How much randomness is too much?

[FarOutFighter]

So I am trying to make my game very replayable. Each enemy has a random boon, like they are more evasive or faster than usual, and they also may have 1 immunity to an element they would normally be weak to. But is this enough? I can't think of anything else I could add, off the top of my head. Also, how would I signal these variants? Sprite hue perhaps? I already have a word label and then a status overlay, and I don't want to repeat, ya know?

EDIT: Some more detail about my game is that there is a **** ton of build variety (20-30+ jobs, 100+ capturable monsters), this is a project that I've been working on for almost 3 years at this point (it has depth), and the progression is not linear. It's more like a small open world game, and battles will be a major part of the game, moreso than story or explanation. It does have a story, but it is min maxed (minimal cutscenes/dialogue, maximum emotional impact).

 

[ShadowDragon]

how many randomly is to low?

replayable game is always nice if implimented correctly.
if the game is good, it will stay a challenge which is also better than
a static on easy, normal, hard, extreme hard, impossible with a static
stats or improved, different ability.

if it has one or 2 difficulty with randomness in it, I think there is not to many.
but you could stay around a limit of 10-20 I think for each enemy.

as for maps randomness, it can be as many as possible, so the exit or finding
it is always elsewhere

but this is only my opinion.

 

[ATT_Turan]

Without knowing more about your game and its gameplay and such...for my tastes, that wouldn't make a game replayable.

There are some games where it would - for example, the Rogue-like genre relies on being replayable because maps and enemies and events are all randomized, so each relatively short playthrough feels like it's essentially a different game with the same mechanics.

But if you're making anything that's more like a traditional JRPG with a story you're playing through, doing this to your enemies wouldn't have any effect on my desire to play it again.

That would come entirely from:
- The quality of your story (I've replayed some Final Fantasies, Phantasy Stars, Chrono Trigger because they're just that enjoyable)
- Whether there are things during the game that affect the storyline, so I'd replay the game to experience those differences (I've replayed BioWare RPGs to experience the different story paths and outcomes)
- If I get to do interesting strategic things (I have hundreds of hours in Diablo 2 and Final Fantasy Tactics making different character builds)

 

[ZombieKidzRule]

This thread might also help you.

Randomness and events in RPG Maker battles?

Is it a good idea to have randomness and events in RPG Maker battles? I thought that an event can be like a dialogue, an enemy transforming, and enemies appearing halfway through. Randomness can be a critical hit, or anything like any battler getting any state, buff, or debuff and such you know...

forums.rpgmakerweb.com

Personally, I like randomness in games. And I like options. The more the better.

 

[TheoAllen]

Randomness is usually making an interesting choice in an interesting situation. That said, randomness is better as an input (terrain, random enemy composition, etc) rather than output (hit/miss, damage output variance that is too big).

In your case, you could make a rule that it might have one or two strengths and weaknesses. So, the random function doesn't give it full strength with no weakness. As for the indicator, that depends on the game itself. So, unless you have a demo, no one is going to accurately give you feedback about this.

 

[KawaiiKid]

Honestly, and I don't mean to be negative here, is chances are your game isn't going to be fun to replay. Rpg maker games aren't known for having good visuals, and for the most part combat is very basic, really they can really only shine in story unless you are an artist. So once you play through the game once and get the story, people are done with it - maybe to come back in a few years to experience the story once again.

In my opinion it's a fallacy to put much effort into the replayability of the game unless it's not a story driven rpg, and instead something like a short roguelike or something. In that case, the shorter it is, the more random it can get.

 

[ATT_Turan]

and for the most part combat is very basic, really they can really only shine in story

I don't think that's a very accurate thing to say. You can make the combat system as deep and nuanced as freaking any game. You can implement a lot of strategic stuff between damage, resources spent, the speed, the Effects of the skill, and further versatility from common events triggered by them.

And that's not even getting into plugins - with free Skill/State/Battle/Action Sequence plugins, you can do anything you can think of.

 

[KawaiiKid]

I don't think that's a very accurate thing to say. You can make the combat system as deep and nuanced as freaking any game. You can implement a lot of strategic stuff between damage, resources spent, the speed, the Effects of the skill, and further versatility from common events triggered by them.

And that's not even getting into plugins - with free Skill/State/Battle/Action Sequence plugins, you can do anything you can think of.

Yes, you have the ability to to do anything in rpg maker. Do 99.99% of rpg makers make these battle systems like this? Definitely not. I can count on 2 hands all the rpg maker games I've ever played that had battle systems that weren't extremely plain and boring, and even for those - they weren't replayable for me.

What I was getting at, is if you are making a long form classic jrpg (which is the vast majority of what the engine is used for), replayability shouldn't be anywhere near the top of your list, and thus focusing resources on making things random to increase this replayability isn't going to do much for your game. Whereas all the effort you spent into doing that being put into polishing up the graphics, adding quests, refining the battle system, adding secrets etc - would vastly improve the game.

I can name 1 time in my entire life that I ever played an jrpg, beat it, then immediately kept playing after beating it, and that was Chrono Chross. Beat the game, then messed around for a few hours in NG+ with the time remote thingy and then was done.

All I'm saying, is that the effort put into making a game replayable, should really be just put into making a great game in the first place instead. Unless of course, this is just a really short game, in which case making it random is fine, but until the op clarifies, we don't know exactly what he's making.

 

[BubblegumPatty]

I think it'll make the grind more interesting, but I don't think it would necessarily make the game Replayable. That would depend entirely on how good the story and core gameplay are.

 

[ATT_Turan]

Yes, you have the ability to to do anything in rpg maker. Do 99.99% of rpg makers make these battle systems like this? Definitely not.

That seems a little odd, to tell someone "most RPG Maker games I've seen haven't been able to make a battle system I find interesting, so you should presume yours also won't be engaging"

And the next thing you said doesn't really jive with your acknowledgement here, you said "most of them can only shine in the story" (emphasis mine), which makes it sound like bad combat is some inherent part of RPG Maker.

I can name 1 time in my entire life that I ever played an jrpg, beat it, then immediately kept playing after beating it

When someone talks about a game being replayable, I don't think they're necessarily saying they expect people to immediately play it again. At least, I've never meant that - of the games I listed in my first reply, I played 0 of them more than one time consecutively. They're games I go back to and replay over the course of years.

All I'm saying, is that the effort put into making a game replayable, should really be just put into making a great game in the first place instead.

I agree. We seem to have some different concept of what a "replayable" game is, but I think any sufficiently good game is worth playing more than once.

 

[KawaiiKid]

That seems a little odd, to tell someone "most RPG Maker games I've seen haven't been able to make a battle system I find interesting, so you should presume yours also won't be engaging"

And the next thing you said doesn't really jive with your acknowledgement here, you said "most of them can only shine in the story" (emphasis mine), which makes it sound like bad combat is some inherent part of RPG Maker.

The rub with this, is that making a battle system engaging / different from everything else requires you to know how to program. Most people use rpg maker because they don't know how to program, so it goes hand in hand. I'm not saying you can't make a balanced battle system, but it's going to be very basic unless you know how to program.

Every other part of the game is pretty easy to get by with 0 programming knowledge, but to do anything outside the box with battle system isn't possible without at least tweaking a bunch of yanfly plugins.

 

[TheoAllen]

Honestly, and I don't mean to be negative here, is chances are your game isn't going to be fun to replay.

To be honest, saying "your game isn't going to be fun to replay" is an uncalled prejudice. If you have feedback about their game, wait until the OP actually shares the game. So you can accurately give feedback.

The rub with this, is that making a battle system engaging / different from everything else requires you to know how to program. Most people use rpg maker because they don't know how to program, so it goes hand in hand. I'm not saying you can't make a balanced battle system, but it's going to be very basic unless you know how to program.

Perhaps they know how to code. Or perhaps they have a programmer on their side.

I get where you came from though, but we can back to the track talking about randomness. Not about 99.99% of RPG Maker games have boring combat, it requires programming effort or other out-of-topic talks.

 

[Prescott]

It really depends on the type of game. I am much more accepting of randomness (when balanced correctly, of course) in something like a Roguelite. You should absolutely scale the level of randomness to the player's progression, whether that means their raw level or what gear/enhancements they have. I would also say that, any randomness that the enemies have should also be granted to the players in some way at some point. So if you have enemies with a random element immunity, there should be an opportunity before that mechanic gets introduced for the player to also have a random element immunity. I'm thinking about shops that have random items spawn for the players to purchase that can be considered as "upgrades" or something.

If you're making a classic RPG, then I think the randomness should actually be limited. The game should be more predictable than not, and if there is randomness it should favor the player. Things such as random misses can be pretty infuriating if it's part of the core gameplay and not a part of a skill where the player is taking a certain risk to hit for more damage in exchange for a chance to miss.

The main point though, is that it should be balanced and serve the purpose of your game.

 

[nbgamemaker]

it depends on how it's done the player has to have some kind of chance.

 

[Tai_MT]

To the OP:

I think it depends on how the game is set up for whether or not that randomness works. My initial thought was "Does this level of randomness make combat frustrating or interesting?". Without knowing much about your game, I thought "frustrating" might be more accurate. However, I don't have any details on the core combat mechanics, so I can't judge for sure. Changing the "weakness" of an enemy doesn't really mean much if there's a lot of stuff that just does straight up damage without being resistant or weak to an element. Or, changing the weakness could be absolutely everything if it's the only real reliable way to deal damage.

I just don't have enough information to work with here in terms of how "replayable" something like that is.

My knee-jerk reaction is simply that it doesn't sound like it will make the game replayable. But, again, I know nothing about your game at this point.

To KawaiiKid:

I don't mean to pick on you over this, but I feel I need to weigh in here.

Yes, you have the ability to to do anything in rpg maker. Do 99.99% of rpg makers make these battle systems like this? Definitely not. I can count on 2 hands all the rpg maker games I've ever played that had battle systems that weren't extremely plain and boring, and even for those - they weren't replayable for me.

To be fair, this is true of most games. Not just RPG Maker. And, hey, we should be fair. I haven't played an RPG, AAA or otherwise, that had a "fun combat system" in the last 20 years. The last time I had fun in a combat system, we're talking Secret of Mana, because it was so unique for the time. Combat systems in RPG's have mostly just languished in this area of "Dark Souls Hard" or "Pointlessly Easy" and none of them have really been designed "for fun". Nobody is QA Testing their combat systems and going, "is this still fun 10 hours into doing this?".

What I was getting at, is if you are making a long form classic jrpg (which is the vast majority of what the engine is used for), replayability shouldn't be anywhere near the top of your list, and thus focusing resources on making things random to increase this replayability isn't going to do much for your game. Whereas all the effort you spent into doing that being put into polishing up the graphics, adding quests, refining the battle system, adding secrets etc - would vastly improve the game.

I don't really agree with this. The main reason being... It's the entire premise of my game. Well, sort of. Put simply, the "replability" is basically baked into the core design of the game since it's all about Player Choice. A game trying what I call a "True Choice" system, in which every decision actually changes the story, and not by an insignificant amount... like... an entirely different story in most cases.

Replayability, can be an important aspect of your games design. It isn't always something you consider "at the end".

But, that's why triage is important (as my signature line says). Is it important to the specific design of the game? If it's something you can remove and lose nothing, it's probably better to remove it. If you remove it and lose something vital, then you should do everything in your power to improve it.

I'd also like to state up front:
Polished graphics doesn't necessarily make your game more enjoyable or interesting. It can help, but it's something you do at the end of your dev cycle after all the "fun" is already in place. It's done to convey mood and aesthetic. You shouldn't worry about this until your game is already complete and ready to ship.
More quests also doesn't necessarily make your game more enjoyable or interesting. Quality over quantity. Players remember the most fun and interesting quests they've been on. They don't remember all the ones that were boring and slogs. In some cases, "less is more", as well.
Refined Battle Systems doesn't necessarily mean "fun" either. You can refine a boring Battle System to perfection and still have it be boring. "Finding the fun" is more important than "it works really well".
Finally... secrets... Eh. Implementation of the secrets as well as content of them is what is important. Not just having them.

I can name 1 time in my entire life that I ever played an jrpg, beat it, then immediately kept playing after beating it, and that was Chrono Chross. Beat the game, then messed around for a few hours in NG+ with the time remote thingy and then was done.

That's too bad, I have several. Chrono Trigger, Mass Effect 1, 2, and 3. Elden Ring. There's probably more, but those are the big ones.

I'm not really sure what your tastes are in games for why you'd decide to play New Game+, especially since I couldn't get through the opening of Chrono Cross before just shutting it off out boredom and you managed to enjoy it to the point of completion and beyond. So, I don't know what to recommend to you for good RPG's to play.

But, yeah, a good chunk of games are a "one and done", and I think that's okay.

All I'm saying, is that the effort put into making a game replayable, should really be just put into making a great game in the first place instead. Unless of course, this is just a really short game, in which case making it random is fine, but until the op clarifies, we don't know exactly what he's making.

It is important to make the game fun to begin with, but if "replayability" is part of "Core Design" of that experience, then it needs to be considered. As you've stated one good example of why it might be core design. Short game. It could also be a Roguelike. It could also involve time travel (a la Majora's Mask).

Replayability might be incredibly important to the OP for reasons we don't yet know.

The rub with this, is that making a battle system engaging / different from everything else requires you to know how to program. Most people use rpg maker because they don't know how to program, so it goes hand in hand. I'm not saying you can't make a balanced battle system, but it's going to be very basic unless you know how to program.

It actually doesn't require that at all. Here's all you need:

A combat system that revolves less around stats and more around gimmicks. There aren't all that many RPG's that operate that way, and do it well. You instantly "break the mold" doing that.

I'm using the "vanilla" engine. Here's what I've got for plugins:
Quest Journal
Party Manager (so that I can lock character one into slot one and make them unable to be swapped out)

Here's some examples of interesting things you can do with combat:

Enemies can act/react based upon status inflicted upon them, based upon stats of the player, based upon conditions of the battlefield, etcetera. You don't even have to go into "troop commands" for this stuff either. This is just what you bake into the creatures on creation.

The engine is incredibly versatile for anyone who tried to accomplish things in it without immediately and instantly resorting to grabbing plugins for "ease of use".

Heck, I'm doing some "trickery" with my "Revenge" system that is on bosses. Everything with an element in the game inflicts an invisible Status on enemies. All enemies are immune to all of these Statuses, except the bosses. Who are weak to just one. It inflicts, always, when hit with the correct element. Then, based on that status effect, the boss uses a specific attack. The status effect lasts a single round, just long enough to get the attack off.

The player sees: "Fire Elemental hit with Water, 200% damage, "Fire Elemental seeks revenge!", "Fire Elemental slams the steam cloud into the party!", Entire party takes 18-25 damage (per character) and has a 30% chance to also be burned.

It's just an example of something I've done with the engine without programming at all. You can do a TON of stuff in the Troop tabs and within just the creatures to make things interesting.

You can even jump into your combat formulas and the stats to make even more interesting mechanics.

There's a lot here, if one goes looking. No programming required.

Every other part of the game is pretty easy to get by with 0 programming knowledge, but to do anything outside the box with battle system isn't possible without at least tweaking a bunch of yanfly plugins.

I find this is the attitude that makes a lot of people just seek out plugins as their first solution. Which, in turn, just leads to most people not knowing what the engine itself is capable of. I find this to be sad.

Doing something "outside the box", just requires the dev know how their tools work, what it's capable of, and then working within the confines of the restrictions. It also requires the dev have a pretty good imagination and have "problem solving skills" or, rather, "critical thinking" abilities. To put more simply, you need to be able to take what you learn in one place and apply it to another. The art of iteration. Without it, even with all the plugins and programming in the world... you won't create something "outside the box".

I can't count how many RPG Maker games I've played that use dozens of Plugins for combat and who are utterly all "very similar" and do nothing "outside the box". AAA games have the same problem.

If you want new and unique, you need to actually know how your tools work and have the ability to accomplish random nonsense within it. You also need to know what's been done and try to do something different.

 

[RCXGaming]

Here's some examples of interesting things you can do with combat:

Enemies can act/react based upon status inflicted upon them, based upon stats of the player, based upon conditions of the battlefield, etcetera. You don't even have to go into "troop commands" for this stuff either. This is just what you bake into the creatures on creation.

The engine is incredibly versatile for anyone who tried to accomplish things in it without immediately and instantly resorting to grabbing plugins for "ease of use".

Heck, I'm doing some "trickery" with my "Revenge" system that is on bosses. Everything with an element in the game inflicts an invisible Status on enemies. All enemies are immune to all of these Statuses, except the bosses. Who are weak to just one. It inflicts, always, when hit with the correct element. Then, based on that status effect, the boss uses a specific attack. The status effect lasts a single round, just long enough to get the attack off.

The player sees: "Fire Elemental hit with Water, 200% damage, "Fire Elemental seeks revenge!", "Fire Elemental slams the steam cloud into the party!", Entire party takes 18-25 damage (per character) and has a 30% chance to also be burned.

This sounds... scarily familiar to what I have planned, even down to the fact enemies counter certain attacks when used on them.

It's just an example of something I've done with the engine without programming at all. You can do a TON of stuff in the Troop tabs and within just the creatures to make things interesting.

You can even jump into your combat formulas and the stats to make even more interesting mechanics.

There's a lot here, if one goes looking. No programming required.

I find this is the attitude that makes a lot of people just seek out plugins as their first solution. Which, in turn, just leads to most people not knowing what the engine itself is capable of. I find this to be sad.

Doing something "outside the box", just requires the dev know how their tools work, what it's capable of, and then working within the confines of the restrictions. It also requires the dev have a pretty good imagination and have "problem solving skills" or, rather, "critical thinking" abilities. To put more simply, you need to be able to take what you learn in one place and apply it to another. The art of iteration. Without it, even with all the plugins and programming in the world... you won't create something "outside the box".

I can't count how many RPG Maker games I've played that use dozens of Plugins for combat and who are utterly all "very similar" and do nothing "outside the box". AAA games have the same problem.

If you want new and unique, you need to actually know how your tools work and have the ability to accomplish random nonsense within it. You also need to know what's been done and try to do something different.

Gonna triple down on this in particular because it's honestly kind of depressing how people turn to plugins yet don't have any real foundations for how to design their combat.

Just the other month or so I figured out that you could bypass the one foundational limitation of bosses (aka. status effect application) with just troop events, allowing bosses to be affected by even powerful ailments like Stop / Blind / Charm / [etc].

Troop event checks if they have that ailment, then applies an immunity state that makes it so they can't be affected by it again if you try to re-apply it. Boom. Strong statuses are now viable enough to be usable without completely gimping a fight, and without even needing to use anything other than what RPG Maker provides by default. (Other than maybe a state turn length modifying plugin)

I have seen no other RPG in existence use this kind of behavior outside of Paper Mario rom hacks, and it's ridiculous how easy it is yet nobody else even mentions it.

But even in a grander scale it's kinda absurd how when I see people use a lot of plugins for their combat it usually just boils down to weird non-gimmicks like "use timed button hits" or "break the shields" for EVERY ENEMY without nuance.

It made me realize that nobody really pays attention to enemy design, and that in turn makes combat lacking.

Re: @FarOutFighter

Too much randomness is when it starts to interfere with the core gameplay loop, especially if randomness interferes with progression. (Aka. you must depend on the game being generous to proceed)

The usual things like Accuracy RNG, where you just straight up miss attacks because of a 5% chance. It's the reason why I gutted accuracy checks altogether and just made everything hit 100% of the time, unless the attack is deliberately made to be low accuracy and high reward.

If an enemy is now randomly buffed to be faster than normal, I'd like to see that visually affect them in some way as opposed to just guessing if something's just different for no reason?

You really don't want the player to be guessing during a tight spot, because it usually winds up just frustrating them more than anything else.

I'm not sure how randomly changing small things like this adds replayability though. Replayability would be more like extra content that you unlock that fundamentally changes how you play the game or something.

Or god forbid if you want to keep the "random" angle, you could have randomly generated loot arranged into tiers but I dunno. Giving out items/weapons/armor that shift your gameplay style, that kind of thing.

 

[KawaiiKid]

To be fair, this is true of most games. Not just RPG Maker. And, hey, we should be fair. I haven't played an RPG, AAA or otherwise, that had a "fun combat system" in the last 20 years. The last time I had fun in a combat system, we're talking Secret of Mana, because it was so unique for the time. Combat systems in RPG's have mostly just languished in this area of "Dark Souls Hard" or "Pointlessly Easy" and none of them have really been designed "for fun". Nobody is QA Testing their combat systems and going, "is this still fun 10 hours into doing this?".

I have played a lot of fun combat systems in rpgs in the last 20 years.

For Arpgs I really enjoy path of exiles combat - there is so much to customize it's near infinite. With the depth of crafting, uniques, passive tree, and gear - there is so much theory crafting that goes into it that you can play so many different skills in different ways the combat is never boring. I also enjoy Last Epoch as an in between old school arpg and newer school poe like. I love how balanced the stats are in LE where you never feel too strong or weak during the campaign, and it's super smooth for a AA game.

For Crpgs I found Pillars of Eternity 2 to have an excellent system. It is completely separate from a TTRPG so it's completely designed from the ground up with mechanics designed for video games. I also really thought combat in Divinity Original Sin 2 was top tier. It's great to re imagine how turn based CRPGs can be made and utilize your environments to create unique encounters.

For JRPGs, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 was super unique in the way its combat system works, and takes a lot of skill to not only learn it, but master it as well. Combined with tons of combinations of classes and ways to combo off them, it was a really robust system. I also really enjoyed Octopath traveler 2's battle system. The ways you can manipulate battles between the shield break system, boost system, and equipping different skills can lead to some really interesting combinations and ways to play.

For open world Rpgs we really can't beat Oblivion and Skyrim. Their combat may be simple, but it's very well made and leads to a ton of choice and interesting combinations. With how limited the amount of things you can do in combat are, what's there is really fun. Witcher 3 - I mean come on. Excellent combat, super fun and reactive, and 3 very distinctive ways to play between magic, swords, and alchemy. Kingdom Come deliverance has the best sword combat out of any game I've ever played. It's super realistic and super satisfying to play.

For MMOrgps we gotta give it to Wow for reinventing how combat works in mmos. Before this it was everquest where you didn't really do much at all. Over the years WoW has changed so much that you have long chains of abilities you string together with cooldowns and instant abilities to really make interesting and fun combat. Age of Conan had probably the funnest combat out of any mmo I ever played. You strung together combos to complete attacks and spells and it worked really well. Really separated the skilled from the novices and was satisfying to play.

There are many more rpg genres, but there have a ton over the last 20 years imo that have been great.

I don't really agree with this. The main reason being... It's the entire premise of my game. Well, sort of. Put simply, the "replability" is basically baked into the core design of the game since it's all about Player Choice. A game trying what I call a "True Choice" system, in which every decision actually changes the story, and not by an insignificant amount... like... an entirely different story in most cases.

Yeah, if your game is based completely around choices you make making a meaningful difference, and that's the whole premise then it can be interesting. I was generalizing, and if you have a shorter game with choice being one of the key components, then that's fine.

Polished graphics doesn't necessarily make your game more enjoyable or interesting. It can help, but it's something you do at the end of your dev cycle after all the "fun" is already in place. It's done to convey mood and aesthetic. You shouldn't worry about this until your game is already complete and ready to ship.

This has been debated a million times on this forum so I'm not going to get into it again. If you feel it's fine to ship a game with generic rpg maker assets, well then there's nothing I can say that can convince you otherwise.

That's too bad, I have several. Chrono Trigger, Mass Effect 1, 2, and 3. Elden Ring. There's probably more, but those are the big ones.

I replayed chrono trigger again later on on ng+, but not right away. The randomness or extra endings had little affect on me wanting to replay through that long of a game just to see small differences.

Mass Effect - Not a Jrpg
Elden Ring - Not a Jrpg

There are tons of games I have replayed instantly after beating, but I was specifically talking about Jrpgs. And no, I'm not getting into semantics or pedantry about what "Jrpgs". Yes it was originally meant as Japanese role playing game, but now it denotes a very specific game. Like final fantasy, octopath, chrono trigger, legend of dragoon, trails, etc. Just as Arpg originally meant just Action rpg, but now is used to title games like diablo, grim dawn, path of exile, last epoch, undecember, torchlight, etc.

It is important to make the game fun to begin with, but if "replayability" is part of "Core Design" of that experience, then it needs to be considered. As you've stated one good example of why it might be core design. Short game. It could also be a Roguelike. It could also involve time travel (a la Majora's Mask).

Replayability might be incredibly important to the OP for reasons we don't yet know.

Yup, that's why I mentioned that in what I was saying. If it's a core mechanic in the game design, then yeah it's fine. But if you are making a full fledged full length Jrpg where it's going to take 50+ hours to run through, most people aren't going to want to hop right back into the game because the enemies are a different color. That time is spent better on making the base game better. On the other hand if your game is 10 hours long, and you make it random enough that it's fun to play 5 times over - then that is a fine design choice.

"Fire Elemental hit with Water, 200% damage, "Fire Elemental seeks revenge!", "Fire Elemental slams the steam cloud into the party!", Entire party takes 18-25 damage (per character) and has a 30% chance to also be burned.

So you made a counter attack. I mean that's cool I guess, but adds really nothing to the combat system. Nothing wrong with it, but it's just still a normal combat system.

I find this is the attitude that makes a lot of people just seek out plugins as their first solution. Which, in turn, just leads to most people not knowing what the engine itself is capable of. I find this to be sad.

I said to use yanfly because the game literally does NOT allow you to customize things enough to actually make interesting abilities. If you know some programming you can use his engine to use note tags to program whatever you want, which you CAN'T do out of the box in rpg maker, unless you literally write your own plugin engine.

doing something "outside the box", just requires the dev know how their tools work, what it's capable of, and then working within the confines of the restrictions. It also requires the dev have a pretty good imagination and have "problem solving skills" or, rather, "critical thinking" abilities. To put more simply, you need to be able to take what you learn in one place and apply it to another. The art of iteration. Without it, even with all the plugins and programming in the world... you won't create something "outside the box".

Again, iterating on what I said before, this is very indicative of YOU not knowing the limitations of rpg maker. There are some things that rpg maker can do that people don't think of out of the box, but the VAST majority of things that would make the combat different than most other generic rpg maker combat systems are impossible without it.

I've been using rpg maker for 23 years, I'm well aware of what it can and can't do throughout the years. I've implemented very unique things without programming like boost systems using states, crafting in combat, a rhythm combat like legend of dragoon in VX, and even an overdrive system that can use multiple character's bars. There is just a lot the engine can't do, and without programming you are limiting yourself a lot.

This being said, I am one of the people that can actually find somewhat normal Jrpg combat to be fun if you have lots of character customization. I'm not saying a game can't be fun without these things, I'm just saying that the time spent making things random for a replay could be better utilized in making your overall game better. That being said, if your game is only 10 hours long, then the same time in scope of a 60 hour game can be utilized making those random things and still have a decent combat system, it's just too far and broad of a scope to create a 60 hour fully fledged jrpg with a great storyline, characters, development, and combat AND have all those random things.

Looking at OPs edit though, it is not a regular story based JRPG but rather a smaller scope open world game, which randomness is part of the core gameplay loop.

 

[Tai_MT]

I have played a lot of fun combat systems in rpgs in the last 20 years.

I envy you. A lot of has been "bland" to me. Doing nothing truly interesting. But, then again, I like when the game sort of challenges my skill as a player, rather than my build. That's typically what I'm looking for in terms of "Good RPG Combat".

For Arpgs I really enjoy path of exiles combat - there is so much to customize it's near infinite. With the depth of crafting, uniques, passive tree, and gear - there is so much theory crafting that goes into it that you can play so many different skills in different ways the combat is never boring. I also enjoy Last Epoch as an in between old school arpg and newer school poe like. I love how balanced the stats are in LE where you never feel too strong or weak during the campaign, and it's super smooth for a AA game.

For Crpgs I found Pillars of Eternity 2 to have an excellent system. It is completely separate from a TTRPG so it's completely designed from the ground up with mechanics designed for video games. I also really thought combat in Divinity Original Sin 2 was top tier. It's great to re imagine how turn based CRPGs can be made and utilize your environments to create unique encounters.

For JRPGs, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 was super unique in the way its combat system works, and takes a lot of skill to not only learn it, but master it as well. Combined with tons of combinations of classes and ways to combo off them, it was a really robust system. I also really enjoyed Octopath traveler 2's battle system. The ways you can manipulate battles between the shield break system, boost system, and equipping different skills can lead to some really interesting combinations and ways to play.

For open world Rpgs we really can't beat Oblivion and Skyrim. Their combat may be simple, but it's very well made and leads to a ton of choice and interesting combinations. With how limited the amount of things you can do in combat are, what's there is really fun. Witcher 3 - I mean come on. Excellent combat, super fun and reactive, and 3 very distinctive ways to play between magic, swords, and alchemy. Kingdom Come deliverance has the best sword combat out of any game I've ever played. It's super realistic and super satisfying to play.

Sounds like you're mostly just into the ability to customize for combat and that's what makes combat fun for you. Nothing wrong with that, but your tastes are different than mine if that's the case.

I love to customize my character only when I'm playing something cooperatively. I only like that because if I have a constant set of friends I play with, I can tailor my builds to accentuate theirs or make up for their shortcomings.

Beyond that, I have little interest in "all the options available". Especially since by the very nature of the way I tend to play games... I just end up doing a "min/max" and break the game.

"Players will optimize the fun out of your game". Giving me a ton of options basically just leads to me doing just that... and not really caring to try anything else.

For MMOrgps we gotta give it to Wow for reinventing how combat works in mmos. Before this it was everquest where you didn't really do much at all. Over the years WoW has changed so much that you have long chains of abilities you string together with cooldowns and instant abilities to really make interesting and fun combat. Age of Conan had probably the funnest combat out of any mmo I ever played. You strung together combos to complete attacks and spells and it worked really well. Really separated the skilled from the novices and was satisfying to play.

We have different perspectives on WoW and games like it. You see the ability to string all those things together as "fun" and "interesting" and I look at it and go, "So... play like a robot. Commit everything to muscle memory and never think again".

Just not my cup of tea. But, it's also why I'm a "one and done" with most content in MMO's. I recently did my first Raid ever in an MMO like last year. Went in blind (because thinking and learning is more fun to me) and learned how it all worked. I played it a few more times, gained mastery over it (so that I never took avoidable damage) and then was bored for every run afterwards. At which point, I just wished I could have my full set of gear for achieving mastery rather than having to come back each week to earn tokens to buy it.

Never did get a full set of Raid Gear. It held my interest long enough for three pieces of the 8 I needed, and was just done.

Once combat steps into "robotic play" for me. Or, as I call it, "Netflix and Play", then I'm basically done with your combat system. If I am able to split my attention between your game and something else, then your combat just isn't that engaging. At least to me, it isn't.

There are many more rpg genres, but there have a ton over the last 20 years imo that have been great.

I've played a bunch of RPG's where the story was great. The gameplay? Not so much...

Mass Effect - Not a Jrpg
Elden Ring - Not a Jrpg

There are tons of games I have replayed instantly after beating, but I was specifically talking about Jrpgs. And no, I'm not getting into semantics or pedantry about what "Jrpgs". Yes it was originally meant as Japanese role playing game, but now it denotes a very specific game. Like final fantasy, octopath, chrono trigger, legend of dragoon, trails, etc. Just as Arpg originally meant just Action rpg, but now is used to title games like diablo, grim dawn, path of exile, last epoch, undecember, torchlight, etc.

Sorry, didn't realize you wanted to talk exclusively about JRPG's. I just assumed since you can make any RPG with RPG Maker, that I'd just mention any ol' RPG. Then again, I don't really make a distinction between RPG and JRPG, when even the western RPG's basically all contain all the same tropes and conventions of those in the East these days.

But, if we're talking about exclusively JRPG's, then I'm out of the discussion. I can't tell the difference between JRPG and RPG, so I won't be able to make a proper distinction for you.

Yup, that's why I mentioned that in what I was saying. If it's a core mechanic in the game design, then yeah it's fine. But if you are making a full fledged full length Jrpg where it's going to take 50+ hours to run through, most people aren't going to want to hop right back into the game because the enemies are a different color. That time is spent better on making the base game better. On the other hand if your game is 10 hours long, and you make it random enough that it's fun to play 5 times over - then that is a fine design choice.

I'm not even sure most people even finish making a game in RPG Maker. Much less, stretch one to 50 hours. If your first game is meant to be like this 20 hour epic, then usually the dev never finishes the project.

But, that's neither here nor there.

So you made a counter attack. I mean that's cool I guess, but adds really nothing to the combat system. Nothing wrong with it, but it's just still a normal combat system.

Yes and no. You can probably find the explanation, in full, of the "Revenge" system here on the forums somewhere if you care to know about it. The point isn't that it's unique (it is actually pretty unique, but not in the way you imagine it. A system stripped of all context and synergy with the rest of the game is meaningless), the point is that I was able to achieve it using features already in the program.

Anyway, if you play "reductivism" with every system, it all boils down to "doesn't add anything to the combat system". Even the ones you like, if I spent time reducing them to their base parts, they'd look really silly and pointless and not at all that interesting either.

Gotta be careful when you begin engaging in "Reductivism".

I said to use yanfly because the game literally does NOT allow you to customize things enough to actually make interesting abilities. If you know some programming you can use his engine to use note tags to program whatever you want, which you CAN'T do out of the box in rpg maker, unless you literally write your own plugin engine.

I'm afraid I'd need examples. There are some things you just can't do with the engine, but even with Yanfly or Plugins, I've yet to see any "interesting abilities". Though, my definition of "interesting abilities" are "things that change the entire flow of battle" or "things that recontextualize the entire encounter".

Anything that is just "different flavor of damage" doesn't really qualify as "interesting" to me.

It requires the context of the entire combat system working in concert with what the ability is and does, to "make it interesting".

And, honestly, you don't need programming of anything to do that. You just need to be able to make a coherent and fun combat system to begin with.

Again, iterating on what I said before, this is very indicative of YOU not knowing the limitations of rpg maker. There are some things that rpg maker can do that people don't think of out of the box, but the VAST majority of things that would make the combat different than most other generic rpg maker combat systems are impossible without it.

A combat system is a meeting of dozens of parts. It isn't just "what you can make an ability do" or "what main gimmick combat has".

Combat is, primarily, a meeting of all of these things:
1. Character abilities/skills.
2. Stats of characters.
3. Stats of enemies.
4. Equipment possibilities.
5. Party composition.
6. Any combat gimmick in play, unique to the encounter or otherwise (enemies weak to Water versus a Stagger System).

There are other, smaller things, that can change even the feel of combat, but these are the primary things.

If your only standard for "different" is "abilities that players can use", then you're only looking at step 1 of the other 5 major things you need to look at. Or, maybe, you're looking at 1 and 6, and nothing else.

Combat is an experience. A sum of moving parts to create a whole.

I've been using rpg maker for 23 years, I'm well aware of what it can and can't do throughout the years. I've implemented very unique things without programming like boost systems using states, crafting in combat, a rhythm combat like legend of dragoon in VX, and even an overdrive system that can use multiple character's bars. There is just a lot the engine can't do, and without programming you are limiting yourself a lot.

That's awesome! You should probably be citing those as interesting and cool things you can do with the engine rather than just "go get plugins, because your combat is the same as every other game out there unless you do go get plugins or program things yourself".

I'm not saying a game can't be fun without these things, I'm just saying that the time spent making things random for a replay could be better utilized in making your overall game better. That being said, if your game is only 10 hours long, then the same time in scope of a 60 hour game can be utilized making those random things and still have a decent combat system, it's just too far and broad of a scope to create a 60 hour fully fledged jrpg with a great storyline, characters, development, and combat AND have all those random things.

Looking at OPs edit though, it is not a regular story based JRPG but rather a smaller scope open world game, which randomness is part of the core gameplay loop.

I think you're faltering because you've made an assumption here. You're assuming the OP (or rather, most everyone on these forums, from the way you've phrased things, please correct me if I'm wrong in my assumption here) is creating a 60 hour JRPG. I didn't read that the OP was doing anything like that what-so-ever.

I didn't read the OP was making a JRPG. I didn't read the OP was making a 60 hour game. These appear to be assumptions by you.

I read that the OP wanted to make their game replayable and wanted to use randomness to do that, so was asking for advice on how to do that.

Best I can tell, it sounds a lot like a "Monster Catcher" type game or maybe a "Dungeon Crawler" experience of some sort. Blizzard has used the "random boon" enemies to pretty great effect in Diablo 3... but the draw of them there is mostly about "players chasing loot" rather than it "being fun".

The problem I've got is that I know nothing about the primary gameplay/combat loop of the OP's game. Without that, there's honestly nothing we can do to help. The best we'll be able to manage is a bunch of idle speculation and arguments about nothing, using the OP's post as the catalyst for those pointless arguments.

 

[Purple-H]

It really depends on the type of game

[...]

The main point though, is that it should be balanced and serve the purpose of your game.

I think this applies to the majority of subjects you'll find in this section. What works in one game may not work in another, since mechanics, flow, and the goal of games designers vary greatly.
Roguelikes and looter shooters for instance depend heavily on randomization, as does any game which uses randomization to design the world or story. These sorts of randomizations can be great, since it means even a seasoned player or someone who has seen another person play the game can expect to start it up and have an experience that is at least somewhat different in the particulars.
That said, randomization presents problems that runs counter to the goals of many games. The more randomness in your game, the harder it is to design situations in which you know what tools the player will have access to, what foes they will face, and what they will see. Enough randomness can make it harder to connect the story to the gameplay, since you have to account for the different things the player might experience.
A lot of tabletop RPGs use randomness a lot, and it works better there due to how the players interact with one another and are able to come up interactions and ideas that the game designer and game master did not account for. It's more acceptable for instance that a wizard's spell has a 5% chance to fail and then a 5% chance that instead of shooting a damage causing beam of light it instead makes a candle stick appear, since the players don't have to depend on the game to have hard coded in the potential battle mechanics for a candle stick and can instead find uses for it themselves (lighting it to blind an enemy who prefers the dark, lighting it to cause a fire to spread a certain number of turns after its lit, etc.).
Personally I prefer randomness to be used sparingly in order to shake things up here and there but keep the majority of the game dependable, so to speak. I'm more interested in challenges and set pieces the developer came up with themselves, as opposed the the luck of the draw resulting in interesting design.