Having a passive-ability, normal attack based class or character

[jonthefox]

As game devs, we spend countless hours thinking of new skills, creative combinations of abilities...but let's face it. Some people like to just press attack and pound the enemy. What do you think about a class whose skills are mostly passive stat and combat bonuses/effects? For anyone who plays league of legends, basically the class/character would be the "tryndamere" of the game - someone who just "right clicks" (attacks) their enemy to death.

 

[Wavelength]

As a player, I find it much more interesting when there are a lot of interesting skills to use, or at least several active (or even situationally-triggered) buffs that enhance my basic attack, instead of just mashing the Attack command from wire to wire. I'm not averse to being able to turn my brain off and whack monsters in completely stressless situations, but even then I find it much more satisfying when there are lots of creative ways I can do so.

Are there people that don't like having lots of interesting, creative options at their fingertips during combat? Perhaps. I'd be interested to hear peoples' experiences with that. When I'm designing classes, I kind of assume that people will always want more interesting choices available, so long as it doesn't significantly increase complexity or difficulty.

So usually, even if I'm making a class designed for people who like using basic, up-close, melee attacks without too many fancy skills, I'll lean toward giving that class a variety of diverse, short-term ways to empower their auto-attacks (think more like a Twisted Fate, or perhaps a character whose kit was essentially different versions of the Sheen upgrades, rather than a Tryndamere-type).

I think this is especially appropriate in games where you control multiple characters (and therefore a single press-Attack guy would just feel boring compared to the rest), but is also generally appropriate in games where you pick one character/class and stick with it for the whole game. World of Warcraft and Guild Wars are two of the most popular MMOs ever made, and they were notable for adding skill expression even to classes like Warrior and Paladin that in the past had generally been considered "dumb muscle".

 

[kirbwarrior]

I honestly like it in some games. For instance, FF6 has "berserkers" which you don't directly control... and I love it. I often put them in my party because sometimes I just forget to attack the boss that I'm frantically trying to survive with states and healing. With one of them, I just assume I have a three person party and the enemy has Poison. A very important consideration is that they don't have to be "boring" about it. In one of my projects, there was one character who basically had no skills (everyone has Defend, which gives you a double turn next turn, and even that character could equip up to one accessory skill), but has the most amount of options with gear. In combat the unit basically just attacks how you want, but building the unit is where the interesting options were.

However, I couldn't imagine it doing well with even a party of 3, or 2, or especially 1. The bigger the party AND the more options for the party, the more likely having an "Attack"er or "berserker" is a very nice option. Plus, sometimes the player intentionally wants that; Bravely Default is about trying to figure out you can "mindlessly" defeat random encounters, and Chrono Trigger magic grinding can be a little annoying, so setting up the party to just attack as often as possible against the enemies that give 100 SP (or whatever it is) is the optimal strategy.

 

[Eschaton]

Over the years, some games have taught me that if I have to use a turn to buff my character, I just won't do it. Now, if I can buff my character before I enter battle, I'd rather do that. Does it skew the battle in my favor? Probably. But any turn in battle in which I'm not doing damage feels wasted.

So, yes, passive abilities which complement the Attack command are cool. Watching an a basic attack evolve outside of just doing more damage due to the allocation of passive abilities is cool to me.

 

[Wavelength]

However, I couldn't imagine it doing well with even a party of 3, or 2, or especially 1.

Definitely good advice. For whatever reason reading this made me think of the RPG Maker game Eternal Senia, which I'd hold up as the rare counterexample to this tenet - a combat system with just one character and its core battle mechanic is literally "Touch enemy, Deal damage to enemy, Enemy damages you, Repeat"... and somehow it's still a pretty good combat experience. It gets somewhat more complex and skillful later on when you spend more of your time dodging AoE's and landing your own projectiles than engaging in attacks, but even the early phases of the game are so much more fun than their design would suggest. I'm not quite sure why. I think it has to do with how quick the action is (there's no separate battle screen and you can kill most enemies in just a couple seconds), the fact that you didn't need to actually select attack (simply run into enemies to attack - this reduced tedium), as well as how many different enemies there are and how visceral it all feels in general.

 

[Soryuju]

I’m not personally the type of player who enjoys mindlessly mashing Attack and wouldn’t want to encourage that type of play, perhaps barring an “Easy Mode” geared toward players who just want to experience the game’s story.

That said, if I were to design a class built solely around using the Attack command and passives, I would try to design the passives in a way which would make the Attack command at least somewhat dynamic during battles. Let’s say that the player can select a couple of passives for their character to use during battle (rather than having every available passive set simultaneously). Maybe each passive would have a trigger condition which then modifies the basic attack command into something more advanced and powerful.

So for example:

- An enemy attacks the character with the passive, and the passive marks the enemy with a state after the character takes damage. The character then uses the basic attack command on the marked enemy. Hitting the marked enemy with Attack then triggers the rest of the passive’s effect, removing the state and causing the Attack command to “evolve” for the duration of the battle. Maybe it adds effects to the basic attack which raise its critical hit chance and which also cause it to deal more damage when the user’s HP is above a certain threshold.
- Maybe the character can equip a second passive which triggers when they score a critical hit on the enemy. This one will add a 10% Lifesteal effect onto the attack command whenever the user crits an enemy.
-Maybe there’s yet another passive which adds an HP cost to the Attack command, and which also automatically adds a state to every enemy below a certain HP%. Each time the character uses the Attack command on an enemy, it would also damage every other enemy marked with the state (basically an “execute” style AoE Attack), but it would cost more HP depending on the number of enemies hit.

So if the player can only simultaneously use a few passives like the ones above, they would be making decisions outside of battle about which passives are worth taking, what passive synergies to exploit, and how to trigger each passive’s activation conditions consistently. This would allow them to customize and specialize their attacker for different purposes while keeping command inputs in battle to a minimum.

I think this approach would also help address how a dedicated basic attacker would scale between normal and boss encounters. I envision that normally, a class which excels at basic attacks would overshadow other classes for winning regular encounters efficiently. However, it would fall off badly in boss battles, when the player is more willing to use their expensive skills and is more dependent on having support effects available for dealing damage/surviving. Passives which need to be triggered and which stack up their effects over time would make the basic attacker less of a dominant pick for clearing regular battles (though likely still a powerful one) while allowing it to scale up over the course of long fights. Some passives could even be geared toward providing support for the party, like one which gives a small heal to the party member with the lowest HP each time the user attacks.

Perhaps the complexity of these mechanics would defeat the purpose of including a “simple attacker,” but if someone doesn’t want to put any thought into either the skills they use in battle or how to build their characters beforehand, they’re just not part of the audience I’m aiming for. You can’t please everyone.

 

[lianderson]

I personally use an easy to purchase accessory that gives auto-battle.

 

[ShadowHawkDragon]

Just to add, even though he his mostly all about auto attacking, Trydamere does still have the same number of abilities as everyone else in the game (3 + ult).

The difference is that his abilities all have high cooldowns and tend to be a bit more situational in use. Let's just take his 'Mocking Shout' as a example. Its a simple damage debuff but also applies a slow if, and only if, the enemy is facing away from him. So do you use it the moment the fight starts and waste the slow for increased survivability? Do you play risky and try to get behind them first? Or, do you have the confidence in making them run without the damage reduction and mop them up easily thanks to the slow?

Its a single ability which invokes thought in 'when' to use it, even if all your doing before and after using it is spam attack. And the rest of kit has similar choices.

So the point is, even if all the character does is spam the 'attack' command for over half the fight there should still be situational options to consider. i.e just like Trynd, a passive which increases damage with missing health and an ability which heals himself (reducing damage output of the passive to stay alive). Otherwise, you might as well just slap auto-battle on them and make the only decision be "does the attack bot need healing?".

I mean if you built the game around the idea of a character always being an uncontrolled but customisable attack bot, it could work. But you'd have to have 'impactful' decisions elsewhere such as equipping the right passives which complement the rest of your team.

A final option is having items be useful enough where your attack spammer may need to consider throwing items for the rest of the team, since a basic attack may be less valuable than the paladin throwing out a stun, but someone needs to heal/barrier/de-debuff this turn.

 

[Black Pagan]

A Passive Ability Character Class could be fun if done right ! Personally, I would like to play such a Character with many Combo abilities that amplify or change your Passive Ability slightly.

Example : Warrior always Auto Attacks on his Turn (Passive Ability)
With Armor X, Warrior's Crit Multiplier is Tripled (Item Feature)
With Item Y in Inventory, Warrior has 25% Chance to Stun (Item Condition)
With Weapon Z, Warrior leeches "x%" damage. (Weapon Passive)

Such things make it more fun and interesting, Making us forget that the Above mentioned Warrior class was simply using a boring Passive Ability of Auto Attack to begin with.

 

[Aesica]

I'm honestly not a fan, but then again, I tend to prefer having several skills to choose from that I have to use in a tactical way. MASH ATTACK HARDER really only seems appropriate in games where the battle system is more basic because it gets the encounter over with as quickly as possible. Is this good for a game? I'd say not really, because if your battles are bland, why bother having them at all?

Someone mentioned the Berserker from FF5 I believe. I never really used that class because it wasn't interesting to play. Even if it's effective in combat, it doesn't give the player very many interesting choices other than pre-combat gearing.

 

[kirbwarrior]

a combat system with just one character and its core battle mechanic is literally "Touch enemy, Deal damage to enemy, Enemy damages you, Repeat"

Reminds me of the game Fairune which is that simple and quite a joy to play.

So if the player can only simultaneously use a few passives

What you describe is basically a deeper version of Berserker from FF5 or Mime from FFTactics. I like it.

I envision that normally, a class which excels at basic attacks would overshadow other classes for winning regular encounters efficiently. However, it would fall off badly in boss battles, when the player is more willing to use their expensive skills and is more dependent on having support effects available for dealing damage/surviving

What, like Fighter in FF1? Yeah, I actually love how the decision of whether to use him or not or how many matters a ton to how you approach randos and bosses.

Otherwise, you might as well just slap auto-battle on them and make the only decision be "does the attack bot need healing?".

Above I used "attack"er and berserker as intentionally two different things. I'll give two characters from the game as to why the difference matters;
1) Umaro was the "true" berserker. Mog and Gau you turn into berserkers, but you never control Umaro. What accessories you gave him modified both his passives and could give him more abilities to pick from. He hit like a truck.
2) Setzer doesn't have great magic potential and his unique ability is Slots, which, uh.... And once you get a good amount into the game, he has the absolute best Attack combo in the game. But, unlike Umaro, he had two abilities; He can target (some battles require it), and he can still use items (something that hasn't come up in this discussion yet, I think).

Someone mentioned the Berserker from FF5 I believe. I never really used that class because it wasn't interesting to play. Even if it's effective in combat, it doesn't give the player very many interesting choices other than pre-combat gearing.

I totally agree with you point (differing opinions don't change that). I like the idea of some (or most) characters having their interesting choices in battle while others have the interesting choices out of battle. It's definitely possible to do both, but that can also turn into "overwhelming options". But I also think it's important that it's not a forced thing but an option. For instance, 20 classes and one excels at basically just choosing to attack? You've still got 19 other options if you don't like it (for instance, I know someone who doesn't like white mages/healers).

 

[Hero_Claive]

One of the characters in my game is designed like this. Basically their skills revolve around buffing their normal attack, increasing crit rates, and so on - usually at the cost of HP or other resources. All other seven characters have their own stratagems and skillsets that synergize with each other, but the game makes it clear that using the "normal attack" character detracts greatly from the combos and strategies your party can perform. Ideally, you want this character to sort of be the auto-attack crowd cleaner that's useful for grinding regular encounters, but a severe burden in boss battles or other big targets.

The danger is that you can't be lazy with these characters. They still have to be consistent with the balance and flow of the game, and shouldn't be just plain FF-style berserkers that might as well make the game brain-dead. Force the player to develop them into a viable auto-attacker via skill trees or other investments, make it so their play-style comes at a cost, give them active skills that allow him/her to be strategic in case the player wants to go down that path. I would hate to play a game that gave me a free pass to use a cheap, mindless character that subverts the entire purpose of skill-based battle systems; at least give the play-style some drawbacks that are made evident to the player early on.

 

[kirbwarrior]

Ah, another options I forgot about; Equipment changing in battle. Yang's weapons never* increase attack in FF4 but instead add or change some effect. Early weapons change the element of his attack, letting him target weaknesses, and later ones add states to the target. He can wear two at once, and (strangely) the game add both weapon effects to the total attack; If he has Lightning Claws and Sleep Claws, his entire attack does lightning damage and can cause sleep. Considering you can change both out of and in battle, you can change what his Attack does but he still largely uses Attack (he does have Kick, but that's not often useful).

Taking from that idea, I've always liked Yanfly's plugin for instant skills, allowing you to change the character's states to set up Attack, and it could even work out of combat. In fact, I did make a simple character once that was very similar; She had a list of skills that all were effectively Attack (no MP cost, same damage) but with side effects. Mind, this isn't the same as an "attack"er, but it's intentionally similar.

*Yes, I know that some post game remake weapon probably increases attack, I've only played Super Famicom and SNES versions.

 

[M.I.A.]

Personally, I loathe "berserk" type party members and avoid using them at all cost..
In my opinion, "Attack" should be the most basic of actions, skills should be the focus.
That being said, an example I use for one of my physical based classes is that "Attack" is their skill in the same way "Magic" might be a Wizard class' skill. For that Warrior, when the player selects "Attack", they are given a new little menu of Attack Skills to choose from, similar to how selecting Magic would list all the Spells available for that Wizard.

Hope this helps.
-MIA

 

[mobiusclimber]

I purposefully make battles unwinnable if you just hit attack over and over. I go out of my way to make the use of buffs, debuffs, status ailments and items a necessity. And I do this bc I'm the type of player to horde MP and items, so I'm constantly looking for ways to break players of that habit.

 

[Eschaton]

@mobiusclimber, I think that might be unfair. There's nothing wrong with a character or class or build that specializes in the Attack command. Not much different from a battler that spends all its turns using healing skills.

 

[mobiusclimber]

I think making a game that is a "push one button over and over to victory" sort of game is terribly unfair, to the player and to the game designer. Why spend time making items or abilities that won't be used? What's the point in having those things in the game if they aren't necessary? Is there anyone that prefers no strategy to strategy when it comes to battles?

 

[Parallax Panda]

There seems to be a clear bias for complex battle strategies, and most RM devs here seems to assume that’s what most players wants. I disagree.

Full disclosure, I am a the kind of player that will mash ”attack” while not paying 100% attention (and hope for victory) in most of your games. And I think some might underestimate how common this player behaviour is.

”If every battle is just mashing the attack button then what’s the point of having battles in the first place?”

”Battles should be deep and allow for complex strategies”

”Battles need to be challenging and pressning one button isn’t challenging!”

Let me adress some if these common misconceptions. I think everyone understands that ultimatly it’s a matter if taste but I would argue that in this day and age, most players are somewhat lazy. This doesn’t necissary mean most players wants a party of auto-attacking, auto-healing robots (although I’m sure some wouldn’t mind). But being able to mash their way through the booring encounters (70~90% of most RPG’s battles) can be greatly appreciated.

So why not remove all ”booring” battles then if there’s no strategy to it? Well, there IS strategy to it, even when button mashing you usually need to keep track of when and whom to heal, that’s one thing. And then there’s the whole character customization (if it’s available) to consider. What stats you improve, what equipment/weapon you equip and what passive skills you choose could make or break your ability to auto attack your way through most battles.

Personally I absolutely LOVE skills and equipment that gives you a passive buff. Especially those that allows you to regain some HP/TP/MP every turn. Being able to stack several of those and see the effect of how my characters survivabillity increeses in those battles where I just mash attack is extreamly satisfying to me.

I’m all for including more powerful active skills, but forcing me to use them in every random encounter might make me drop the game. ”Trash battles” doesn’t become more fun just because you drag them out and force me to think more about my skills.

Being forced to use active skills now and then when the difficulty spikes upon entering a new area, or when fighting a boss - totally down with that. But in my humble opinion, let me at least have the option to attack-mash my way to victory about ~70% of all battles (if I’ve built my character the right way).

 

[Aesica]

I think everyone understands that ultimatly it’s a matter if taste

This right here is exactly why many devs here opt to create complex battle systems over attack mash content. If a game is going to be attack-mash-city, then "why have battles at all" really is a legitimate question. Although healing during harder battles is a legitimate and interesting mechanic, having to stop and periodically heal in between random attack-mash fights isn't really interesting--it's just maintenance.

Disclaimer: I don't use random battles (I might on the overworld while providing mounts/items/etc to skip them, still debating this) but rather, two types of visible enemies. Type 1 doesn't move, and tends to block paths. Kill it and its gone forever. Type 2 wanders around (lazily, none of that annoying chase BS) and will return in between map transitions. These are for those who may want to grind (or just kill all the things) even though I don't plan on making grinding at all necessary. I find that generally, I want to mash through random encounters as quickly as possible because they interrupt the flow of whatever I was doing, but static enemies, I can mentally prepare for, engage at my discretion, and generally enjoy more.

 

[Eschaton]

I find myself tending toward simplicity. Complex systems of any kind lend themselves toward the tedious and frustrating need to teach new players how to play your game. As a developer, figuring out how to teach your player how to play the game while keeping it fun (read: averting death by tutorial) is hard. As a player, having to learn how to play a new game can be frustrating if the game has so many complex and interlocking systems. Lately, I find myself putting down well-regarded games like Horizon: Zero Dawn or Red Dead Redemption 2 because the games spend too much time teaching you how to play them, but frequently go back to The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild because as soon as I select "new game," I'm playing it with the tutorial aspects so unintrusive I don't even notice them.

To me, complexity is the risk of ruining the player's fun.

Battle has one end-state: reduce the enemy's HP to zero. "Attack" is the simplest way to reach that end-state. Other skills are really just the tools at the player's disposal to deal with any curve-balls the developer/game throws at the player, whether it's the need to debuff, heal, crowd-control, or defend. Skills other than "Attack" are how the player navigates the branches on the path to the end-state, which inevitably curve back into the main path to the goal of destroying the enemy.

And, as usual, how often the path should deviate away from "Attack" depends on game design.