you're wondering why I'm calling this the "Lightning" mechanic, here's why:

At certain turns, with the possibility of consecutive turns, the Boss will use either "Hyper Proton Emission" or "Hyper Electron Emission". These attacks will deal critical damage to characters with the opposite state, while doing very little to characters with the same state. 

How it works:

Players are put in a situation where they need to evaluate their risks every turn due to the randomness involved with which characters, and how many, are currently afflicted with "Proton" and "Electron". One strategy might be to always ensure that half the party has one, which the other half has the other, but depending on the party configuration and healers, having a 1:3 setup might also work. Or, if the player feels that instead of spending valuable character turns to attack the Clouds, they can burn the boss down fast enough, they could opt to do that as well.

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Feel free to comment, and also share your ideas if this sparked any inspiration! We have thousands of States we can define in RM, I think its a wasted opportunity if we limit ourselves to the traditional handful of "Poison", "Silence", "Sleep", "Confusion", etc.

Thanks for reading! =)

 

[Matseb2611]

These are pretty cool. It's nice when enemies use some sort of group tactic and work together rather than just acting independently.

I like to sometimes make enemies heal or cure one another. Like normally in boss fights. If a boss has been affected by poison for example, and an enemy mage is still standing, then he'll cure the boss, but if you've taken care of the mage, then you can poison the boss all you want.

Another cool thing to try out is to have an enemy alternate between 2 or more forms. Perhaps offensive vs defensive form or something. Like in offensive form they leave themselves open to attack but can also unleash some powerful moves themselves. So the player will have to pick their targets strategically in order to maximize the damage output and end the battle as soon as possible.

 

[Fernyfer775]

These all sound like awesome ideas. I have personally used the 3rd mechanic before and the players loved that specific boss battle. 

Some players find it annoying, but others enjoy it when the boss can summon minions with different abilities throughout the battle.

For example, a boss that summons 3 "slimes" every X turns. After Y amount of turns, the boss consumes the living slimes and gets a different buff for each one that player hasn't killed.

If balanced correctly, this gives the player different tactics:

1. Redistribute your damage to defeat 1, 2, or all 3 slimes if possible (ideally, you would only be able to defeat 1 or 2 slimes, and the boss will ALWAYS get at least one buff).
2. Ignore the slimes completely and continue to beat away at the boss, then deal with the boss getting all 3 buffs.
3. Grind like a crazy mofo to overpower the boss anyways, and then just wtfpwn the slimes, completely negating the mechanic altogether.

 

[trouble time]

Yeah, encounter design is sometihng people don't talk about too much, and it's a real shame too since I think it's actually more important than ability design.

 

[hadecynn]

@Matseb2611

Having "smart" enemy AI that responds to one another's conditions is always nice.

The form-change idea is definitely a classic. Its basically a whole category of mechanics you can do such as offensive/defensive stances like you mentioned, or shifting weaknesses, states, parameters, etc.

@Fernyfer775

As a variation of minion mechanics, you could also have a system where one stack of "Poison" debuff is afflicted to each actor for every minion in the battlefield. This would also be a "DPS Check" mechanic that creates a different sense of urgency, and also different ways to combat it. (eg. if your Healer is OP then you could just ignore them and brute heal your way through)

@trouble time

Yeah, that's why I started this thread. Hopefully it can get people thinking about this and we can get a mix of ideas in this thread.

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Let's add another one for today. This one is quite sinister:

4. "Pain Outbreak" Mechanic - See Above

 

[stupid enough to like FF13]

1. "Targeted" Mechanic

So...Guy A who stands in front of Guy B about to get 400% damage reduces Guy B's damage to 75%...but isn't even scratched even a single percentage more for standing in front of that 400% damage.

2. "Damage Share" Mechanic

Three problems. One, the idea of someone hiding behind someone they are already hiding behind. Two, the idea of three guys all standing behind Guy D who manages to take the hit for every single one of them. Three, that the damage inflicted would likely either be a.) little enough divided out that it could easily be healed through or b.) so high that the most prudent solution would be to just let one guy take all of it and just revive him afterwards—if 500% kills a guy, 1000% makes no difference. That, or the tank's durability would have to be extremely high above everyone else's.

4. "Pain Outbreak" Mechanic

Guy A gets "Pain". You heal up Guy A. Then the boss smacks Guy A after you heal, and then the "Pain" goes off. Everybody dead.

And bonus "you're screwed" points if the guy who gets "Pain" is already at full HP.

 

[hadecynn]

@lilyWhite

Thanks for the specific feedback! Let me elaborate on some of those points:

Overall, I should've mentioned that the terms in quotes were meant to help readers understand the mechanics a little more intuitively instead of being taken literally. I figured it would be a lot better to give them some names instead of just saying "debuff A", "buff B", and "state C". I might not've given enough "realism" as I should have, and I apologize. My main focus isn't so much on coming up with the flavor text/description on how to make the mechanic believable in *insert-setting-here*, but rather just to focus on the mechanics themselves. Having said that...

1. You might find this explanation more appealing. Enemy places "Sticky Flammable Goo" on random allies. Non-afflicted allies gain command "Wash Away" that replaces "Sticky Flammable Goo" with "Wet" state. Enemy casts "Fire Breath" the following turn. Any actors with "Sticky Flammable Goo" will take 400% damage,  any actors without any buffs take 100%, and actors with "Wet" takes 75%. Makes more sense? =)

2A. Fair point if we are talking about non-fantasy settings and pure physical blows, but I would argue that players are willing to suspend reality a little bit when playing RPGs given how prevalent we see hexagonal barriers appearing out of nowhere to mitigate damage. But if we really want to get technical, maybe this mechanic could be used for Air/Water based attacks and we could look at aerodynamic principles like slipstream to find a suitable explanation of why hiding behind one another like caterpillar could work.

2B. Similar to 2A, for a single bullet it probably wouldn't make a whole lot of sense, but again, we as entertainers create the Magic Circle for our players and mutually agree to engage in the temporary suspension of reality. 

2C. Here we are talking about actual mechanics and numbers. First, same rules apply here for numbers being illustrative rather than prescriptive, so adjust them to your liking. Now, while the 3 outcomes you mentioned might be valid for your game (unfortunately I have no idea what your damage model and number scales looks like), there are a number of assumptions you might have made that isn't necessarily true for all games, and hence the mechanic can be applicable for some people.

      1. If tanks have 200% or even 250% of Healer and DPS's HP at the same level range, you can definitely make the numbers work in a way that 2 stacks kill or critically injures the non-tanks, while the tank can eat up to 3 ~ 4 stacks. Likewise, if you use armor scaling and your tank inherently mitigates much more damage than non-tanks, it would also work.

      2. If players have access to instant, cool-down/limited use damage mitigation skills (or other variations), you further the options that players can take. For example, if your tank has a 2-time-use instant buff that mitigates damage by 75% for himself for one turn, in addition to the HP/armor scaling factors I mentioned, it is again possible to make numbers work in such a way that creative players could have one person eat 8 stacks and NOT need to revive them (and this is the whole point; to make the battles more fun and engaging)

3. I agree that the scenario you described would be pretty unfortunate, but there are a number of ways to circumvent the problem. For a quick and dirty fix, you can make this particular boss have such a high speed stat that it always goes first. Or the opposite, you could give your healer a healing skill that always goes last, but heals more than a standard heal (which I think players would welcome even outside of this mechanic. How many times have we ran into situations where the healers healed BEFORE the attack we wanted to heal for?)

And finally, this is my bad, what I described wasn't what I originally had in mind. The way it worked in my head was that "Pain" stores and compares the starting HP - ending HP values FOR EACH TURN and stores that value if the number is positive. At the turn of X turns it then explodes by taking the sum of each turn's values, multiplying by 5 (or whatever), and then deals that amount. I'll fix that later. Thanks!

Therefore:

Turn 1 Start - 100/200 HP < Gets hit by attack that does 10 damage, gets no heals.

Turn 1 End - 90/200 HP < "Pain" stores 10 damage

Turn 2 Start - 90/200 HP < Doesn't get hit, healed 60 HP

Turn 2 End - 150/200 HP < "Pain stores 0 damage

Turn 3 Start - 150/200 HP < Gets hit again by attack that does 10 damage, no heals.

Turn 3 End - 140/200 HP < "Pain stores 10 more damage"

"Pain" explodes causing 100 damage. Compared to...

Turn 1 Start - 200/200 HP < Gets hit by attack that does 10 damage, gets no heals.

Turn 1 End - 190/200 HP < "Pain" stores 10 damage

Turn 2 Start - 190/200 HP < Doesn't get hit, healed 60 HP

Turn 2 End - 200/200 HP < "Pain stores 0 damage

Turn 3 Start - 200/200 HP < Gets hit again by attack that does 10 damage, no heals.

Turn 3 End - 190/200 HP < "Pain stores 10 more damage"

"Pain" explodes causing 100 damage.

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Sorry for the long post, I hope this addresses some of the concerns and problems. =)

 

[Kes]

@hadecynn

Post #5 contains red text, which, along with blue, is reserved for mod use.

Please edit your post and change the red to either black, or another colour.

EDIT

I have just seen that your opening post also contains red and blue text. While there are times when it is acceptable to use those colours in an OP (it is not possible to confuse with mod voice, as it is the first post) their use in that case is meant to be for highlighting something extremely important. I do not think the names of the mechanics is sufficiently vital to merit the use of blue, nor the fact that there is an update to justify red. Please, therefore, change the colours there as well.

 

[hadecynn]

@ksjp17

Didn't realize certain colors were off limits. Sorry about that. Any other colors/formatting issues I should be aware of? Thanks! =)

 

[Kes]

At the bottom of each forum page there is a cunning little link which takes you to the Forum Rules.  The one about colours is Rule #11, iirc.

However, to save you looking, here is the link for you.  It's worth just checking them over so that you are familiar with them.